#please make the decision for me and just kill me

[gremlinmodetweeker]

Ravens Spoked on Wagon Wheels Crushing Through the Mud

So, this can also be found posted on my AO3 account HERE. The full version including smut can be accessed through my KoFi HERE.

Summary:

In a dystopian future where society has collapsed, major cities have been rendered uninhabitable, lost. However, people managed to cling to the earth's surface. Forced from the cities, people now live in settlements spattered across the countryside. For those who don't wish to stay in one place, clans of travellers roam across the land in great convoys of wagons, carrying goods from settlement to settlement as they pass.

Because sons were seen as more valuable than daughters, men now outnumber women three to one in most places. As such, when König finds you after a revenge raid on your clan, he takes the most of the opportunity that has been pushed into his life, and takes you as his new bride.

TWs: Rape/non-con (or at the very least extremely dubious consent and forceful scenes), heavily implied attempted rape scene, technically kidnapping, forced marriage, HEAVY breeding kink, praise kink, intense violence, intense misogyny, dystopia

Wordcount: 19.7 K

Art from This Post

Story below the cut.

Ravens Spoked on Wagon Wheels Crushing Through the Mud

Wood cracked and popped in the flames as charred bodies laid motionless in the dust.

You looked up to see the tallest man you’d ever seen glowering down at you with baby blue eyes. That was the only part of his face you could see, the rest hidden under a heavy military helmet and a black shroud stained with red tear tracks trailing down. His brutish body was covered by scraped-together armor and giant combat boots. In his right hand, he carried a war axe covered in fresh blood. His eyes were red rimmed and watery, sadder than any you’d ever seen before. He loomed above you as though he was your new god. 

And in a way, maybe he was.

He was a man, and so thus he had been born with the world as his oyster. He looked down at you with such knowing sadness. It was almost as though he felt bad for you for being born as you were. In a world where men outnumbered women three to one, the few women that speckled this earth were naught much more than tokens of wealth, prestige or bartering chips to be used as men pleased. To see one free and unclaimed was a rare sight indeed.

“So this is it,” you whispered as the flames flickered around you.

You’d just watched this man run his axe through your step-father’s chest with such grace and ease that you might have thought he was dancing. This man had stood and stared as your mother and siblings had pushed you from your wagon and rode away before you could stand. Your own mother had literally thrown you at this man’s feet to save her skin. You had been nothing more than bait to her.

And clever bait it was. 

As the only daughter, one at a marriageable age at that, you would be the only one he’d have taken any interest in. It was no wonder he had stopped his warpath to take you in as his prize.

“It’s done,” he said hoarsely, “you’re mine now.”

You looked around at the remains of your clan. Those that survived had long since fled on the few wagons they had managed to salvage after the slaughter. The rest lay dead at your feet.

All around you the world burned. By the grace of one poor decision made by your old chief, your entire world had collapsed under horn and drum and axe and club. The wasteland had claimed another clan to its bloodstained soils. You were now without any family nor any kin to call your own. You were a remnant of a mistake. Your worth in this world was kept between your legs.

“What are you going to do to me?” you asked, your voice only just audible over the crackles of flames.

“I will make you my wife,” he had an accent you’d never heard before, “or I can make you a breeding whore for my clan. Unless you would rather I kill you now. What would you like?”

You looked up at him with empty eyes, “Would you be quick?”

The man waited for you to give him a proper response.

You sighed, “I don’t have any other choice, do I?”

“If you try to run, I’ll hunt you down with dogs,” the man warned you, “don’t think I won’t. My clan would be glad to have another woman to breed.”

You swallowed.

“If you choose to come with me, I can protect you from them. You would only have to answer to me.”

You looked out across the tall wheat grass. You could run all you liked, but the chance of surviving on your own was next to nothing. You’d be lucky if you made it through a single night without the protection of raiders guarding you as you slept. Men like the one before you were the reason that trips through the prairies were possible these days. They were also your greatest threat.

You didn’t have much of a choice to make.

“I don’t want to die,” you whispered as you looked around at the empty skies and golden fields, “and I don’t want to be a whore.”

“Then take whatever you want from what remains and come with me.”

You had precious little to your name. Your family had been by and far the poorest in the entire meagre clan. Very few would even bother to look your way. With their deaths you’d lost little. If anything, this was an opportunity for a new life. 

You doubted it would be much better.

Your stepfather’s old sword laid by your new husband’s feet.

“This is not a good sword,” the man observed.

“My father was a piss-poor hunter,” you explained.

“A pity,” the man surmised.

You walked through the ruins. From them, you managed to grab sets of clothes you’d only dreamed of wearing and a small stuffed bunny rabbit. You didn’t exchange a word until you had finished bundling your belongings together and stood up to look into his cold eyes. He looked so sad as he watched you carry your new belongings on your back. When you looked around, you didn’t see much else to grab.

“You would’ve done better to go for our chief’s daughter,” you said as you faced him.

He scoffed, “I want nothing to do with that treacherous bloodline. She would be of the same poison that killed my father. I value my life. I wouldn’t risk the same fate.”

You couldn’t argue with that logic.

“Are you a good hunter?” you asked him.

“I am,” the man said, “I am the best raider in my clan.”

“What clan are you even from?”

“Has your chief poisoned many others?” the man raised an eyebrow.

“More than one, I’m afraid.”

The man shook his head, “Then he should have prepared for this.”

“He didn’t.”

The tall man put his hand around the back on your neck, effectively scruffing you. He leaned down to look into your eyes.

“I can tell.”

You stared at each other silently, quietly eyeing each other up to see who would take the first swing. It was a standstill.

The man reached down and grabbed your bag from you and hoisted it over his shoulder.

“My name is König, and I am from the KorTac clan that travels from the west coast to the east,” he told you, “you will be my wife now.”

“Don’t you want to know my name?” you asked.

“Does it matter?” König replied.

You told him your name regardless.

He shook his head sadly and squared his shoulders, “I will call you my wife and nothing else, as that is what you are to me. Now come,” he grunted as he turned south, “my caravan is far from here. If you can’t keep up, tell me. I can carry you.”

“And if I don’t want to be carried?”

He gave you a sad look.

You didn’t have a choice.

The members of the KorTac clan watched you warily as you plodded along the path through their encampment. To your right, a circle of yaks was being tended to by a shepherd in a full black face mask. His ice blue eyes glared at you with unbridled disdain.

“Won’t there be a ceremony for us?” you asked as you walked through another ring of wagons.

“This is the ceremony,” his high pitched voice rasped.

You barely had time to consider what he meant before you were unceremoniously shoved towards a heavily ornamented vardo. You had never seen such an extravagant caravan before. The black and red wagon was a work of art, but you figured that was the nature of the caravans built in KorTac. You heard that when couples were married in the KorTac clan, both sides of the family would come together in a great ceremony to make the most beautiful carriage they could to house the new family. Evidently, that was either a myth, or you weren’t considered worthy of such an event.

Once you’d been pushed inside, you were given ample opportunity to take in your surroundings. On the far wall, black wood shelves were lined with ancient leather tomes. The wall opposite was taken up by black cupboards. In the center, a painting of yaks was displayed proudly. Over on your right side, the cherry wood wall had a pastoral scene painstakingly carved into it. The wagon seemed strangely small compared to the outside.

“How do you move this?” you asked.

“Four oxen,” König boasted, “I have twelve oxen in my herd, eight yaks and ten goats. I have fifteen chickens and twenty sheep. My oldest son is my personal shepherd.”

“You have a son?” you asked.

“I have many,” he grunted, “and many more daughters. People here say my loins have been blessed by the gods of fertility. I expect us to have many children together.”

You blushed but forced down the pesky feelings.

“So there are other wives?” you looked around for a place to sit.

“Not anymore.”

König tilted the painting down off the wall. You watched as he folded it down to make a table and pulled out two benches on either side. He pushed you into one abruptly.

“So this will be where we live?” you looked around at the honey yellow walls and black wood accents.

“I have three wagons to my name,” he said proudly, “two were made when I joined this clan in honor of my two wives, and this one I made with my own wealth. This here is my personal wagon, which we will share together. My second wagon is for my children. The third is used for storage.”

“Who takes care of the children when you’re not with them? Will I be doing that?”

König sat on the bench opposite to you, “My oldest daughter takes care of the others when I am not there. I make a point to spend time with my children when I am home from raids. It is important to spend time with your family. You will learn that when you live here.”

You nodded in agreement and asked, “And what of your wives? The sisters? What happened to them?”

“My other wives were vixens,” König spat bitterly, “they thought they could kill me and inherit, tried to take my own head,” he laughed and sneered, “I took theirs instead.”

Your blood ran cold.

“What makes you think I’ll be any different from them?” you asked coldly.

König gave you a once over and chuffed, “You may not be. Pray I think you are.”

You nodded solemnly. You would have to work to earn the trust of your husband. At least, if you wished to be a loved wife. You were still unsure.

König soldiered on, completely ignoring your trepidation.

“You can cook and clean, ja?” König asked as he leaned his elbows onto the table.

“I can,” you nodded, “I can sew too.”

“Can you read and write?” König questioned.

“Very little,” you admitted.

“Are you a virgin?” was his final question.

You nodded stoically.

“Then you will do,” König stated and clapped his palms together.

You looked at him as he stood. Somehow, this giant man was able to stretch to his full height as he grabbed something from the cupboard behind you. He must’ve been nearly seven feet when he stood at his full height. When he sat back down, you saw him take out a small wheel of cheese from a cloth. He offered you a piece, which you took. You hadn’t had cheese in years. Few of the men with goats or cows would ever share with your family. The last time you’d had cheese it had been stolen off someone’s windowsill.

When you bit into the cheese it was creamier than you remembered. The taste was milder too. You relished it with every bite. König seemed amused by how much you enjoyed the cheese and peeled off another mouthful for you.

“This vardo is larger than your old home. Will you be comfortable here?” he asked as you chewed.

You looked around and squinted. The carriage had seemed so much larger on the outside. As it was, it looked to be at most double the size of the covered wagon you’d lived in before.

“Where do you sleep in this?”

König gestured behind him to the wall and tugged the side slightly, revealing it as a sliding door, “I will show you our bed tonight when we consummate our marriage.”

You watched him shift the door back in place, disguising the door once again.

“Must we do that right away?” you asked sadly.

“Why would you put it off?” he shrugged, “it is best to start producing as quickly as we can. A pregnant woman is a claimed woman in this clan. I don’t want any other men touching my prizes”

You winced at his tone, but he was just being logical. Painfully so. Instead of lingering on his clinical approach to your new relationship, you figured you’d ask more about your new home.

“So what do you keep in this wagon?” you asked.

“The basic necessities,” König answered, “I keep my weapons in my storage vardo. I’ve learned to be careful with where I keep them.”

“I didn’t ask about your weapons,” you said.

König narrowed his eyes, “It is best to let you know.”

You sighed. So this was how your marriage would be. As König said before, a pity. 

When you’d been with your old clan, you’d hoped for a marriage out of love, or at least to someone you’d known. As it was, this man seemed to be only interested in the title and the benefits of having a woman to warm his bed. It’s not like you could reasonably expect much more, but you had dreamed of finding a man who might love you for who you were. Of course, nobody in your clan would marry a woman with no dowry. Your only hope was for someone outside of your clan to fall in love with you. Unfortunately, not many considered you that lovable.

You looked at the carved wood door. It took up the entire side of the room, acting as a dividing wall. A part of you baulked at the idea of bedding this giant man. Another part of you had resigned yourself to your fate. You had no choice in this matter. It was this or struggling to survive on the plains with nothing but the clothes on your back and your wits to keep you alive.

The thought alone made you shudder. Beasts prowled these lands at night. You were strong, but you were only one woman. You couldn’t fend off against an entire pack of wolves on your own. You’d be worse off against another tribe of men. Being torn apart by one man’s cock was better than being shared among twenty.

You were stuck here with König. If nothing else, at least a wealthy man had captured you. With someone like König at your side, you would never go to bed hungry again. The cold would become a distant memory. You could be comfortable in this life, as long as König was a decent man. If he weren’t like your late stepfather, you’d be glad for that alone.

You smiled. For most of your life you’d struggled dearly. Your stepfather could never catch enough to feed your family, never mind the rest of the clan. Your mother got by on crooked trades and your siblings stole from others to make the rest of the ends meet. You were brought up on table scraps and broken promises for as long as you could remember. The mere idea of owning an animal was a pipe dream.

“How did you manage to garner such wealth?” you wondered as you examined his illustrious bookshelf.

“I am a good warrior,” König replied, “and I had two wives when I landed here. I became only more feared and respected when I killed them. Nobody was brave enough to challenge a woman killer. A pity, really. I liked to fight.”

Your lip curled in disgust. This wealth was birthed by severed heads.

König leaned in until you could smell his breath through his hood.

“I built the very wealth they craved,” he hissed, “don’t you dare go thinking that I used those parasites for my own benefit.”

“It sounds like you did well enough,” you snapped back.

König’s shoulders squared as he slowly raised his head.

You stared at him defiantly, daring him to try. Do as he would, it wouldn’t amount to half of what you’d endured before. There was nothing he could do to you that you hadn’t already survived before he came into your life.

König’s eyes softened. He lowered himself back into his seat with a low chuckle and shook his head.

“What?” you snapped.

“You’re good,” he rasped, “very good. You’ll make a good wife. If you don’t kill me, that is.”

You scowled at that. What would this man know of good wives? You felt a tendril of rage coil inside you. This man truly thought you were nothing but a joke. He saw your defiance as a yapping dog. He saw you as less than.

You looked forward to proving him wrong.

König clapped his hands together again and rose to his feet. He stretched his arms to the side and turned to face you. He slowly began undoing his armour as he looked at you expectantly.

“This will be your first job as my wife,” König explained as he peeled the pieces off of himself, “you will clean my armour.”

“And if I don’t want to?” you tried to give him a menacing look.

“Then I suppose you aren’t a very good wife then,” König shrugged, “and you know what happens to those sorts of wives.”

You bit back a snappy remark.

He ignored your disdain as he sloughed his armour and dropped it onto the table sloppily, spreading bloodstains and dirt as he did so.

You stared at the mess and he laughed. He shook his head as he peeled his helmet off and dropped it on top of the mini mountain he’d formed.

“And your hood?” you asked dryly.

All humour left König’s demeanor as he straightened his spine.

“The hood stays on until tonight. Only once the last candle is out will I take it off,” he warned you before he turned to leave, “the washing station is near the center of the caravans. Just turn right when you leave and you’ll find it soon enough. Hard to miss all the old crones out there.”

With that he left you alone in the vardo. You wondered where he was headed. You wondered if he thought you might try and run.

You sighed in relief. In all honesty, you feared that your marriage would be completely different to this. König was practically a lamb in comparison to someone like your late stepfather. You thought that the moment you stepped in through the door, he’d force you into his bed and take you then and there. The fact he’d been so noble as to at least explain your place in your new relationship was a luxury few women were given in these lands. In fact, women themselves were a rarity in and of itself. Generations of men wanting only for sons had led to a land populated by men in a nearly three to one ratio in most places you’d travelled through. In some lands, the number was as high as five. You weren’t allowed to leave the wagon when your clan visited those places. Even your mother, a known married woman and a mother of four, would stay quiet and hide in the straw beds beside you.

You shuddered at the memories. Here it seemed different. If König was able to kill his wives, it was any wonder as to what sort of power he held around here. To kill a resource that men had fought and died for like they were dirt beneath his heel made you feel sick. Was that how he saw you? Just another resource in his collection? Another tool in his storage wagon? You paled at the thought.

You wouldn’t let this man rule over you like your stepfather had your mother. That you vowed to yourself as you gathered his armour into your arms. You would find a way to live. If that meant lying beneath him and bearing his children, then so be it. There were worse fates.

As you carried the armour through the caravans, you decided that you’d find a way to live despite these horrors. Your mother had been in a marriage like this one, and her mother before her, and her mother before her. Women had no choices on these lands. The world was too cruel for creatures like you, beings of blood and birth and twisted innards. You were strangers in a land of men, wanted only for flesh and tossed to the side once you’d outgrown your usage. 

These men may own your names, but you would never let them own who you were. You would wage war against König’s chains, hold strong until the last dying light left your dead eyes. You would resist his will to crush whatever life lay within you. You could endure. These men might see you as weaker and frail, but as easily as they asked you to work they forgot how they honed your bodies through serving them.

You struggled and strained to pump the rusty well for a bubble of tinted well water and you thought about how doing these sorts of chores hardened your form. As you lugged buckets of water over your shoulders you thought about how strong your legs would become after years of making this steady march. Your arms cried out pathetically as you scrubbed the armour down on the washboard. Your skin was scalded by the boiling water and by the end you felt like you could barely feel anything at all. 

You grinned despite it. You would endure this suffering, you could use it to strengthen yourself. Then you would find a way to make this man pay for what he’d done to you. Maybe you could even find a way to track down your mother and make her pay as well. That was a later thought though. You had greater things to worry about, like who this König was and how you would live with him sleeping beside you. König could capture you, he could keep you in his wagon and he could slot himself between your legs each night, but you would not let him break you like your mother had been broken.

You would make them all pay for what they’d done to you. You would find a way.

You silently washed his armour free of your clan’s blood and tears. It was soothing to see the tub of water slowly turn pink and murky brown as you worked. By the time you had finished cleaning it, metal glistened in the watery sunlight, clean and pure as the white dress you wore. It was perfect.

When you went back to König’s wagon, you found that it was still empty.

You decided that without anyone to stop you, you’d try and find a needle and thread to darn the holes that had formed in the fabric. It was the least you could do, you figured.

You opened the first drawer and peeked inside.

There wasn’t much aside from bundles of heavy furs. Evidently, König was a successful raider indeed.

Inside the second cupboard you found a variety of herbs and medicines stored in glass vials and pouches made of deerskin. This cupboard was neater than you expected, lined with care and precision you’d never known a man to possess. You decided that his late wives must have arranged this cupboard for him. You closed it with reverence.

The third cupboard was promising. You found a few cloth slings containing squares of fabric and woolen breaches, and under them you finally found what you were looking for. You held up the needle and thread with a triumphant cry.

You sat back on the bench that had been left pulled down and took out the black thread. You wet the tips of the string with your lips and slid them into the eye of the needle with practised ease. Being poor at least meant you were used to mending worn belongings. There weren’t many benefits, but you tried to find them regardless. It was a futile effort. All the pride in darning socks came at the cost of laughter directed at your ratty clothes and broken toys.

The work was steady. It was easy. At this point, you probably didn’t even need to look down to know what you were doing with your hands. The metal plates that poked through the pockets were easily pushed back into place and the holes were mended quickly. It was sad, really. This was such easy work, but this armour was in such poor shape. Men were truly animals if they let their beloved belongings fall into such disrepair. It was a wonder they survived on their own. You looked down at your hands and thought about how long it must have been since someone had tried to care for these old armaments. 

You couldn’t do much about the dents, but when you were done the armour looked practically brand new. Truly, you’d outdone yourself. You’d never been more pleased with your work. And how long had it taken? By the look of the sun in the sky, longer than you would’ve liked.

You furrowed your brows. König hadn’t shown you his kitchen, but you knew he would expect you to cook for him. With a sigh, you turned back to the cupboards. Surely they’d save you once more, right?

Luckily for you, you found a decent stash of preserves that were stored at the bottom of the final cupboard you checked, hidden there alongside a pot and a pan and a few wooden utensils. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing. You whistled a jaunty tune and picked up a few recognizable ingredients before you left the caravan to go and make a fire outside.

Cooking was something you were good at. You knew how to make do with very little. It was a necessity in your old home, make more with less. With a twist of your hand you could feed an entire crowd with a basket of fish. It was easy when it came down to it. The key was to rely on easy, readily-available pantry staples, the ones others would ignore in favour of a convenient meal. If you just put in a bit more time and a bit more effort, you could make something just as satisfying as anything else for half of what it would otherwise take.

You scoured the land for some appropriate firewood. You found plenty of dry grass for tinder, but actual wood was hard to come by in these parts. You'd have used dung for firewood, but all that you found was too fresh to use.

As you were searching the land, you stumbled across another woman.

“What’re you doing out there?” the woman swept her short cropped black hair over her olive-toned ears as she gave you a withering scowl.

“I’m finding firewood,” you explained sheepishly, “or dried shit. Something to burn." 

“Firewood?” she barked out a laugh, “you won’t find any around here. These are the plains, there won’t be a tree around for miles. Come with me. I’ll get you some wood.”

“What?” you shook your head furiously, “no, I’m sorry, I can’t afford to trade for any-”

“Trade for any?” the woman laughed, “I’m just giving you a couple of logs. You don’t need to trade me anything for logs!”

Your eyes boggled at the statement. How could she be so flippant about such a precious resource? With such scarcity of trees, they were one of the most precious resources you could come by. How did she have her hands on surplus wood?

“Come on, I don’t have all day,” the woman called and turned back to the heart of the convoy, “and don’t worry about trading with me. I’ve got enough to spare.”

You scurried behind her.

Within an hour, you were cooking a meal of salted ox meat and plain barley. Beside you, the woman from earlier was watching you work.

“You’re not using any spices?” Salvatrice muttered as she watched you stir the pot, “at all?*

“I don’t need any,” you replied, “this is good enough on its own.”

“But it tastes so much better if you just add even a little bit of pepper…”

You scoffed, “I don’t need it. My husband will be happy with what I give him. If he isn’t, I can take a beating any day of the week.”

“Are you sure?” Salvatrice asked, “my husband would be furious if I gave him this. And what’s this about a beating?

“Then he’s a fool,” you huffed as you stirred the pot.

“You ignored my question.”

You gave her a weary expression, “If you don’t know that husbands beat their wives, then you are a lucky woman indeed.”

Salvatrice looked at you strangely.

“You know if your husband is found beating you, you can find a new husband? There’s plenty to choose from,” Salvatrice raised a narrow black brow.

You scoffed, but said nothing more.

Salvatrice put her face in her hands and muttered darkly to herself. She only looked back at you when a pop of fat nearly spilled over the pan.

“Careful,” she scolded you.

“I am!” you exclaimed, “the fat is meant to pop like that. You cook plenty, don’t you?”

“All women cook in these lands,” she replied dryly.

“Then you know I’m making the most with what I have!”

Salvatrice glanced from the pot to the caravan behind you.

“It looks like your husband can afford better than this, if you ask me.”

You glanced behind you, “Maybe. He probably can. But he didn’t give me anything to work with. This is all I found.”

“Your husband doesn’t provide for you?” Salvatrice shook her head mournfully, “what sort of man are you married to? First beating, and now he starves you?”

“He’s a brute, if you ask me,” you snorted and stirred again.

Salvatrice looked into the pot and hummed, “You know, it doesn’t look so bad. Plain, but not bad.”

“Plain is all I ask for,” you said.

“But really, a husband that doesn’t get his wife good food to cook with. Doesn't even give you logs for fire, has you searching for dung like an animal. It’s not like anyone is wanting for anything here,” Salvatrice said flippantly, “most men can get fresh meat every week.”

“Every week?” you whipped your head to her.

“What?” Salvatrice tilted her head to the side, “wait… Are you not from here?”

“No,” you replied bitterly, “I only just came here today.”

Salvatrice gasped loudly.

“What’s that reaction for?” you snapped.

“You’re one of that clan, aren’t you?” Salvatrice whispered.

“What? The clan KorTac slaughtered today?” you grumbled, “do you not even know our name?”

“I know your clan’s name!” Salvatrice defended herself quickly before settling back on her haunches, “I just didn’t realise. Then… Then who is your husband? You must have just met him today, right? Why hasn’t he gotten you settled in yet?”

You stirred the pot and shrugged.

“You’re right that I only met him today. I don’t know him well enough yet, but I know that his name is König.”

Salvatrice gawked at you again. This time not even a gasp escaped her slack jaw. She slowly covered her mouth and looked at the caravan behind you.

“No…”

You scowled.

“I mean, I should’ve guessed by the quality of your vardo, but still…” Salvatrice looked like she’d keel over any second with how pale she’d gone.

“What?” you glared at her, “he told me he had worth. Was he lying? Is he worth much around here?”

Salvatrice nodded slowly.

“Worth a lot?” you raised a brow.

Salvatrice nodded quickly.

“Then why the hell am I cooking this?” you snarled and stirred the pot again.

“König is the best raider in the entire clan,” Salvatrice muttered into her hands, “he’s the next chief in line, or so people say. But if you ask me, he’s a monster.”

That grabbed your attention.

“He’s a what now?” you asked.

“A monster. A beast! He’s killed three people!” Salvatrice exclaimed, “he killed both his wives and their suitor in one day. He did it smack dab in the middle of our convoy! I damn near lost my mind when my husband told me about it. And now I hear he beats his wife? Disgusting.”

“Wait, a man as well?” you asked and put the wood ladle down, “also he hasn’t beaten me. Yet. I just thought that was what men did to their wives.”

“That is…” Salvatrice shook her head, “that’s just sad. I doubt König would ever raised a hand to you, but I don’t know seeing as he killed two wives before,” she waved her hands as though she could push the thought away. “Anyways, the man König killed was trying to turn König’s wives against him and take his property,” Salvatrice explained, “I understand why König did what he did, of course I do, but I think he went too far that day. Killing two women? And a man? All in one day! It’s just unthinkable.”

“He killed plenty more when he raided my clan,” you said quietly.

“But these people weren’t from another clan,” Salvatrice insisted, “these were his own people. It’s one thing to raid, it’s another entirely to murder!”

You glared at her, “I don’t see much of a difference.”

Salvatrice rolled her eyes, “I can’t imagine you would now.”

You felt that same curl of rage from earlier stir within. You were about to bite into her when she cut you off.

“Look, you just need to understand that König is a big name around here,” Salvatrice leaned in close, “he’s the best raider we have. He goes into the lost cities and comes out with the biggest hauls. Never has a scratch on him. When we travel south he gets the best deals. When he goes north, he helps young couples build their wedding wagons for free. The man is a legend here, but nobody would dare marry a woman killer.”

“So if nobody would willingly marry him…” you trailed off.

Salvatrice sighed, “I’m sorry for you. I really am. But if he beats you, tell me and I can try and find you a new husband.”

You stared into the fire silently. So this was your husband. A woman killer and yet also a hero among his people. He was a god and he was the devil, and nobody would touch him. You were just the unfortunate woman he found when raiding your clan.

“How old is König?” you asked quietly.

“He’s getting older, but not too old,” Salvatrice tossed you a knowing smile, “he might seem like an old man, but I hear from those who've needed him that he still has a young man’s stamina where it counts. And if you thought he was tall? Well, he’s got the inches where it really matters.”

You pursed your lips into a line. Just what you wanted to hear about the man bedding you tonight.

He was still a woman killer. In fact, he wasn’t just a woman killer, he’d threatened your life within your very first conversation. How unfortunate. As König would say, a pity.

“So König is a good provider,” you finally said, “and a… ‘Big’ man.”

“A very good one,” Salvatrice agreed, “and supposedly, a good lay. You didn’t hear that from me, of course. But from what the other wives have told me, you’re a lucky woman if you can get in bed with him. He produces the healthiest offspring of any man in this clan. He’s fertile enough to lend his services to others who need it. They may not marry him, but sometimes desperate times call for desperate measures. 

“Best of all, he’s an excellent father. Honestly, maybe this is good for you. If it weren’t for him being a woman killer, he’d probably have his own harem.”

“Good for me?” you spat.

“König is reliable, if nothing else,” Salvatrice shifted her weight, “most men take risks when going into the lost cities. My husband tells them to be more careful, but you know how young men are. König is smarter than them though. I’ve heard a lot about the lost cities from my husband. He always tells me that they’re the most dangerous places left after the collapse, but König always comes home in one piece. That’s more than most raiders, right?”

“At least if he died I’d get his wagons,” you huffed bitterly.

“Well…” Salvatrice sucked air through her teeth, “I think his eldest son would, actually.”

“He has a son old enough to inherit?” your eyes widened.

“He had his first when he was just married at eighteen I think, maybe younger,” Salvatrice examined her nails subtly, “the boy’s at least sixteen by now. Nearly old enough to take a wife of his own. Old enough to inherit for sure.”

“Does he have any matches lined up?” you asked nonchalantly.

“He has one woman he’s been courting,” Salvatrice smiled fondly, “she’s shy, but they seem to be a good match. I think she’d be a lucky woman to be wed to him.”

“Is he better than his father?” you glanced over at her.

“Well, he’s not a woman killer,” Salvatrice shrugged.

You thought that was a low blow, but she had a point.

Salvatrice left by the time König came back to the vardo. He took two sniffs of the smoke rising from the pit before narrowing in on you.

“What are you cooking?” he asked as he crouched by the fire.

“Salted yak meat and barley,” you stated simply.

“That’s a very plain meal,” he remarked before straightening up and walking back into the caravan. He came back a moment later with two ornately carved mahogany bowls.

“These look too nice to eat from,” you said as he pushed one into your hand.

“I got them long ago,” König replied, “if you know where to go in the lost cities, they’re easy to come by.”

“You didn’t trade for these?” you raised the bowl up to look at the greek key carvings along the rim.

“No,” König shook his head, “if I wanted to work with my hands, I’d do better things.”

“Like what?” you snorted.

“Building another wagon,” König shrugged.

You gave him a strange look, “With what wood?”

“From the north west,” König said as he held out his bowl for you, “we go there once a year. We stay for two months and then head south to the opposite coast and stay there for another two months. The whole trip takes about a year to complete. That's how we get enough supplies to last for the four month journey each way. We've built strong relationships with both the Sea Wolf settlement and Miami.”

You generously ladled a rich broth over a heaping mound of barley as you told him, “I’ve never been far north. I’ve only ever really been in the plains and the desert south of here.”

“Harsh climates,” König said bitterly as he took the bowl from you, “best only travelled during the middle of the year. It’s better to be north west or south east during the summers and winters. North in the summer, south in the winter.”

“North? Really? I was told the farther north you go, the worse it was,” you shook your head dismissively.

“There are mountains along the coast,” König said wistfully, “the climate is easier on us. The trees are tall, the mountains taller. During the seasons we visit it rains, and if snow does come we’re long gone by the time it arrives. We could honestly spend our winters there if we wanted to.”

“Really?” you struggled to believe him, “the winters were terrible when we went north.”

“You don’t travel far enough to escape the cold,” König picked at his food before bringing his spoon under his hood, “your territories were too small.”

“We didn’t have the supplies to travel further,” you felt strangely defensive.

König slurped from his spoon loudly, “Your chief could’ve made better deals. Instead, he poisoned my father and lost everything, including you.”

“I wasn’t responsible for that,” you snapped.

König snorted as he took a bite of salted meat, “I’m not complaining. If he were smarter, I wouldn’t have a new wife.”

You swallowed heavily. It seemed like everyone in KorTac liked to throw your clan’s past in your face. You didn’t know why you were humiliated though. You weren’t the one to poison the chief of KorTac. Anybody with a brain knew that doing such a thing would only end in disaster. Nobody could’ve known what your chief was planning to do.  If they did, they would’ve intervened for sure. Or so you hoped.

“You cook well,” König poked at the barley, “but it is plain. You know you can use herbs and spices here, right? I know you saw some of my collection. I stored them in the same cabinet as the pot.”

“I didn’t want to use something so precious,” you scoffed derisively.

“Precious?” König squinted in confusion, “how are they precious? They are common along our travels. Road-side flowers, we call them.”

You flushed. Of course they would be. The KorTac clan had always had the best trade routes across the land. They were probably the strongest raiding group the world had known since the collapse.

“We never passed those places,” you huffed, “I didn’t think they were that easy to come by.”

“When I say that I can give you everything you want, I mean it,” König chuffed, “you’re my wife. You can have whatever you want whenever you want.”

“Hot baths?” you snorted.

“I have a wooden tub on the top of my storage wagon for soaking.”

You frowned and set your bowl down, “Fruits?”

“I have some preserves from the south.”

“How about this,” you smirked confidently, “what if I wanted fresh meat every day?”

König finally set down his empty bowl and belched. He patted his stomach and said, “If my wife asks for meat, she can have it. Anything you desire is yours. All you have to do is ask.”

You reeled at his words. Anything at your fingertips? Anything at all? All you ever wanted whenever you wanted and more. Everything you could possibly desire, and all you had to do was ask.

“I struggled to find something to fuel the fire around here,” you stared into the pit, “Salvatrice gave me some wood. She laughed when I asked for dried dung.”

“Salvatrice? She’s our doctor’s wife,” König mused, “a powerful ally. Stay on her good side. Her husband is a good doctor to my men. I’d be a dead man many times over if it weren’t for him.”

“A pity,” you muttered.

König glared at you. You returned his look with a cool expression. You could see the corners of his eyes turn up.

“You think I like being here?” you snapped.

“No,” König said as he took your bowl from you, “but I thought you might be less vocal about it.”

“I’m only doing this because there’s no other option,” you said as you took the bowls back roughly, “and give me those. I need to clean them.”

“Do you know where to clean them?” König asked.

“At the fountain, right? Just boil the water and it's good.”

König nodded and let you go.

When you came back from washing the bowls, the fire had been put out. Ghosts of smoke wafted up and into the dawning twilight. You sighed out a cloud of white mist and stepped into the caravan.

Inside, König was admiring your needlework by candlelight.

“You actually have candles?” you asked as the wick crackled in the brass holder behind his head.

“Beeswax from a colony of beekeepers north of us. They have so many that they’re practically free,” König replied as he set his helmet down, “you did well with these. I’m proud.”

“I’m good at mending,” you replied as you put the bowls back in the cupboard.

You sat across from him as he picked up one of his black iron shin guards and hummed, “So you are.”

He tilted the metal back and forth approvingly. He put the shin guard down and picked up the shoulder pads, nodding again at your handiwork. He gave another approving hum and set them aside as well. König drummed his fingers on the table for a moment. You were thinking of a thousand snide remarks to make when he stood and leaned over you.

“Duck,” he said gently as he opened a cabinet.

You did, only to realise the cabinet was too far above your head to be a worry. You looked up to see him pulling out a small glass jar filled with something white and speckled with orange spots.

“Hm, you’re shorter than I thought,” he commented as he pulled the jar from the cabinet and sat back down on the small bench across from you.

“This here, this is precious,” he opened the rusted metal latch of the jar with a delicacy unbefitting such thick fingers, “but I believe you are worth it. Here, have one.”

Hefished through the white powder and passed you a piece of something tough and orange. It was encrusted in white granules of something that flaked off at your touch.

“What is this?” you asked as he put the jar away.

He sat back down and nodded at you encouragingly, “Something sweet. Eat. You’ve earned it.”

You didn’t like to think of him rewarding you with food like a dog, but you were too curious to resist. You sniffed it gingerly, then gently nibbled on the chewy good.

It was an explosion of citrus sweetness on your tongue. You were blown away by the burst of flavour coating each and every surface of your mouth. How did something so sweet exist? Were there other things this sweet? The taste was like nothing you’d ever had before in your life. The only thing you could compare it to was a rind of lemon peel you’d been given by a trader. Unlike the peel, it was delicious. It was chewy and crunchy, sweet and fruity. You’d never had fruit this sweet before.

“What is this called?” you asked as you took another nibble, savouring each bite.

“Candied orange,” König’s pupils were blown wide in the dark, “it’s a delicacy in the south. The white powder is called sugar, made from tall roots that grow in the islands.”

“The islands?” you’d never heard of such a place.

“There are a cluster of tropical islands farther south than where we can travel on foot. Our final stop going this way is a former lost city called Miami, and they have access to a fleet of merchant ships. They trade with the southern islands, and sugar is something they bring back, along with other strange goods like colourful parrot feathers and beautiful perfumes made from their native flowers. They’re expensive to trade for, but the candied fruits they make last all year.”

“All year?” your eyes widened.

“Like jams,” König nodded eagerly, “but these ones get better with time. The remaining sugar can be used in other recipes, too.”

“Do you have a lot of this sugar?” you asked eagerly.

“I don’t have much,” König admitted, “I only have enough for me and my children until we get to Miami. If you’d like, you can use some to cook with. It won’t be more than three months until we get there. We can get more sugar there if we run out.”

The final piece of orange slowly melted away on your tongue.

“I’ve never tasted anything like this,” you admitted quietly.

König’s breathing grew heavier, “All this and more. It’s all yours.”

You looked down at the crumbs of sugar left on your sticky fingers. The little granules glinted like crystal snow in the candlelight. It was the most beautiful thing you’d ever seen in your hands.

You licked your fingers clean, leaving them sticky with your residual saliva. König watched you hungrily, almost as though he was starving just looking at you. His eyes were too wide, too intense. He frightened you to your core. You leaned away to focus on the crumbs.

You licked the final finger clean, “You’re not giving this to me for free.”

König laughed heartily, “I will give you whatever you need to be my pretty little wife.”

You looked down at your empty hands. They still felt sticky.

“What do you want me to do for you?” you asked solemnly.

König blinked, breaking the trance. You felt like you could breathe again.

“Be my wife,” he told you, “what about that don’t you understand?”

“But what does that mean, ‘to be my wife’?” you pressed.

König gripped the edge of the table tightly before manually relaxing his muscles. His eyes took on a look you’d never seen in a man before. They were dark like stormclouds, raging like thunder. His pupils seemed to soak in every move you made.

“You will act as my wife,” he croaked in his lilting accent, “you will clean my clothes, cook my food. When I am hurt, you will nurse my wounds. When I am tired, you will prepare my bed for me. You will care for my children. And most importantly, you will bear me many more.”

Reality crashed in. Of course. You’d forgotten about this while you’d been eating your treat. König needed a wife for more than just playing house. He needed a companion, a mate. He needed to seal your marriage as quickly as possible, to start bearing fruit and formally solidify your bond.

“What do you want from me?” you whispered.

“I want you to have my children,” König rasped.

“When?” you asked nervously.

He leaned in close, “Tonight.”

You felt your heart pound in your chest.

“Does it have to be tonight?” you bit the inside of your cheek.

König took your hands in his and rubbed his gloved thumbs over the back side of your palms, “If you are by my side, I can promise to protect you from any other man. But I can only do this if I have my claim on you. Without my babe on your hip, my stake on you is meaningless in this land.”

You slumped in your seat. You had no choice in the matter. As a woman, you were to provide for your husband in every which way he desired. You were his to use as he pleased. If you were lucky, you wouldn’t cry the whole time. You just hoped it wouldn’t hurt you as much as it hurt your mother.

“If we must,” you conceded bitterly.

“We must,” König slowly stood.

He held out a hand for you to stand beside him. You ignored it entirely. You looked down at your many layers of clothing. Your stained apron, your rumpled frock. You had never been bare before a man before. In all honesty, you’d only ever seen immodest men briefly before you’d turned your cheek. You had no such opportunity to do so today. Unfortunately for you, your new husband was bigger than any other man you'd ever encountered. If Salvatrice was right in her rumour-mongering, he would tear you asunder. You feared what he kept beneath his tunic.

“Would you like to undress in here or in the bed?”

“In the bed please,” you practically begged him.

König looked so sad as he reached out and pulled the door to the bedroom open, giving you a view of your new marriage bed for the first time.

You knew immediately that this was the best bed you’d ever laid eyes on. Not even your old chief’s bed helf a flame to this majesty. The entire room was dedicated to this gigantic bed, stretching from wall to wall beneath two shuttered windows on either side and bordered in by a giant plank of wood at the foot. Only the base of this bed was hay, unlike the bare straw you’d slept on your entire life. Instead of just scratchy straw to lie on and toss and turn in uncomfortably, layers of thick furs had been laid out over top of the hay to form a thick barrier. On top of said furs a layer of bright and colourful woven blankets had been spread out, the likes of which you’d only ever dreamed of touching as a young girl. In the back, a mountain of plush, colourful pillows crowded under a row of black cupboards. It looked like paradise.

You couldn’t hide the sheer awe in your tone when you whispered, “This is our bed?”

It nearly came up to your hip in height.

“Every night we will share this bed,” König told you before turning behind you, “you can undress in there and put your clothes along your side of the bed, which will be the left. You will stay away from the door when we are sleeping. I don’t want a man coming in and stealing you at night. I will put the bar down each night, but it would give me comfort to keep you far from it.

“When you are done, get under the covers for me. I will join you after I get undressed and put out the candle.”

You flushed and crawled in as quickly as you could, letting him shut the door after you quietly.

You shed your double dresses slowly. Your stockings and underwear came off next, bundled into your undergarments and tucked to the side of your new plush pillows. As soon as you had properly tucked them away, you tucked yourself into the blankets and furs nervously.

“I’m ready,” you called so quietly you doubted he heard you.

You turned to look at the rest of the bed. The blankets looked almost like the woven tapestries wives would weave as the caravans travelled from place to place. Instead of depicting bison and prairie dogs, there were pictures of fish and bears and ravens. Some bore elk and moose, wolves  and deer, and some were beavers. A few had depictions of eagles and burning suns. You took a moment to feel the soft wool under your delicate fingertips. You expected this to be the only softness you’d be graced with tonight.

“I’m snuffing the candle,” König’s voice was muffled through the wood. You heard the pop and hiss of the wick, then the groan of the wooden door sliding as König pulled the door to the side.

You didn’t dare look at König as he crawled into the bed. You couldn’t bear to see his nakedness just yet. You closed your eyes and hid your face in your hands.

You listened to the shuffle of blankets, the fluffing of pillows, and then finally a heavy sigh as König settled into the bedding. He shuffled dangerously close behind you far too quickly for your own comfort. In all fairness, you’d have preferred him to stay on his side of the bed and leave you alone entirely.

Alas, you were a woman, and your opinions had no bearings here.

“The moon looks beautiful tonight,” he whispered behind you.

True to his word, when you opened your eyes and looked out your window, the moon hung like a beautiful grey-blue disk in the night sky, a second sun surrounded by her loving daughters. You wished you could dance among them, far away from where König wrapped his arms around you and tucked you in close.

Sleep claimed you quickly that night.

Over the next few weeks you formed a sort of routine with König and the KorTac clan.

On weekends you’d take long walks along the countryside with Salvatrice as she guided you in search of flowers and herbs for her husband. You learned that he was a capable enough man, but because the raiders were always coming to him with new pains that he was usually too busy to even try to leave the medical tent. As you walked, you’d listen to her explain the latest gossip around the clan and endure her comments about how strange your old clan was compared to the glory of KorTac. You found yourself missing your old clan less and less the more she talked. You missed your family, but they had abandoned you without so much as a shed tear. In addition, if it weren’t for them leaving you behind, you never would have been left in König’s care. You would still be starving each night and hating every man that turned his nose up at you. You would still be suffering.

Sometimes it hurt you to think that you liked your new life so much better than your old one. But how could you not? You were happier. You had gained so much since you’d been accepted into the KorTac clan. 

Even that bitter shepherd who’d stared at you when you had first come had softened to you. He liked to teach you how to milk König’s goats and turn it to cheese and yogurt in skins. His name was Nikto, and he was a strange one to be sure, but he was a good man underneath his mask. A former raider, he’d retired when he lost his wife to another raiding clan. He’d since taken another couple of women to warm his bed, but you could see the pain in his eyes when he spoke of the one he’d lost. You gave him a tight hug and promised he would be okay.

 Nikto was a good friend, but he wasn’t the most important man you had in your life. You had a loving husband in König. He would eat dinner with you and his children each night, sharing laughter and stories over pots of herbed soup you made for them. You learned that his eldest son was named Peter, and the woman he desired was the new chief’s daughter. König would warn him that Klaus was protective of his daughter, but you could tell he wanted the match to go through. As Peter spoke more of her, you hoped the match would be approved too. His youngest child, Victor, was the last child from his old wives. He didn’t seem to hold any bitterness towards his father, telling you once that his only memory of his mother was her leaving him alone in a wagon to leave with another man. You held him close for the rest of the night, making sure he had an extra serving of egg. Victor rolled his eyes and said you weren’t his mama, but you shushed him and fed him still.

You loved this gaggle of children and they in turn doted on you. You skinned trophies with his sons and learned to read with his daughters. You’d asked why they read before and they told you that it was to ensure they could survive on their own if they wanted to. How they thought they could was beyond you, but the fact was that they had hope. When you were a young girl you never would’ve had half the courage and strength these girls had. A part of you was jealous, a bigger part was proud.

Since you’d come to KorTac, you were completely loved and supported. You wouldn’t have it any other way.

—

The caravans chased the clouds as they followed the trade route to the south. The wagons trundled over plains and trailed forest paths alike as you were brought closer and closer to the coast. The world was changing around you as you moved through the lands. You saw things you never imagined seeing before. Mountains crawled up like great giant spines breaking from the earth. Mystical blue lakes spread vast across the horizon. Giant trees formed green tunnels for you to travel through. Your world was expanded with each mile this clan travelled along their usual trade route.

König said you weren't close enough, but you swore with each passing day you could already feel the water in the winds. He laughed and told you that such couldn’t be for another month at least. You told him you could tell and he patted your head with a snort.

Of course, going south meant great changes. It was after you crossed the largest river you’d ever seen that you were forced to face the realities of König’s work.

“Are you really going into the lost city?” you asked as you watched him methodically put on each piece of armour.

“I have to,” König momentarily leaned down to kiss your forehead, “I promise I will be back soon.”

“How soon?” you asked as you stirred a pot of soup.

“Not long, my little wife,” he petted your hair, “I’ll be home in just a couple of days. It doesn’t take long to fill the supply wagon. The ride home is quicker than the ride out. Men want to go home as soon as they can.”

“Don’t be too late coming home, otherwise you’ll miss dinner. The children would never forgive you if you did,” you said as you tasted the broth, “this soup needs more salt. We’re running low on salt these days.”

“We can get some when we reach the coast,” König assured you.

“You’d better come back,” you grumbled, “the merchants in the settlements don’t like my trading tactics.”

“They aren’t used to women knowing how to read. Most of them have never even traded with women at all,” he chuckled, “especially not one as stubborn as you.”

“If they charged a fair trade I wouldn’t have to be so difficult,” you griped.

König laughed and leaned down to kiss you again, “I wouldn’t have you any other way.”

You swatted him with the spoon, “Just come back soon. And bring some cloth if you can find any. The children keep getting holes in their jackets.”

“How do they keep doing it?” König muttered, “I keep telling them to be more careful when they go out. I really do!”

“I know you do,” you sighed, “but they’re getting so excited. They keep telling me about all the fruit in the keys. They told me about these things called limes. They say they’re like lemons, but sweet. They want me to eat one for some reason. Peter is at least trying to wrangle them in. He told me I shouldn’t eat a lime, no matter what the rest say.”

“Peter only has two hands and he’s already got them full with Nikto breathing down his neck,” König grumbled, “I want Alice and Julia to step up and help him out.”

“Have you thought about marrying them off yet?” you asked.

“Marrying them off? No!” König crossed his arms over his plated chest, “I won’t have it. My little girls won’t marry.”

“They’ll have to eventually,” you rubbed his sleeve tiredly, “it’s best to set them up soon.”

“But what if a man from another clan marries them? When would I ever see them? I can’t let them go like that.”

You tapped the ladle against the pot and put the spits of fish over the fire. You passed König a leather bag of raiding supplies and said, “If they are from the Sea Wolf clan up north or the Sunsteps down south, you could spend two months a year with them.”

“But that’s only two months!” König griped, “I don’t want to think of them being left alone for the rest of the year. How could I do that to them?”

“It’s better to marry them off to good matches than let someone else snatch them up,” you pointed out, “you wouldn’t want someone to take them like you took me, right?”

König nearly coughed up a lung before regaining his composure. He turned away from you as he said, “No. No, I wouldn't want that.”

“So you’ll focus on getting them a match?” you poked him with the spoon.

König hung his head with a heavy sigh.

“I will try and find them a good husband. But I won’t go easy on those men,” he grumbled.

“Think of good matches while you’re gone,” you said as you hugged your giant husband from behind, “I like that big blacksmith in the Sea Wolf settlement. He’d be good for Julia.”

“He’s a man,” König huffed.

“He’s strong enough to take care of a wife. That, and he’s skilled enough with his weapons to keep her safe from any other man that tried to steal her,” you pointed out.

König rolled his eyes. He pried you off him and slung his sack of provisions over his back. He tossed a bag of jerky from one hand to another before letting his arms drop to his sides. 

He turned around and ruffled your hair sadly, “It might be easier to build a vardo with the cedar up north, but I’m not going to make it easy on him. He might handle hammers all day, but I’ve seen how he holds a knife.”

“The Sea Wolves have been carving totems since before society collapsed,” you smacked his shoulder, “now go. If you stay any longer I’ll cry.”

“Don’t you think I’d want you to cry for me?” König’s eyes twinkled merrily.

“Well I don’t want to, so go.”

With that you booted your husband out the door.

Now that you were alone, you had plenty of time to work on chores around the carriage. You could probably mend all those little coats with what little cloth you had left, but if the children kept up their careless ways then you’d run out before you even come close to Miami. You just hoped they’d listen to you and would try to be more careful. You couldn’t waste all your supplies, not when you were so close to the former lost city.

Miami was a strange settlement. You’d heard about it happening in other places, but Miami was the first city to be taken back after the collapse. How they managed to pull it off, you had no idea, but it was a spark of hope. It proved it could be done.

As it was, the convoy had just arrived near the lost city of Memphis. That’s why König had to go out on the raid. He could sometimes ignore the calls for hunts along the trails, but he was always needed in the raids. Klaus had once told you that if he didn’t have König go, he’d lose six times the amount of men. As it was, he was unlucky if he lost one.

You heard that once, Memphis had been a bustling metropolis. People from all over the world would visit Memphis. For what, you had no clue, but it had been popular enough. You heard it was in a place called Tennessee, which was part of something bigger, though that name had long since been lost to time. As it was, Memphis was a shadow of what once was. What was once a place of abundance was destroyed overnight. You heard whispers of what had happened. Some said that illness broke out among the cities across the world, others told you there was a vast network of turncoats who poisoned each and every city across the land. Some told you that they had just collapsed under the weight of their own overabundance. All these stories were traded in hushed tones whenever the lost cities were so much as mentioned. Many had ideas as to what had happened, but the only ones with answers had died long ago. Whatever had happened they took to their grave. If they’d told anyone, it had been forgotten.

You’d never been in a lost city yourself. In fact you never intended to go to one, but you heard plenty from König and his team about what lay within.

König told you all about the giant metal buildings that crawled for miles up into the sky. Along the streets, he said you could grab metal cans that people had once discarded like trash in the plastic bags that blew through the air.  Apparently you could grab a bag off every street corner they were that abundant. That’s what raiders usually used to transport the goods they found back to their supply wagons. König told you that from what he could tell, people once were so wasteful that entire landfills were piled with treasures. The cities were filled with metal and stone alongside bountiful wild animals that became fat off the leftovers. Some had trees growing along cracked paths of stone. Somehow, the ancient people had so much glass that they could use it to coat every window in the land. You had only ever seen such luxuries in the wealthiest settlements. König told you that these cities were filled to the brim with treasures like woven carpets, bountiful clothes, wires and ropes aplenty. They were beacons of resources for anyone brave enough to go in.

Lost cities glistered, but they weren’t made of gold. There was a reason they were feared. 

The streets were filled with the mutated lost citizens, the only remnants of the people who once lived there. Supposedly, the water had been contaminated, and over the years the people who tried to live in the cities changed until they were almost entirely unrecognizable. They’d become strange, ferocious creatures with long limbs and longer claws, running and crawling through the rubble like the rats they feasted on. König told you that most of them were at most half the size of someone like you, with bloodless skin and not a hair on their hide. König told you that he’d carve them to eat, but he feared their meat was cursed. He told you of how they were vicious, and even though many had limbs that were just stumps or flails of flesh, they could still be just as quick as a full-grown man, and twice as lethal. As such, König cleared as many nests as he could to try and clear out the ruins and push deeper into the metal jungles.

Even though König and the caravans had been travelling for decades, barely a dent had been made in reclaiming the resources in what were once suburbs due to the abundance of lost citizens that crept through the wastes. You just hoped that they’d stick to the cities and not crawl into the wilderness. As it was, you’d mostly been lucky. You’d only heard vague stories of some in the woods, and that was mostly from terrified mothers spanking their naughty children over their knee.

You knew König was probably the most reliable raider in KorTac, but you still worried whenever he left. You’d heard the twisted legends told around bonfires of how wicked and sadistic the lost citizens had become since the collapse. Some told stories of cannibalism, torture, even bestiality among other evils. They were every aspect of sick that you could imagine. You heard that, even if they looked like beasts, they were still technically human beings. The only difference between you and them was the water you drank, or so you were told. They were animals, but they were still just as clever as humans. They could still plan. They could make traps.

But as clever as the lost citizens were, König was smarter. He was too strong and fast for them to try and pin him down and he was far too careful to fall into their machinations. If they worked in groups, he said, they were always safe. He always tried to share his tips with the other men, but scant few listened to him before marching off. Unfortunate, because the ones who did listen always lived longer. Alas, in a world run by young men, arrogance ran rampant. König said that once he had been upset, but he’d since learned not to be bothered by the losses. You still mourned them, but with pride came hubris, and with hubris came the weeding of the weak.

With those thoughts in mind, the next day passed by easily. You knew König would come home. There was always a chance he didn’t, but you knew those chances were too low to worry about them. Of course, that didn’t mean you didn’t get lonely.

You tended to try and focus on chores and friends when König was gone. You learned pretty quickly that if you finished all your tasos before König even started making his way home, it made his arrival all the sweeter. No distractions, no worries, just time to spend with König and your family. You figured he needed it as well. 

He always seemed a bit strange when he got back. Not terribly so, but sometimes he scared you. It was like he lost a bit of himself out there, something that took a while to return to him when he came back. Sometimes he’d pull from your touch, other times he’d ravage you for days. If you were patient, your König would arrive a week later, and you could sleep easily at night.

You’d never had him return from a lost city, but you had the feeling whatever he experienced out on the hunts would be amplified a thousand fold when he returned.

Whenever König left, you felt vulnerable. 

You knew that KorTac was a more civilised clan than your own, but still, you worried. There was no reason to think that someone might try and steal you from König. Everyone knew anyone stupid enough to try would be torn apart by König’s bare hands. The few men who’d even whistled at you had been beaten into the earth before he would drag you back to your bed.

König still hoped that you’d soon be full with his child. He constantly reminded you that you’d both be better off for it. You didn’t think it was possible for it to take so soon after he’d taken you as his wife, but he insisted you keep trying. He told you it was best to keep you as a happy mama by his side. You figured it was part of it was a claiming ritual that men had in these clans. 

In your old clan, a married woman was never safe around men. It didn’t matter how long they had been by a man’s side if they killed him and took her as his wife. That’s how your stepfather had taken your own mother as his own, and by doing so had damned you and your siblings to depravity.

KorTac was different though.

In KorTac, killing another man was seen as one of the greatest evils you could enact on another. Murder was unthinkable to them. Here, the way men stole wives was not by killing their husband, but by stealing from them once their wives were left alone. It wasn’t uncommon to see raiders come home to empty caravans. However, men seemed to recognize a marriage once a woman was round with child. In fact, the KorTac clan men almost seemed to revere women at that point.

You saw how Salvatrice was protected by other men when her husband was unavailable and how she was cherished by the children that followed her through the encampment. You were jealous of her. You’d never tell her that, but it was an unspoken truth between you both. 

You’d watched what happened to Rozlin, a woman you spoke to over the well, when she became pregnant. One day she was labouring as she carried buckets of water, and then the moment her stomach had grown the men around her treated her with a newfound respect and approval. She now walked peacefully through wagons and spoke with a proud confidence. You’d even seen her order a gaggle of teens to help her carry buckets of water to her carriage. You’d never seen boys jump to a task faster.

You’d asked Nikto about it once, and he wouldn’t stop laughing until he’d collapsed onto a bale of hay, and even then tears still streamed behind his mask.

“Those boys think that if other women see how well they treat a married woman, they might be more interested in marrying them ,” Nikto practically giggled with glee, “hey think us fathers will be impressed by them. If not us, they think our daughters will try to encourage us to marry them off if they see how much they care about a woman in need. There’s this one young man, Micheal, that’s desperate for my Anya’s hand. He keeps trying to show her how strong he is by carrying water for Rozlin every Friday. 

“Anya tells me he stinks like my yaks, and that’s enough for me.”

After that, every time you watched those young men bend over backwards you couldn’t help but roll your eyes. Still, they treated proven married women well. But unfortunately, not women like you. 

You still hadn’t had König’s child. Your womb was still empty. In their eyes, you were free for the taking, and though you’d shared your worries with König, he’d simply laughed.

He said that if anyone tried to take you from him, he’d kill them just like he killed the other man who tried. You told him he’d get banished but he shook his head.

“These people need me here,” König chuckled back then, “if they got rid of me, they’d all die. They know that. And so, they know not to take what’s mine.”

The men in this clan learned long ago to give you space since your first night with König. He’d looked positively pleased when rumours of your consummation together came back around to you.

You’d never been more humiliated when König’s close friend Kim had been laughing about not getting any sleep, but beside you König had never been prouder. As such, König stood taller as he gladly displayed you on his arm when he walked around the camp. Most men didn’t need another hint. You swallowed the humiliation as you looked into their knowing eyes, just happy they left you alone. If it cost Kim a night of sleep to stay safe, you’d do it in a heartbeat (and you did so often).

Unfortunately, that couldn’t be said for all of the men.

On Saturdy morning, the raiding party’s scout Darnell had came to tell you that they were driving the supply cart back as quickly as they could. He grinned when you asked about König.

“Your husband is the one driving the cart,” Darnell chuckled, “he’s been keeping us awake at night because he won’t shut up about you.”

There was no way you could wipe the smirk off your face after that.

If König were to be arriving home, then you decided to put extra focus on cleaning the vardo for him. You took the time to wax the wood and brush the awning down for him before emptying out the straw and refreshing it with new bedding. You went so far as to return early from the wells to make sure you finished your laundry early.

You had been cleaning your dresses and thinking about König when you heard a few men coming from afar.

You scrubbed your dresses over your washboard with new vigour when you heard a whoop and a holler. At first you ignored them, but when you heard them closer to you, you stiffened and listened closely. When you could make out words coming from a distance, you looked up.

You watched three young men slowly approach from afar. They held their heads high as they walked, oddly confident as they came your way. You wondered if they were part of the returning band of raiders. You looked around you to see if there was anyone else, but the carriages around you were quiet. It seemed König’s band of raiders still hadn’t returned. Based on the time, their wives would still be at the wells. As such, you were completely alone. You worried your lip and looked back at the newcomers.

You didn’t like how they were making their way directly to your vardo. They weren’t weaving around the lots to respect people’s personal space, they didn’t even seem to think about that at all. They were three young men who were clearly dead set on heading directly your way. You hoped they might be headed for someone else, but there was nobody behind you. Maybe they were looking for someone else, but something told you that wasn’t the case.

As the men approached, you heard one of them whistle.

“Hey!” the tallest one called out and waved one of his arms to grab your attention.

You squinted to try and make out his features. He didn’t look much older than twenty, if that. He was wearing armour. Maybe the raiders had come home.

“Hey!” he called again.

“Hey lady, my friend’s talking to you,” the dark haired one beside him chimed in.

You raised your hackles immediately. They were definitely headed your way. You looked down at the clothes in your hands and then back up at the oncoming men. You didn’t think you’d have enough time to get all the shirts off the clothesline. Still, you had to try. You didn’t want to lose your clean clothes without a good fight. It had taken you weeks to sew your latest dress.

“Hey lady,” the shortest one sing-songed, “make us a kettle, will ya? We’re thirsty from riding.”

You started packing up the wet shirts. Damn it all to Hell if they got musty, you needed to get inside.

“We know König’s not home. We passed him on the way here,” the dark haired one yelled.

“He’ll be home soon,” you snapped and ripped the shirts down. You hissed when you heard one rip.

“It’ll take an hour for the wagon to get unloaded,” the tall one lowered his yell to a call as he got closer, “he won’t be back for ages.”

“He’ll be back soon enough,” you replied as you plucked wet clothes from the line and dumped them in a wicker basket, “he’ll be eager to get home.”

“We got a large load back there. He’ll be busy for a while.”

“Stay away,” you warned them as you grabbed the basket off the grass.

The men picked up their pace.

You dashed to the door. Unfortunately, as soon as you tried to bring the basket up the steps it tipped over and your clothes were tossed all across the ground.

“Need some help there?” the boys were too close now.

You dropped the basket and leapt over it to duck into the vardo. You slammed the door shut behind you and slid the locking bar over the door frame. You managed to draw the shutters over the windows and locked them too. You heard them jostle the door as you slipped into the bedroom and latched the sliding door in place behind you. You cracked your bedroom window open just a crack as you burrowed under your side of the straw to listen in on them. You just hoped they wouldn’t notice.

“Hey! Open the door” you heard them yell.

You prayed they wouldn’t try anything stupid. It was one thing to steal a wife, but to go so far as to break into another man’s wagon was akin to social suicide in KorTac. You just hoped they cared enough about König and the chief’s wrath to stay outside. 

“Don’t make me do something I don’t want to,” you heard the tall one smack on the door again while the other two walked around the cabin to look for another way in. You couldn’t stop trembling beneath the sweltering furs. You tried to place the boys, but nothing rang a bell. You knew they must’ve been in König’s raiding group. The armour they wore was of good quality, and they knew the wagon was back.

“Aren’t you worried about König coming back?” you heard one ask, “he likes her a lot, and you know he’s not above killing people.”

“If we’re lucky, he won’t be back at all,” another one piped up, “the others will have dealt with him.”

You hoped König would leave early. Sometimes he did so if he wanted to see you badly enough.

“Hey lady! Come on out!” you heard one of them slamming on the front door, “if you come out now, we won’t bust up your wagon.”

There was no way they were going to actually break into somebody’s wagon. Especially not König’s. That was practically unheard of.

“If you come out now we’ll be nice to you,” you heard one circling out around the back of the caravan.

You tried to think about what you had to protect yourself with in the cupboards. You had a pot, a wok, a frying pan, a spatula, and a wooden spoon, too. You knew you had a good set of cooking knives, but you didn’t know how to fight with one. Not against raiders, at least. You’d be disarmed in an instant if you tried.  König had shown you that himself when you asked him why he let you have knives.

If they were of König’s band, then he would’ve trained them with weapons himself. You had no chance against these men.

You looked up at the ceiling of the bedroom. The top hatch was still unlocked. 

Shit. 

If you got up now, you were sure they’d figure out where you were and break in and drag you out. But, if they found a way on top, it would be too easy to get in and take you in your own home. You were damned either way.

You hoped and prayed that König would come home soon.

The boys took to slapping the walls of your vardo as they circled it to try and figure out where you were inside. You just hoped they wouldn’t notice the hidden ladder at the top of the back corner.

König had installed the ladder in case you got raided at night. The irony of a safety feature being the reason you’d be caught wasn’t lost on you in the slightest If they found the ladder, you were sure you’d be done for. You hoped König had hidden it well when he set up the camp site.

You tried to think about your options. 

Did you promise to meet anyone today? Was Peter going to come by? You hoped he would. He always liked to make sure his father was safe when he came back. Peter was a big boy, almost as big as his father. He wasn’t quite as tall, but he was broader than König for sure. König always pinched his cheek and told him it was baby fat, but these boys wouldn’t know the difference. Surely they’d be scared off by the threat of muscle.

If Peter wouldn’t come, then maybe Salvatrice might. She always liked to chat with König after a raid. He hated when she came by so quickly after he’d come home, but you’d rather have her there to help take care of you when König was in his wild mind. 

Then again, if she came around, the men might turn their sights on her. You were strong, so was Salvatrice, but you didn’t think the two of you could fend off three men, especially if they were trained raiders. These boys would’ve been trained to fight while being outnumbered. Two against three was far easier than what they were used to.

Why König’s own raiders would turn against him was beyond you. Had he done something to upset them? They had to knoew that if they stole you, they’d risk being banished from their raider band. König couldn’t get them banished, but he was close enough to chief Klaus that he could tip his hand and Klaus would ban these boys from raiding ever again. They’d be lucky if they were even allowed to be hunters once your husband was finished with them. 

Were you really worth losing all they had?

You gasped when they slapped the wagon right beside your head. You covered your mouth and quivered under the furs.

“Did you hear something?” one of them asked.

They slammed the spot again.

The group was silent. You felt yourself sweating bullets as you waited for them to move on. 

Just move on, you prayed, you didn’t hear anything. 

Just when you thought they might have gone, they slammed the spot again. This time you kept your mouth shut.

You waited.

“She’s not on this side,” one of them muttered.

You felt yourself  sag into the furs as you let out a silent breath in relief. You were safe, but only just. How long would it be until you were found? How long until they found the ladder? The fact they hadn’t found it by now was a miracle.

Just as you thought of the ladder again, there was a shout from outside.

Was that?

The sound of someone charging at the trailer had your heart swell in your chest. 

You heard the person yell again and you cried out in relief.

“Wait, she was right here!”

It was too late for them though

König’s here.

You heard your husband bellow in a strange language and the three men bolted away.

Metal clattered outside as he rushed to the door. The door jostled in its frame. You jumped up as you heard a heavy fist slamming the door.

You heard your husband yell something in a foreign language, curse, and try again,“OPEN THE DAMN DOOR!” 

You pushed the sliding door aside and grabbed the security board. You swung it up and pushed the door open.

König crowded you into the carriage as he stepped inside. He pushed you up against his bookshelf as his wild eyes scanned over you.

You trembled as he took you in. The sacks strapped to his back made him look bigger than ever before as his chest heaved heavily. His blue eyes looked red at the rims, his mask billowed out as he panted. He grabbed at your chin and tilted your face side to side roughly.

“Did they touch you?” he snapped as he grabbed roughly at your clothes.

“No they didn’t,” you swatted his hands away, “I got inside before they got too close.”

König caged you in with his arms and leaned over you. He raised his mask to reveal his lower jaw and grabbed your face to kiss you. He tasted of dirt and grime as he forced his tongue in your mouth and claimed you. You hit his chest as he stole your breath, only pulling back once your legs started to shake. 

He kissed you again and leaned his helmeted forehead against yours.

“I need you,” he said, and he took you into his arms.

When you were done, König petted your sides and yawned as he stretched in the bed.

“How long were you been trapped in here?” König played with the hair on the back of your neck.

“About an hour or two I think,” you felt tingles travelling down your spine as he worked his fingers through the strands, “I don’t know. I was just waiting for you to come home.”

“So they left as soon as we started unloading the supply wagon,” he murmured.

He grumbled something under his breath and kissed you again.

“I couldn’t have come at a better time,” he brought his palm to your cheek, “I’m so happy you’re still here.”

You kissed his wrist and held his hand, “I’m happy you’re home.”

König wrapped you into another hug. He rubbed your back and wrapped his other arm around your bare skin and pulled you close. He glanced at the sliding door and sighed.

“I’ll give you what I found later.”

“You found something for me?” you smiled.

“I always find something for my little wife,” König smirked, “it’s just hard to figure out what I can lay claim to at the end of the trip.”

“Can’t you take whatever you want?” you cracked your back, “you’re the raider captain.”

“Within limit,” König corrected you gently, “but I found a nice rug for the carriage, and some toys for our new baby.”

“I’m not even pregnant yet,” you laughed.

“Not yet,” König gripped your hip and pulled you against him, “it won’t be long though. I’m known for being virile, you know. You’ll be knocked up soon, little mama.”

You laughed and shook your head. You let yourself soak in his warmth, so hot it made you sleepy just lying against him. You felt your eyes grow heavy.

Before you closed your eyes, you felt König squirm.

“Not yet,” you warned him.

“I’m not thinking about that,” König replied, “I’m just wondering what happened outside.”

“What do you mean?”

“What happened with all these shirts?”

You laughed, “I dropped the basket when I rushed inside.”

König sighed and kissed you again.

“I was so worried when I saw them,” he said, “I thought… I thought they might have taken you already.”

“I’m still here,” you took his hand from your neck to kiss the inside of his wrist, “you don’t have to worry.”

König grunted, “I won’t when you’re with my child.”

“Well, until then, you’ll just have to trust me,” you snuggled into the blankets, “I’m yours forever.”

König settled into the beds with a sigh.

“And I am yours.”

König was quick to figure out who the boys were. More disturbingly, he’d uncovered their plan. As it turned out, there were seven in on the plan. Three were meant to take you, and four were meant to steal the supply wagon. It seemed they wanted to start their own trube. How they intended to share you between the seven of them wasn’t quite clear. Men that age didn’t typically think things through that far.

Luckily, the four meant to take on König reconsidered at the last moment and told König about the plan. He was enraged, but grateful they’d thought better of trying to take you from him.

König was more than happy to dole out punishments for the boys. Klaus had banished them from the tribe, but not before König had his way with them. You didn’t ask too much about it when he’d come home late three nights later. All you knew was that he was eerily happy, and it was better to not ask any questions.

You learned later that the men targeted you because they thought that you’d make a good breeding wife. Once König learned why they targeted you, he had been more keen than ever to fill you with his child. The next time your cycle was meant to come, he was relentless. You had been exhausted by the end of it, but you couldn’t be happier. A part of you worried that it might not take though. You were worried that you’d been so stressed over the past month that you hadn’t bled. You worried you were sick, because you couldn’t stop throwing up. Every morning you’d have to hurry out of the carriage, lest you get sick into the good blankets.

When you told König, he seemed to be of a different opinion. 

The next morning, König had been unusually keen to drag you to Salvatrice’s husband. He shoved you into a dress and dragged you out the door before you could even brush your teeth.

“König, I’m telling you that I’m alright,” you grumbled as he eagerly carried you over to the medical wagon, “and I can walk just fine.”

“I like carrying my little wife,” he cooed as you swatted him irritably.

“The walk is good for me,” you huffed.

“And carrying you is good for me too,” König laughed and cuddled you into his chest.

You weakly slapped his chest and settled into his arms. He chuckled as he walked to the medical tent in the center of the camp, humming nursery songs and rocking you fondly. You would smack him harder if you knew he wouldn’t drop you. 

Once you got to the center of the camp, you heard a voice from behind.

König happily turned as he adjusted your weight in his arms.

“Ho there, König!” the bearded man held up a hand.

“Hallo Klaus!” König warmly greeted the chief.

“What’re you doing with your wife? Are you alright?” Klaus asked as he sauntered over.

“König thinks I’m sick,” you groaned.

“My little wife is sick,” König chirped.

Klaus looked between you both and chortled merrily. He put his fists on his waist and looked up at his second-in-command with a big grin, “So have you told her the big news?”

König’s eyes widened.

You glared at your husband irritably. 

“What news?” you growled.

“The news about König and me,” Klaus pointed his thumbs to his chest with a wide grin.

“König’s told me nothing,” you snapped.

“He’s told you nothing?” Klaus shook his head, “you know, if you’re going to be the next chief, you really need to work on your communications skills.”

Your eyes nearly popped out of your skull as you looked up at König.

“I was going to tell you,” König huffed, “eventually. Really, I’m surprised you hadn’t heard about it before. Salvatrice is always telling you the latest gossip. I know because you always tell me what she told you.”

“I mean, she might’ve told me. It sounds familiar, but I didn’t really think it was true. 

“But wait, why are you going to be chief?” you asked as you turned back to look at Klaus.

“I’m leaving the caravan,” Klaus chuckled, “once we get to Miami, I’m staying. I was only meant to be a temporary chief anyways. I swore to look after KorTac until we got to the south, and then the title would go to the next chief in line. We decided long ago that would be König. He just didn’t want to be chief immediately after his father died.”

You tilted your head to the side, “Why are you staying in Miami?”

Klaus grinned, “I found a good match down south! I figured it might be nice to settle down in the big city. Her father didn’t want her to travel, so I decided I’d give up the nomad life and settle down in one place.”

“But Miami?” you raised a brow.

“It’s warm,” he shrugged, “better than the Sea Wolves up north. It’s always raining there,” he shivered, “that, and I’d rather somewhere nice with lots of fruit. I can’t get enough of those oranges!”

“Wait, so oranges come from the south?” you asked eagerly.

“The south has tons of oranges!” Klaus cheered, “you can get oranges in anythingdown there! Oranges on their own are great, but there’s so much you can do with them. Marmalade, orange cookies, orange muffins, orange bread, orange juice, orange candies and even candied oranges! It’s great!”

Your mouth watered at the thought. You eagerly tugged on König’s sleeve, “Can we get some more orange candies?”

“You had candied oranges,” König quipped.

“Whatever,” you huffed and playfully smacked his chest, “you know what I mean.”

“Well…” König shifted you into one arm and scratched his chin under his mask, “if you don’t complain about going to the doctor, I could consider trading for some candied oranges.”

You nodded stoically, “Then my lips are sealed.”

König laughed and hugged you close to his chest.

“Careful König,” Klaus said, “you wouldn’t want to give her an actual reason to see the doctor.”

König rolled his eyes and turned to the medical cart, “Well Klaus, it was good seeing you. I need to get my little wifey to the medic.”

Klaus waved goodbye and walked away, leaving you alone with König at the doctor’s tent.

“So you’re really going to be the chief of KorTac now?” you asked.

“Only once we leave Miami,” König said, “but we’re trying to keep it quiet for now, ja? You can keep a secret, my little wife?”

“I mean, since Salv knows, don’t think it’s a secret anymore,” you mused as König stooped through the door and let you down..

You heard a couple of glass bottles rattling and something clanging to the floor before a man popped out of the corner.

“Hello?” he said nervously, “what’re you two doing here?” His eyes narrowed, “König, is this about-”

“König thinks I’m pregnant because I missed my last cycle and I keep throwing up. I think I’m sick and I keep telling him that I’ve just been stressed,” you rolled your eyes.

König leaned into the doctor’s ear and muttered something. As soon as he did, the doctor’s eyes widened and he gave you an excited smile.

“Well… I think I could figure out what’s happened here. I mean, there are really only a few possible options,” the doctor laughed to himself before turning around, “if you could just…” he pulled out a small cup, “give me a glass of your urine, I think I can do a simple test. It’s not perfect, but it’s what I’ve got.”

“You want me to piss in a cup?” you snorted.

“If the doctor tells you to piss in the cup, you will piss in the cup,” König grumbled over your shoulder. 

You gave him a dirty look.

“If you don’t want to do that, I have another option,” the doctor offered, “but I will still need your urine.

“Hold on, I just need to grab a couple of bags.”

You watched as he rummaged through his tent. He threw burlap bags and wooden boxes onto the floor as he muttered and puttered about, evidently getting more and more frustrated as he worked.

While he worked, you heard someone push through the leather flap and turned to see Salvatrice walk in. She glanced between you, König and her husband.

“Hello?” she asked nervously.

“Ah, Salv!” the doctor cheered, “you wouldn’t happen to know where the wheat and barley seeds are, would you?”

Salvatrice’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. She grabbed you and König and clapped you both on the shoulder.

“Good job you two! I knew it wouldn’t take long with König, but I still didn’t expect it so soon!” she cheered while her husband groaned.

“Don’t say it yet,” he sighed, “we need to do tests first.”

“Alright, alright,” she rolled her eyes, “you need the seeds or the toad?”

Within half an hour, you’d been brought out to a nearby field with a bag of barley seeds in one hand and a bag of wheat seeds in the other.

“So I need to piss on these,” you crossed your arms over your chest before you turned to glare at König, “is this why you didn’t let me use the bathroom this morning?”

König nodded eagerly, “I asked the doctor about it earlier and he told me this was his best test. Well, that or injecting a toad with urine.”

“Is that why you needed the glass?” you shuddered.

The doctor held up his hands in a shrug.

“At least this is better than hurting a poor toad,” you muttered.

You rolled your eyes and looked around. You glared at the trio of onlookers.

“Can I at least have a bit of privacy please?”

—

Within two weeks König had taken to carrying you wherever he went. He was relentless. As soon as the bags of seeds had sprouted, König had decided then and there that you were pregnant.

“It’s only seventy percent accurate,” you grumbled.

“Well we have to wait a bit longer for the next test,” König said eagerly.

“The next test?”

“The doctor will just need to lift your dress and-”

“No.”

You sighed as you sat back heavily on the bench. The Miami heat was killing you. König put a hand on his shoulder comfortingly.

“You need a rest, Mama?” he laughed.

“I’m fine,” you grumbled as you tried to get up again.

König gently pushed you back down and grabbed a blanket for you.

“You need to rest, Mama,” he laughed as he scooched into the bench beside you and wrapped an arm over your shoulders.

“Stop calling me that,” you huffed, “I’m not a mom yet.”

“Soon!” König cheered and clapped your shoulder, “you know, I didn’t think it would take so easily…”

“You filled me for a week straight,” you groaned, “you were impossible.”

“And I can’t wait to do it again,” he kissed the tip of your nose.

“I’m only one woman,” you patted your stomach, “I don’t know how many babies I can have if they’re all like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like this!” you gestured to your bump, “look at how big this is!”

“It’s only a bit bigger than average-”

“Salvatrice told me I looked like a blimp. I don’t even know what a blimp is!” you rubbed your temples, “if all your babies are this big then I’m going to need some serious time to recover after each one of these giants.”

König narrowed his eyes, “I can accept that.”

“The doctor said I’m due in a few months, but it’s not fast enough,” you rubbed your stomach, “I just want this out.”

“He can take all the time he needs. If he needs to wait until we’re back on the road, then so be it,” König patted your stomach lovingly.

“I’m the one carrying it here,” you snapped, “I think I should be the one who decides when she comes out.”

“Sadly, little mamas don’t get a choice,” König patted your shoulder sympathetically as he looked down at your stomach. He leaned in and kissed your cheek before patting your bump.

“You can act cute, but I’m still mad at you,” you said bitterly.

“You can be as mad as you want,” König laughed as he stood up, “now look, what can I get to make you feel a bit better?”

You glared down at the table.

“Ah, of course,” König patted your head, “let me get your little treat for you. Now, close your eyes.”

You sighed and covered your eyes. König had decided that since your pregnancy hormones hit, you couldn’t be trusted to know where the candies were. You would’ve been angrier if he weren’t right.

“Open,” König stooped into view.

You held out your hand for your ‘little treat’, as König put it. As soon as it was in your hand you were nibbling on it.

“You look so cute with your little oranges,” König laughed, “little oranges for my little Maus!”

“Maus?”

“Maus! It means mouse in my home land,” König explained.

You nodded and continued nibbling. You briefly put it down as curiosity got the better of you.

“König, where do you actually come from?” you asked quietly, “you don’t sound like you come from anywhere we’ve been.”

König sat down on the bench with a grunt, “I come from a small place overseas. It was in central Europe, in what was once a land called Austria. Not long before I was born, a horrible famine broke out near my settlement. It was mostly contained to one settlement, but then a group of merchants spread it to all the settlements around, including my own. It devastated the entire land. So, seeing as I’d just turned old enough to marry, my family took the chance to move overseas. It was a hard trip to get to the coast, but I think it made me like living in a wagon. In the end, even a long journey over the continent and a month-long ship where we nearly died of scurvy was better than starving in a shitshack back home.”

“I’m impressed you survived,” you mused.

“Most didn’t,” König agreed, “but myself and a few did. We decided on that ship that when we arrived, we would make a name for ourselves. That’s also where I met my first wives. My first wife was pregnant when we landed, and the second not long after that. To establish ourselves, we travelled south and took over this clan about… Oh, nearly two decades ago?”

“Is that why this clan became so strong in the past twenty years?” you asked.

“It was hard work, but we had a good trade route to develop off of. After my father took over we then made some good trade deals with some major settlements and, well, I think you know the rest,” König explained, “funnily enough, as we were travelling from my home to the coast, that’s when I became a raider. I started raiding with the other men and I fell in love with it. But those cities were different from the ones here. Hell, I can still remember the taste of the air in the lost cities back then. They were far worse than anything you’ll find over here,” his face fell, “far, far worse. Lost cities here are practically a walk in the park compared to those. It was in one of those lost cities back home that I got all these…” he gestured to his masked face and clothed body, “all these.”

You gently took his hand and squeezed it, “I’m glad you made it over.”

König leaned down to give you a swift kiss, “I’m glad I did too.”

You let yourself rest back in your seat. König adjusted the blanket around you before standing back and giving you a look.

“What?”

“Do you want to lay down and rest for a bit?” König asked.

You looked down at the blanket and then sighed, “Yeah.”

König grinned and swept you up in his arms before plopping you down in your bed. He happily climbed in after you and shut the door behind you.

He pulled you into his chest and held you in a tight hug before releasing you with a kiss on the forehead.

You laid on your side and held your stomach woefully, “I can’t get comfortable anymore.”

“Do you want to rest inbetween my legs?” König asked, already spreading his legs to make room for you.

You rolled into the space he made and rested your head down on his lap. You snuggled in close and closed your eyes as König wrapped the blankets over top of you. He easily made a little nest around the two of you and tucked you in tightly.

“König?” you muttered sleepily.

“Yes, my little wife?” he replied with a grin.

“I love you,” you said as you snuggled in closer.

König brushed your hair and hummed comfortably, “I love you too, mama.”

The rain pitter-pattered down onto the wagon as you sat outside with König. He adjusted the wood awning above you again and adjusted the reigns in his hand. In your arms, your newborn slept peacefully. You leaned into König’s side with a sigh.

“She’s so cute when she’s sleeping,” König mused as he looked down at you both.

“She’s always cute,” you fussed with her wool blanket, unable to stop the smile creeping across your face.

König sighed peacefully. The mountains of the north were finally coming into view in the distance. It wouldn’t be more than a couple of days before they entered the Sea Wolf settlement. You were already looking forward to sampling some of their renowned smoked salmon. You’d been wanting to try it ever since König had told you about it on your way down south to Miami. If you were lucky, there might even be some bread and yogurt to have it with when you arrived. König swore that it was perfect when you had something to go with it. You still had some crackers from the prairies that you’d been saving for the trip.

You took in a deep breath, the smell of fresh rain hitting the back of your throat. In the distance blue and purple clouds were hung up in the grey sky by wire hooks. From them fell a rain so light it might as well have been mist. The cool clung to you wherever you went when you travelled in these lands. You were already having to guide your wagon through the giant cedar forests, sometimes even going through a tunnel carved into a  tree. You marvelled at the world around you as you travelled.

“Maybe Klaus had the right idea,” you mused.

“What do you mean?” König asked.

“He went down to Miami for his new wife,” you yawned.

“You’re not telling me you want to give up on travelling already,” König scoffed.

“I mean, it’s nice here, isn’t it?” you asked.

“You’ve never experienced a winter here,” König pointed out as he guided the oxen around a steep hill, “it gets snow. Not much, but still snow.”

“We got a lot of that in the prairies when my old clan went south,” you said.

“But we get the best weather wherever we go if we stay on the road,” König slung an arm around you and tugged you in close to his side, “we go north in the summer and south in the winter. I heard people used to do that before the collapse.”

“Did they?”

“They called those people 'snowbirds’,” König pressed a kiss to your temple, “I’m just glad that wherever I go, I still have you.”

“If you didn’t, you’d be helpless,” you snorted.

“I managed just fine before you,” König rolled his eyes.

“Could you go back to that life after you’ve had me here?”

König hummed and slackened the reins, “Maybe not.”

“So then it’s a good thing I’m here.”

“It is a good thing,” König agreed.

Your bodies rocked with the motion of the cart rolling over the exposed stones along the forest floor. You glanced down at your daughter and sighed. She was still asleep.

“You can go and rest in the cart, you know,” König offered, “I’ve driven these roads alone for many years.”

“Would you prefer I left you alone?” you raised a knowing eyebrow.

“I wouldn’t prefer it,” König rubbed your shoulder, “I just know it’s cold and wet out here this time of year. I don’t want you or the baby catching a cold.”

“She has a name, you know.”

“I know,” König laughed, “I just… She’s my baby, ja? Just like you’re Mama.”

“Well, if Papa needs a break driving the cart, just let me know,” you kissed his chin through the mask.

“Are you going in then?” König asked.

“No, silly,” you nuzzled in close, “I’m just saying that I could do it if you needed a break. Anyways, it’s nicer out here.”

“In the cold and rain?” König snorted.

“With you,” you retorted.

He hummed and rubbed your shoulder comfortably.

The cart rolled along slowly and steadily. The rest of the convoy followed along, all patiently waiting to get to the next settlement. Little did anyone know that König couldn’t be more excited for the trip. He heard that the Sea Wolf settlement had made some recent developments over the past few months. Supposedly, another tradeline had been established with a far off colony in the east. As one of their preferred trading partners, KorTac would be getting first pick at their new wares. König looked forward to browsing through the new stock, grabbing some to trade and a few extra goods to spoil you rotten with. It had been years since the last route had collapsed under the weight of poor management. When it had been running, he’d been able to get his hands on rare carved statues and precious silk bedding. He wondered if those old paper fans had been brought back, or those giant clay pots. Those he liked the most. They were fantastic for storage.

König grinned to himself. He’d won in life. He found a good wife, he was a chief of a strong trading clan, and he had a wonderful family to call his own. He’d made a true name for himself in these lands, one to be honored throughout the ages. His heart swelled with joy.

Little did König know that right beside him, you were thinking much the same.

You’d spent years in the cruelest conditions known in the land. You’d stolen to survive and been shunned by your own clan. Back then, there was never a night that went by where your stomach didn’t ache from hunger pains. You were always struggling in one way or another.

But all that changed. Months ago, when König had stolen you away from your home, you’d figured that your life would be spent slaving away for an ungrateful man who only wanted food in his belly and a hole for his cock. 

You couldn’t have been more wrong. 

You’d been blessed to have a husband that truly loved to provide for you. He adored seeing you and your baby smile and laugh. He fought tirelessly to see to it that everyone he loved was well cared for, including you.

You’d been brought up to think that men were cruel, calloused, lazy. Men were creatures of greed and wrath in these lands. They were harbingers of suffering that thought only of their lusty desires and their lofty ambitions. Men were monsters, and that was that.

But not all men were monsters. 

Some men were kind and loving, helpful and honest and true. König was one such man. He was your gentle giant, your loving husband. He ensured that your every want was catered to. You never had to ask for much, as König provided what you desired before you could even think to ask him for it.

You smiled and held your baby close. You could finally say you lived a good life.

Konig Dump

Konig Alternate Universes

Full Version on KoFi HERE

[sillygoofyqueer]

Plz i beg not humbly this time more mad scientist wei wuxian i am in love with this au

I actually only respect people who humble themselves in my temples because I have no respect for those who know that they cannot do more than beg for me to look upon them and deign to hand them what they desire. However, I didn't post yesterday because I spent the whole day celebrating my bestie booboo bear's eve of birth (happy birthday @parkercore-69 you're a massive loser) so you get a free pass. Wei Wuxian is back in the Wens' grasp, Wen Qing is scolding him for being a fucking dumbass and Wen Chao is in trouble. His stupid incompetence led to Wei Wuxian - their greatest weapon against the other clans, their ingenious little puppet to make dance - being trapped with a fucking Lan for an extended period of time ("how long?" shhhssshhhhh), and almost died in the process! Luckily, he doesn't seem like he's had any mindblowing realisations that could imply that their conditioning has been fucked up by Lan Whatshisface, but Wen Chao is still in a lot of trouble because of it. Wang Lingjiao is in trouble as well for injuring the scientist, and. Uh. Let's just say that Wen Ruohan is a lot less lenient with his son's mistress (a servant) than his son. It is very safe to say that she is not going to Lotus Pier any time soon. Or at all. She's- she's dead.

Wen Chao is obviously not pleased that his favourite mistress is dead, and so his opinion on Wei Wuxian starts to change. After all, she wouldn't be dead if Wei Wuxian hadn't been injured by her, and he wouldn't have been injured by her if he hadn't jumped in front of the branding iron meant for that Jin girl of all people. So, it's Wei Wuxian's fault, and therefore he sucks. PLUS, he completely stole Wen Chao's kill and he can't even claim that he killed it because everyone loves Wei Wuxian and is so impressed by what he managed to accomplish totally by himself and not at all with help from anyone. This all coalesces in the decision that Wei Wuxian actually sucks and he hates him and he's praying for an experiment to kill him or something. Wei Wuxian does not care about this a singular bit even when he gets out of Wen Qing's grasp (even though he is NOT ready).

There is a big elephant in the room, however, and that is what the fuck do they do with the Nie heir that passed out before the excursion. They've been keeping the guy in his guest quarters at the wherever it was they held the indoctrination but like. What the fuck do they do with him. Wen Chao and Wen Xu are obviously like "oh em gee just kill him," Wen Xu mainly because he wants to be able to parade the dead body around to Nie Mingjue because I almost just wrote 'lovers to enemies' and I really have to question myself when these things happen so we're going to move along rather swiftly. Of course, instead of doing something so simple, Wen Ruohan is like "well our scientist is always in need of...volunteers." So Wen Zhuliu - who I've decided has been taken away from Wen Chao as a punishment; "you almost kill our scientist, you get your bodyguard taken away!" - goes and grabs Nie Huaisang to go into the experimenting room with only Wei Wuxian because Xue Yang is mocking Wen Chao.

Nie Huaisang knows that anyone who goes into Wei Wuxian's experimenting rooms do not come back out, so he is like really freaking out. He's expecting blood and organs and dead bodies and vessels of resentful energy, and there is all that and more, but there's also just Wei Wuxian who looks half delirious with fever and too focused on learning the dizi to look over at him when he's shoved into the room. Nie Huaisang is standing stock still and trying not to be looked at but also he can't just sit by and listen to these first attempts at flute playing with his delicate hearing that urges him to school the man who is probably going to kill him. He hesitantly tells the madman that he's holding the flute wrong for starters, and the next thing he knows he's teaching his executor the beginner's guide to learning such an instrument.

Wei Wuxian has been told that Nie Huaisang volunteered for this experimenting but it's very blatantly obvious from everything he knows about this man (and that's very little all things considered) that he did not volunteer for this. This, paired with what Lan Wangji was telling him in The Cave, is beginning to make him feel very suspicious (and a little disillusioned) of what the Wen have been teaching him through the years. Like, Nie Huaisang is definitely not a burly masculine man who forgets that women exist but he seems to be completely chill and comfortable within himself despite this. He's got the nice robes, the fans, the hair - he's treated well. He has not volunteered himself to be experimented upon. If he hasn't volunteered, then how many of the others hadn't volunteered? How much innocent blood rests upon his hands?

It's this strange lapse in assurance of his place in life mixed with the aggressive fever that in all honesty he should be in bed dealing with that leads him to turn to Nie Huaisang and be like "my doctor told Wen-zongzhu that I shouldn't be out of bed because I am extremely weak and delirious. It would sure be a shame if while my back is turned you happened to grab a blunt object and knock me out, then go through the next door to my other room and escape through the secret passage behind my bed that Xue Yang doesn't think I know about." Then he just gives the other boy a very expectant look as he grabs a thick book from a nearby pile and places it on the desk next to him before slowly turning around and continuing to try and play his dizi. Nie Huaisang is like "what the fuck is going on" but also does not question it and takes his chance to do as Wei Wuxian instructed to get out.

Wen Zhuliu is of course the one who finds Wei Wuxian because it goes strangely silent inside his rooms and the man, who is standing guard, gets suspicious and goes in to check on the situation. Wen Ruohan is fucking furious when he's told about what happened, but also Wen Qing did warn him...that doesn't mean he can't take some action, just in case this wasn't an accident. He's suspicious of the boy, who could just be acting delirious (he really isn't. He's watching the moon dance as we speak). So, he's like "well, you are ill and we should have listened to Wen Qing, but you did still let Nie Huaisang get away, and then talk about to me when I talked to you about it" (Wei Wuxian asked why this was a big deal if Nie Huaisang was a willing volunteer). It's safe to say that Wei Wuxian's back does meet a whip. Wen Qing is like "you shouldn't be doing this to him when he's got such a fever!!" and Wen Ruohan is obviously like "I don't care" and does it anyway.

Wei Ying is getting increasingly suspicious and worried about the implications of this.

[benjaminobrien493]

No Ordinary Boy - Chapter Eleven

WARNING: This chapter contains references to suicide. If this is something that you feel may upset and/or anger you, read on at your discretion.

I hope you understand I did not make the decision to include this lightly.

  The next morning was a struggle, to say the least.

  Natalie’s head was pounding, as she lay in Tommy’s arms. Images flashed through her head of the previous night… the doomcoming, talking about college, Tommy taking her on the cool, soft moss, over and over again…

  Her thighs were aching in the most wonderful way. Natalie smiled at first, then felt the smile slide off her face at the memory of her begging for Tommy to finish inside her.

  Could she be pregnant now? Shit. She might be.

  It’s about to be winter. How could I have been so reckless?

  Then more of Natalie’s memories filtered through her head. The shrooms. Of course.

  But how had they ended up in the soup? Could Mari have mistaken them for another type of mushroom?

  When they had first begun foraging for food, Tommy and Coach Scott had pointed out several types of mushroom within the forest that were safe to eat. But that had been what, four months ago now? Plenty of time for someone to make a mistake.

  I guess we should count ourselves lucky Mari didn’t accidentally kill us instead. Still, I need to watch myself. I could always ask Shauna for tips, just in case-

  And then at the thought of Shauna, Natalie finally remembered the third act of the previous night. Jackie locked in the downstairs closet, Lottie laughing like a madwoman, Travis imprisoned in the tree stump while Shauna drew a knife across his throat…

  Travis. At the thought of her hunting partner, Natalie finally began to move. Due to the shrooms, she hadn’t thought much of it at the time when he had run off after she and Tommy had saved him, but now… he could be hurt, he could even be dead if one of the girls had followed him and decided to finish the job…

  “Tommy.” She shook her boyfriend awake.

  “Mmmm?” Tommy blinked sleepily.

  “We have to go; we need to find Travis.”

  “Wha…” Tommy trailed off, then she saw his eyes clear as he remembered. “Oh. Oh my god, you’re right.”

  He rose out of their makeshift bed, clearly alert, though Natalie was sure he was feeling the after-effects of the shrooms as much as she was.

  My Tommy. Even now, Natalie couldn’t help but admire his strength, and she stepped forward to press a gentle kiss to his lips.

  “Could you…” she whispered. “Could you say it one more time?”

  Tommy smiled. “I will love you until the day I die, my darling.”

  “Likewise. My darling”, Natalie giggled, despite herself. Wherever she went, she knew Tommy would be with her, and she felt her own resolve grow as he kissed her again.

  000000000000000000000000

  Tommy walked with Natalie through the cabin, where Tai, Van and several of the other girls were stirring feebly on the floor.

  Probably a good idea to stay in the attic, Tommy thought, as he stepped past them. Who knows what might have happened if we’d crossed paths with them?

  He and Natalie quickly dressed back into their hunting clothes, and stepped outside, where they were surprised to see Ben cooking something on the fire.

  “You guys alright?” He asked them. “If you’re hungover, I boiled some water.”

  Better than nothing, I suppose, Tommy thought, as he and Natalie each took a cup. His head was pounding. Last night was the first time he had taken anything stronger than weed, and he was in no mood to try it again, despite last night’s sex with Natalie being far and away the best they’d ever had.

  I hope I didn’t get her pregnant. Please, God, don’t let me have gotten her pregnant. 

  It wasn’t as though he didn’t want to have kids with Natalie one day, but out here? No. No way in hell.

  They gingerly sipped at the boiling water. “So, uh…” Ben cleared his throat. “What exactly did you guys get up to last night?”

  Tommy instantly felt his face redden. “Not much”, he lied through his teeth. “Just... snuck off and watched the moon rise.”

  “Mm-hmm”, Natalie said, her face turning as red as his felt. “What about you?” She asked Ben.

  “Honestly… I’m not sure. I left the party, and I’m pretty sure I spent about six hours lying down, looking up at the sky before I fell asleep. Not sure what was in Mari’s wine, but-”

  “It wasn’t the wine, it was the soup”, Tommy interrupted. “Natalie reckons there were shrooms in there.”

  “What?” Ben asked, his mouth dropping open as Natalie nodded.

  “I’ve done them once before, last night felt just like it did last time.”

  “Oh, my god”, Ben held his face in his hands. “If that’s true, it’s a good thing Mari didn’t kill us by mistake. I think we’re going to have to re-do the lesson on which mushrooms are safe to eat.”

  “I agree”, Tommy said, as he finished drinking the water. “Do you know where Travis might be?”

  “I saw him go around the other side of the cabin”, Ben pointed, and Tommy and Natalie headed around the cabin to find their hunting partner, washing what looked like blood off his throat.

  Tommy winced. Shit. They should have followed him last night, instead of heading back to the cabin.

  “Hey, man”, he greeted Travis. “Are you okay?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  “What?” Natalie asked. “Don’t you remember what happened last night?”

  “I’m fine. No, actually, I’m better than fine. I finally got laid, so I’m fucking great.”

  Jackie. No wonder she was so upset. 

  “Travis, we saw them hold a knife to your throat”, Tommy said. “Nobody would be okay after that-”

  “I said I was fine, didn’t I?” Travis snapped. He set down the washcloth he was using. “I’m gonna go look for Javi.”

  “He’s not here?” Natalie asked, as Travis began to walk off. “Well, do you want any help?”

  “Nope!”

  Travis walked further away, and Tommy saw Natalie look at him.

  “We have to help him”, she said.

  “We will”, Tommy said, as they both set off after Travis. All three of them knew the woods around them better than anyone, and they checked all the hiding spots they could think of, without any luck.

  Poor Javi. Probably saw the girls screaming like banshees and bolted like a rabbit. But where on earth could he have gone?

  Tommy looked up to see Travis heading further away, but as he made to follow him, he began to feel the effects of last night bubble in his stomach.

  Uh oh. Tommy bent his head, and vomited out what looked like a large stream of grape juice onto the forest floor.

  Mari’s berry wine. I’m not in a hurry to be drinking that again, that’s for goddamn sure.

  “Are you okay?” Tommy heard Natalie say, as she soothingly rubbed his back and shoulders. “Maybe you should go back to the cabin, we can keep searching out here-”

  But Tommy wasn’t listening to her. He was too busy staring at the ground in horror. How on earth could he have missed the tracks?

  000000000000000000000000

  “Just leave the rifle, we might need it-” Natalie said.

  “You have no idea”, Tommy interrupted her, pointing at the ground he had just puked into.

  Natalie followed his finger, and felt her blood turn to ice as she saw the pawprints in the ground. She hadn’t actually seen this type before, but there was no mistaking them.

  Bear tracks. And they’re FRESH. 

  “It’s heading towards the cabin”, Tommy said, and Natalie felt even colder as she realised he was right.

  “Oh my god-”

  “Stay here”, Tommy said, sliding the rifle off his shoulder and setting off into the direction of the tracks.

  “W-what? What are you gonna do?”

  Tommy looked at her, and Natalie instantly realised his plan. “No. No, please. Tommy, no-”

  “We have no choice. Stay here.”

  “No!” Natalie screamed at him. “You and me. Remember?”

  Tommy looked at her like he was going to argue, then shook his head. “Okay. Just… be careful.”

  000000000000000000000000

  Van woke up groggily on the floor of the cabin, wrapped in Taissa’s arms.

  Uggghhhh…

  What the hell happened last night? She remembered feeling on top of the world, having amazing sex with Tai by the creek, then stumbling back here…

  Were we drunk? Guess that’s what we get for drinking berry wine none of us have any real clue how to make. 

  After shaking Taissa awake, the two of them dressed in their more casual clothes, then joined Coach Scott by the fire outside, where they gratefully accepted his hangover cure of boiling water.

  It wasn’t long before Misty came outside as well, though she stayed away from them as she sat on the porch, reading a book as she kept shooting glances at Coach Scott.

  Jesus, Van thought as she snorted. How does she not realise he’s gay? After four months in the wilderness without Coach Scott sneaking a single glance at any of the girls’ chests, it had become blindingly obvious to the rest of them, but Misty still seemed oblivious.

  She’s in for a nasty shock, that one. If she wasn’t so creepy, I’d almost feel sorry for her. 

  At the sound of footsteps, Van looked up to see Lottie, Shauna, Mari and Akilah creeping around the cabin’s corner, still in their doomcoming dresses.

  “Hey”, Coach Scott greeted them. “I boiled some drinking water, if you guys are as hungover as I am.”

  “Has anyone seen Jackie?” Shauna asked, as Van saw the team captain appear in the doorway.

  This isn’t gonna be good, Van thought, as images flashed through her head of them all locking Jackie in the closet.

  “I have nothing to say to you”, Jackie snapped. “To any of you. I mean… what the fuck?”

  “Yeah, like you’re so innocent”, Mari mumbled.

  “Hey! I’m not the one who went completely fucking insane last night.”

  “Right, no, you were too busy screwing Travis”, Van retorted. Though they had kept it from Tommy and Natalie, for their sake, it was well known amongst the rest of the girls that Jackie had been nursing a crush on Tommy the last few months.

  But Tom’s the most loyal boyfriend in the world, so she settled for Travis. Seriously, who does Jackie think she’s fooling? 

  “Look”, Coach Scott spoke up. “I’m sure that we all said and did some stuff that we regret last night on account of the shrooms.”

  The WHAT? Van thought. Oh, my god…

  “So, I think that the best thing for us to do is just…”

  “Wait, wait”, Shauna interrupted. “Shrooms?”

  “Okay, yeah. That makes sense”, Van rubbed at her face. But how on earth had-

  “Oh, shit”, Taissa said. “The broth?”

  Mari’s broth? Van turned her head to Mari, but the JV goalkeeper was looking right at Misty.

  Akilah was doing the same. “You drugged us?” She asked Misty, and the small, curly-headed girl looked as though she wanted to sink into the ground.

  “No, I didn’t”, she said, in a soft, quiet tone that wouldn't have fooled anyone. Then Misty got to her feet.

  “Okay, yeah, but… it was an accident. They were meant for Ben.”

  Not helping your case, Van thought.

  “Oh, my god”, Mari groaned. “Do you have any idea how crazy you are?”

  “They were my mushrooms”, Misty said. “And you stole them to put in your stupid soup. Besides, none of this would have even happened if he wouldn’t have tricked me into falling in love with him.”

  Van’s jaw dropped open. He did what?

  “Oh, Misty, would you-”

  “Wait, stop!” Lottie interrupted Coach Scott. “Do you hear that?”

  Hear what? Then something reached Van’s ears. Something that sounded… big…

  As Van leapt to her feet and turned around, her worst fears came true, and a fully-grown grizzly bear walked right into their campsite.

  Sweet Jesus, Van thought.

  “Oh, God. Oh, my God!” She screamed, as everybody headed for the porch. No wonder Tom wanted us to stay out of the woods. Look at the SIZE of him. 

  “Okay”, Coach Scott said. “Alright, everyone stay calm.”

  “How the fuck are we supposed to do that?!” Mari asked him.

  “Who- who has the gun? Where’s the gun?” Taissa asked, looking around.

  “Tommy. Tommy has it”, Coach Scott said.

  Oh, fuck. By the time he gets here, it’ll be too late, Van thought.

  Then Lottie quietly whispered “Shauna, the knife”, and Shauna passed her the hunting knife she was carrying.

  What the hell?

  “Lot, don’t”, Van called out, but Lottie marched determinedly towards the bear.

  Oh, God. That thing is going to rip her apart-

  But just as Lottie seemed one second away from becoming the bear’s next meal, the great big beast… knelt down in front of her.

  What the HELL? Van felt her mouth drop open.

  But just as Lottie raised the knife, a shot rang out, and Van saw the bear’s side explode in blood.

  000000000000000000000000

  Tommy knew he would have to get the bear from the side. He had never put down one of the great beasts before, and his instincts were telling him to run as fast as he could in the opposite direction. But he couldn’t leave the girls at its mercy. If it got into the campsite, there was no telling how many of them it may kill before it was satisfied.

  Then as he drew closer to the campsite, he saw the grizzly approach the cabin, the girls screaming in fear as they backed away.

  Tommy flanked the bear, heading around to the side as fast as he could.

  “Stay here”, he whispered to Natalie. She may have chosen to come back with him, but she would not be dying today, if he could help it.

  Then as Tommy came out of the bushes, he saw Lottie… approaching the bear, with a tiny little knife in her hand?

  What’s that mad girl doing now? Tommy groaned internally, as he opened fire. 

  His first shot hit the bear in the side, but Tommy knew he had missed its heart.

  Shit. The bear turned around to face him, standing on its hind legs, but Tommy had already fired again.

  The next two bullets took it in the throat. The bear reeled back, and Tommy advanced, putting the next three in its chest, where he knew its heart would be.

  The bear crashed to the ground. Tommy knew it was mortally wounded, but he was taking no chances, and he fired the seventh and final bullet right between its eyes.

  Tommy loaded the rifle with seven more rounds, just in case, and approached the fallen bear cautiously, poking it in the eye.

  It didn’t so much as budge, and he felt himself let out a sigh of relief.

  “Is everyone alright?” He asked the group, as Natalie emerged from the brush.

  Then as everyone started to breathe a bit more easily, he heard Natalie scream.

  “Behind you!”

  Tommy whipped around, expecting another bear, only to see Lottie advancing on him with the knife. Tommy’s survival instincts kicked in, and he smashed the butt of the rifle into Lottie’s face, knocking her onto the dirt.

  “Oh, my God!” He heard Van say, as Lottie clutched her nose, rolling around on the ground.

  “What the hell did you do that for?!” Natalie screamed at Lottie. “You could have killed him!”

  “That wasn’t what it wanted!” Lottie howled. She turned to look at Tommy, and despite the fact that she had just tried to kill him, he was alarmed to see the damage he had done to her nose.

  “You aren’t doing what it wants!” Lottie said to him, as blood streamed from her nostrils.

  “Doing what… what wants?” Tommy asked. But all Lottie did was glare at him, and Tommy’s gaze was drawn to the knife in her hand.

  “Please don’t tell me you thought that tiny little knife was going to do anything more to the grizzly than piss it off”, Tommy said, as Natalie moved to stand beside him. She put a comforting hand on his shoulder, and it was only now Tommy realised he was shaking, though whether it was from fear or anger, he couldn’t quite figure out.

  “That thing would have ripped you apart,” Tommy said to Lottie, “and don’t try pretending any different.”

  “You didn’t have to intervene”, Lottie insisted.

  “Jesus Christ, Lottie”, Tommy said. “Are you sure the shrooms have worn off?"

  000000000000000000000000

  Lottie went inside, most likely to sulk, and after almost two hours worth of skinning, gutting and slicing the bear apart, they sat down to eat the animal in silence, Natalie sitting next to Tommy, as both of them kept an eye on Lottie, and Misty as well.

  Coach Scott had quietly informed them that Misty, not Mari, was responsible for the shrooms ending up in the soup. As for Lottie… Natalie knew it would be a long time before she forgot the image of Lottie advancing on her boyfriend from behind, with a knife in her hand and murder in her eyes.

  If she hadn’t called out a warning when she did, Lottie would have stabbed Tommy in the back. The thought of killing anyone hadn’t crossed Natalie’s mind since the day her father died, but as she sat next to Tommy, eating in silence, Natalie knew that if Lottie Matthews had killed her boyfriend, she would not have hesitated to grab the rifle and empty it into the other girl.

  Did that make her dangerous? Probably. But Natalie knew she did not want to live in a world without Tommy in it, and it looked like they were officially sharing a cabin with not one, but two unhinged psychopaths.

  “We should say a prayer”, Lottie said quietly, and to Natalie’s surprise, some of the Yellowjackets bowed their heads. Tommy didn’t, of course, and neither did Coach Scott. Jackie and Van looked about uncertainly as well. But everyone else bowed their heads with Lottie.

  What the hell is wrong with all of you? Natalie wondered.

  “To the spirit of the bear, who sacrificed so that we could survive, we give our thanks.”

  “Thank you”, some of the girls whispered.

  “And to the ancient gods of the sky and the dirt, we give our thanks”, Lottie finished.

  To the… what? Natalie wondered. Maybe it’s a good thing Laura Lee isn’t here. I can almost hear her ears burning.

  “You didn’t say it”, Natalie heard Misty whisper, looking at them.

  “They didn’t say it!” Misty called out to the group.

  “We know you’re responsible for the shrooms, Misty”, Tommy said. “Tread lightly.”

  He spoke softly, but Natalie knew her boyfriend well enough to detect the rage beneath his calm appearance.

  Tommy’s words appeared to have given Jackie courage, because she suddenly spoke up.

  “Thank you, Tommy”, she began. “And no, we did not thank the dirt for bringing us a goddamned grizzly bear.”

  Jackie looked furious. “What is even happening right now? The fuck is wrong with you all? Misty poisoned us, then Lottie tried to murder Tommy for saving our lives, and now you’re all acting like it’s just water under the bridge?”

  “It’s fine, Jackie”, Taissa said. “You don’t have to-”

  “Oh, shut up, Tai”, Jackie scoffed. “Don’t pretend like you weren’t a part of it. What, we’re… we’re just not gonna talk about it? We just howl at the moon now and have fucking orgies?”

  “Wait, what?” Natalie asked. Travis hadn’t mentioned that.

  Then Natalie suddenly remembered Travis was still out there, looking for Javi. In the rush of Tommy killing the bear and almost dying at the hands of Lottie, she had completely forgotten about that.  

  “Yeah, that’s right”, Jackie said. “And somehow, we’re the ones that did something wrong.”

  “Jackie, calm down”, Shauna spoke.

  “Don’t tell me to calm down”, Jackie shouted.

  She put down her bowl and rose to her feet. “What were you gonna do to Travis last night, Shauna? I spoke to him this morning. He had a lot to say about you.”

  Shauna looked down, shame on her face.

  “Well? Answer me.”

  “I don’t know. I don’t… remember.”

  Bullshit.

  “Bullshit”, Jackie echoed Natalie’s thoughts. “He said you had a knife to his throat. If Nat and Tommy hadn’t come, you would have killed him-”

  “Just shut up!” Shauna yelled, standing up. “None of this would have happened if it wasn’t for you, if you hadn’t-”

  “Hadn’t what?” Jackie smirked. “Huh? Stolen him? Wow. The irony.”

  What? Natalie was confused. Did Shauna like Travis?

  Then Jackie explained, and Natalie felt her sense of horror grow.

  “Shauna was fucking Jeff behind my back, you know that?” Jackie announced to the group. “Yeah. That’s who’s really responsible for her little… bundle of joy.”

  “Oh, my God, Shauna”, Natalie said.

  “Thank you, Nat”, Jackie spoke up. Natalie wasn’t really sure why Jackie suddenly seemed to think of her as a friend, but she went on anyway.

  “How could you?” Jackie hissed at Shauna. “You were my best friend. You don’t even like him-”

  “And how would you know?!” Shauna suddenly exploded. The two of them descended into a screaming match, and Natalie stopped listening, as she closed her eyes and looked down. It was too much like home. Too much like her mom and dad-

  She felt Tommy’s hand in hers, and she opened her eyes to look at him staring at her in concern.

  It’s okay, he mouthed at her, as she squeezed his hand gratefully while Jackie and Shauna kept right on arguing.

  “You know what? That’s it. That’s it, get- get out”, Jackie yelled, pointing towards the door. “Go on, get out!”

  “No”, Shauna said, tiredly.

  “I can’t be around you. I can’t even fucking look at you right now!” Jackie screamed.

  “Well, that sounds like your problem. So maybe you should leave”, Shauna said. She sounded exhausted, and Natalie didn’t blame her. She felt sorry for Jackie, but hanging around her all the time would exhaust anybody.

  “Maybe you’d be better off”, Mari said to Jackie. “Since we’re all so crazy.”

  “Okay”, Coach Scott spoke up. “Everybody just stop. Nobody is going outside-”

  “Stay out of it, Coach”, Lottie said to him.

  “Or what?” Natalie asked her. “You gonna try to stab him, too?”

  A very tense silence followed her words. No matter how much they tried to sweep it under the rug, or dismiss it as Lottie just acting her usual, crazy self, there was no denying that she had crossed a line when she tried to stab Tommy, and Natalie made a mental note to keep Lottie away from the knives in the future.

  Then as Jackie looked around the cabin, she scoffed again.

  “You know what? Fine.”

  She grabbed her pillow and blankets, and stepped outside.

  “Jackie, come on”, Taissa called out. “Don’t go outside-”

  “Don’t pretend like this isn’t what you wanted the entire fucking time”, Jackie snapped, as she headed out the door.

  “I don’t even know who you are anymore”, she said to Shauna.

  “Or maybe you never did”, Shauna replied, and Jackie slammed the door, making Natalie jump.

  She didn’t want to be here. She wanted to get away from here, as fast as she could, where she didn’t have to worry about being drugged or stabbed by people she’d once thought were her friends.

  She stood up and strode out the door, and heard Tommy’s footsteps as he followed behind her.

  000000000000000000000000

  Van watched as Tommy and Natalie left. After the events of this morning… she didn’t know what to think. What Tommy had done, advancing on the bear as he put round after round into its body, knowing full well it would rip him to shreds if he failed to bring it down, had been the bravest thing she had ever seen anyone do.

  But before Tommy had emerged, the bear had laid down on the forest floor, right in front of Lottie, almost like it was offering itself up to the group to be eaten. Van had seen it. They all had seen it.

  On the other hand, Tommy was the expert when it came to hunting wild animals, and if he believed Lottie’s knife wouldn’t have been enough to kill the bear, Van was inclined to believe him over Lottie, who had grown up in the lap of luxury compared to the rest of them- certainly nowhere near the wilderness Tommy had spent years of his life hunting in.

  And then when Lottie had charged at him, brandishing the knife… in that moment, Van had never been more scared, not even when the grizzly presented itself to them.

  If Natalie hadn’t warned him… Van buried her head in her hands. She herself had frozen in that moment with shock at what Lottie was doing. Killing Tommy, the group’s main source of food in their time out here, would all but guarantee their deaths during winter, and yet Lottie had tried it anyway.

  I can’t freeze again. I don’t know if we’ll make it through winter… but I do know we’re not making it through if Tom dies. 

  000000000000000000000000

  Tommy walked with Natalie through the forest, looking for Travis and Javi. They had been searching for so long that night had started to fall, but still they kept looking.

  “What do you think?” Natalie asked him. “Should we try the north side again, or-”

  “Natalie”, Tommy spoke softly.

  “Yeah?”

  She turned to him, as the tears began brimming in his eyes.

  “I- I know we haven’t talked about it yet”, Tommy said. “But… when the bear went down, I thought ‘okay, that’s it, the scariest moment of my life is over now’.”

“Then…” Tommy swallowed hard. “I saw Lottie coming at me with the knife. I… I don’t think I will ever forget the look in her eyes. It was… absolutely, one hundred percent serious. I had just saved her life, and she was going to stab me-”

  “I saw it too”, Natalie whispered, and Tommy felt the fear rush in. He had spent the last few hours in a state of shock that Lottie had looked capable of murder in that moment, but now it seemed as though that shock was giving way to terror. 

  They were supposed to share the cabin with Lottie tonight, for God’s sake. Misty too. How the hell were they going to sleep, knowing that either one of them was likely capable of murder? Tommy remembered Misty bringing the axe down on Ben’s ruined leg, of Lottie smashing her own head into a window while babbling in French about an ‘it’ wanting blood. Clearly, neither was afraid to wreak havoc when they believed the occasion demanded it.

  Then Tommy felt Natalie’s arms go around him, as she buried her head in his chest.

  “I love you”, his girlfriend whispered. “I won’t let Lottie or Misty or anyone else lay a finger on you that you don’t want.”

  Tommy wrapped his arms around Natalie, and placed his head on top of hers.

  “I love you too”, he said. “I won’t let them harm you, either, and if they do, I’ll… I’ll…”

  Kill them. The words went unspoken, but Tommy knew Natalie understood.

  Could Tommy really do it? Did he have what it took to pull the trigger on a fellow human being? He had done the same to dozens, potentially hundreds of animals over the course of his life, but another human?

  Tommy felt Natalie’s hands cup his cheeks, her fingers stroking them softly as she looked at him. In that moment, gazing into her beautiful face, Tommy knew that he would not hesitate to kill Lottie, or Misty, or any of the others if they attempted to harm Natalie. But what did that make him?

  000000000000000000000000

  Natalie stepped forward, and softly pressed her lips to his. It felt like kissing a statue, but she persisted, and eventually Tommy opened his mouth up to hers.

  “We’ll get through this together”, she whispered. “Winter… the girls… anyone or anything that might do us harm, we face together… and make them sorry for ever thinking they stood a chance.”

  She smiled at him, and Tommy smiled back as he kissed her again.

  It would be okay. As long as they had each other, they would survive.

  “Oh, by the way”, Natalie mumbled as she pulled away from his lips. “Obviously we don’t know if I’m pregnant from last night just yet, but… we need to be more careful. What we did… it can’t happen again. Not while we’re out here.”

  “I understand.”

  Natalie looked deeply into his eyes.

  “One day”, she said, softly. “One day I want to have your kids, I promise. Just… not right now.”

  “I can live with that”, Tommy whispered, as he bent his head to kiss her again.

  They kept looking for Travis and Javi, but after it got even darker, they heard wolves howling in the distance, and took it as their cue to head back.

  As they walked up to the cabin, Natalie was surprised to see Jackie sitting outside.

  She’s still out here? 

  They had passed her on their way out to the woods, struggling to light a fire, and now there was indeed a small flame going. If Jackie’s attitude hadn’t repeatedly pissed Natalie off over the previous four months, she would have been impressed that Jackie finally seemed to have learned something to help her survive.

  “Jackie, what are you doing out here?” Tommy asked.

  “I can’t go back in there”, Jackie said, continuing to stare into her tiny flame. She sounded so flat and defeated, just so small, it was hard to identify her as the same girl who had led the Yellowjackets to victory in the all-state championship.

  “Jackie, this is stupid”, Natalie said. “It’s getting colder. If you stay out here, you might freeze to death. Come on.”

  She held out her hand, but Jackie didn’t move a muscle.

  “I’m fine, Nat. You go ahead.”

  Natalie looked at Tommy. What they were supposed to do, drag Jackie inside?

  “Jackie, will you please come inside? It’s not safe out here”, Tommy said.

  “Thanks, Tommy, but… I’m okay out here, for now.”

  “Then at least let us make the fire a bit bigger”, Tommy said softly. “You can come in when you’re ready, okay?”

  There was a pause, then Jackie nodded mutely.

  “Okay”, Tommy said. He and Natalie spent the next few minutes gathering branches and kindling, building the flames up until, a few minutes later, Jackie had a steady fire going. But she still hadn’t moved, continuing to stare ahead blankly.

  “Jackie?”

  “I said I’m fine, Nat.”

  “Look”, Tommy began. “Just… don’t fall asleep. Alright? Come in when you’re ready.”

  “Okay”, Jackie said, in the same tired voice.

  Tommy nodded, but Natalie wasn’t convinced this was enough.

  “Jackie, please come inside, it isn’t safe-”

  “I said I’m fine, Nat!” Jackie suddenly snapped, and Natalie moved back.

  Jesus, Natalie thought, shaking her head as she followed Tommy inside the cabin, towards the attic. Taissa and Shauna were staying up there, but neither of them said anything.

  She’ll come in when she’s ready, Natalie told herself, but as she changed into her pyjamas and lay down in Tommy’s arms, she couldn’t shake the feeling that after four months in the wilderness, Jackie Taylor had finally given up.

  000000000000000000000000

  The early hours of daylight made their way into Tommy’s eyes, and he turned his head away from them, snuggling deeper into Natalie.

  Brrr. The attic was a lot colder than he remembered it being the previous morning.

  We have meat for today, he reminded himself. We can postpone the hunt, at least for now. Good thing too, I don’t know why it’s so cold-

  Then Tommy’s eyes snapped open as he realised what had happened. He looked to the attic’s window, hoping he was wrong, but there was no mistaking the snow on the windowsill.

  Winter. How could it be here already? He rose out of bed and walked over to the window. It should have been another couple of weeks at least, how could this be happening-

  Then Tommy saw the figure laying down in front of the now-burned-out campfire.

  “Jackie”, he breathed. “No!”

  His shout woke the girls in the attic.

  “Tommy?” Natalie groaned at him. “What’s going on-”

  “It snowed last night”, he interrupted her, beginning to pull on his shoes. “Jackie’s still out there.”

  “She’s what?!” Shauna screamed at him, throwing aside her own bedcovers.

  Oh, God, Tommy thought, scrambling down the ladder and charging out the door, stepping on several sleeping girls in the process.

  “Ow!”

  “What the hell?!”

  “Oh, my God. It snowed?”

  Tommy ran over to Jackie, frantically brushing the snow away from her face, which showed none of its usual colour.

  No. Don’t be dead. PLEASE don’t be dead. Why didn’t you come inside, you stupid girl-

  Then Jackie feebly flicked his hands away from her face.

  “What are you doing?” She whispered.

   Tommy was gobsmacked. Jackie was still alive? But as he was about to sigh in relief, he noticed Jackie’s fingers were bright white, while her fingernails were blue as the sky above them.

  They were hard to the touch, and Tommy realised what had happened. Frostbite. No, please no. 

  Then Tommy noticed for the first time that the edge of Jackie’s nose was waxy and white, with a slight bluish twinge.

  “Oh no”, he whispered, as he felt the tears coming to his eyes.

  He scooped Jackie up, ignoring her protests, and carried her inside.

  “We need to light a fire, and boil some water! Get all the spare blankets we have!” He called out, as he lay Jackie down, removing her shoes and socks.

  “Tommy, no. Don’t-”

  But Tommy had already seen. From the tips of her toes to halfway down her feet, Jackie’s skin was white as the snow outside, and her toenails were an even darker blue than her fingernails had been.

  000000000000000000000000

  “We need to get her clothes off. This isn’t the time for modesty, I’m afraid.”

  “We’ll do it”, Natalie stepped in, blinking the tears out of her eyes.

  Why? Why did she have to stay outside? We should have dragged her in, kicking and screaming- 

  Natalie swiped at her eyes, and helped the others remove Jackie’s clothes.

  “No, don’t. Stop it-”

  “You heard him, Jackie, this isn’t the time”, Natalie snapped.

  “Please, stop it-”

  They removed Jackie’s clothes, covering her in all the blankets they could spare.

  “I can’t feel my fingers. Or my toes. I can’t… I can’t really smell anything, either.”

  “You have frostbite”, Taissa said to her. “Don’t worry. We’re gonna fix you up.”

  She smiled at Jackie reassuringly, but the team captain didn’t smile back.

  “You should have let me freeze”, she said flatly. Her tone was quiet, but everyone in the room stared at her in shock.

  “W-what?” Natalie gaped at her. Had Jackie been… had she really been staying outside so that she could…

  Now Jackie turned her head towards Natalie.

  “You shouldn’t have made the fire bigger”, she said, in the same eerily calm tone of voice.

  Then she laid her head down on the floor, and did not speak again.

  000000000000000000000000

  “Can we talk?”

  Tommy turned to look at Ben.

  “Uh… okay?” He followed his brother into his room.

  “What is it? Are we doing something wrong?”

  “Not exactly”, Ben said. He winced, but Tommy was confused.

  They had wrapped Jackie in all the spare blankets, parked her in front of the fire, and placed her white, hardened hands and feet in bowls of the boiled water. Tommy was sure they were following the correct procedures, though he wasn’t certain what to do about Jackie’s nose-

  “She’s going to die”, Ben said.

  Tommy stared at him. “What? N-no.”

  “She is. Unless of course, we amputate her hands and feet, and nose as well, but we don’t have any bone saws, nor do we have the resources to keep her from bleeding out.”

  Ben looked at him, grimly. “I’m sorry, but… she’s too far gone. You saw her skin. That’s third-degree frostbite, no question about it. At that stage of it, way out here… she’ll be lucky to make it to next week before the gangrene stops her heart.”

  “No”, Tommy whispered, felling the tears beginning to slide down his cheeks.

  “We tried to tell her to come inside. Why didn’t she listen-”

  Ben put his arms around Tommy as he started to cry into his big brother’s shoulder.

  What do we do? What the ever-loving fuck do we do?

  000000000000000000000000

  Natalie stared at Tommy in shock as he told her what was going to happen to Jackie. She didn’t want to believe him, but she saw the seriousness in his reddened eyes.

  Oh, dear God, she thought, as she felt his arms go around her. We didn’t save her life with the fire. We postponed her death.

  It was horrible to even consider, but maybe they should have just left Jackie alone, without bothering to make her fire any bigger. At least then she might have died quietly in her sleep, instead of staying warm just enough to survive the night while catching frostbite that, according to Tommy, would only kill her slowly without the proper medical treatment.

  “M-maybe we could amputate her fingers and toes?” She said, hopefully.

  “With what?” Tommy asked. “None of the knives we have are strong enough to saw through bone.”

  “Maybe an axe, then? If we heat it up in the fire, we can-”

  But just as the words left Natalie’s mouth, she realised how stupid they sounded. They weren’t in a hospital. None of them were doctors. They were a bunch of frightened teenagers and a crippled twenty-four-year-old soccer coach, stranded in the Canadian wilderness, which had just entered winter.

  In that moment, Natalie knew that any attempt from their inexperienced hands at removing Jackie’s dying fingers and toes would more than likely cause her to die from blood loss, if she didn’t go into shock first.

  She’s going to die. And there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it. 

  000000000000000000000000

  Jackie hadn’t moved since they placed her hands and feet in the bowls of hot water, and she hadn’t said a word since telling everyone that they should have let her die.

  As night fell, the others curled up asleep around them, and Tommy and Natalie tried to swap out the bowls of cooling water Jackie’s hands and feet were in with some more of the freshly-boiled stuff.

  “No”, Jackie said, still staring into the fire as she lay on the floor.

  “Jackie, please”, Tommy whispered, “You need this to get better-”

  “I’m not getting better.” The corners of Jackie’s mouth twitched, and it looked to Tommy as though she was almost smiling.

  “You think I don’t know what frostbite does to people if they don’t get proper treatment?”

  “You… y-you-”

  “It’s frostbite, Tommy. I’m not stupid.”

  “I-I’m sorry-”

  “It’s okay”, Jackie said. “I was never going to make it out here, no matter how hard anyone tried to help me. I’m just… not built for this.”

  She turned her head to look at Natalie. “Nat, I have… I need something from you.”

  “Uh… ok?”

  “Can Tommy hold me? I’m not going to try anything, I promise, I just… want him to hold me. Please?”

  Tommy saw Natalie hesitate. He knew how protective she was of him; how vindictive she could be if any of the girls dared to make a move on him.

  Then he watched as Natalie swallowed, and nodded.

  “I’m going to go to bed”, she whispered to him. “Come up when you’re done, alright?”

  “Alright”, Tommy whispered back, as Natalie put a hand on his chest and kissed him, deep and slow, before heading up the ladder that led to the attic.

  “She really loves you”, Jackie said.

  “And I really love her, so if you do try anything, I’m leaving you on the floor and joining her.”

  “Deal.”

  Tommy slowly sat on the floor, and gently began to pick Jackie up. As he folded the blankets around the both of them, he was relieved to find that Jackie had been redressed in warm, dry clothes, as she placed her head on his chest.

  “You have a strong heart”, she murmured.

  “Thanks. Nat thinks so too.”

  “Yeah, I bet she does.”

  They were silent for a minute, before Jackie started to speak.

  “I’m sorry, Tommy. I never… I never knew just how good you are at what you do, before we came here. If I did… I wouldn’t have looked twice at Jeff, I promise.”

  She chuckled at the surprised look on Tommy’s face. “Maybe Shauna would have slept with you instead then, huh?”

  “I would have said no." 

  “I believe you. I honestly believe you. You… you are nothing like any of the guys we’ve gone out with before. No wonder… no wonder Nat loves you. And you… you love her so much. I doubt I would have known that kind of love even if we’d never ended up here.”

  Then Jackie cleared her throat, and he saw her smile leave her face. “I’m so sorry. For… the way I’ve acted all this time. It’s just… I’m scared, Tommy. I’m so, so scared.”

  “I understand. I’m scared too. But we can’t give up. We can get through…”

  Tommy trailed off as he saw Jackie turn her head to look at him.

  Oh. Right. There was no we, here. In her condition, Jackie would be dead long before winter ended.

  Tommy wasn’t sure what to say.

  “Jackie, I’m… I’m so sorry this is happening to you. We should have done more for you. We should have brought you inside-”

  “Don’t be sorry. I wanted to die.”

  She said it so calmly, so casually, Tommy could almost pretend that he had misheard her. Almost.

  “What?”

  Jackie shrugged, and her mouth curled slightly upwards.

  “We’re never gonna see home again. This is all there is for us. I wanted out, so… I chose dying in my sleep over going through winter out here. And if you and Nat hadn’t tried to help, that’s exactly what would have happened.”

  “But now…” Jackie trailed off. “Maybe there’s something you can do to… help me along, so to speak.”

  “Uh… what?”

  Then Jackie gestured with her eyes, and Tommy saw she was looking down at the hunting knife on his belt.

  “No. Jackie, no. That’s not going to happen-”

  “You think I don’t know this is going to get worse?” Jackie hissed, holding one of her hands out to Tommy.

  He winced. Despite soaking them in hot water all day, her fingers hadn’t lost their pale, waxy sheen, and her fingernails were still sky-blue.

  “There’s no helping me, Tommy. There’s only… ending it. Please.”

  “No”, Tommy said, disentangling himself from her.

  “Please.”

  But Tommy ignored Jackie’s pleading, and marched straight up the ladder into the attic, where Natalie waited for him.

  000000000000000000000000

  “Did she try anything?” Natalie grinned at Tommy teasingly as he lay down next to her.

  “She wanted me to…” Tommy motioned towards his chest, holding an invisible knife.

  Natalie’s eyes widened. “Did you...”

  “No. No, I left her and came straight up here.”

  “Oh”, Natalie said. A part of her was relieved, but the other part…

  “So… what do we do with her?” She asked him.

  “I… I don’t know. Make her comfortable, I guess, until… until…”

  She dies. So, that was it. There was no hope for Jackie Taylor. It was only a matter of time before she passed on, and their group dropped down to eighteen people. Seventeen, if you didn’t include Javi, and after seeing what a single night in the cold had done to Jackie, neither Natalie nor Tommy were optimistic about his chances, though they didn’t mention this to Travis.

  It took a long time for sleep to come for Natalie that night, and the second morning of winter did not bring good tidings. A blizzard sprung up, trapping them all inside, and for the first time since arriving at the cabin, Natalie and Tommy did not venture outside of it.

  They had to resort to using one of the cabin’s buckets as a toilet, and at the end of the day, after drawing straws, Travis ‘volunteered’ to go outside and dispose of their waste. Natalie had wondered if he’d seen Jackie out in the cold on his way back from searching for Javi. When asked, he claimed that he had come in using the cabin’s back door, and hadn’t seen her, but he looked away from Natalie when he said it, and she suspected he was lying.

  If he was, she couldn’t blame him for feeling guilty, not with Jackie in her current state. Lying on the floor the whole day through, the Yellowjackets’ captain didn’t move a muscle, didn’t eat a thing, and didn’t say a word. When they checked her fingers, Natalie recoiled as she saw they had only become even more pale and stiff, and her fingernails, toenails, and nose had become a much, much darker shade of blue. They even smelled different now. They smelled like… well, like death, Natalie supposed.

  Natalie saw Tommy wince as he gazed at Jackie, and Natalie knew he was feeling the same guilt as her, though she tried to tell herself that nobody but Jackie was to blame. She had wanted to die, and Natalie wasn’t sure what would happen if she tried to make another attempt.

  000000000000000000000000

  Tommy knew he would likely not recover from this. He knew that there would be those amongst the group that would not understand, and hate him for doing it. But as he saw Jackie lying on the cabin’s floor, looking utterly defeated and at death’s door, he began to reconsider what she had asked of him.

  Should he tell Natalie? He didn’t want to, but… he felt like she would understand.

  Please, please let her understand. 

  How different could it be, really? Tommy had killed so many animals over the years, he was sure the difference would be… marginal, at best.

  Except it isn’t. Because you’re talking about murder.

  It isn’t murder, it’s mercy!

  Tommy wrestled with his thoughts. He needed to talk to Natalie, so he motioned her over, and they shut themselves in Ben’s room.

  “I know I said I wasn’t gonna do it, but…” Tommy motioned towards the other room. “Jackie’s not going to get better.”

  That was all he said, and he saw Natalie’s eyes widen, then narrow in sadness.

  “Are you sure? Are you really, truly sure there is no other way?”

  “I am. I wish there was another way, but… there just isn’t.”

  Tommy paused. “She’s going to die, regardless. At least this way… she won’t have to go through days, maybe weeks of suffering.”

  He was trying to convince himself more than Natalie at this point, but as he saw the tears gather in her eyes, he also saw her nod.

  “Okay”, she whispered, as the tears began to fall down her cheeks. “When… when will you do it?”

  “Tonight. After everyone has gone to bed.”

  “Do… do you want me there with you?”

  “No”, Tommy said, firmly. This terrible, murderous act he was considering would not be witnessed by anyone but himself.

  As they left the room, Tommy saw Shauna sitting next to Jackie, trying to convince her to eat something. Jackie didn’t so much as twitch, and Tommy immediately felt an immeasurable sadness.

  They had no idea. No idea at all that this would be the last day they spent together.

  000000000000000000000000

  When Natalie lay down with Tommy that night, she could feel him shaking, and she snuggled further into him. She had been quietly relieved when he said she didn’t have to accompany him, but she did not envy him for what he was about to do.

  The idea of killing someone, even out of mercy, repulsed her, but Natalie remembered the sight of Jackie’s pale, dead skin and darkening nails, and felt her heart harden.

  It had to be done. The thought didn’t make things any easier, but… there was no other way. Natalie hoped the others would be able to accept that.

  At some point during the night, Tommy disentangled himself from her arms, quietly dressed, and left the attic.

  Please make it quick, Natalie thought, as she felt a tear sliding down her cheek.

  000000000000000000000000

  Tommy slowly approached the sleeping Jackie, gripping the knife. His entire body was trembling.

  I need to be strong. I need to be ruthless. I need to be… merciful.

  He gently shook Jackie awake. She blinked up in annoyance at him, but as she saw the knife, he saw her eyes widen, before she nodded.

  Jackie rose into a sitting position, and Tommy knelt beside her. He was still shaking hard, and he felt like he was going to be sick.

  “I…”

  “Please, Tommy. Please”, she whispered.

  He put one hand on Jackie’s shoulder, and heard her let out a sigh of what seemed like relief as his other hand slid the knife between her ribs.

  000000000000000000000000

  As Natalie awoke, shivering, she realised Tommy was not next to her, and she instantly knew where he would be. She dressed slowly, hoping to stall for time, but eventually she quietly clambered down the ladder, to where Tommy was sitting, cradling Jackie in his arms. She looked like she could be sleeping, but Natalie saw the dark stain on her shirt, right where she knew Jackie’s heart would be.

  So, that was it, then. Jackie Taylor, the captain of the Yellowjackets’ Girls varsity soccer team, was dead.

  As Natalie sat next to Tommy, she held out one of her hands, and he took it. Natalie wasn’t sure where things would go from here, but she knew she would not leave Tommy’s side.

  “You and me”, she whispered, and Tommy nodded, the tears staining his face as she squeezed his hand.

  They stayed there in silence for a moment, before Natalie saw Tommy’s eyes widen. 

  “What are you guys doing?”

  Natalie jumped. She hadn’t heard Shauna approaching behind her. 

  No. God, please no. Not Shauna. Don’t let Shauna be the one to find out about- 

  “Jackie?” Shauna croaked, right before she started to scream.

And that's the end of season one. It has been an adventure getting here, but I am truly grateful if you have decided to read through the whole thing.

Season Two coming soon.

Vale, Jackie Taylor. Rest in peace.

[mii-ruby]

Yona started out as person who we can relate to and she was growing. But in the end she evolved into someone no different then what we call "femme fatale" hidden under the guise of strong female lead with sword and bow who barely knows basic defense.

Whatever helps you sleep at night I guess🤷‍♀️

Isn't that what yona did to zeno. Deciding what's best for him? But its justifiable for her to decide for him because he is ending his life. Wouldn't dragons say the same if yona tried to end her life.

Rather than deciding for him, Yona was ensuring Zeno actually had more options. She doesn't want pain to be the only thing factoring into his decision. If after becoming mortal he still wished to die, it would at least be a clear and unclouded choice. Listening to a friend in despair and refusing to assist them in self destruction isn’t patronizing, it’s protecting them until they are in a better place to make a better judgement. How is that remotely similar to what the gods did?

I'm sorry...since when had yona or hiyruu ever been abused? Its the poor dragon warriors who suffered directly and then the people of the nation indirectly. please.. Yona had comfort even in clothes of dragons. Se was literally laid on field of flowers as her eternal prison. Its not like she got sex trafficked or forced to starve or work as a child for minimum wage.

Right because if she didn't starve or get sex trafficked, it couldn’t possibly count as abuse. Silly me for thinking that threats, manipulation and isolation could possibly matter. Nothing screams love and safety like a well decorated prison. Abuse but make it 💫aesthetic💫

Is she not aware of the influence she has on them? She could literally use it to get them to do what she wants. They will do anything to keep her. She has cards in her hand.

And this is what she tried to do? She tried to appeal to their love for Hiryuu by dressing her request as the "prayer Hiryuu has been carrying for 2000 years"

But guess what? They broke their promise and tried to kill the dragons, yet you still want her to trust them😂?

An interesting point here; what was earth like before all this dragon descending shebang happened on earth? Its not like earth was unstable. And hiryuu's impact was in kouka. Other kingdoms are surviving just fine without him. I think disappearance or departure of hiryuu will put earth in its default state. Perhaps, hiryuu is the one who disrupted the natural order.

Nothing suggests that there were a lot of natural disasters before Hiryuu came, just wars, that's why this bit about the "devine protection" is unclear to me. The neighbouring countries never needed it and are surviving just fine. I hope Kusanagi will explain it a bit more.

She never had ties to begin with. As short as the connection between yona and gods have been, Its like her connection with them is just a bonus item she got on a side quest here. I don't really think she earned it or she has their trust for her to go back again and again and demand her demands.

????? She is the reincarnation of the Crimson dragon and her blood reacts to the chalice. She doesn't need to "earn" going back there lmao

yeah she did. She was literally presented with a scenario that the world will engulf in chaos if she chooses to be with her beloveds. And lo behold, she did not even rested or thought about the calamity that could possibly be unleashed on earth in exchange for her desire to be with her loved ones. The problem here is if this was a farce, she didn't even call out on it. Yona is having classic trolley problems. the only difference is that She doesn't hesitate to pull the trigger when Hak is on stake.

I have already addressed this point in my original post. If it bothers you so much then so should Soowon's actions in chapter 269. He purposely stabbed Hiryuu's corpse, the source of the country's divine protection in order to distract the gods and buy time for his friends. He acknowledges that his actions could put the country in an even greater danger, and that it won't allow him to defeat the gods, but merely to buy enough time to save his friends. So Soowon is basically putting Yona and Hak's lives above the citizens of Kouka. What do you think of that?

Also, she can no back to heaven thanks to chalice? How convenient?

Oh "convenient" is it? Fascinating choice of word, because clearly, the chalice defies all logic only when Yona uses it. Never mind that Zeno entered it twice without anyone batting an eye. The moment Yona does, it’s a plot hole the size of Kouka itself.

And since we’re here questioning "convenience" shall we take a moment to marvel at Soowon’s teleporting abilities? The man was deep inside Kai territory in chapter 256, and somehow materialized in Kuuto on the same day as Hak and yona, who, mind you, were already within Kouka’s borders two chapters earlier. How did he manage to? By divine chariot? Secret warp gate? Maybe his royal ambition unlocked ultraspeed? Never mind that he’s dragging an entire army with him, let’s spill ink over the chalice logistics and not, you know, the actual teleporting army. Priorities.

You are really pushing hard to see a bright side here. Isn't it better to state the fact that it is.

Not really when you're trying so hard to dissect her every action in a negative light to paint her as a terrible person

You're saying self sacrifice and selflessness is not a strength? Boy... Do many rulers lack for their people these days. the democracy has left us in shambles.

Except you're asking this of a 16 years old girl who's no ruler. And I'm well aware that Soowon's words are gospel to his fans, but maybe, just maybe you shouldn't shove the crown onto her when she hasn't so much as whispered a word of consent, hum?

yona as an mc isnt doing either of the options. Se hasn't self sacrifice, hasn't been exactly selfless and evidently hasn't actually crawled through mud. All we have seen is been desperate and cry or glare her aura max.

Clearly Yona hasn't been trying to to turn the situation around for the past 8 chapters. She’s merely been lounging by the red sea, sipping floral tea and petting squirrels. The dream life hum?

Honestly, I find this so amusing. If Yona struggles and doesn't achieve victory quickly then she's incompetent and useless, but if she does it's deemed unrealistic and poor writing. Whatever happens she can never escape criticism🤷‍♀️

Yona did nothing wrong (chapter 267)

Given that we're getting the next chapter soon, I wanted to comment on this matter a last time. Akatsuki no Yona is not a fatalistic story. It showed us that things could be changed to the better through hard work. That's why, this story will never promote the idea that one should surrender to their abusers and accept their fate for the greater good. Because yes, the dragon gods are abusers: they're akin to the toxic controlling partner (or parent) who gaslights you and claims to know what's better for you, who claims their unreasonable behaviour is justified in the name of love, that it is your fault for not appreciating it, and that everything bad that happens, will be because you didn't listen to them.

Neither Yona nor Hiryuu are selfish, foolish or evil for seeking to escape a toxic environment. It is never the victim's fault for rejecting their abuser. And whatever natural disasters befall the innocent people in Kouka will be because the gods chose to unlish destruction with their own hands, not because Yona refused to yield to their suffocating love and oppression.

In fact, Yona's defiance isn't only morally justified, but also logically sound for several reasons:

1- the gods have proven themselves to be untrustworthy, by attempting to kill the very people they promised to turn human and send back to earth, leading to their current descent to madness from repetitive contract breaking. If Yona had trusted them and they later went back on their word, she'd be called dumb and naïve instead.

2- The contracts they're imposing are one sided and self serving. A contract should allow both parties to put their own terms and conditions, yet Yona is denied this right. They're desperate to regain their strength, and once that happens nothing will stop them from breaking a contract or two. Ooryuu confirms that they'll keep imposing increasingly absurd conditions, but Yona is expected to comply with these absurdities?

3- The gods had already started withdrawing their "devine protection" the moment Yona entered the chalice. They were already planning to abandon humanity all together. Their protection of humans so far was only linked to Yona's well-being, that's why, if anything, Yona returning to earth would actually coerce them into maintaining their devine protection out of fear for her safety.

4- by returning to earth, Yona isn't severing all ties with the gods. She can go back to heaven and negotiate a contract whenever she wants thanks to the chalice and a drop of her own blood. Far from "abandoning" her people to certain death, she's giving herself the opportunity to assess the situation firsthand. Is this "devine protection" really necessary? Would its absence really affect the country in an irreversible way? Can't the people actually work through this crisis hand in hand and overcome it? After all, nothing guarantees the images shown by the gods are real, or much absolute. Yona has already defied fate: saving Hak from Zeno's attack, and seeking out the dragon worriers to prevent his death, proving that nothing is set in stone, and that you can change the future through analysing the current situation to decide on the best course of action

5- Kouka isn't facing "immediate" destruction. The sun didn't disappear, it merely got veiled by clouds, much like in winter. People are able to walk down the streets without using torches or candles. While Photosynthesis may decrease, crops will not wither overnight. Kouka also ought to have its own food reserves for similar crises. It also now posses several vassal states that could help providing food and housing for the most affected areas.  This leaves enough time to evaluate the situation and decide on the best conduct to adopt

6- The fundamental problem remains that the gods are apathetic to humans. They're unable to relate to them, and often minimise their suffering. Yona's return to heavens won't be more than a fleeting remedy to a lasting problem. As the protagonist of the story and Hiryuu's reincarnation, Yona ought to treat the problem at its root and find a way to bridge the gap between gods and humans, eventually making a contract that cannot be broken. Can this be achieved through surrendering yourself to vicious fickle beings? What was Akatsuki no Yona about all along? Was it a story praising self sacrifice and martyrdom as the absolute form of strength, selflessness and generosity? Or was it a story about struggling through the mud, relying on your actions, efforts and choices to shape your outcome? About challenging injustice, resisting fate and finding alternative paths? Which of these best describe Yona's actions in this chapter? Think about it, and find your answer.

[wormsdyke]

car seat headrest concert footage is fun to watch because there will be several minutes of just wordless wailing and guitar distortion and the audience will be a pretty even split of people losing their absolute shit to it and people who are clearly you know. they’ve heard music before and they’re not entirely sure that’s what’s happening right now

[vinyls-and-valentines]

I hate how hard it is to come up with character names because how am I supposed to make character playlists that make me even more insane about my own OCs WITHOUT BEING ABLE TO PUT THEIR GOTDAMN NAMES IN THE PLAYLIST TITLE??!

[spineless-lobster]

if one more person asks me about college applications i’m going to burst into tears and rip their face off with my bare hands

[tellmegoodbye]

I've had some time to collect my thoughts after a couple of days so here they are even though nobody asked.

I really loved the finale. It was devestating, no doubt, but I think this is their best one yet and I absolutely loved how they handled it. There was so much grieving in this episode, not just from Carlos, but from Owen and Judd as well. But despite everything they chose happiness and the wedding ending up being beautiful and bittersweet and joyful all at once.

There has been the question of deleted scenes but there's really only one we've seen so far that I would have loved to see in the episode. Other than that, I'm just glad we get to have them all as extras. I don't think the wedding needed them though.

Another thing I'd like to add is that yes, sometimes storylines can feel rushed in shows where you have a lot of characters and especially if there are clear favorites within a fandom. There was a lot going on, but that doesn't necessarily mean any one character's storyline is less valuable than another's. I guess I'm speaking as less of a fandom member and just more as an enjoyer of the show if that makes any sense. I love all of the characters in this show, and while I would be lying if I said I liked every single storyline, that doesn't mean I wish they didn't happen. In this case, however, I loved all of the storylines and I think they all made sense together given the theme of this episode. I personally don't think any of them shouldn't have been there in favor of getting more wedding content.

Honestly, my only regret is not getting off of tumblr as soon as the final bts stuff started coming out. I'm pretty bad when it comes to guessing things so if I hadn't been aware of the theories I literally would have had no idea and it would have hit me so much harder. It still got me pretty good though.

Again these are just my opinions so feel free to ignore everything I say if you didn't feel the same. I'm happy though, and I'm going to continue being incredibly annoying about this show. ♡

[liliththeladyliker]

please this is the strongest friendship ive ever had dont end here

[lumsel]

AITA for not wanting my roommate to use my toothbrush?

Hi reddit. A few days ago I (NB27) was getting ready for work when I caught my roommate (NB27) in the bathroom brushing their teeth with my toothbrush. I got really mad at them for this, but they didn't think it was a big deal and said I was overreacting.

Their logic was that because they were my exact duplicate all our germs are basically the same anyway so it's basically like just one person brushing their teeth twice. But my opinion was that we became "different people" one year ago, when they woke up in my bed beside me one morning without any explanation. But this made them mad because they said from their perspective I was the one who woke up in their bed one morning without any explanation, and they accused me of claiming to be the original again. Things got really heated after this but neither of us was able to kill the other because our abilities were perfectly matched so we basically just declared stalemate like usual.

This whole ordeal had been especially disconcerting to me because up until this point there have been no real points of divergence in our personalities. Every time we have made a decision we would both make the same choice, all of our opinions and beliefs have been identical, and any time we converse it's difficult because we keep trying to say the same thing at the same time. So for us to disagree on anything is unexpected let alone something this big. I was hoping to use this as a clue to help prove I was the original but unfortunately none of my friends or family can remember my stance on toothbrush clone sharing so I was out of luck there.

Anyway they still keep using my toothbrush even though there's another one there because they "like the blue one more than the purple one" but the blue one is mine!!! I really don't think its unreasonable to ask them to use a different toothbrush here, especially since I was here first. AITA?

EDIT: mods this thread isn't a duplicate, they just posted the same topic from their perspective at the exact same time that i posted mine. stop flagging this for deletion.

EDIT 2: I can't believe I have to say this, but a perfect copy of dubious origin is a completely different category of person to a twin!! None of the social dynamics are the same, you can't draw equivalences between them. So when we have sex it is NOT incest. Can we please stay on topic here?

[celestie0]

gojo satoru x reader | oneshot smut [18+]

title. around the clock

Hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision.

ᰔ pairing. babysitter/boxing au - underground boxer & babysitter!gojo x college student!reader (f)

ᰔ summary. when underground boxer gojo satoru becomes a little strapped for cash, he gets a day job as a babysitter for a five-year-old kid named yuuji who most definitely has adhd (but that’s besides the point). the kid’s mom gave gojo two rules, and two rules only: don’t accidentally kill my son, and do not flirt with my daughter. he’s pretty sure he’s got a good hold on the former, but he’s got no self control over the latter.

ᰔ warnings/tags. 18+, fem!reader, smut, casual sex, lil bit of fluff, lil bit of crack, slight age gap (reader’s 22 & gojo’s 27), cum play, creampie, unprotected sex, praise kink, slight degradation, gojo is a sleazebag that cares?, sort of porn-coded smut except there’s a lil bit of lore so it’s kinda porn w plot, uhh having sex with risk of getting caught, gojo beats people up at night & then plays father figure to a 5 y/o during the day, mentions of violence/alcohol/drugs/blood/cigarettes

ᰔ word count. 12.6k

a/n. hiiii friends jeez it feels like FOREVER since i've posted some good ol' smut (still has plot tho xd)...hopefully you enjoy n see ya at the bottom! lmk if i missed any warnings! if you asked to be tagged but didn’t get tagged it’s bc you have your tags off aaa :( even when some ppl tried to fix it i still couldn’t tag them i’m sorry!!

alsoooooo so very much love to @starmapz for beta reading this for me :”) really helped me w my posting nerves haha. she is also a wonderful jjk author pls go check out her works!! 💕 ART CREDITS: @/3-aem

➸ masterlist

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): heyy um i’m sorry if this comes off kinda rude i just am kinda bad with this but i was wondering if you could text my mom for questions about yuuji’s care instead of me?

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Oh 2:46pm Gojo Satoru: Yeah, sure

2:34 pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sorry i know my mom doesn’t know much ab how to take care of him bc i was the one that took care of him for a while but i just really want to separate myself from that guardian role now that i’ve transferred to NYU yknow? :/ i think it’s not my place anymore. i just wanna be big sis now haha

2:46pm Gojo Satoru: I get it. Sorry if I was making you uncomfortable with my texts

2:48pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): no no not uncomfy by it, thanks for looking after him. it’s just i’m kind of busy n stuff so it can be distracting 

2:49pm Gojo Satoru: Ok, got it

2:52pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): and it was kind of an issue with his last babysitter

2:53pm Gojo Satoru: Oh?

2:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeahhh like he would keep textinf me n stuff uhh kinda weird things… i told my mom about it and she was super pissed so she fired him

2:55pm Gojo Satoru: Weird things?

2:56pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah he was always “accidentally sexting me” n like he sent me a dick pic once sooooo yeah

2:56pm Gojo Satoru: Who tf 2:56pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll go beat him up

2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): oh no no its fine lol 2:57pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): please dont beat anyone up 2:58pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i’m not saying you’re like him tho i just think maybe less texting unless its an emergency okay?

3:00pm Gojo Satoru: Are you sure because I will totally go beat him up for you

3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO I DONT WANT YOU TO BEAT ANYONE UP FOR ME 3:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): also no offense but you dont look like you could beat someone up

3:01pm Gojo Satoru: WHAT 3:02pm Gojo Satoru: Tf you mean “no offense” that’s literally the most offensive thing you could say to a guy

3:04pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeaa i mean you have muscles ofc but in the ‘ohhh i wanna look good for instagram’ way and not like real man muscles yknow

3:06pm Gojo Satoru: Ok princess next time you visit home and go on one of your stupidly large grocery hauls I’ll make sure you carry all those groceries in by yourself 

3:06pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): NO 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): I WAS JUST JOKING 3:07pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): YOURE SO STRONG TY FOR ALWAYS CARRYING THE GROCERIES INSIDE 3:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): PLEASE KEEP CARRYING MY GROCERIES INSIDE

3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Nah 3:09pm Gojo Satoru: Should we be texting right now? I’m not sensing any emergencies here

3:11pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): pls. my groceries :(

3:16pm Gojo Satoru: I’ll let the kiddo know you say hi 👋🏼 

The irony of it all was that, if Gojo really wanted to, he absolutely could beat the shit out of someone. And he has, hundreds of times, pseudo professionally. Although that isn’t something he’d admit to you, out of fear that you might relay that info back to your mom who would then become mortified that she’s entrusted her five-year-old son’s life to the hands of an underground boxer. 

But he needed the money. A night-time job didn’t really make daytime money, not when they could easily replace him with the next dude the second he gets knocked out of the ring more than twice, let alone if he let it happen once. And although he sometimes made large sums, it wasn’t stable income. He needed a back-up plan, and so babysitting it was. 

The babysitter working nights at unsanctioned dojos and gyms located in the back of cartel blocks, knocking teeth out of men twice his size, would put any decent mother into a coma or induce some episode of syncope, hence why it wasn’t something he put on his resume before he got hired. Not that he even needed to provide a resume; your mom seemed desperate to cover the position as fast as possible, that promotion at work was moving faster than she wanted to, and Gojo’s beneficial attribute that he possessed as a candidate to look after her son, compared to all the other potential hires, was that he had a penis.

He likes the kid. Yuuji. He’s got kind of a short attention span, and makes Gojo weary of his age. Hold up, that makes him sound like he’s geriatric, he’s really only the ripe old age of twenty-seven, but the immortality and infinite stamina that a five-year-old boy has on him is enough to have him huffing and puffing at the end of every single evening shift he takes on with the rascal. 

Fighting is all sprint, and no stamina. Sure, there might be some more seasoned boxers that might disagree with him, but for someone as young as him in the field, it’s the tactic he’s been forced to gain. If he draws a fight on for too long, he'll get killed by a forty-two year old man with steroids clogging up his adipose tissue and enough  testosterone to grow a full-body beard by the time the sun starts to set. No, his strategy is to knock them out within the first fifteen seconds. Use their weight against them, and whatnot. A tactic he’s found has worked, since he’s been undefeated thus far. 

He can never wrap his head around it. The drug lords that run the rings who’ve gained millions the night before from selling crystal meth only to lose it all the night following in the second Gojo hooklines a solid punch to their betting boxer’s chin, making them see God & their Momma before they tap out (if they’re even able).

He doesn’t pocket much money from it, not anything compared to what the men who bet on him end up making at least, but it’s a decently solid sum. How lucrative it really is depends solely on what he thinks the value of his life is.

It’s not unheard of, boxers dying in the ring. Turns out, rich drug dealers care very little about the sheep they’ve captured to perform their entertaining little stunts. But Gojo wasn’t doing all of this to feel some sense of work-life pride, no, it was just sustenance. When basic needs are not met, humans resort to the most animalistic of all behaviors, and while he’s not proud of what he does, he can’t deny the fact that it’s turned him into an adrenaline junkie that gets a rush in his veins every time he knocks a jaw loose.

But balance was key. And hence why he’s a boxer by night, babysitter by day. For at least four days a week, he gets to pretend he’s the king’s most trusted appointed knight, or he’s the radioactive tyrannosaurus rex that wants to tyrannize all the other dinosaurs, or maybe he’s the evil power ranger (he always forgets which color that one was) that is determined to make the world a living hell by smashing mr. potatohead against the bunk bed post a billion times for all the other toys to see. Or whatever other imaginative hyperfixations Yuuji imposes on him in the later afternoon once he’s had his bowl of spaghetti-O’s and is ready to play. Lately, the kid’s been really into space. They’ve got all sorts of space toys these days. Back in Gojo’s day, he just had a good ol’ Buzz Lightyear.

“One rule, that’s it: don’t accidentally kill my son. Actually, one more rule. Don’t flirt with my daughter.” 

There’s a part of Gojo that believes your mom kind of knows he’s up to shady shit at night, otherwise why else would she clause for him to not flirt with you if she didn’t read the slight swell to his eye and the healing gash across his cheek as anything other than this boy is trouble and I want him nowhere near my too-good-for-him daughter of reproductive capacity since that’s the exact tale of how I became a single mother in the first place. Or maybe he inherently looks like he’s up to no good? He’s not sure which angle is more offensive, and which one was more flattering. Well in any case, she entrusted Yuuji’s life to him, despite acknowledging the plausibility of harm, and that means she overall thinks positively of him, right? ……right?

The first night he met you, it was awkward to say the least. Gojo spends most of his nights performing deadly stunts for middle aged men with potbellies, and most of his days hanging out with a five-year-old (one who he’d argue is his only friend at this point). Sure, he’s got some people he sees occasionally back in his high school hometown when he can brave hearing about how everyone’s in college now or doing a masters or they’re working respectable nine-to-five day jobs meanwhile he has to lie to his Pops that he’s been working in insurance for the past two years. Listen, in fairness, he probably makes the same amount of money as an insurance broker would anyways, but he can’t exactly own up to the identity of his craft. 

Anyways, the point is, he’s not used to seeing other people his age anymore. There’s the occasional hook-up with girls he hasn’t seen since Mrs. Tracy’s homeroom period back in sweet two-thousand-sixteen, or his twice-a-year hangout with Suguru where he only learns the day of where he's visiting from since the guy moves around more than Gojo can keep up with. But save for that, he mostly just sees your mom and then Yuuji. 

So seeing you standing in the kitchen for the first time when he went to put Yuuji’s half-finished GoGurt back in the fridge was startling to say the least. When the sight of a woman startled him, he knew he needed to start getting out again.

You were on your tiptoes, reaching up to grab at something over the fridge, and wearing these ridiculously short shorts to where he could see the curve of your ass, his line of sight trailing down the skin of your bare legs. He couldn’t see anything of your form above your shorts, given you were wearing an extremely baggy t-shirt with NYU on it in big bolded university letters. As far as he knew, you were a senior at NYU, studying psychology, made dean’s list consecutively for the past three years given the way your mother posted all your stellar transcripts up on the fridge (he gets that she’s proud of her daughter, but doesn’t that kind of stuff usually end in grade school?) But other than that, it was all the information he had on you.

“Here,” he said, pressing his front to your back, maybe just to get a feel, as he reached over to you to finally grab the box of cereal you were swatting for, the one that he purposefully placed at the back because Yuuji learned how to climb counters recently. “Is this what you want?”

He had heard you gasp, spinning around on your heel fast, staring up at him with wide eyes like you weren’t expecting some random man to be in the house right now, and your first instinct ended up being to grab the knife out of the kitchen knife block and lunge it straight at his torso.

If it wasn’t for his boxer reflexes, he’d have ended up at the ER that evening. Or dead. All depending on the strength you could pack into a stab. But instead, he deflected it, though not without a gash to his torso through the fabric of his shirt, one that you spent the rest of the evening profusely apologizing for and eventually mending to with cotton balls and neosporin. 

“I didn’t know you were my little brother’s babysitter,” you mumbled with a small wince on your face as you dabbed ointment on the wound while he pulled the hem of his shirt up to his shoulder. He’s never had an injury tended to before. It was nice.

“It’s fine, I get it, totally acceptable response to seeing a random dude in your house.”

He remembers the curl of your eyelashes while you stared down at his bare upper half, something he imprinted on his memory rather than the concern in your face as your fingertips traced the scars across his chest. He hoped they made you feel better about the one you just slashed into him, because after all, what was one more? 

He knows he shouldn’t have, but he kissed you that night. Two minutes before your mom came home, and right after you bid him goodnight with one more apology, he backed you up against the door of your bedroom, his hands on your hips pulling you towards him, and his lips pressed against yours. Something seamless, from candid conversation that was heading towards an end, to full fledged making out against white-painted wood, his teeth nipping at your lip and he wondered just how touch-starved those university boys were leaving you given the desperate way you’d clinged to his shirt for dear life as he deepened the kiss.

The moment only lasted one minute and fifty-seven seconds, and in the remaining three, your mother’s key pushed into the front door and he had to pull away. Always, on the dot, 10PM, she was home. It was how he knew he had two minutes left to make a move in the first place.

So much for no flirting.

6:57pm Gojo Satoru: Bahahah I accidentally forgot where yuuji’s epipen is 6:58pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 6:59pm Gojo Satoru: Turns out this can-o-soup was just covering it in the cabinet

7:01pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): ??? why did you need to find his epipen

7:08pm Gojo Satoru: Oh he accidentally took a bite of my pad thai 7:09pm Gojo Satoru: I freaked cuz I thought it had peanuts in it but I remember I asked for it without any  7:09pm Gojo Satoru: shit’s crazy

7:10pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY THE FUCK DIDNT YOU TEXT ME????????

7:12pm Gojo Satoru: YOU SAID YOU DIDNT WANT ME TEXTING YOU UNLESS IT WAS AN EMERGENCY ?

7:13pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): SATORU YOU THOGHT HE ATE SOMETHING W PEANUTS IN IT AND YOU FORGOT WHERE HIS EPIPEN WAS THATSS A FUCKIGN EMERGENCY

7:15pm Gojo Satoru: THE KID IS DOING FINE HES ALIVE JESUS LEAVE ME ALONE 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo] 7:16pm Gojo Satoru: See. he’s chill 7:17pm Gojo Satoru: with intact airways might I add 7:18pm Gojo Satoru: Also isn’t he a little too old to still be watching baby sensory videos?

7:20pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): yeah my mom thinks he has adhd :(

7:22pm Gojo Satoru: oh

He tried to keep his word though (although he doesn’t recall ever giving it) out of the respect he had for your mom. She was a hard-working lady, single mom of two who went from working three jobs to now being a major administrator at a big law firm near the outskirts of town. It was an underdog story if he’d ever heard one, and he loved an underdog story. 

But a little texting here and there wouldn’t hurt, right? Or so he thought, until you told him to cut it out with the contact. Maybe you were just trying to be the good one in this situation. After all, hooking up with your little brother’s babysitter? That sounds more like a bad porno than a sensible decision. Still, he’ll eventually get your replies to his which shirt should Yuuji wear to the park? and look, the toothfairy gave him the butt of a joint and a couple thumbtacks for his front tooth. he’s ecstatic texts, although in a less timely manner than before when you weren’t trying to preserve propriety. And when you’d occasionally visit every other weekend, he’d do his best to keep his hands in his pockets, and you’d fill up your nights with hangouts with your hometown friends to avoid spending too much time with him at the house. A silent agreement to not fuck each other, it was. 

4:55pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): send pic of yuuji pls i miss him :(

5:04pm Gojo Satoru: [sent a photo]

5:08pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): IS THAT BLOOD?!?!?!?!

5:09pm Gojo Satoru: chillllllll it’s fake. We’re working on his halloween costume

5:09pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): WHY DOES IT HAVE BLOOD?!?!?!?!?!?

5:10pm Gojo Satoru: He wants to be a baby xenomorph and I'm his parasitic host. You know that iconic chestburster scene from the old school alien movies? yeah

5:12pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): satoru please for the love of god just dress him up as a dinosaur or something

5:13pm Gojo Satoru: I’m not the one that came up with the idea, okay? It was him

5:14pm yuuji’s sis (no flirting): because you let him watch adult swim with you before putting him to bed. you’ve deranged his brain.

5:14pm Gojo Satoru: He needs it. Builds character.

Gojo was living a double life, and if someone asked him, he’d say it was less of a Clark Kent way and more of a Bruce Wayne way, although in reality, he knows it’s close to neither. He’s no superhero with a concealed identity fighting crime, he’s a con artist that’s tricked a hard-working woman into hiring him just because he’s trying to save up enough money to get the fuck out of this godforsaken town, given he’s not knocked dead before then for the crime’s amusement.

But Yuuji looks up to him now. And Gojo’s grown attached to him too. He taught the kid how to tie his own shoes and piss inside the actual toilet like a real man. And that kid’s the only thing that’s made him question any of this. Maybe that’s what dads feel, suddenly held to all this impossible responsibility and the pressure to stop doing stupid shit so that you’ll stick around to see your kids get older. The thought that there are eyes on you now, eyes that are innocent and hopeful and learning, and because they know nothing at all, you feel the responsibility to protect them from everything. For fucks sake, remind him to never become a dad. 

“Do you like my sister?” Yuuji had asked him out of nowhere one afternoon after he just got home from preschool, stacking a blue cube over a yellow one at the dining table.

“Uhh,” Gojo starts. He wondered if your mom had put a wire on the kid, so his answer was as diplomatic as he could manage. “Yeah, she’s cool. You’ve got a cool sister.”

“But. But.” Yuuji stutters, trying to find his big boy words. He stretches up higher to reach the top of his stack of blocks, but he only has so much arm real estate at the age of five. “Do you like her like you wanna kiss her?”

Gojo grabs the block from the kid’s hand, for a moment questioning Yuuji’s decision to want to put a blue block over another blue block, but he figures aesthetics are the least of a kid’s concern, and so he places the block where Yuuji wanted it. 

Why does the kid know what kissing is anyway? Do kids know that kind of stuff at that age? Isn’t a kiss to a five-year-old just something their mom gives to them before they head off to preschool for the day? And not something that happens between adult men and women? Maybe he should stop watching that adult swim in front of him.

“No. I don’t want to kiss your sister,” he says, again, because he is suspicious of a wire. It was a lie and then some, because he wants to do a lot more than just kiss you.

Gojo lifts the RedBull he was nursing up to his lips and watches Yuuji in the corner of his eye as the kid stares at his growing stack of blocks with a concentrated expression on his face, his chubby fingers squeezing tightly into little round dimpled balls, like he’s putting together all his tiny brain cells together to form another coherent thought before turning to face Gojo on the chair.

“It’s ok. You can kiss her if you wan’ed to. You can marry her too,” Yuuji says.

Gojo almost spits out his RedBull. He barely manages to swallow it, a broken cough immediately leaving his throat when some of the liquid goes down the wrong pipe and he’s smacking a fist against his chest to knock the sanity back into himself.

“Where the fu—…where the flip did that come from?” he asks, blinking back tears from the rasp in his throat.

Yuuji’s small shoulders sulk as he sits back on his heels. “I want a papa.”

Oh fuck that hurt. Jesus christ, there was nothing more sad than that. Yuuji has literally never known what it’s like to have a dad, since his had left before he was even born. Gojo’s not really close to his old man by any means, but he had still been a fatherly figure in some pivotal moments when he had needed it growing up. Kids need their dads. And he’s seen enough people lose their way without one to know that the value of them is really underestimated.

He’s also kind of shocked that Yuuji really did think of you as his motherly figure. Maybe since it had always just been him and his dad, Gojo learned how to self sustain from a young age, and he and his dad became accustomed to just looking after their own interests to avoid the headache of tending to one another. My land is my land, and your land is yours, and there was the occasional Saturday night spent together with his dad’s millions of beer bottles emptied dry on the carpet in front of the 1992 box TV as the two shared a greasy pizza from the place down the street. That was the extent of family solidarity that he knew.

But he can’t imagine being barely eighteen and having to take care of your little brother all by yourself because your mom was too busy trying to put food on the table and was too poor to hire a babysitter. Your mom tried so damn hard to keep you away from the single teenage mother life, but somehow ended up giving it to you by proxy in the end anyway. It was no wonder you wanted space now that Yuuji’s a little older and your mom can afford a babysitter. No matter how much you might love your sibling, being their effective guardian out of pure necessity had to have taken a toll.

Gojo clears his throat before he speaks. “Buddy. If I married your sister, we’d be brothers. I wouldn’t be your dad.” 

Yuuji’s eyes light up at the word brother. “Brothers? Me and you?”

“Yeah. Bros.”

The kid giggles, all bubbly with cheeks rounding fully and eyes sparkling. Gojo reaches out to ruffle at his hair before Yuuji gets down onto one stubby leg at a time from the chair then bolts towards the kitchen.

“Juice!!” he yells somewhere around the corner out of sight.

Gojo sighs, staring at all the toys he pulled out for Yuuji to play with, all left in a scattered mess across the table. He gets up out of his chair and heads towards the fridge. “Yeah, yeah. I’ll get you your juice, you little demon.”

The conclusion he comes to, and it might read like an obvious one, is that kids don’t really know the reality of life, hence why adults hide so much from them. 

This is what he thinks of tonight when he wraps his worn out boxing tape around his hands and his wrist, tightening it with his teeth, and he can smell the sweat and grime from them. The back of the underground gym had an old dated locker room, and as Gojo stretches his neck side to side while sitting on the stiff metal bench, he eyes the peeling red paint of the locker in front of him, blurring vision making it look like spilt blood. 

His phone pings with a text. He shuffles inside his duffle bag to look for it while his other hand scratches at his bare chest.

1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): hhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii 1:07am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): omgomgomg sor y i’m 

He blinks at the screen, confusion flashing across his face. He types one letter, but then he sees three dots and a speech text bubble in the bottom left, so he waits for you.

1:09am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i drunk :(

The corner of his mouth ticks up slightly. 

1:09am Gojo Satoru: Yeah I can tell

1:10am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): at a apartyyyy

His eyebrows raise slightly, the thought of you tipsy on some frat party couch flashing through his mind, yet of all things you could be doing at that frat party, you’re texting him? Must be a really boring party.

1:11am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): whyyy are you aawake?

1:12am Gojo Satoru: Couldn’t sleep 1:12am Gojo Satoru: Don’t you have a midterm in the morning?

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): wtf hwo do you knwo that

1:15am Gojo Satoru: Your mom keeps your schedule posted on the fridge

1:15am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): im so fucked;’;(((

He snorts. He’s got a bit more life experience than you, five-ish years to be exact, more than enough time to master the no-hangover hangout, but just before he can offer you some advice, he sees another text from you. 

1:16am yuuji’s sister (no flirting): can i tell u smething 

His gaze flits up to the ceiling briefly, and he hears commotion outside the thick walls of the locker room. The previous fight was over, and fast. The guy must’ve been knocked out in under twenty seconds tops, which means that Gojo was next up against whatever superbeast just beat him up. 

1:17am Gojo Satoru: Sure

He stands up, placing his phone down on the bench before he flexes the muscles in his arms a couple times to get the blood flowing into them. And there’s the noise of another ping. Actually, four.

1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): sonetimes 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): i thikn of  1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): when u kisse me 1:14am yuuji’s sis (no flirting): *kissed me

His eyes widen slightly, irises dry to the ashy cigarette smoke from outside lingering in the air, and his heart rate picks up a bit. An adrenaline junkie with close to no fear in his veins due to the way his amygdala’s been fried to a crisp from years of boxing, yet he’s got his breath hitched from the memory of your soft lips against his. It makes the blood rushing through the muscles of his arms rush somewhere down south instead.

Loud banging on the door of the locker room jolts him out of his trance, and he’s stiff around the edges once more.

“Satoru! You’re up, man,” he hears Danny, the fight coordinator, yell at him from the other side of the heavy & poorly-installed steel door.

Gojo sighs, glancing down at the texts on his phone. To respond, or not to respond. You’re off your face, clearly chatty from the alcohol, and he knows for certain you’ll regret every life decision you’ve ever made once you wake up in the morning and see the self sabotaging behaviors you’ve engaged in tonight. He knows that responding to you might put you at ease rather than straight up ignoring you, but the feeling will pass, and he has a match to win with no more room left to stall.

He makes his way out the locker room, pushing past the crowded halls of people underneath dim flashing club lighting, some dudes angrily jerking to face him when he pushes past them with a stiff shoulder, only for their eyes to widen when they see just exactly who pushed them. 

There’s strippers in the ring, doing some routine for pre-match, and Gojo narrows his eyes at the man he sees laying back over the rubber boundary rope, head tipped back up to the ceiling with a wicked grin on his face. So that was his opponent? He’s never seen the guy before. Was he from a different district? Different district talent was tough, you had no background info on them, while they’ve been preparing to be here for weeks. Hence why boxers tend to do better when they visit a different district than they do in their own. There have been rules made to limit these types of fights, mostly over outrage that it was unfair to bid on them, but they were also usually more entertaining to watch. Gojo’s got a sick feeling to his stomach as the strippers clear the ring.

“Hey,” Gojo calls out, grabbing Danny by the back of his collar and dragging him towards him and away from the girls stepping down onto the floor, “what’s in for this fight?”

Danny glances up at the ceiling. “Tarp’s bettin’ tonight, so it can’t be anything less than ten grand for you. I’d say tops fifteen?”

Gojo narrows his eyes further, then glances off into the ring again. The man stands up, and Gojo gets a better look on his face. He’s got short hair, neon green in color with a dark fade underneath and tattoos all over his face. But those eyes. They were freakishingly red, and it made him uneasy. He knows the type. The type of boxers that do this to genuinely hurt people for thrill. Make no mistake, Gojo understands he’s made himself out to be like that too, gaining some kind of rush out of this profession, but this type of fighter was different. The type to literally continue smashing a dude’s face into the floor until they’re a bloody mess even minutes after the winning call, and no referee to stop it because that’s the kind of action the spectators wanted.

Danny reads his line of sight. “That’s Gale. Newton’s new boxing toy. Came outta nowhere about a month ago. He’s undefeated so far in his district, and Newton specifically wanted to see you up against him tonight,” Danny tells Gojo, resting his elbow up on his bare shoulder. “Chances are he’ll compete with Tarp for final bid if you win this one. I’m talking twenty-five grand in the next if you can knock him out in this.”

“Uh-huh,” Gojo acknowledges, rolling his shoulder so Danny’s elbow falls from it. Forget the money, he just wants to make it out of this alive.

He sets his foot up on the square, ducking through the dividing boundary straps and the tacky caution construction tape that the gym thinks creates an exciting ambience. He hears the static of the speakers as the announcers call out Gojo’s name, then this other guy, loud bass club music booming through Gojo’s chest as he tries to take a few deep breaths through the thick air of this low-ceiling arena. 

The dim overhead lights flickered, casting shadows over the makeshift ring, and the crowd pressed tight around at every perimeter area, yelling and pushing, one even tosses a beer bottle on the square and it shatters, spreading glass all across, a few shards reaching Gojo’s feet and he looks down at them with a shudder. A fight immediately breaks out in the crowd over something related or possibly entirely unrelated, and he’d have no way of knowing as he swipes the shards away with his heel.

The influential men always sat up on higher seating, off towards the back in their own VIP section where they suck in the smoke of fat cigarettes and peer through 100% tinted sunglasses to assess the boxers they’ve bid thousands on. The light reflects off the golden grills of their teeth with every snarl at any passerby that gets too close, like a lion in its den. That’s what the sanction was called. Lion’s den.

Gojo sighed, eyeing the twisted grin of this Gale guy across from him. Was that his real name? Usually, foreign district guys get nicknames. Gojo’s always thought the nicknames were tacky, and he’s accumulated some of his own over the years, but to his ears, none of them ever really landed, although The White Fox admittedly was kinda nice. Reminded him of throwback shooting games. 

He sucked a breath in through his teeth, holding his hands up in front of his chest in weak fists, storing energy in them in the form of pure anticipation alone, and then the bell rang.

His opponent lunged towards him immediately, fists flying in a barrage of reckless strikes, and Gojo’s eyes momentarily widened in the briefest moments of hesitation he had been allowed before ducking and dodging every one of this guy's shots, then jumping a step back to create distance.

Fuck. He was fast. Not just boxer fast, athlete fast. There was a difference. And it wasn’t a good one to be up against.

Gojo picked up light on his feet. He couldn’t win this one fast, that much was certain. One single careless or reckless move, and he’ll get tackled. He knows that by the malicious look he sees on that guy’s face, grin wide like he’s some cannibalistic beast. 

Stepping back towards the center, Gojo purposefully set himself up for Gale to swipe a vicious hook towards his head, before Gojo last minute ducked down, crouched to the floor, and swung his leg out to knock the guy off balance by his ankles, and he falls onto his back with a loud thud!

There’s a moment of momentary silence from the crowd, right before Gojo put the man in a torso-lock, twisting him in a way a human body should absolutely not be twisted, hearing the grunts of pain and the crack of spine even through the shouts of the crowd.

He can hear it. Kill him! Knock his fucking teeth out! Snap his neck like a goose, man! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM! FIN-ISH HIM!

He feels like throwing up. 

Gojo looks up at the referee, who wasn’t really a referee, just there to run the clock when there was action and only barely stop it before near death. “This is enough, right?” he asks.

The referee nods. “1-0, next round.”

Gojo lets go of his opponent, leaving him there to heave for a moment before he gets up onto his feet again. Just needs one more, and he’s a winner. Ten grand in his pocket, and he won’t have to come back here for a couple weeks.

Gale gets up, swiping at the spit that had trickled out the corner of his mouth down to his chin, and he had an enraged look on his face. The second the bell rang for the second round, he exploded forward towards Gojo with even more fervor than before, gritted expression with a thirst for violence fueling the storm of punches he was throwing towards Gojo but he tried to remain calm, light on his feet, swiftly duck and avoid before he can find another opportunity to clear a sharp, clean jab right to the ribs—

sometimes, i think of when you kissed me

Gojo misses his strike, leaving his guard wide open, and Gale takes the opportunity to land a solid punch straight to his jaw, sending his mouth guard flying straight out of his mouth into the air, and knocking him backwards onto the ground with a thud and then he finds himself staring up at the rusting metal ceiling and a ringing in his ears that almost matches the roar of the crowd.

His head is in a haze, dizzy like where one second could feel like a millennia. He feels a soreness underneath his chin, a pain that radiates to his mouth, and he briefly swipes his tongue over his front teeth to make sure he still has all of them. 

What the fuck was that? That intrusive thought. There’s no intrusive thoughts allowed in life or death situations, not when he was always just one smash to the head away from a permanent concussion. But, fuck, he can’t help it. Can’t help thinking of you. Even when his vision has gone blurry and he should really be weary about what happens next in this ring, his mind’s just thinking about you, at some frat party, tipping back shots of tequila and waiting for a text-back in response to your tipsy ones. Were you even waiting up on him? Have you already passed out on the couch, or were your friends dragging you back to your dorm? Or are you fucking some other dude right now? Has he got his hand up your top, squeezing at you, sleazily feeling you up before spilling beer all down your shirt, and are you kissing him back with the same enthusiasm, your phone now somewhere long slipped between the cushions of the couch and out of sight?

Even though it’s still sore, he tenses his jaw. Grinds his teeth, even. Tasting blood somewhere along the line of his gums, he realizes his lip is split. He licks at it, the flavor of copper more rich on his tongue, and he clenches his fists tightly. Why’s he thinking of that right now? It just pisses him off, the thought of you with some other dude. Maybe that’s what he needs to win this fight. Spite. Although he’s not sure why the guy across from him at the ring has to pay for it.

He lifts his head up off the ground, and while it felt like years he had been down, a glance at the timer tells him it’s only been a solid four seconds. A solid four seconds that his opponent had to fully charge a lunge towards him with the look of death in his face, raising his elbow up into the air in time with his leap, ready to come straight down, and Gojo’s eyes widen at the sight above him from where he’s still lying on the wood.

“Shit—” he cusses, rolling his body over to the side so that the dude falls straight down onto the floor rather than elbow Gojo in the fucking ribs, and then he gets back up on his feet. 

Stakes were high, he has to end this, he has to end this now, and he flexes the muscle in his right bicep, channeling everything he has into this one blow, and before Gale even really has a chance to turn around and face him again, Gojo’s already three-fourths set up a knockout undercut that he drives straight up the guy’s chin, with so much force it has him lifting up off the floor, a vertebrate stretch to his spine before he’s sent flying backwards and slammed against the tight rubber lining of the ring to where he was half hanging over it.

The room fell silent for a split second, then erupted in a roar as the referee fell to one knee beside Gale, checking him for any semblance of consciousness, and when he found none, he waves the match off. 

Gojo’s eyes flit up towards the lion’s den, the only opinions that he really needed to care about were sitting in those mahogany chairs with glasses of scotch swirling around in their hands, and he sees some of them looking straight at Gojo before leaning towards one another and discretely talking about something he can’t make out because he doesn’t know how to read lips.

He feels someone tug at his arms from behind, pulling him to crouch down and he balances back on the balls of his feet. He glances down through the ring at the floor. Danny was leaning against the wooden surface of it. “Dude. Go.” He jerks his head towards Gale, who still laid there sprawled across the now stretched out rubber perimeter bands. “Go fuck him up. Knock a few more teeth out, I don’t know, get some more blood out of him.”

“What?” Gojo huffs, yanking his arm away from Danny’s grip. “The fuck are you saying?”

“I told you, man, Newton’s here and he’s got his eye on you. Go give him a show,” Danny says, “do it.” And when he sees clear frustration on Gojo’s face he sighs. “Twenty-five grand, consider that, will you?”

Gojo sneers at the man, an awful taste in his mouth as he spits blood towards Danny’s feet. “Go fuck yourself on his cock if he wants a show that bad.” And then he ducks underneath the bands and hops back down onto the floor, pushing past people who were trying to grab at him and pull at him and lift him up and even throw him down until he made it through flashing hallways and back to the locker room.

He shuts the door behind him, sliding the bolt lock into the frame so no one can follow him inside, and then he leans his weight back against the chilling steel before tipping his head back until it hits the surface too.

He lets out of a few deep breaths, then stares down at the sting he finds over his knuckles. Red and blistering from the last punch he delivered, and he’s almost certain he broke a bone in his hand. Fuck. It was bleeding across the cuts, too. He had to figure out a way to get it all healed by tomorrow, as if that was humanly possible, just because he doesn’t want Yuuji questioning him about it.

Yuuji. For fucks sake, when has he ever thought about the kid this much? When has he ever thought about much of anything when he’s out here or in the ring? He’s a babysitter by day. He’s a “part” of your family when the sun is up and normal functioning society is breathing their lives into the clean air. That’s it. He’s no five-year-old’s caretaker in front of all these primetime drug lords, and he certainly shouldn’t be thinking of you when facing big, burly men he’s aiming to rough up, all within the dead hours of night. So then how come these thoughts are on his mind at all times, twenty-four-seven, around the clock?

He heads further into the locker room, glancing down at the bench where he’d left his phone, then picks it up, neck craned all the way down to glance at the screen as he holds his phone by his hip because he doesn’t have any energy to pick it up any further towards his eyesight. 

He sees your messages. You never sent any follow-up ones, just your horrendously typed out sonetimes, i thikn of when u kisse me *kissed me across the span of four texts, and Gojo runs a tired hand down his face.

He tips his head back to groan at the ceiling, guttural with no basis other than a release of all the pent up frustration of every sort, then he types in a couple messages to you,

3:23am Gojo Satoru: That’s nice 3:24am Gojo Satoru: I think about fucking you all the time 

—and then tosses his phone into his duffel bag to call it a night.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

You’re awoken to your alarm blaring heavily, and you whack your arm across your nightstand table beside your tiny twin-size bed to hit the snooze button, then rub your eye with a loose fist while smacking at the residual taste of alcohol you have on your tongue. 

“Mm…” you mumble to yourself. And then the thirst hits you. The overwhelming, intense, unquenchable thirst that leaves your mouth feeling like the Sahara desert before you grab your twice-dented Hydroflask from the nightstand, twist the cap off and chug about twenty ounces of water in one breath. 

You let out a deep exhale and fall back into bed, your hand resting on top of your water-filled tummy, and you stare up at the ceiling of your dorm. 

Last night was horrible. You knew you shouldn’t have gone to that frat party, especially given you have an exam in—you checked the time on your phone—about an hour, and an hour was not enough time to recover from the raging hangover headache that’s pounding through your head. But your roommates insisted you went, and so go you did. You never knew what to expect, always torn between shaving your pussy before you go or throwing on a stained pair of sweatpants to keep the guys away instead. Sometimes, it was a combination of both. But last night, you ended up drinking more than you usually do, and that always led to poor, poor, poor decisions, in which all the sense of pride you had in yourself was washed down with the puke that you hurled into the upstairs toilet. 

You grab at your phone again, briefly seeing that your friends had sent you some photos from the night. You immediately swiped off to the side to dismiss the notifications, because as far as you were concerned, you never wanted to see those photos in your life.

And then, in the briefest of moments, you saw a familiar name in your notifications that made you heart skip a beat.

Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter)

With an immediate gasp, you pulled your phone to your chest and held it there, blinking up at the pale yellow ceiling, your heart picking up in rhythm.

Oh fuck.

That was right.

You drunk texted him last night.

You drunk texted your little brother’s hot babysitter.

Fuck.

Mortified was an understatement, possibly because you don’t even remember what you said, and so you don’t even want to see what he replied with.

You groan, rubbing both your hands across your face then kick your sheets back with your feet like a child having a temper tantrum because you were so embarrassed you had even texted him at all last night. I mean, he was hot. A little older than you, really gorgeous eyes, tall, and, yeah, you gave him shit for the Instagram muscles thing, but that’s only because you thought he’d find it cheeky that you were trying to humble him despite the fact that he’s more toned and ruggedly sculpted than any other man you’ve ever met. You didn’t want to have a flustered schoolgirl attitude because it would just seep through to his ego.

In any case, he was hot, there was no denying it, so can you really blame yourself? But still. There was collateral with this. You had to see him every other weekend. He knows your family, even your extended since they invited him to Thanksgiving dinner a couple weeks ago. A high-risque drunk text recipient if he ever was one (of course he has been, look at that face). Why couldn’t you have just drunk texted ECON160 guy from last semester who Clit DJ’d you underneath your desk at the back of the lecture hall instead?

The thing that made you nervous about Gojo Satoru was that he was just so…confident? Like, in that I was raised to be this way confident and not that I fought inner demons my whole life to barely end up this way confident, y’know? Never had to fake it ‘til he made it, he just was. At least that was the kind of energy you got from him, and unfortunately for you, it was nerve wracking but enticing all at the same time.

You sigh. “Stupid. Stupid. Stuuuuuupiiiiidddddddddddd. You. Are. So. Stuuuuuupiiiiddddddd,” you sigh, running your hands through your hair to grip at the strands.

You pull your phone away from your chest, and finally brave yourself to read the texts from your notifications screen, but not without blurring your vision a little to further stall. And then you finally refocus it to read them. The first one you see has you gasping—

3:24am Gojo Satoru (yuuji’s babysitter): I think about fucking you all the time 

It has heat spreading across your cheeks, and you blink at your screen, then quickly swipe up to read the previous messages with rushed glides of your index finger on the screen to see that he had sent it to you in response to your barely coherent texts about how you still so often think about that time he randomly pressed you up against the door of your bedroom to kiss you that night you first met him.

I think about fucking you all the time

At 3 in the morning? He decided to send that text at 3 in the fucking morning? That was the devil’s hour. What’s he trying to tell you? 

Oh come on, you’re not stupid. And you know he isn’t either. The sexual tension was palpable, it was there since the day you two met and you almost stabbed him, and also everytime you were visiting the house, and his shoulder brushes against yours when he’s trying to get past you in the kitchen, or when you’ve got Yuuji in your arms and the kid is clinging to Gojo’s sleeve because he wants him near him at all times. There’s even sexual tension over the phone, in those stupid texts he sends you all the time about meaningless child care stuff, and honestly, those little updates made your day.

But… you don’t know much about him, and your mom would kill you if she ever found out you wanted him. And she’d probably pulverize him if she found out he ever made a move on you. Cremated without leaving a trace behind would be an understatement. She thinks he’s no good and she thinks you’re too good. You know she’s warned him before to not get close to you, as if she was pre-emptively expecting him to try to get in your pants like it was some canon force of the universe, hence why he’s probably so fucking awkward around you whenever she’s there too. Like if he accidentally got caught staring at your ankles, your mom would light him on fire, so he’d rather not risk it by just avoiding looking at you at all.

Your mom has always been protective of you. Your father was a deadbeat, one she thought she loved, only to watch him leave. And she had to raise a baby all by herself. He re-entered your lives right before you graduated high school, knocked up your mom again with Yuuji, and guess what? Left again without a trace. To be doubly humiliated by a man is a fate you wouldn’t wish on any woman, but that’s exactly what your mom went through. It was a wake-up call for her, though. No more living paycheck to paycheck like you had been your whole lives up until Yuuji was born. The kid doesn’t even know how lucky he is with everything he has right now. Your mom worked her way up the corporate ladder and made something of herself and now you guys were comfortable, so it was safe to say she had some sort of right to look after her daughter, of whom she simply doesn’t want to follow in the same naive footsteps of her youth.

You get it. She wants to break the generational cycle. But it made being with men tough on all fronts, let alone dating. You could never bring a guy home because he’d never be enough, even if he cured cancer or could make you orgasm while doing a sixty-nine handstand. And while her overbearing paranoia over what you do or where you are or who you’re with has since dimmed slightly since you officially moved out to finish your last year of higher education at NYU, you can still feel her disappointment from a hundred miles away when you’re making out with some random frat guy on his beer-stained couch at eleven AM on a Tuesday.

But you got to college. You’ve already made it this far. You’re on dean’s list. You graduated high school as salutatorian. You’re the most highly decorated cello player in the state. You won Miss County pageant when you were sixteen for your philanthropic efforts towards feline leukemia. You did online community college for three years so you could stick back after high school and help your mom raise Yuuji, which meant that you had to forfeit your scholarship to Cornell. You’ve spent your whole life being good, you just wanna be bad for a little bit.

And if bad meant fucking the hot and mysterious babysitter, then so be it. 

You pick your phone up, begin blasting what the hell by Avril Lavigne on your dorm room bluetooth speaker, then type a message to him that says—

10:34am you: do it then

—then shove your phone under the sheets and belt out the lyrics aaaall my life i’ve been good, but now, ahhhh i’m thinkin’ what the hell!!! while kicking your feet and clutching your pillow.

⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘⫘

Gojo has no clue what divine entity has overcast their gratuitous spirit over him on this blessed Monday afternoon, but he’ll thank them for it later once his balls are empty. 

He’s got you on your back, sprawled across the couch in the living room, the first fuck being a rushed one that you offered him with before he has to go pick Yuuji up from circle time at preschool, which wasn’t ideal, but he’s delirious at the sight of you underneath him right now. Your little NYU shirt, a tighter one this time, bunched up over your bare breasts, otherwise entirely naked other than the flimsy panties dangling at your ankle, and the view of the tip of his cock looking hot and heavy against the velvet of your cunt, slowly pushing in, feeling the warmth of your walls squeeze around him paired with the sweet moan that leaves your lips, makes him fall forward with a bracing hand dug into the cushion by the side of your head because the sensation feels so fucking good he can hardly keep himself upright.

“Fuck, you’re so tight,” he grunts, pushing himself in further to try and bottom out but he’s still got a couple inches he needs you to take, and so you curl your hips upwards towards the cieling to make more room for him, practically putting yourself into a mating press and soon enough he’s balls deep, “you on any birth control?”

“Uh-huh,” you moan, eyes closed and head tipped back with one hand squeezing your own tit.

“I can cum inside then, yeah?” he asks you, pushing your knees to your chest, slowly drawing his hips back and you squirm underneath him.

“Let’s get there first, and then we’ll discuss,” you breathe out.

“I’ve been there for the past ten minutes, baby. I could cum at any second with the way you look and feel,” he informs you flatly, because it was just the truth and you had to know it, then he feels himself twitch inside, slowly working up to a languid rhythm, almost fearfully like your mom’s going to pop out somewhere around the corner with a camera crew ready like one of those retro TV shows just to humiliate him on national television for not keeping it in his pants like she’d told him to. 

“Harder,” he hears you whisper, and he rolls his eyes shut to just focus on the feeling. The feeling of your nails grazing down the skin of his chest and his abs, tracing the scars he’s collected over the years, and he feels you tightening around him. He leans down to kiss you, fucking you properly now with the squeak of the couch springs echoing across the room, your hums of moans seeping through his lips until he’s fully taking them on with an open-mouthed kiss of sloppy tongue. 

The fact that it was wrong felt right to him, and he realizes in this moment he’s lost all sense of control. He wasn’t just an adrenaline junkie that liked to rough up dudes, he was an adrenaline junkie that wanted to fuck you against all better judgement or moral compass. The way your tits were bouncing, the slap of skin on skin, his balls slapping against your ass while you wrap your legs around him tighter, all convincing him that any consequence made it worth it.

“Good,” he groans the praise, pinning your hands above your head as he rams his hips against yours, your cute moans and squeals sounding like literal music to his ears and he feels heat spread all the way up his neck, “goooood, keep squeezin’ me like that, fuck.” He slows down momentarily, just to take a moment and watch, really look and see the way his length disappears inside of your pretty self with every push forward, and then he works back up to a relentless pace that has you tipping your head back with a slack jaw and eyes closed tightly shut, sprained expression of pleasure spread across.

“Oh, oh my god, Satoru—” you mewled and he felt dizzy from the sound of his name from your softly parted lips.

“Fuck, I’m gonna—” His hand finds it’s way between your legs, calloused pads of his fingers brushing against your clit and you jolt underneath him, gasping as your hand shoots out to dig your nails into his bicep for purchase. “I’m gonna cum, better tell me where you want it.”

“In me,” you moan, “nowhere else.”

He presses his mouth against your cheek in a lazy smile, “Atta girl,” he drawls before pushing your ankles down as far as they’d go near your ears, folding you in half and then reigns all hell into your cunt. He should really care a bit more about your pleasure, but testing your flexibility like this with both his hands holding you down was doing sinful things to his brain, and besides, you had yourself covered with the messy circles you were rubbing over your clit. It was hot to see that too, your nimble pretty fingers so close to the place where he was pounding into you. 

“Oh shit, shit, shit—” he grunts when starts to see blistering white in his vision, balls straining with a pleasure that was almost painful. The moment he finishes feels like hot flashes in his brain, a heat like the cum he begins to paint inside your walls in time with your release, thrusting over and over and over, each one more staggered as he lets off a long, drawn out groan that comes from deep within his chest with the feeling of you milking him dry and the sound of you enjoying every second of it. He can’t remember the last time he came this much or this hard and even after coming down from the high, he feels the remnant pulse of your orgasm around his now half-flaccid dick.

He leisurely pulls out, hearing you let out a soft whimper as he marvels at the sight of his cum slowly dripping out of you and down towards the couch, before he scoops it up with a couple fingers and pushes it back inside. You grip his wrist tightly, but you weren’t stopping it, that motion of him plunging it all back into you.

“Want a taste?” he asks, casually.

“Mhm,” you nod, face looking flush.

He pulls his fingers out of you, coated with sex, then plugs your pussy with the fingers of his other hand because he kinda likes the idea of you walking around all day with him inside of you, so he doesn’t want it getting out. He’s then pushing his other fingers past your lips, pleased to find he’s met with not even so much as a grazing of teeth, and he grins, “bet you take a dick in your mouth as good as you take it down here.”

Your furrow your brows at him, the pout of your lips seen in the way they were puckered to lick his fingers off clean, and when you release the suction with a smack of your tongue and his fingers were wet from your saliva now, his eyes narrow with desire. You push his face away with the heel of your palm to his forehead. “Flattery won’t make me suck your dick.”

“Alright. So? How is it?” he jerks his chin towards your face, pushing against your hand with his forehead until he’s hovering over you again, “taste good?”

“It’s cum, Satoru.”

He shrugs. “Bad?”

“No,” you say, and you can’t make eye contact, “good.” You sigh. “Hot. I don’t know. Salty, sweet. I’m the sweet. You’re the salty. And this conversation is obscene.”

He kisses you, capturing your lips softly, tongue darting out to taste what’s on yours. “I like it that way. Dirty. Nasty. Obscene, whatever.”

There’s the slam of a car door heard from the driveway, and the two of you instantly make eye contact with round eyes.

“Sa—” you stutter, “Satoru.”

He gets up off the couch in a panic, and heads to the window of the living room fully butt-ass naked, then peers through the blinds to see—

Your mom was making it up towards the front door, rustling with her keys in her purse. And the last thing he sees before he turns around to face you is her pushing the keys through the lock.

“Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, shit,” he cusses, finding his boxers off of the floor, hopping on one foot with his cum & slick coated dick flapping around and slapping against his thighs unceremoniously as he tries to get one leg in through them and then the other. You’re trembling as you hook your panties back into place, pull your shirt back down your torso, and even in his extremely panicked state, he’s still sad he can’t freely stare at your tits anymore. You’re rummaging for your skirt in a haste, looking everywhere for it, and he finds it underneath the coffee table before tossing it to you and then he side-to-side hops towards the coat closet while he pulls his sweatpants up over his ass, in time for you to quickly run and shut the door of the closet closed just before the front door of the house swings open.

The inside of the coat closet is dark, barely enough space in there for a six-foot-four two-hundred-and-twenty pound man, but it’s better than being balls deep inside his boss’s daughter on the couch when said boss just came home from work.

He hears conversation on the other side of the door, albeit muffled, and he presses his ear to it to hear better while he tucks his dick into his boxers from where it was hanging over the waistline.

“Mom! You…you’re home so early,” he hears you squeak out.

“Yes,” your mom says, “The rest of my meetings today are online, so I figured I’d come home when there’s less traffic.”

Gojo feels you lean against the coat closet door.

“I see, I see, how was your day at work?” you ask with a tremble in your voice.

“Fine.” And then nothing. The silence could mean that was all she had to say, since your mom wasn’t really a woman of many words, or it could be a silence that means she’s suspicious about something. “Darling, why is your skirt flipped up and tucked into your panties? Your whole butt is showing.”

Through the wood of the door, he hears you softly gasp. “Oh, um, I just went to pee. Must’ve—…must’ve got caught when I pulled it back up.” 

“I see,” your mother says, and Gojo can hear her dropping her heels down near the shoe rack at the entrance. “You know, I really don’t like those short skirts you wear often. Maybe it’s just your generation, but I think it looks tacky and cheap.”

“Mom,” you say, in as stern of a voice as you can manage without sounding embarrassed.

Your mother sighs. “In any case, where is Satoru? I still would like him to go pick up Yuuji. I don’t have the patience to sit in preschool & daycare traffic right now.”

“Oh gosh, I don’t know,” you chirp, and then he hears you let out a small oh no before you lean even more weight against the door, this time somewhere lower, and he realizes you’re pressing your ass against it. His eyes narrow with a small frown, and then he realizes— his cum must still be trickling down your thighs. You couldn’t put your panties on fast enough. 

Shit. That’s hot. A little fucked up, but hot. He feels his dick harden against the fabric of his boxers, and he rests his forehead against the door, fringe stuck to his forehead with sweat as he slips his hands down his sweatpants and then gives his cock a firm squeeze. The thought of you discretely swiping his cum up your inner thigh and smearing it against your thin panties so your mom doesn’t catch sight of it dripping down your legs has him slowly working up to a rock-solid erection, and he almost lets out a broken grunt from the feeling.

“What?” your mother says, “what do you mean you don’t know?”

“I’ve just been watching TV this whole time,” you say, “last time I saw him…he was…um, in the backyard pulling weeds?”

He lets out a small scoff through his nose at your cover-up. Cute. And not bad. 

Your mother sighs loudly, and he glances down at the strained veins on his dick as he tugs it through his hand, the tip rearing and appearing flushed and dripping with precum. God, you were just on the other side of this door. Less than a few inches away, and he’d be inside of you. 

“I’m going to take a shower. Go find him and tell him to pick up Yuuji soon. But before then, change into something less revealing,” your mother says in a more or less detached tone, and he can hear the stomps of her footsteps up the stairs from above him in the coat closet.

The two of you wait at least a solid minute, and just when the coast is clear, he hears you turn the knob of the coat closet and slowly crack it open.

“Okay, I think she’s in the shower, I hear the water running,” you whisper at him, “you can go now—” You glance down towards his groin, your jaw dropping. “What—…Satoru, why the fuck is your dick staring at me right now?!” you whisper-hiss at him.

He pulls you into the coat closet, pushing your front against the door to where it clicks shut, and you gasp when his hands pin your wrists crossed behind your back and his dick presses into the plush of your ass.

“You talkin’ to your mom while your pussy’s stuffed full of my cum was the single hottest thing that’s ever grazed my lizard brain,” he tells you, flipping your skirt up and hooking your panties to the side, his index finger briefly brushing against your entrance to find it still leaking from the way your walls were pulsating from his words. And then he aligns his tip to your entrance. “Now keep quiet while I do this, ‘kay?”

“Oh—” you gasp, your cheek pressed against the door as you arch your back and push your ass out for him, “okay—” you say, barely vocalizing the first syllable before he’s already stuffing himself inside of you with one solid glide of a push, making you yelp loudly and he has to instantly cup a hand over your mouth.

“Shhhhhh,” he hisses at you, immediately starting to pound you from behind, “told you to— fuuuck,” he catches sight of his length covered with a mix of your glassy arousal and his white cum, now starting to cream at the base of his cock, “jesus christ—” he breathes out, squeezing the flesh of your ass harshly with his other hand and you let out another yelp, “I told you to fuckin’ keep quiet.”

“I’m—mff,” you muffle against his palm, “I’m trying but,” your hips move back in time with his, “feels good, feels too good,” you mewl, and his hand desperately yanks up the fabric of your shirt so he can squeeze at your breast.

“Yeah?” he grunts, hypocritical for telling you to keep it down when he was slamming his hips against your ass with so much fervor he wouldn’t be surprised if the sound was reverberating across the entire house, “you like it when I fuck you while your mom’s all clueless just up the stairs?” His rhythm falters, feeling his release building, and his hand reaches in front of you to rub your clit, making you drop your head against the door with tightly closed eyes. “Gets— you—wet, doesn’t it?” he torments you, his lips near your ear as he slams his hips against you harshly with every enunciated syllable. 

“Mhm, mhm,” you easily agree, or maybe that’s because it’s all you can really articulate, and he angles his hips up so his balls slap more fervently against your clit, making you scream into his palm while he picks up the pace of the circles he draws on your clit and in one, two, three— beats of his pounding heart, he feels you come undone around his cock, gushing wetness leaking out of you, he can feel the mess of fluids splattering on the skin of his thighs due to each of his heaving thrusts as he cusses out a fuuuuuuckkk before spilling his cum inside of you, a short-lived and thicker release this time that has you mewling from overstimulation, and in a few following thrusts, he’s given you everything he had to give.

His eyes open, he wasn’t even aware he had shut them in the first place, and he glances down at where the two of you were joined. Rings of arousal coat the length of his half-pulled-out dick, and the second he retreats all of it, a bulging push of his cum seeps out of you, dripping and pooling all over the hardwood floors.

“Holy shit, I wish I could take a picture of this,” he says, taking a step away to commit the sight to memory, your legs trembling and still slightly spread, ass pushed out and when you wiggle it a little, he lets out a huff of an exhale because he just can’t believe how sexy you are. Are all college girls like this? He’s never been to college, his old man’s been trying to get him to go for years, but maybe this is what finally convinces him.

“No pics,” you breathe out once you catch your breath, standing up straight slowly, “that’s my one sex rule.”

He takes a step closer to you, flipping your skirt back over your ass while you shimmy your shirt down to cover your chest. “That’s the only rule you have? Anything else goes?” he asks.

You spin around to face him, his eyes briefly flitting down to the still exposed skin of your midriff. “I have a feeling I’d be making up more specific rules if it was with you.”

He smiles, his hands grabbing your hips before pressing you up against the door again. “I also had a rule. It was to not fuck you. Wait, no, to not flirt with you. Which, technically, I didn’t do.”

You blink your eyes at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What?” he asks, genuinely confused, “I didn’t.”

“Huh—” you scoff, “how do you think we got into this situation in the first place?? You didn’t just say wanna fuck? You were insufferably flirty with me.”

“Nahhh nah nah nah nah, baby, that’s not flirting,” he tells you, thumb running circles over your hips, “that’s, like—…I don’t even fuckin’ know how it worked on you to be honest, I was just being stupid.”

“Oh okay so I’m stupid.”

“I never said you were stupid?”

“Well you said you were being stupid so me falling for it must mean I’m stupid.”

“Pshhh. You’re cute. Pulling weeds, by the way? Adorable.”

Your hand slowly roams up the front of his shirt, the fabric bunching at your wrists until you uncovered up to his collar bone, and you stare at his skin. He tries to not let the way his heart’s beating faster show through the heave of his chest. 

“Why do you have all these scars, anyway?” you whisper to him.   

“Too many girls tryna stab me,” he tells you.

You roll your eyes. “Seriously.” Your thumb traces the one you had left on him. 

“I—” He stops himself.

Does he tell you? Should he tell you? What, just because he’s seen you naked and you took his dick like a queen he’s supposed to open up to you about these things now? He doesn’t know. Maybe he could? Maybe you already suspect what he does at night. And if not, at the very least, I’m an underground boxer might make you think he’s hot? At the very worst, you’ll report him to the cops and he’d get fired as your little brother’s babysitter then thrown into jail, but not before the busted cartel gets him first.

“Maybe I’ll tell you some other time,” he says, his hand wrapping around your wrist and pulling it from his chest, “no hyper personal details until you’ve had my dick in your mouth at least once or twice. That’s my one rule.”

You snort. “I could’ve guessed that rule from a mile away.”

He hums. And then there’s the sound of steps creaking down the stairs above the two of you.

You both make eye contact, eyes widening, internally yelling at each other: how the fuck did we get into this situation twice?!

This time, Gojo opens the door and stumbles out of the closet, leaving you inside of it, just in time for your mom to come down the stairs.

“Satoru. I was looking for you,” she says as she rounds the post. “Have you picked up Yuuji? He has to go for his swimming lessons soon.”

“Ah, nope, was just about to head out,” he says, letting out a cough to diffuse tension, “sorry, I was—” he points his thumb over his shoulder to behind him, “…pulling out some gnarly weeds.”

She narrows her eyes at him. “I see. Well, thanks. If you want, I can add a gardening stipend to your paycheck. Let me know.” And he’s not sure how to respond because he’s not sure if she’s joking. 

He heads out the door, the keys to your mom’s minivan in his palm as he throws them up into the air and catches them a couple times. And just before he gets inside the car, he turns on his heel to face the house and pulls his phone out of his pocket to type in a message for you.

3:22pm Gojo Satoru: Send over those me-specific sex rules soon

.

.

.

[the end]

a/n. hope u enjoyed im shitting bricks posting this bc i haven't posted a oneshot smut since february but thanks so much for reading i appreciate u!! i got way too invested in the whole underground boxer thing 😂😂 but the fact i managed to keep everything under 12k is an accomplishment to me bc if u read my other fics you know i’m a yapper LOL i have another kind of a similarly written smut oneshot n it’s a lil angsty (totally different au tho) i’ll probs post that one next but yea i really like, hmm, i really like exploring entire characters within a short amount of time i enjoy writing the obscure lore drops xd it’s been kinda fun so far anywho much loveee hope to see u around! <3

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taglist:

@joemama-2 @erencvlt @pickuptruck01 @hanakotateyama @nuronhe

@beabadobeee @air3922 @timetoletmyimaginationfly @chiyokoemilia @jotarohat

@sirencholia @sorcerersseestars @horisdope @to-dabi @staoru

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@milkm4nz @athinasaurus @sashisuslover @welldamnsatoru @aeriiixhh

@crystalymin @dcvilxswish @miakxn @satxoru

[bejeweledinterludes]

touch starved.

OR dean winchester needs a damn hug! specifically from me, so of course i wrote about it! pretty much based off of my own headcanon that i wrote because this dean is canon— TO ME!

my masterlist

「 pairing 」 : touch starved ! dean x fem ! reader

「 word count 」 : 6.1 k (would y’all believe me when i say this started out as a drabble… faith be normal over dean winchester challenge level: IMPOSSIBLE!)

「 content / warnings 」 : late seasons soft!dean, vulnerability to da max, emotions, emotions, EMOTIONS. no smut (for once!), starts off kinda sad BUT HAS A HAPPY(ISH) ENDING I SWEAR! PLEASE PLEASE DON’T KILL ME

you have one ( 1 ) new message from the author ! ↓

AFTER CENTURIES IT’S FINALLY DONE! just saying once again thank you all so very much for 400 (+87 ?!?!?) followers! this fic is my gift to you! can’t believe over 400 of you want to see my bullshit (and unabashed horniness) on the daily but i love and appreciate every single one of ya! shoutout to my lovely mooties as well!

𖤐 ─────────────────────────

dean winchester knew he had something called a touch problem.

and he didn’t know exactly when it started, but after years and years of the only touch he received being hits, punches, the cold feel of steel from a knife or the heat from the barrel of a gun—he craved something gentle.

he needed it.

and goddamn, he was getting desperate.

at first, he usually just sought it out with one-night stands. whether it be holding their hand during it, or sticking around for longer just to lay in bed with whoever the fuck he’d met that night— that kept him at bay. that’s how he got the touch he needed.

but then he got greedy.

it had been a particularly rough hunt. you, dean, and sam were lucky to get out alive. you’d pulled into a town that had a vamp nest terrorizing its inhabitants, and when you saw the familiar hot faces of the winchester brothers at the only decent bar in a 30-mile radius, you’d decided to work together— as you’d all done a million times before.

but still, it was rough. you three each took a floor of the abandoned farmhouse— you on the highest, dean in the middle, and sam on the ground floor. you clambered down the stairs after you had finished clearing your floor, only to be met with two snarling vampires— which you quickly ganked with a schwing of your machete.

after verifying that no threats were coming your way, you started looking for dean— and the panic that flooded through your chest when you saw him crumpled over on the floor in one of the rooms almost made you freeze.

almost.

years of experience and split-second decisions snapped you out of it, immediately falling to your knees by dean’s side, turning him over on his back.

your hands were gentle but swift as you quickly flipped out the sides of his jacket, making sure there were no large gashes or wounds— and the sigh with the feeling of pure relief you let out when you realized he was just knocked out was a little more intense than you had expected it to be.

and you told yourself that was definitely normal.

right?

right.

“dean,” your hand had gone to the side of dean’s face, the other remaining on his shoulder as you shook it gently, trying not to startle him completely as you masked your worry. “come on ya lug, rise ‘n shine.”

despite your efforts, dean still woke with a start— but you caught his arm with the hand not on his face before he could do anything.

“hey— hey,” your voice was quieter, softer. because despite being one bad mother when you were hunting, your soft side came out frequently when it was needed, without fear of judgment and with absolutely no shame. it was one of the things dean wished he could do as seamlessly as you. “it’s jus’ me, alright? come on—”

you then proceeded to stand all six feet and some change of dean up with you, keeping a hand on his back and shoulders and giving him another once over when he stood over you again.

“you all good?” you murmur quietly, your hands resting on the sides of dean’s arms as you stood back, your eyes continuing to rake over him for a moment before looking up at his face— and the expression you were met with wasn’t anger, or even frustration from being knocked out.

no.

dean looked almost… sad.

you’d never been exactly ‘close’ with dean. of course you considered him a friend— for years now, but in all honesty, even that was a stretch sometimes, too. because he was a very closed off and mistrusting person.

but hell, you respected that. especially in this line of work. he did talk to you once in a while, though— on those lulls during a hunt or a case, or when he dropped some crazy lore about himself or his childhood, then going right back to his usual behaviors afterwards.

that being said, you knew dean better than he thought you did— because he didn’t have to say much for you to know what he was going through. despite what he thought, his emotions were always kinda just… written on his face.

but now, back to the farmhouse. back to the look dean had on his face right now. it was a look you saw only after he had consumed enough alcohol to kill a baby elephant, which is why it threw you off and made your usual easygoing attitude with him falter.

“dean,” you voice had gotten quieter, even softer, “w—” but before you could say or even do anything else, sam called from the floor below that it was all clear, snapping dean out of it, his expression hardening again.

in the days coming after, you didn’t ask dean to explain himself, or push about what had happened that night. you knew if he wanted to, he’d come to you about it— maybe not right away, but when he was ready.

little did you know how soon that would be.

you’d been living in the bunker for probably only a couple months at this point after the apocalypse world had opened up, and a bunch of hunters were living in the bunker too— but less than a week later after the vamp nest, both sam and dean embarked on solo hunts, sam in maine, dean in nevada. both brothers had warned you not to ‘burn the joint down’.

come on. like you would ever do that— on accident. besides, you had the bunker all to yourself.

which was fun—

for all of five minutes.

now, almost six days after sam and dean had left, you’re sitting in the library, surrounded by a scattered array of books, papers, and weapons alike on the tables in front of you— another late night of research and catching up on lore.

because there was always lore to catch up on.

you’d been lost in the words in front of you when you heard the unmistakable noise of the bunker’s door creaking open. you stiffened slightly, instincts on alert, lifting your gaze from where you were standing— but relaxed and went back to scanning the page when you realized it was just dean.

because here’s the thing: over the years, you’ve realized that it’s not a good idea to talk to dean after he’s fresh off a hunt— and especially knowing that he’s probably just drove almost or even over 24 hours straight to come home?

yeah. no way were you about to be running up to dean as he trudged down the stairs, doting on him. to your knowledge, he hated touching people, especially other people touching him.

besides, usually after a hunt, dean would just go to his room, the infirmary, or immediately hit the showers— and not look once in your direction while he did it, much less talk to you.

it hurt, but you understood that the reason he does it wasn’t exactly anything you were doing wrong— it was just what dean did.

but tonight was different.

dean was on his way to his bedroom (or actually, maybe the infirmary might be better so he could patch himself up)—

but then he saw you.

you were still stood at one of the tables, eyes scanning through books of lore you dug up from the bookshelves, illuminated by the golden lamps lining the wooden tables. god, you were pretty. even though you weren’t looking at him, he didn’t blame you. he wasn’t exactly the most cheerful after a hunt.

especially this one.

and because of that, dean’s feet were moving before he could even think twice about what he was doing.

you’d glanced up from the book you’d been completely engulfed in— and was a little surprised to find dean looking right back at you as he walked up the few steps to the library.

you opened your mouth to say something, but before you could even register what was happening, dean had already made it to you— and without warning, wrapped you in a tight embrace, slamming against you and holding you like you were the only thing that would keep him upright.

your eyes widen slightly at the feeling of dean’s arms around you before you could register the fact that he’d even crossed the threshold of the bunker— a little ‘oof’ sound escapes you completely involuntarily.

“hey,” dean let out a shaky breath against some strands of your hair and shoulder, his voice slightly raspy with…was that relief?

despite how caught off-guard you were, you don’t reject dean’s unexpected hug, though. you let your body adjust to him and your arms wrap around him too, returning the gesture right back. the faint smell of baby’s exhaust, something earthy along with the familiar scent of dean fills your lungs as your fingers ever so slightly grasp onto the back of his jacket, keeping him against you.

the muscles in dean’s shoulders relax the second your arms gently wrap around him. and oh god, he just really missed you—

“hi,” your voice is just as quiet when you greet dean in return, chin resting on his own shoulder. “how did it—”

you’re trying to ask how his hunt went, but before you finish, dean’s pulling you closer to him and squeezing the words from you. his hands slip more around your waist to hold you against him tighter, burying his face into the crook of your shoulder. he just wants to feel you. you’re so warm, so soft— and goddamn, you smelled good, too. you always did. it was a little infuriating, actually.

dean knows he should probably let go, or at least respond, but he can’t find it in himself to let go yet— so instead he just holds onto you tighter. he still doesn’t respond to your unsaid question, simply standing there, holding onto you like a drowning man clinging to a lifeline.

you assumed something had happened on his hunt for dean to be acting this way— but you don’t press or force him to tell you what. you just wanted to be there for him right now.

“oh,” is what you end up softly replying with a little nod of your head against dean when he simply doesn’t answer your unfinished question. but you don’t let him go. hell no. you just pat your hand on the back of one of his shoulders, tightening your own grip on him in return. “sorry, de.”

and dean lets out a slow breath of… was that relief at your voice, at the nickname you’d had for him since the second (or was it third) hunt you’d ever worked on together? who the hell knows. he’s just so thankful you’re here, you’re hugging him, not pushing him away, you’re holding him— that you’re so close.

“no, it’s okay,” dean’s unusually soft voice, barely above a whisper, cuts through the silence.

“it— it was rough, that’s all," he mutters after a even longer while, his words tinged with a mixture of fatigue and… something else that you can't quite place.

you and dean were so close and pressed together with your combined tight grips— so much so that you swore you could almost feel his heartbeat. but it wasn’t uncomfortable. and it didn’t feel awkward. it never seemed to be with him. besides, by his (few) words, you could tell he needed this a lot more than he was letting on.

in all honesty, you were just glad dean was finally letting himself seek comfort for once in his goddamn life—

in you.

“yeah, i get it,” is what you reply with, just nodding against dean’s shoulder while tightening your own grip on him. without really thinking about it, you start to gently run one of your hands up and down his back while still wrapped up in him, palm and fingers trailing on the material of his jacket. “just glad you’re back.”

you can feel dean’s breath hitch at your touch— and for a moment, you hesitate your motions of your hand tracing along his jacket, but his grip on you unconsciously tightened, like he was clinging to you. so you continue doing it after that.

“yeah,” he murmurs, a faint huff of something like a laugh escaping him. “me too.”

and for a long while, dean just stands there wrapped up in you, his face still buried in your hair and part of your shoulder as he lets himself lean into that touch, absorbing its comfort. he grips onto the back of your shirt— and he could feel the tension start to melt away, the warmth mixed with the scent of you filling his senses and working magic on him.

dean stays quiet for several more moments, his face still buried deep in your shoulder, as if he was trying to hide himself from the outside world. his grip on you doesn’t loosen as he stands there, his body against yours. every breath he takes is deep, steady— like he’s grounding himself in this moment with you.

his words break the silence as a whisper against you after a while, the vulnerability clear in his low voice, his words almost like a confession.

“i… missed you.”

a small exhale you didn’t know you were holding releases when dean says that— and your hand falters. dean winchester, king of bottling up feelings and keeping them to himself just said he missed you. this was completely different than how he usually acted around you, but you didn’t mind.

“i missed you, too,” your own voice also quiet when you respond. it was only a few words, but you had understood what dean meant— in more ways than most would. which is why you don’t even attempt to tease him about it, replying with something between a sigh and a laugh at the realization. “like, a lot.”

dean’s grip tightens even further at your response, as if your words had a more profound impact on him than you could've ever imagined. he pulls you closer against him, the hardness of his body against yours should’ve been more uncomfortable, but it wasn’t.

there’s a moment of silence as dean just holds you, face still hidden, his chest rising and falling right against yours. each breath he takes is deeper, almost shaky, and for a moment, you can feel the slightest tremble in his grip.

his voice are soft, vulnerable in a way you’ve rarely seen from him. like he almost didn’t believe you.

“really?”

and you don’t falter your own grip for one second, despite the fact that this was completely out of character for him. you return the action, tightening your arms around dean before resuming running your hand up and down his back.

“yeah, really,” you nod against dean to confirm, letting out a soft exhale into his jacket. “i dunno, it was just… quiet here without you guys. always is.”

your words seem to soothe him— almost as much as your touch, your hug does. despite being strong both physically and mentally, dean seems to need this— and he doesn’t even really know why. he relaxes even more at your words, his body slumping against yours. it’s almost like he’s seeking every bit of comfort and warmth he can get from this— from you.

dean lets out a small, soft scoff, tinged with weary amusement. “yeah, i bet it was,” he murmurs, voice muffled against your . “must’a been like a vacation for you, huh?” there's a note of sarcasm there, like he’s trying to mask the intensity of the moment with something familiar— like he always did.

and you could have played along with dean’s attempt at lightheartedness— but honestly, you were too tired to make that effort right now. so you just shake your head a little against dean, voice much quieter than before.

“first day was nice,” you admit to dean, hands grasping the back of his jacket to keep him close to you before you close your eyes. “the rest were just…”

there’s a beat of silence as you trail off, and dean’s grip on you— if possible, tightens even further at your unfinished sentence, as if he was hanging on your every word, waiting for what you were going to say.

he lets out a small, soft breath, warm against your hair. “just... what?” he asks, his voice just as low as yours. there’s a hint of subtle unease at what you were going to say.

your arms don’t loosen when you feel dean’s grip grow just that much tighter— but you weren’t about to complain. you don’t answer right away, because the rest of your sentence was almost too embarrassing to admit.

but then again, you remind yourself: this was dean who you were talking to. he didn’t judge you for a lot of things you had once assumed he would judge you for. so you just huff out a quiet laugh into his shoulder that wasn’t really one at all— containing no humor and mostly self-deprecation.

“lonely.”

your admission hangs there between you both. it’s a simple word, but it hits dean harder than any blow he’s ever taken in a fight. because you get it. there’s a hitch in his breathing— the kind that gives away more than mere words ever could. he goes still for a moment, just letting your confession sink in, the quiet of the bunker feeling even more pronounced in that moment.

“yeah,” dean finally breaks the silence with a soft exhale against you, pulling you even tighter against him. “me, too.”

you relax a little after dean says that. it meant more than he knew. you weren’t sure how to explain it, but it felt like you and him… kind of supported each other, in a way. like the burdens you both carried separately, your own issues that you had, they seemed to be less overwhelming whenever you were even near each other. even if you and him didn’t actually know each other’s burdens.

there’s always been an understanding between you, a silent knowledge that sometimes words didn’t need to be said for the other to know what that person is thinking.

the atmosphere in the room feels different now, the silence less heavy than it was before, but the intensity and weight of the moment still weighs heavily in the air between you. it must be an interesting sight from the outside looking in— a six-foot hunter clinging onto you like you were the last thing on earth. but you didn’t mind. hell, it was comfortable.

dean’s grip on you remains just as tight— almost like he’s afraid to let go, afraid that you’ll slip away like some dream he only has once in a great while. he takes a deep breath, chest rising against you as he inhales, then exhales slowly. before he’d realized it, his fingers absentmindedly fiddle with a strand of your hair.

this level of closeness between you two was unfamiliar. of course, you’d hugged each other before and spent numerous times in close proximity—whether it be in the backseat of the impala when sam had to drive that one time or when you had to hide in a not-so-big broom closet from a wraith.

but this... this was different.

and you knew the uncomfortableness of seeking comfort better than most— but somehow, you never had an issue when you were the one who was comforting others. but still, this was new territory. you certainly hadn’t expected dean to hug you for this long tonight. truth was, you didn’t really didn’t want to let go. but you couldn’t say that to him. that would be too weird.

the library is silent, only the soft tick-tock of the old clock on the wall filling the air. there’s a vulnerability, an understanding greater than words in this moment that neither of you are used to— but strangely enough, it's also the most comfortable you’ve both felt in a long time.

and then, dean breaks the silence again— his voice so low, so quiet, that you almost miss it.

“don’t wanna let go.”

your gaze softens when dean says that— but you don’t loosen your grip on him. you weren’t sure exactly why he was so adamant on not letting go, or why he’d been hugging you like you’d almost died. but you don’t ask questions.

besides, dean’s been more vulnerable with you tonight than i’d ever seen or heard in all the years you’d known him. and when he admitted that? you knew you had to be there for him, in whatever way he wanted. so when you reply back, your words are just as quiet as his.

“well, you don’t have to.”

the words feel like a weight being lifted off dean’s shoulders. he clings to you even tighter, burying his face even deeper into your shoulder, like he was ashamed. he doesn’t say anything for a moment— instead, just taking deep breaths. because he’s struggling to keep his emotions intact.

finally, he mumbles into you again, his words muffled by your shirt.

“you promise?”

“yeah,” you echo back quietly, nodding your head against dean’s buried into you. “promise. we can stay like this as long as you want to.”

there’s no malice hidden in your words, or any hint of teasing— because it was nothing but the truth. you’d stay with dean for as long as he wanted you to. and you bury your face a little more into him when he does the same to your shoulder.

there’s another long moment of silence as dean holds onto you, his face still buried in your shoulder. normally, he’d be making some smartass comment by now, acting like his usual self— but he can't seem to find the words. or the energy.

dean huffs softly against your shoulder after a moment— the closest thing to one of his usual snarky remarks. but there’s a hint of hesitation in his voice when he speaks.

“what if i wanted to… all night?”

you’d half been expecting dean to brush off your words with a joke or at least something, but the tone of hesitation told you that he was being anything but that. you hesitate, but ultimately lift your head off of his shoulder— you don’t pull away fully, though.

and dean’s body visibly tenses when you pause and pull away slightly to look at him, and he’s almost immediately on the defensive— but relaxes a little when you don’t go far.

your gaze silently searches dean’s as you scrunch your eyebrows slightly. you knew that what he’d just asked you for was… different. and you didn’t have to ask him for clarification. you knew what he meant, why he was so hesitant. because this wasn’t going to be just hugging him anymore.

this would be all night.

and there’s a vulnerable look in his eyes when he lets his guard down just enough as you let your gaze linger on him. dean almost looks like a wounded dog right now, the exhaustion, the weariness making him drop his typical persona in favor of honesty— maybe even desperation, just this once.

from that look on dean’s face, he was not kidding about what he asked. the expression he had was one you hadn’t seen this intensely in a long time. you knew he wasn’t one to just ask something like this, either. not unless he needed it.

the thought of being so close to dean all night makes you a little nervous, but not as much to outright say no. so keeping his gaze, your voice is just as quiet as his was when you nod, breaking the silence of the library once again.

“then i’d say ‘get your pj’s on’.”

the way dean’s body relaxes in relief at your words is almost overwhelming. he’s still staring right into your eyes, the vulnerability almost raw. he manages to nod, searching your gaze. he’d been expecting a boatload of teasing with a side of humiliation— but he’d been proved wrong.

“yeah?” he almost whispers as he holds your gaze, eyes searching yours like he’s trying to read your mind. like he’s unable to determine if this is real. if you’re real.

“yeah,” you nod in return, a pang of warmth hitting you again as you look at dean right back. you’re both still standing so close together— and the air felt different, thicker when you take another breath. “s’long as you don’t kick me.”

dean appreciated the break in seriousness, more than you would ever know. something resembling a smile tugs on the corner of his mouth, and he lets out a breath he didn’t know he was holding.

“no promises,” he murmurs back, something softer in his gaze as his eyes continue to rake over your face. “but i’ll try.”

“good,” you nod a little again, your own smile tugging on your face as your hands almost absentmindedly trail on dean’s arms— and his eyes literally almost flutter shut at the contact. “and you’re comin’ to my room. and you’re showering.”

dean raises an eyebrow and tries to ignore the warmth that stirred in his chest when you said that all authoritative-like— he swallows before he talks again.

“yes, ma’am.”

. • . ° .• °:. *₊ ° . 𖤐

dean knocked on your door before he entered your room not twenty minutes later— don’t ask him, but he showered faster than he ever did in his entire life. he wasn’t too keen on the why.

your head perked up from your pillows when you heard the knock, already under your blankets and— well, let’s be honest here: waiting for him you’d even already moved to the left side of your bed, so dean would have a spot.

a stupid, small part of you had doubts that dean would actually ultimately show up, but it was a little embarrassing how much relief you felt when you call out a soft “yeah”, signaling him to come in.

dean stepped into your room, the only light being from your barley-lit desk lamp. it doubled as a night light, so you didn’t trip over yourself after a midnight snack break.

dean might as well have been in heaven. or something pretty damn close.

of course, he’s been in your room before— but this felt much different than all the other times. because he was going to be sleeping here tonight.

everything felt heightened, more intense— but as dean shut your door, he also had an almost overwhelming sense of comfort. of home. like this is where he was supposed to be this entire time. he pushed those recurring thoughts and feelings he always felt when he was around you, but without first reminding himself that you had agreed to do this. the thought alone was almost enough to make dean’s heart do that thing it always did whenever he was around you.

he’d been lost in his own thoughts, barely even registering the fact that he’d made it to the edge of your bed. your bed. not his, not some old, dingy motel’s. it almost made him chicken out. until—

“as much as i’d like to see you stand there all night, i think you should probably lay down.”

there it was. your incomparable capability to snap dean out of his head, back to reality. he didn’t know how you did it— and to be honest, you didn’t really know, either. but you always could, even giving sam a run for his money.

dean doesn’t hesitate again. you’d already peeled back your covers for him, so he just lifted them up and got under them. like he belonged. as if he’d done so a million times before. 

your bed, your sheets, your pillows— it was warm. and it smelled like you, tenfold. an equal blend of your fabric softener that only you used because dean said the teddy bear on the bottle looked at him weird and your shampoo that was way too expensive and you had to go to a separate store for. 

dean knew you smelled good, that was no debate— but this was like he was wrapped in it. like he’d been earlier when he hugged you. and so close to how he’d always wanted to be wrapped up in you. yet he knew that wasn’t going to happen tonight.

besides, when was the last time dean winchester got what he wanted?

the answer?

right now.

your eyes hadn’t left dean’s figure when he finally lays down next to you, both now facing each other— it was strange actually seeing him in your bed after years of restless nights wishing he was.

and you could smell him, too— the faint scent of the soap you’d gotten him for his birthday, along with the tea tree shampoo sam kept hidden in the back medicine cabinet (but not well enough, apparently). you decided right then and there that the pillow dean’s head was currently resting on was the one you were going to sleep on after tonight, just so you could smell him after he was gone.

“how you wanna do this?”

dean’s uncharacteristically soft voice broke your thoughts, and you met his eyes when he spoke. his expression looked softer, too— almost hesitant. like he was uncertain. it was a look you rarely ever saw on his face. to see it now, in this way, was bittersweet. then it clicked. 

he was nervous.

“however you want to,” is what you reply with, voice just as quiet as his. you reminded yourself that dean had asked for this. in your mind, it was only fair that he get a say. “whatever you need.”

whatever you need. well, dean needed to kiss you silly if it was the last thing he did, but not tonight. not here. he wouldn’t be able to take it if you rejected him in that way. 

but he had to take some sort of risk right now. he couldn’t deny himself of it— of you any longer.

so before dean can talk himself out of it, he wraps an arm around you, closing the remaining distance— and to your surprise, he buries his head right into your chest, nuzzling against your shirt.

your breath hitches, and you hope to god that he didn’t hear that. but you don’t reject him. you just wrap your own arms around him, accepting him and his touch just as you had done earlier in the library. 

dean would’ve made some joke about basically burrowing his face into your boobs. he didn’t really mean to— but his eyes had fluttered shut already, because you letting him, and you were warm, and you smelled good, and you were so soft.

he’d always loved that about you. from a distance, of course. it didn’t matter how many hardships you’d gone through; you were soft in every sense of the word, both physically and emotionally. and once when he’d taken a shower in your bathroom since sam was hogging the main one in the bunker, the whole damn place smelled like you. he found himself wanting to drown in it.

and hell. he wouldn’t even complain.

your free hand went into his hair at some point, and it took everything in him not to let out a noise. dean sighed a little into your shirt, his breath warm on your chest— he finally let himself relax. go slack.

and he was so grateful that you didn’t tease him, or point out the fact that all six feet and one inch of him was in your grasp and snuggling into you like some damn koala. like a little kid who had a bad dream. but then again, his life felt like a never-ending bad dream most of the time.

you were his one exception to that.

not that he’d ever admit it out loud.

you weren’t sure how long you both stayed like that, wrapped up in each other before dean breaks the warm blanket of silence— it could’ve been hours or seconds. but his voice is so low, so soft, you almost didn’t hear it.

“thanks.”

the word was spoken against you, dean still remaining unmoving. he didn’t necessarily think himself as weak at the moment, even though he thought he should— and he dared not to say it out loud, knowing that you’d immediately shoot his insecurities down. 

but dean was finally letting himself get comfort. warmth.

something he’d had for a fleeting moment, then lost. something he had deemed too precious for a man as ragged and as sinful as him a long time ago. he didn’t deserve this. you.

he’d never be one to just take something like this, to ask this of you, without any regard for how you felt. but you showed— all you ever showed to him was the love he thought he’d never receive. the love he’d given so much away, but it never got returned back to him.

because you made him feel like he actually meant something. like he was the hero people he’d saved described him as. like he wasn’t some piece on a chessboard, a punchline in someone’s story, a puppet on a string, or a cog in some eternal machine. 

truth was? the big secret?

you made him feel normal. human. 

it was almost overwhelming, how safe, comfortable he felt right now. the last time he felt this safe, he’d been a child. the last time he felt this comfortable in himself— damn. it was before hell.

when it was just monsters of the week, the only big goal being finding his dad. staying at bobby’s. you had visited that summer. he can still remember your laugh echoing off of the wallpaper and the piles of books. it was before demons.

and the only angel he saw daily was you.

it was in the way the light shone in through the stained glass of one of bobby’s kitchen windows and hit your face, you making him coffee without being asked. when you smiled at him just because.

you treated him like a real friend. like family. like an equal.

sometimes, when everything in his head was too loud, dean missed it. when the only thought of lucifer he had was when he saw the cartoon on the bottle of the devil’s hot sauce at that barbeque place in texas. when everyone he loved and cared about was still alive. when the world wasn’t ending. when you kissed his cheek after not seeing him for a while.

you still did that last one, though.

“anytime, de.”

dean had flinched a little, but didn’t open his eyes after you replied—he had been too lost in the comfort. in you. he could die right now instead of sleeping, and honestly? it’d be a good way to go out. he’d prefer it over going down swinging any day, he decided. 

dean got most of what he wanted tonight. maybe someday he’d get it all. but for now, he’d just dream of it, like he always did.

the only difference?

he was actually in your arms this time.

───────────────────────── 𖤐

you have one ( 1 ) more new message from the author ! ↓

i know i said it already, but i need to hold this man so so so BADDDDD 💔💔💔 he deserves everything and more like that’s my shayla ☹️ my baby my world my everything (he’s a murderer and monsters fear him)

my master taglist (so far): @blossomingorchids @bluemerakis @ambiguous-avery @maddie0101 @titsout4jackles @deansbeer @sunsbaby @emeraldcrs @h8aaz @honeyryewhiskey @supernotnatural2005 @cowboysandcigarettes @soldiersgirl @bittersweetfig @mostlymarvelgirl @amaris444 @kaz-2y5-spn @littlesoulshine @starzify @velvetparkerx @eggggggggggggggggggggsblog @fuckedupfate @liiiilsss @angelblqde @vmiina @mahi-wayy @viarasvogue @tinas111 @0ccvltism + if i missed anyone OR if you want to be added/taken off, please let me know! <3

[starstruckmiraclekitty]

Simon was seething. Never had he been so viscerally angry, his temper dangerously towing the tight rope that was his self control. You’d almost been killed. You’d been shot, and you were damn lucky that it hadn’t been fatal.

He found you on the roof later that night, no longer hiding the pain the bullet wound in your side had caused once you thought you were alone. It took all of two seconds of him seeing you hurting like that for him to snap.

“The fuck were you thinking out there, Y/N?!” His voice echoed in the night air, causing you to flinch slightly. “Do please tell me you’ve got a reasonable explanation for what happened.”

“Simon, please just calm down for a minute.” Your voice was soft, too soft, and it only fueled his anger more.

“Calm down? You want me to calm down?” Simon bellowed, his self control rapidly slipping out of his grasp. “You almost fuckin’ died, Y/N!”

Simon hated the way you flinched, hated the way you backed up ever so slightly away from him, but he couldn’t control himself. He had almost lost you.

“I know that, Simon. I know. But I don’t regret what went down.” You forced your voice steady, your eyes not leaving his as you attempted to stand your ground. “I-.”

“You don’t regret almost getting shot? Y/N, you’re not on this team to make reckless decisions. If I knew you’d be making choices like that, I’d have had Price kick you off the team months ago! Almost dying, for what? For what?!” Simon moved closer to you, the red in his vision nearly blinding, and this time you didn’t back away.

“For you, asshole!” You screamed, your hands reaching for Simon’s chest, pushing him as hard as you possibly could. Simon barely moved an inch before you screamed again. “For you! If I hadn’t taken that bullet, you would’ve died!”

Simon’s world stopped in that moment, the red vanishing from his vision, his heart coming to a slow halt in his chest as he absorbed your words. For him?

“He was aiming at you, Simon. If I hadn’t stepped in the way, we would’ve lost you. And I.” You trailed off, unable to look at the hulking man in front of you. “I don’t know, I didn’t hesitate, it was as if it was just instinct for me.”

Simon could hear his heartbeat in his ears, the soft thud thud thud the only thing keeping him grounded. You’d saved him. You’d risked your life to save him.

You, the sweet soldier who always put others first. You, the one who’d always patched him up late at night, laughing at his shitty jokes. You, the one who understood him like nobody else. You, the one person in this godforsaken world that got him to lower the never ending walls within him. You, the one he’d unknowingly loved for years. Saved him.

“I know it was stupid, and if you want to kick me off of the team for it, fine. But I’d do it again.” You threw your hands up in the air, and Simon didn’t miss the way you winced from the pain in your side. “I don’t regret it.”

Simon only stared at you, his eyes betraying none of the inner turmoil that he was currently experiencing.

“I couldn’t lose you, Simon.” Your voice was barely audible as you spoke, your eyes falling on the lower half of his mask. “Not now, not ever. I don’t know what I would’ve done if that bullet hit you.”

Simon’s eyes found yours as he let out a breath he didn’t know he was holding. He opened his mouth to speak, but his tongue felt heavy, incapable of moving. For the first time in his life, he truly didn’t know what to say.

He watched as you chewed your bottom lip, your eyes leaving his yet again as you looked down at your feet. God he wishes he could say something, anything, but as always words failed him around you.

“I’ve got to go report in to Price.” You said, slowly turning away from him to face the door. “I won’t apologize for what I did, but I’m sorry for causing you to doubt my ability to support the team. Have a good night, lieutenant.”

Watching you turn away from him had finally stirred something within him, his heart rapidly beating in his chest. He had to make this right.

“Y/N.” Simon found his voice as you reached the roof’s door, causing you to turn to face him. “Wait.”

Your heart practically stopped beating upon finding Simon’s mask discarded, his face now fully bare for you to see. You weren’t sure what you had expected, once you’d finally seen him, but it certainly wasn’t this.

He was simply beautiful. Every scar, every small freckle, dimple, wrinkle had formed his face impeccably well, and you couldn’t help but stare at him as your mind ran completely blank.

You’d fallen for the masked man long ago, his dry humor, loyalty and bravery were something that’d you’d found yourself drawn to. You’d meant what you said to him about not regretting taking a bullet for him. You loved him. And truthfully couldn’t fathom a life without him.

“Now you see me.” Simon breathed, his eyes softening as he watched you take in every inch of his face. He should’ve felt vulnerable, shy even. But he didn’t. Not with you. He wanted you to see him, every imperfect inch of him.

He bared himself to you, let his face and eyes tell you everything he didn’t know how to express with words.

“I’ve always seen you, Simon Riley.” You spoke, your voice barely above a whisper as your hand softly cupped his cheek. “Always.”

And that was all it took for Simon to know he loved you.

[nova2kss]

Plug!Connie x black!Reader

Plug Connie fic (sorta kinda) bc I love him sooo much

Not proof read

Enjoy cause im prob not gonna write again until may🙂‍↕️ ily guys

Constance fucking springer a dangerous man as some would say.

You being best friends and roommates with Sasha braus, made you a bit more acquainted with the man more than you’d like as you would say.

You never really tried to involve yourself into his lifestyle…well that was until finals week when you were terribly stressed

The only thing you needed from him was a few grams.

A few grams turned into a few packs, a few packs turned into a few smoke sessions, and a few smoke sessions turned into Connie beating your shit from the back.

“S-shit take it out papa, I’m s-sorryyy” 

“Mhm hmm I know”

The tinted windows on his all back red rimmed SRT was fogged with your hand prints all over them

You didn’t mean to put yourself in this predicament, you just wanted to show your man that you were a grown ass woman who could make her own decisions

Connie’s hands were deepening your arch in his back seat

“Keep that back arched or I won’t let up baby”

You gripped the hand door handle praying keeping that deep arch would give him some sympathy to give you at least a break

“Mhmm just like that mami, shit so good ima nut in you”

“Fuck paaa please I’m so s-sor AH”

You were interrupted with a sting on your ass combined with a sharp thrust.

“Fuck up, take that shit. This what you wanted right”

He was right, this was indeed what you wanted, you just weren’t expecting him to fuck you this hard.

As much as you complained you loved seeing this side of him, you loved when he put you in your place, and reminded you why you shouldn’t piss him off.

He slowed his thrust down ever so slightly watching the white ring drip around his shaft as you to connected.

“Look at you creaming on this dick baby”

The whimpers you let out in unison with the squelching around him; had him ready to give you all his cum.

As much as he was mad at you, he couldn’t hold back his moans in the slightest, your pussy had him rambling spewing out anything

“F-fuck I love you s’much baby” “you feel so good” “I’m gonna cum baby”

All of this while he fucked you so stupid you couldn’t even respond.

Your eyes were rolling in the back of your head when Connie snaked his hands into your hair pulling your head back onto his chest.

You couldn’t even speak and ask for a break the most you could do was reach your hand back and try and push him out of your guts

Connie looked down at your petty attempt to push him away

“Move your hand baby”

“Mhm mhm”

“Y/n move that shit”

“Mhm nooo, take sum outtt”

His thrust came to a halt

“Y/n if you don’t move yo hand ima kill yo shit”

Your hand was moved with quickness.

“Uhh Fuck pa I’m gonna cum”

“I know baby I feel you, I’m right there”

Your hips move with his chasing your nut, and Connie was doing every for you to catch it

His hand stayed tangled in your hair as he licked and moaned over your neck

He couldn’t hold his nut anymore, and neither could you

“Cum for me baby, I’m right thereee”

The waterfall rushed out wetting his fresh leather seats and his whole lower half

“M’cumming m’cumminggg”

His thrust stopped as he painted your insides with his warm seed

The only thing you seen was the whites of his eyes while he groaned into you, riding out your orgasms

You both moaned as he pulled out, watching his nut drip out of you

He laughed looking at the seats of his car

“We made a mess”

[tokoyamisstuff]

Second Chance At Love Pt. 3

Variant! Invincible x gn! Reader

Warnings: angst, blood, hurt/comfort, enemies to lovers, not proofread A/N: don't worry, this is not over yet! and sorry to all the og Mark fans lmao

[A few minutes earlier, Pentagon Medical Ward]

"So you left my friend alone with this freak the whole time?!"

Cecil's thumb was hesitating on the trigger for the high-frequency device, not wanting to stain his relationship with the original Mark any further - but after witnessing what his variants were capable of, he's certainly not taking any chances.

"Calm. Down." he urges the young Viltrumite while trying to remain amenable at the same time. "We needed to take care of the active threats beforehand, and also...he seemed quite fond of your friend." That last part he regretted immediately after saying it aloud.

"You can't be serious!" Mark now screamed, dramatically throwing his hands in the air, thus making all nearby agents cower in fear. "It was you who told me that one of those psychos tried to lure my mom out to kill her! What else do you think this is? He made my friend believe he's me, to play some sort of wicked game!"

All that had happened those past few days...the death and destruction...Mark blamed himself for all of it, because at the bottom line everything was inevitably caused by his own lack of resolve.

And there he was, hiding away at Eve's sickbed like a stubborn child, cowardly refusing to take responsibility as earth's last hope, while others were risking their lives to correct his errors, hell, while his brother and mom were still out there!

Once again he let everyone down.

But Mark won't let any more people he cares about suffer because of his own shortcomings. This time he won't hold back...

...he'll kill this variant and make him pay for what he's done.

Picking up his mask from the counter, he bids his still comatose girlfriend one last look, very well aware how disappointed she'd be at his latest decisions. She'd want him to go. So he mutters a silent apology before rushing into the hallway, with Cecil following closely behind.

"Teleport me to them. And you better send as many backup reanimen as you can."

[Current time]

"Careful Mark. If our observations are correct, this one is way stronger than the others." The hero huffs in annoyance upon hearing Cecil's voice from his earpiece, watching his other self come out of the debris with not a hair out of place.

Well, most of the variants probably never faced any real threat or even slight disadvantage in their lives. There was simply no reason for them to train properly, since the powergap between Viltrumites and any other species was just so ridiculously high.

This version of Mark however spent his entire life preparing his vengeance on Omni-man for taking the one and only thing he truly cared about...

...and his hard work seemed to bear fruit, since a single counterattack of his was painful enough to temporarily stun the original. He seized the opportunity to pin his opponent down, landing one severe blow after another until both of them were completely covered in the original Mark's blood.

"NO!" you screamed at the top of your lungs, having thrown yourself onto the variant's back as you - brave yet very foolishly - tried to to get those two behemoths away from each other. And in the end, your struggle and pleas actually made the variant stop in his tracks. "Please...don't kill him."

For a split second you see the look of heartbreak and betrayal in the man's face, since seeing you still care so much for the original erased all hope he had started to harbor.

Your world's Mark has everything he ever wanted, and he doesn't even understand how lucky he is.

This is so fucking unfair, it's driving him insane.

The Viltrumite raises his bloodied knuckles to his temples, his jealousy spiraling into a violent, irrational urge to tear the original apart and take his place.

And yet he tries to keep it together for your sake as he couldn't bear to cause you any more sorrow. He glares you down with so much malice "That was self-defense" he scoffed through strained breaths, desperately trying to prevent himself from having a mental breakdown. "I wasn't actually going to-"

Now it was the original Mark's chance to turn the battle around, grabbing the variant by the throat as he crushed him against a mountain not far from the hill you were on.

While your former friend was completely disregarding you, rationality overthrown by his wrath, the other Invincible's eyes were practically glued to you in concern for your safety. At first he was holding back, letting the attacker use him as a punching bag in hopes it'd calm him down...

...but when he recognized the capsules transporting reanimen falling from the sky, he pounced on you with no forethought, shielding you from the impact with his own body.

"Shit, are you oka-" Another time he was torn away from you, with Mark yelling at him to keep his filthy hands off of you. And yet with every move, no matter what, the other Mark did a way better job to prevent any harm than the one who came to 'save' you from that very same man.

"Dude, that's exactly why we cannot fight here!" the variant reprimanded his counterpart while severing the head and limbs from several cyborgs. "Think about your partner's safety! We both only want what's best for them, right?"

"Huh?" The original Mark gave a puzzled look at that statement, the word 'partner' obviously made him think of Eve, but his eyes briefly flickered towards you. "What's that supposed to mea- ah, whatever."

In any other context you would've probably been so embarassed that you wished for the earth to swallow you whole - but this is neither about you, nor was it the time for this kind of talk. And luckily, Mark didn't overthink the variant's words but focused on the truth in them instead, swiftly throwing you over his shoulder to bring you away, so that they could continue their battle without endangering you.

"Let. Me. Go!" You repeatedly punch against Mark's back, horrified to see your newfound friend down below trying to stand his ground against the reanimen. "Tell them to stop! None of this is necessary!"

"Hey, it's me!" Mark tries to soothe you, convinced that you're just overwhelmed by today's events. "The real me, okay? Stop being so irrational!"

"Yeah, I know that, you blockhead!" you blurt out in anger, "And you're one to talk! You let your emotions dictate your actions, as always! I thought Invincible spares the bad guys and tries to talk it out?"

"...not anymore. We all saw today how that way of dealing with villains turns out." Letting you down so far away that you can't even see how the variant is holding up anymore, Mark is about to leave and finish the job when you manage to get a hold of his wrist. "Wait. Listen to me, that Mark is not entirely evil!"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" So not only did you know it was a variant, but now you're also defending him?! "The trauma messed with your head or something. Let Cecil's people pick you up and check on you."

"Seriously, Mark." He finally turned around to take a proper look at you, grinding his teeth as he recognized that naive, caring attitude of yours that always had a positive influence on him in the past. It made his heart swell with both admiration and envy...

...because why the hell were you advocating for a malicious version of himself, especially after throwing away your friendship over something he had no control over?!

"You know this guy one fucking day and suddenly you're on his side?" the hurt in his voice was so tremendous, you felt as if the guilt of it swallowed you whole. "You were supposed to be my friend, and he's the one who participated in making mine and many other's lives a living hell! So why?!"

"...it would be a waste to kill off a potential ally of this strenght, would it not?" Your reasoning got accentuated by the sound of metal and flesh clashing in the background, and you secretly hoped the variant was doing okay. "Maybe he can be rehabilitated."

"God, you sound like Cecil...but even he draws a line at some point. This guy is irredeemable!" Mark ran a hand through his hair, pacing around in circles to clear his head - and yet it was like your role in all this was the one drop that made the pot boil over. "He needs to be stopped! You've seen it yourself, he leveled several cities to the ground and killed a great amount of heroes! Shit, he's caused millions of deaths, do you have any idea what that means?!"

There was nothing to add to this. He was right, about absolutely everything. And yet...

"He-he needed to fullfill his part of the bargain, or Angstrom would've-" A loud bang echoed through the air as Mark's fists met the ground in frustration, effectively cutting you off. "Fuck, do you even hear yourself?! He always had a choice to join the fight on the right side instead of wasting his time chasing after yo-" There was a gleam of epiphany in his eyes that made you a little anxious whether he had picked up on the hints.

"Look, I'm not trying to justify his actions." You pry one of Mark's fists open, intertwining your fingers with his. "But we need him..."

"...we, or you?" That question caught you off guard, but when you wanted to stumble away but Mark pulled you right back. "What he talked about earlier...are we a couple in that other dimension?"

Sometimes you tend to forget that he isn't as dull as he comes across. Damn it.

"I-I-I....it's more complicated than that. I...died in his world." You shouldn't even be arguing about something so pointless right now, and you also don't want to burden him any further, but he keeps prying.

"So what, you want to become the moral support of a mass murderer?" Worded like this it does sound pretty awful. "I know you cut me out of your life, but I still care about you. No way I'm gonna let that happen. It's too dangerous."

Those feelings you harbored over the past decade were like a chain weighting heavy around your heart - but instead of communicating like an adult, you dwelled in self-pity and pushed your friend away. And as crazy as it sounds, over time you convinced yourself there's no way out of this, nothing else awaiting you...

...that was until you met the other Mark, however.

No better timing to free yourself than now, you thought, but Mark connected the dots faster than you were able to confess. "...why did you never say anything?"

"Oh c'mon, you've been doting on Eve since highschool." Mark was not the person to back out of a friendship like this, even if though he didn't reciprocate. If you had told him he'd certainly would've found a way to make this work, since he didn't want to lose you. And yet you didn't want to give the two of you the chance to overcome this, rather choosing to hurt him before you get hurt.

What a stupid, selfish teenager you were back then...

"Now it all makes sense" he speaks to himself, shyly glancing over to you again as he covers his blushing cheeks with his hands. "Fuck, I'm such an idiot..."

"Nonsense, I'm the ass for ruining our friendship over a silly crush." That was the understatement of the year - you were head over heels for this man.

He seems almost melancholic thinking back to all the moments he should've noticed what's going on. All this time wasted going no-contact when you could've worked things out instead...but it takes two to do that, and he's certainly not the one to blame.

Turning his head towards the noise of the ongoing fight, he shakes his head in disbelief. "This is so fucked up..."

"Tell me about it" you chuckle, playfully poking his side in an attempt to lighten the mood, and both of you give each other an appreciative smile. "But we shouldn't make rushed decisions in our current state, right?"

Mark lets out a shuddered sigh, realizing just what kind of hole your absence has tore in his life. But you'll manage to get back to how things were between you. This was a ray of hope cutting through the storm he's been caught into, ever since becoming a superhero.

"God, you have no idea how much I've missed you..."

There's no more time to waste, everything else has to wait until much later. Mark brings you back with him, a safe distance away from where the variant was still battling reanimen that just kept coming. Upon seeing Invincible he raises his guard again, but much to his surprise he's not attacked again, quite the opposite.

"Cecil, stop them!" your Mark exclaims into the comm as he jumps in between the crowd of cyborgs, giving a quick nod of acknowledgement to his other self. "He won't resist if we take him prisoner, right?"

"Sure..." the variant murmured, raising a brow in confusion. But indeed, the mechanical soldiers stop and he gets immobilized by Mark without fighting back. He looks up to you as if seeking your approval, and you quickly rush to their side, scolding Mark for being so harsh with his precautions.

"Are you hurt?" you whisper as the GDA agents transport you back to the Pentagon by helicopter, only the real Mark having flown ahead. You however refused to leave the variant's side, even though you've been strongly advised to go home, at least until the situation was less intense.

"This is nothing..." The Viltrumite huffs in amusement that you were worried about him of all people. He looks down to the shackles around his arms and legs that could never actually hold him, daring to crack a smile which you gladly mirrored. "But thanks that you stood up for me...even though I still don't understand why."

"Because I believe in you, so you better not disappoint me!" you chant, whearing a quiet whimper escape his throat when you put a reassuring hand on his knee. "Everything is gonna be alright, I'm sure of it. We're gonna figure it out...together, okay?"

A few hours later and you were still waiting in a hallway of the GDA, the feeling of suspense only worsened by all the pitying and disgusted looks some of the agents were shooting you. It was understandable, of course, since they probably saw you throwing yourself at the enemy live and in HD.

"I couldn't care less about whatever you two got going on" Cecil explains with his usual stoic manner, "but he refuses to talk and we don't have time for this."

You knew the opportunistic geeze was at least partly bluffing - he's most likely already planning on how to utilize Invincible's affection for you to control him.

Upon entering the prison cell you gasped at the gigantic apparatus containing him, all of his limbs encoated by a metal you didn't recognize in order to keep him from making any move. Honestly, it felt like no matter what they tried, he was only here because he wanted to be. If you told him to break out right now he'd most likely wreck this place in one milisecond.

The variant's defeated features brighten as he recognizes who was paying him a visit, but the initial excitement was soon pushed back by his newfound guilty conscience. He didn't expect to ever see you again, let alone you voluntarily entering the lion's den.

"I'll accept whatever punishment you deem necessary" he rasps, greatly worried at the possibility of them using you against your will. "Just leave them out of this."

Cecil nudged the bridge of his nose, groaning exaggeratedly. It sure isn't easy making objective decisions when you're that emotionally involved with the Grayson family - although he'd never admit the soft spot he had for them.

Not to mention, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity to get his hands on one of the two literal strongest men on the planet.

"Well for starters you'll help with rescue and rebuidling" he ultimatively decides, talking to the young man like one would scold an unruly child. "Consider this your last chance. And don't you dare taking a break until this whole planet has recovered from the aftermath of your crimes. I don't want to see you eating, sleeping or even breathing without any supervision. Got it?!"

"Yes, Sir..."

A single gesture of his hand enough to make his underlings free the Viltrumite from his confinements. "Give him a new costume so he doesn't scare the survivors...and insert an ultrasonic implant, just to be sure."

Mark rubbed his sore wrists, baffled with this decision. He had expected nothing less than torture, that they'd experiment until they'd find a way to execute him...but this? Ridiculous. Hardly a punishment.

Not that he's complaining, though.

At long last, you were facing each other again, those brief hours of separation feeling like an eternity apart. Crazy to think you barely even know this man - well, the fact that he was so much like the original Mark may have messed with your perception of time...

...or you were simply going crazy as well, who knows. Anyways, it did not feel wrong. If anything you've never been this happy in years.

The Viltrumite seems conflicted, his muscles occasionally twitching out of the desire to be close to you, to touch and hold you and never let go again. But then he detects the tears of relief in your eyes, misinterpreting them negatively and backing off even further.

Right...he doesn't deserve to be anywhere near you.

"You didn't need to...you shouldn't be here." He faces the ground in shame, blinking back tears of his own as he speaks. "Not after what I did."

"Damn it, Mark..." you half-yell, half-whine as you run straight towards him, wrapping your arms around his torso as if to press all of his broken parts back together. "Just...shut up. I'm capable of making my own decisions, whether you like them or not."

What a strange one you were. He wasn't even sure if his dimension's version of you had been that amazing of a person.

"Can't argue with that..." His hands tentatively finding purchase on your sides, and you instantly feel him melt at the feel of your body against his. "But it seems like we won't be able to meet each other for a while..."

"I can wait..." you shrug, beaming up at him with an almost playful tone. "...as long as you promise to take me on another date, would you? Without robots and death-matching yourself next time, if possible."

Mark smiled.

He did so many times ever since you met of course, but it always seemed like he was mimicking genuine human interaction, as if he was forcing himself to put on a facade in order to make you comfortable.

But this one, right here, right now...it was real, and so, so beautiful.

Hopefully you see more of it in the future.

"Oh, I think after you've seen how far I'd go for you, it's safe to say I can't deny you any wish..."

[Next Part]

[hurtspideyparker]

In a timeline where Civil War didn't end in divorce and everyone lives in the compound:

Steve, walking into the living room: Don't worry Buck I think you'll really fit in around here. Everyone is super nice

Peter: Oh my god you're living here too?! Can I please look at your arm? Please please please please please-

Bucky: *turns around and leaves*

-

Clint: So... wanna test if your spider-sense defeats my perfect aim?

Peter: Oh my god do I ever

Tony & Steve: NO.

-

Peter: Hi. Big fan. Y'know we're like a spider duo. Crime fighting spiders. Arachnid pals

Natasha, staring blankly:

Peter: Web friends? SPY-ders?

Natasha:

Peter: Spinneret associates?

Natasha: Leave.

Peter: Yes okay sorry ma'am

-

During a meal:

Bucky: *glaring at Sam*

Sam: Ay Rogers come get your dog

Steve: Bucky, leave it

Bucky: *glares down at soup instead*

-

Peter: Mr. Rogers could you help me with my homework?

Tony: What the hell kid, I'm right here

Bruce: I have... so many degrees

Steve: Hey I know a thing or two myself. Sure Queens, what do you got?

Peter: Great! I'm just gonna ask some questions for my essay. What would you say the role of war propaganda was in your decision to enroll in the military? Was being poor a factor? Actually, how was the Great Depression for you?

Steve: Less depressing than this conversation.

-

Steve: Take a jacket, it's chilly

Wanda: Okay thanks dad

Steve:

Wanda:

Peter: Ha! That's so embarrassing, it's like calling your teacher dad

Wanda: Shut up Peter, you call Tony dad all the time

Peter: Yeah but I do it on purpose so it's not embarrassing. I'm very open about my daddy issues

-

Tony: I wanna punch you in your perfect teeth

Steve:

Tony: Looking at me with your angelic blue eyes, like a freak

Steve:

Tony: Stupid Dorito ass build. Making me wanna take a bite

Steve: I feel harassed but I'm not sure what kind

-

Natasha: Hey bird brain!

Clint and Sam both turn:

Natasha: Hm, that's a problem. You have thirty seconds to decide who gets bird brain. The other will be feather head

Clint and Sam: *start arguing*

Tony: I can't believe they're fighting to be called an insult

Steve: She has that effect on people

Peter: Aw man, I wish the Black Widow gave me a nickname :(

-

Peter: Hey old man

Bucky:

Peter: I'M SO SORRY SIR MR. WILSON MADE ME DO IT PLEASE DONT KILL ME

Sam: *cackling in the background*

Bucky: *stands up and turns to Sam*

Sam: Oh shit- kid you're not getting the money if you're gonna snitch!

Peter: That's okay, I'd like to think my life is worth more than twenty bucks

-

Bucky: I need your... help

Tony: Sure, what's up?

Bucky: *glances back at Steve who stands in the doorway and nods approvingly*

Bucky: Arm.

Tony: Ok... this conversation is killing you isn't it?

Bucky:

Tony: Say please

Bucky: Nope can't do it-

Steve: Do I need to get out the get-along shirt?

*Bucky and Tony share a look of alarm*

Bucky: Please fix my arm

Tony: Yep of course no problem buddy

-

Read Part 2 and Part 3