#rio open 2024

[23mco]

🧠❤️🥚🥚

Carlos Alcaraz, Rio Open (21/02/2024) and Indian Wells (17/03/20214)

[martystlouis]

killing myself bc bro went on court for 18 minutes then retired

[luckofmylife]

wishing for mariano navone to keep winning so he can do his lil dance please god let it happen

[stateofsport211]

Rio de Janeiro (500) F: Sebastian Baez [5] def. Mariano Navone [Q] 6-2, 6-1 Match Stats

📸 ATP official website

Sebita did what he had to do, staying solid and true to his pace through his forehands. This way, he limited Navone's usually deep options through his aggression, where the qualifier's fading intensity due to likely all the tennis this week did not help. Even though Navone tried his best to step up, the unforced errors did not let him progress further in the match, even to make it slightly more competitive. As such, Sebita generated 14 break points, 11 more than Navone while converting only 43% of it, 24% lesser than Navone in percentages.

Furthermore, Sebita had a consistently outstanding service game to back up his baseline-based flow dictation. Scoring 2 aces than Navone's 0, the fifth seed successfully landed 79% of his first serves and still won 68% of his first serve points. On the other hand, Navone's second serve problems did not let him go anywhere despite double-faulting just once (than Sebita who never double-faulted throughout the match), where he could only win 41% of his second serve points, 26% lesser than Sebita's 67%, whose service game stability often get him out of possible troubles as the match progressed, thus asserting his dominance even further since.

This marked Sebita's maiden 500-level Tour title, his biggest career title thus far, while this is his fifth career title (thus his entrance to the list of Argentinean tennis players winning 5 or more Tour-level titles) and his fourth within the last 378 days. Furthermore, this propelled his rank to a career-high of 21, one line away from breaking the Top 20 for the first time. Interestingly, both Sebita and M. Navone will head to Santiago (250) next week to close the Golden Swing, where there is a likelihood of a rematch in the second round should Navone win his first-round match against Juan Pablo Varillas, given Navone's entrance thanks to the Special Exempt he earned from his outstanding performance this week. Should also be a chance to see both players on their best, condition permitting!

[7yearsofdele]

Norrie smashing his way through Rio at the moment.

There was me thinking I’d be going to bed quite late, but not if he does that again.

[luzmyway]

I was under the impression Diego had gotten a wc for Rio but looks like my head made it up...

Oh well...

[jubshead]

𝐌𝐨𝐜𝐜𝐢𝐨𝐬𝐚

Paring: Rio Vidal x Reader

Summary: The only person who could ruin a vacation in Italy was your stepmother, but what if she made it unexpectedly better?

A/N: Okay, so this was inspired by the second season of White Lotus and the title is in italian because I thought the english word was too crude.

I hope this isn’t too OOC, let me know!

This isn’t beta read and english isn’t my mother language, so bear with me.

Warnings: Face slapping, non-consensual spanking, dubious consent, unwanted arousal, degradation kink, face sitting.

I hope I didn’t leave anything behind, but if I did let me know.

Word count: 3.1k

Date: Nov 05, 2024

Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome!

Masterlist | Taglist

Tag list: @jmkjournalblog @thecavalrywife @yourbasicqueerie @polaris-likethestar @riosslut @maevaofendora @yippie-kai-gay @w1theredroz3

─────── ⋅•⋅⊰∙∘☽༓☾∘∙⊱⋅•⋅ ───────

The sun shines through the blowing white curtains and into the bedroom. The last few days in Sicily were cloudy, and as pleasant as they had been, you’ve been longing for a day at the beach. The weather today was perfect for spending time in a bikini and staying at the hotel, not visiting any tourist spots or museums.

Italy is breathtaking. College was wearing you out, so spending a few weeks away from the student mentality is doing you good, it also helps that your father is paying for everything, even if it doesn’t erase the complicated relationship you two had.

Waking up early is mandatory in every vacation and today was especially easy. As soon as you had taken a peek at the open window of your room, you got out of bed. The constant tiredness you felt from your routine had vanished a few days into the city, and you were excited to make the most of it.

Skin glistening with sunscreen, you head downstairs for breakfast. The buffet was set up on a covered balcony with the chairs outside, where you could enjoy the view of the italian architecture as you ate. Grabbing a few fruits and a spoonful of eggs, you head out to find an empty table, only to catch sight of your father’s raised arm moving left and right to get your attention.

This vacation would be perfect if it weren’t for them. 

“Good morning.” You say, settling on one of the chairs.

Your greeting goes unanswered. Your father is back on his phone and your stepmother gives you a mouth pressed smile, doesn’t bother pretending she likes you. Every time you were in their presence, you felt like throwing up. Besides the fact that your father is 30 years older than her, you still hate both of them for the affair they had while your parents were together. 

You’ve always known your father was an asshole, but adultery was the final straw. The only reason you kept in contact with him was because of your mother. The saint she was, begged you to not distance yourself from him, scared you would be alone when she was gone, and how could you not grant a dying woman’s wish?

Rio was a cunt, but you couldn't deny that she was attractive. Your father wanting to stay with her wasn't a huge surprise. It was pretty clear, though, that the feeling wasn’t reciprocated. She was obviously with him for the money, and you were pretty sure she was cheating on him. Karma is a bitch, after all, and your dad’s time has finally come. 

Eating your meal slowly, you enjoy the light breeze blowing your hair back. Cargo navy blue shorts and an open white button shirt hide away your black bikini and when you stretch your arms up, you feel eyes on you. Turning towards your stepmother, you’re greeted with sunglasses covered eyes and a similar blouse to yours, her brown hair is down. 

“I have to get some work done, so I won’t be able to spend the day with you.” Your father tells you, finally looking up from the phone.

“That’s fine.” You reply, shoving a spoonful of papaya into you mouth 

Oh, thank goodness you wouldn't have to stay with them today. 

“Rio will go to the beach with you, though.” 

Your eye twitch at that. Glancing in her direction, you see her tongue poking into her cheek and a side smile, clearly enjoying your suffering. 

“I’m sure she would like to do something else. “ You try. 

“No, no. I want you to spend time together, get to know each other.” Your father and his need to make you two close, this whole trip was all about that and yet you still avoid her like you have done all these years. You’ve never wanted any kind of relationship with her and that wasn’t about to change. 

“Whatever.” You breathe out. 

“Come up to our room. Rio needs to change and I can give you girls some cash to go out and buy a few clothes.” Yeah, that wasn't going to happen. Spending as much time away from her as possible was one of your goals in this vacation.

He leaves his uneaten breakfast on the table and gets up. 

“Fine.” You concede. 

In the hallway, they walk ahead of you and you take a moment to watch them. Your father moves with the confidence of a rich white man with a plastic filled face. He’s in his 70's and doesn’t have the worst body, but if Rio was putting up with him because of money, it must be torture. She was clearly above his level, with black hair, slim body and defined arms. Anyone could see that. She had a powerful aura and walked with a sway to her hips. 

You look up when you realize you’re staring at her ass. 

The white door opens up with your dad's key card. Their bedroom is huge. The entrance leads to a living room with two couches and a coffee table. At the parallel wall to the entry, a large door opens to a balcony with a beautiful view of the mountains, the water constantly crashing against the rocks. Their bed is on the left side and is separated by a bow shaped wall, the other side of the room is the bathroom. It has a big counter with multiple beauty products. 

“I’m off. There’s a computer room downstairs, if anyone needs me, I’ll be there.” He hands you three hundred dollars and goes to kiss Rio. 

He holds her waist firmly and she turns her head before his lips contact with hers. She pushes him slightly back and pat his shoulders, you hold in your laugh. 

“Okay then.” He mutters embarrassed, ruffling your hair on his way out.

It doesn’t take 10 seconds after he leaves for you to turn to her and say. “Look, we don’t have to do this. I don’t want to spend time with you and I’m sure the sentiment is mutual.” 

She fake gasps at you, eyebrows raised and smirks. “You’re gonna hurt my feelings.” 

Rolling your eyes, you head to the bathroom to wash your hands, they feel sticky after eating the fruits from breakfast. You hear some movement in the bedroom and assume Rio is grabbing her bikini. The wardrobe door closes shut and you glance up in the mirror to watch your stepmother's figure walking behind you. You’re one step away from moving out of the restroom when she slips her blouse and shorts off. 

Time seems to stop as you watch her with her back to you, her ass is completely bare and you stare as she first ties the top knots of the two-piece. She bends to pull up the bottoms and you look down to your hands, your breath comes out shallowly, the image buried into your mind.

“Boo.” A voice says, her breath ghosts your ear and you try to hide your startlement. 

Looking up, you purse your lips. She’s standing a foot behind you and smiles smugly in your direction. When you turn around, her face is closer than you expected.

“What do you want?” You ask sharply.

“What do I want?” She repeats slowly, her fingers running through your hair ends. “You tell me.” She stares into your eyes and you squint, grabbing her shoulder and pushing her back.

“Fuck off.” You let out an incredulous laugh. “I always knew you were a whore, but this is beyond anything I’d have expected.” 

“Why? Are you still mad at me because of mommy?” She teases with a fake pout. 

Your entire face closes off and you take a step towards her. 

“Don’t talk about my mother. You could never be half of the woman she was.” 

“Oh, yeah? Your father would disagree.” 

The reaction is instantaneous. Your palm stings from the contact and you gape at her, surprised at your own slap. With your hand frozen in midair, you observe as her head turns back in your direction, her cheek is stained by red fingers and she lets out a breathy laugh, running her digits through it. 

“You are gonna regret that.” 

The apology that was about to come out of your mouth is cut off by the yank on your scalp, your body is forcefully rotated towards the sink and you hold the impact with your palms. The tug in your hair makes your back bend in an uncomfortable way and your neck aches as it’s pulled back. Rio pressed firmly against your arched ass and rested her chin on your shoulder, looking at your startled face through the reflection. Her nails sink in your flesh.

“What are you doing?” You breathe out, partially scared and slightly aroused. 

“Has anyones ever told you that you’re a brat?” She avoids your question with one with her own, you feel fingers running down your waist. 

“Has anyone ever told you?” You return. 

She scoffs as her mouth breaks into a grin, shaking her head left and right. The digits you felt moving through your covered skin grip you with full force and move to the front of your shorts, unbuttoning it. Panic flashes in your eyes as she pushes it down. You struggle against her hold and she pulls your hair harder. 

“Don’t fight it, sweetheart.” 

Breath catches in your throat when her fingers grab a handful of your bare ass. 

“Do you know how I tame a brat?” She whispers in your ear and answers her own question. “I teach her a lesson.” 

The sound of her palm colliding with your backside echoes off the white walls and your surprised yelp follows it. The slap doesn’t hurt, you could bet Rio didn’t put all her strength into it, the worst part, for sure, is that it felt good. The sting brings a delicious burn to your skin and you prevent yourself from asking for more.

The second time it happens, you grab harder into the counter. Words seem to fail you and you stand still, this whole thing feels like a fever dream. You look up at the mirror and see Rio’s eyes completely fixated on your ass, she smoothes her hands through it and you shudder. 

The one that follows is firmer and you groan, unable to contain yourself. Goosebumps mark your skin and your body reacts to the pain, shifting uncomfortably against your bikini.

“What? Cat got your tongue?” She asks, raising her brows and giving you a maniac grin.

“Fuck you.” 

She ‘tsks’ behind you and hums, slapping you three times in a row. The reaction is instantaneous and you hate yourself for pushing your ass back against her. 

“Who’s the whore now?” She asks in your ear and laughs. 

The taunting worsens your condition. Slick gathers in your underwear and you bite your lips, stressed by the way your body is reacting to your step mother. She doesn’t give you any type of relief and smacks you two more times. This torture seems to be going on forever, but you’ve only counted seven slaps. You had no idea how long it would last.

You’re about to speak when she strikes you one more time, with an open mouth, you aren’t able to contain the moan that escapes you and your face lights up like a christmas tree.

“You are so cute when you blush, sweetheart.” She tells you and licks your ear, her palm massages your sore butt and she adds. “Everytime we meet, I just want to have you all to myself.” She pulls back and looks at your pitiful position. Arched back, red ass and shorts bunched up mid-thigh, she runs tongue over her teeth. “When I saw the opportunity today, I just knew I had to take it. It’s so easy to rile you up and the fact that you hate me only makes it all the more delicious.” You shudder at her words. 

She is fucking mental. 

She surprises you for a second time with a spank. Tears well up in your eyes, the sting is worse than before and your arousal is burning you up from inside. The whole situation is making you dizzy, you feel like you’d fall down if Rio wasn’t holding you so tightly. Your neck hurts and you almost beg her to stop, but you couldn’t handle the humiliation, so you face it like a big girl. 

She delivers two more and you screw your eyes shut. One tear runs down your face and you feel Rio releasing the grip on your hair, turning you around to face her. 

“Ten slaps, that’s all. No need to cry.” She runs her thumb over your wet cheek. 

The sink presses against your backside and the cold of it helps with the burn, with your eyes still closed, you take a deep breath. You’re still in shock. 

“Did you learn your lesson?” She asks, her palms holding your wrist against your breasts. 

You stare at her for a second. Laughing at her smirk, you spit right in her face. She closes her eyes, whipping the dripping saliva with her fingers. Her entire face closes off, her patience seems to have run thin. 

She doesn’t say anything else, turns around and pulls you by the forearm. You struggle against her hold, but she’s stronger than you expected. Losing your balance when she throws you on the mattress, you don’t have time to get up before she’s upon you, holding your wrist above your head and kissing you roughly.

You hate yourself for it, but it doesn’t take 5 seconds for you to kiss her back. She’s in full control of the kiss and you writhe beneath her, failing to release your arms. Her tongue runs against yours and you can barely breathe from the intensity, your head spinning. 

One of her hands runs down your side to the bikini bottom. 

You suck in a breath when she separates. 

“I could eat you alive in this, couldn’t take my eyes off you at breakfast.” She tells you, licking your cheek. 

Her hand brushes the black fabric before pushing it aside, you are embarrassed by your state. Her fingers run through your wet folds, circling your entrance as you whine, desperate to be fucked.

“You are pathetic.” She says close to your face. 

Fuck your body for reacting the way it shouldn’t. The degradation turns you on even more and you feel your resolve crumbling. Rio chuckles at the intern battle she sees in your eyes. 

“Don’t worry, you won’t have to use that pretty little head of yours for long.” 

She rolls off of you. The opportunity to escape presents itself and you don’t move an inch, with your wetness sticking to your thighs, you just want Rio to have her way with you. She smirks at you and crawls up your body until she’s stradling your ribs. 

She doesn't put her full weight on you as she squeezes your cheeks and says. “Let’s see if this mouth is good for anything other than being disrespectful.”

You barely have time to understand the implication before her cunt completely shadows your vision. Her bikini is set aside and she pushes her hips down, making you grip her thighs in an attempt to control her pace. Giving up on your moral high ground, you lick a stripe up her lower lips. She hums on top of you and grinds down, her juices smear on your chin and you’ve only just begun. Apparently you weren’t the only one affected by the spanking.

Focusing your attention elsewhere, you leave a hard bite on her inner thigh, taking your hatred on her skin. She moans and sits completely on your face, making it impossible to breathe. 

“You better get to work, sweetheart.” She mocks you and amends. “Before you pass out.”

You fully believe she’d let that happen so with renewed energy, you grab into her butt and grind her center against your face. Your tongue circles her entrance before going in. Hearing her hand grab the headboard, you begin to move in and out. Your pace is rapid and she seems to enjoy it as she starts to ride your face. Sucking her lower lips makes her groan on top of you, so you repeat the motion and squeeze a handful of her ass, making her moan. 

With little breath, you stick your tongue out and let her chase her own orgasm. She slowly moves in circular motion and spreads her juices around your face. Her movement picks up speed and within seconds she’s bouncing against your mouth. You grip her ass tightly and feel your nose bumping against her clit. 

She becomes a moaning mess on top of you. 

For someone who can’t breathe, however, eternity seems to pass as you struggle to keep up with her. She is clearly on the edge and trying to reach her peak, so, in a last attempt to get her off of you, you run your tongue all the way up before sucking her clit as hard as you can. 

Her movement comes to a halt and you feel her body tensing up, her thighs tighten around your head and your ears ring from the pressure. Her orgasm finally hits and she shudders on top of you, breathing heavily and letting out unrestrained moans. 

She collapses beside you and you take the biggest gulp of air you can manage. Your breathing is as ragged as hers and you curse yourself for having a weakness for older women, this shouldn't have happened. 

Silence befalls you for about a minute as Rio gathers herself and you contemplate your life choices. As soon as her breathing is slower, she gets up on her knees in the bed. All your previous worries leave your mind as soon as she’s back upon you, straddling your waist and biting her lips.

She kisses you and grasps the wrists that hold her face, you press your center against hers and let out a whine when she pulls back and gets out of the bed. With a puzzled face, you sit up and ask.

“Where are you going?” 

“To the beach.” She simply says, grabbing a sun hat and putting it on. 

“What?” You rapidly blink.

“You heard me.” Her face breaks into the biggest grin you’ve ever seen in her sulking face. 

“Rio.” You whine like a petulant child. 

She comes towards you and gives you a long peck. Your mouth follows hers  as she pulls away.

“Brats don’t get rewards.” She states and heads for the door, exiting the room with a witchy cackle as you throw yourself back onto the bed. 

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 1: Welcome To A New Kind Of Tension]

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

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

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

Chapter title is a lyric from: “American Idiot” by Green Day.

Word count: 5.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

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

“What do you think, should we kill ourselves now or later?” Rio is spinning his Beretta M9 around on his index finger. This is not advisable. He doesn’t care.

Your hands are gripping the skeletal latticework of the transmission tower, steel hot enough to burn you; no electricity hums in the power lines suspended above your heads. Your eyes are on the horizon, golden June sunlight over fields no one has planted. Weeds are growing up through the earth, feral and defiantly useless, reclaiming their land just like the deer are, and the rabbits and the opossums and the turtles and the squirrels and the doves. The reign of humanity is over. Now you’re prey animals too. “Let’s wait.”

“For what?”

“Maybe someone will save us.”

“Ain’t nobody coming, Chips!” Rio says. “We’re a hundred feet off the ground in the middle of nowhere, motherfucking Catawissa, Pennsylvania, and we haven’t run into anyone since that Amish family back in Lightstreet, and I wouldn’t count on them driving by in their horse and buggy to pick us up.”

“We’re about sixty feet off the ground.”

“Okay, Bob the Builder, why don’t you whip up a helicopter or something to get us out of here?” Rio’s M9 has one bullet left in it, yours has three, nowhere near enough. At the bottom of the tower is a swarm of fifty-four zombies; you’ve counted them twice. There are no cute euphemisms: walkers, biters, the infected. They were once people and now they’re not. They wear the vestiges of their former lives, like how those who believe in reincarnation see meaning in birthmarks: here you were stabbed, there you were kissed by your true love. They lurch and snarl and hiss in their professional attire, college t-shirts, Vans and Jordans, septum piercings, wedding rings. They decompose in a miasma of metallic blood and spoiled meat. Parker had been the last one to the transmission tower, and they grabbed him by the legs. Now they’re chewing the gristle off his bones: disconnected ligaments that swing like strands of cobwebs, scarlet threads of muscle. “Oh shit,” Rio says, looking down. “We’ve got a smart one.”

Most zombies don’t have the fine motor skills to climb, swim, or open doors, but every once in a while—just like out of every 5,000 or 10,000 or however many ordinary humans you’ll pull the lever on the genetic slot machine and get a Picasso or a kid who can score a 1600 on the SATs—you run into an overachiever. This zombie, a teenage boy with red hair and a blue plaid shirt, is slowly scaling the tower. He’s already ten feet off the ground.

Rio aims his M9, semiautomatic, packs a punch but won’t break your arm with the recoil. “Fuck off, Ed Sheeran!” He fires and misses; the bullet grazes the boy’s shoulder. He groans dramatically and asks you in defeat: “Will you take care of that, please?”

You pull your pistol out of your holster and lean away from the tower to get a better angle, holding onto the scaffolding with one hand. You feel Rio’s large fingers close around your wrist, ready to yank you back if you slip. You click off the safety with your thumb, peer through the front sight, aim and wait until you’re sure. It’s a headshot: shards of skull ricochet off steel beams, half-rotten brains spray out in a mist. The carcass plummets to the earth.

“All this horror, all this catastrophe.” Rio’s eyes, dark like a mineshaft, drift mischievously back to you. “We could…distract each other.”

He’s not serious; this is a game you play. “No thanks.”

“You don’t want to die a virgin.”

“I do if you’re the only other person up here.”

“You deny a condemned man his final wish?”

“We’re not dying,” you insist. “What about Sophie?”

“Sophie would understand given the circumstances. She would want me to be happy.”

“What if we have sex and then immediately thereafter get rescued? You’d be a cheater. You’d be consumed by guilt. You’d never be able to take me back to your parents’ doomsday prepper cult commune in bumblefuck Oregon to wait out the apocalypse in peace.”

“You’re going to appreciate those doomsday preppers when you’re eating Chef Boyardee out of a can instead of shuffling around as a reanimated corpse.”

“Yeah, I’m sure I will,” you muse. “So you agree we’re going to get off this tower somehow.”

Rio sighs and whistles a morose tune: what a shame. “You should have gone out with that Marine at Corpus Christi.”

You frown, repentant, wistful. There’s nothing on the horizon except fields and trees and black storm clouds of crows taking flight. “I was afraid of making a mistake.”

“And now look at you. About to die as pure as Pope Francis.”

“How did this happen?! We’re not idiots, we’re goddamn professionals!” You re-holster your M9. You’re still wearing your uniforms from when you went AWOL, stealing away from Saratoga Springs like rats from a sinking ship.

“I’ll tell you exactly how this happened. You let that loser Parker come with us even though I knew it was a bad idea—”

“I couldn’t just leave him there! He started crying!”

“And he had one job, which was to check the oil in the Humvee, and clearly he failed because…” Rio glances at his watch. “Approximately four hours ago, the engine started smoking and the whole thing died on us, so we had to get out and walk, like we’re pioneers or some shit, and then that hoard down there came out of nowhere, and the only place left to go was up. Freaking Parker. I could murder that guy.” An awkward pause. “I mean, the zombies beat me to it. But still.”

“He had two jobs. He was also carrying the extra ammo.”

“Don’t remind me.” Rio isn’t messing around with his M9 anymore. He’s contemplating it as the sun hovers just past noon, hot and shadowless. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Two.”

“Good. Don’t use them.”

You look at him, this man you’ve known for over four years, this man you’ve traveled the world with. You’ve already gone so much farther than Oregon together. How is it possible that what was once a six hour flight is now a month-long journey that might kill you? “It’s not over yet, Rio.”

“Remember what you promised me.”

His hushed voice in the moonlit indigo of the Humvee the night you left Saratoga Springs: Don’t let me die alone. “We’re going to be okay. We’re going to make it to Oregon.” Then you grin, sweltering summer air breathing over you, humid, heavy, the screeching of insects in the trees. “But if it comes to that, I’d be happy to shoot you first.”

Rio smiles as the zombies below growl and claw at the steel framework of the transmission tower. Flesh peels off their fingers until you can see the gore-stained white of their bones. “Don’t miss.”

“I rarely do.”

“Do you have any more packs of Cheddar Whales in your pockets or—?” He cuts off as he spots something in the distance. His eyes go wide, his jaw drops open. “What…what is that?!”

It’s an SUV, massive, dark blue, rumbling across the field in a dust storm of displaced earth. It’s headed straight towards you. There is someone standing up through the sunroof, short dark hair that whips wildly in the wind, binoculars. You can hear the engine revving and, faintly, Kanye West’s Gold Digger. As the SUV nears the tower, Sunroof Kid ducks inside and closes the hatch.

Rio explodes into hysterical, rapturous laughter. “Oh my God, we’re saved! We’re not going to die up here! Oh, thank you, Jesus, thank you. I’m never going to jack off on Sundays again.”

The SUV, still accelerating, plows through the mob of zombies. Severed limbs go flying; bones crunch and snap. There’s a woman driving, you can see now through the slightly tinted windows. She puts the monstrous vehicle and reverse and does another pass. Zombies paw futilely at the sides of the SUV, a Chevy Tahoe, as it turns out. They smack their open, soggy palms on the windows; they gnaw and lick at the bumpers and the wheel wells. The Tahoe circles to regain speed, the engine growling, a bear, a dragon, and barrels into the remaining ambulatory zombies. The hoard is now largely incapacitated. Rio is cheering and clapping his hands.

The Tahoe’s doors open, and your rescuers appear. There are two men wielding baseball bats: one with long dark curly hair, the other tall and blonde, and there’s something wrong with his face, the left side, though you are too far away to see clearly. They move rapidly through the battlefield of felled, moaning bodies, swinging their bats and crushing skulls. There’s another blonde guy, shorter, softer, pink with sunburn, wearing plastic sunglasses and a teal polo with a popped collar. He’s spinning a golf club in his right hand. He is followed out of the Tahoe by one last blonde, spindly and swift, stalking the perimeter with a compound bow, a quiver of arrows secured to his belt. Rio is singing along to Gold Digger, drumming his fists on the steel beams.

“Now, I ain’t sayin’ you a gold digger, you got needs

You don’t want a dude to smoke, but he can’t buy weed

You go out to eat, he can’t pay, y’all can’t leave

There’s dishes in the back, he gotta roll up his sleeves…”

The driver wriggles out of the Tahoe with some difficulty; she is seven or eight months pregnant. “Stay in the car,” Madame Driver tells someone inside as she slams the door shut. She’s holding a hammer and sets about euthanizing the zombies still squirming on the ground and gnashing their cracked teeth at her.

Golf Club says: “Jace, bro, that’s so embarrassing. You’re gonna let her do that?”

Curly—or, rather, Jace—shrugs. “Exercise is good for the baby.”

All three blondes respond at once in a chorus of appalled disapproval. Interestingly, your rescuers have British accents. From within the Tahoe, someone turns off the CD player. This is wise; noise tends to attract more zombies. Madame Driver, unaffected, puts her hammer through the eye socket of a former Arby’s employee.

Jace flings back: “She likes helping! It would be sexist to tell her she’s not allowed to!”

The Scarred Man looks up at you and Rio and salutes, two fingers glanced off his forehead. You begin climbing down the scalding rungs of the transmission tower to meet them.

“Oh fuck, Aemond, you gotta deal with this,” Golf Club says. He is holding a yowling zombie at arm’s length by the straps of its overalls. It’s tiny, maybe a kindergartener. “You know I can’t kill the little kid ones.”

The Scarred Man, Aemond, turns to him. He’s wearing a maroon Harvard University t-shirt. “You have to learn how to do things yourself. I might not always be around.”

Golf Club scoffs. “As if I’d outlive you.”

“Go on. You can do it,” Aemond says. Behind him, more people are emerging from the Chevy Tahoe: Binoculars Buddy, a slight girl with shifting, watchful eyes, a blonde woman in a billowing sundress and with a burlap messenger bag slung over one shoulder.

Golf Club is still struggling. “Aw, Aemond, man, he’s got light-up sneakers!”

Jace strides over irritably. “Aegon, you’re so fucking useless…” He kicks the miniature zombie to the dirt, raises his bloodied baseball bat, and brings it down on a skull that disintegrates like an overripe Halloween pumpkin. “You’re welcome.”

“Get bit, you poodle.”

Rio hits the ground first, his boots thumping against untamed earth. Aemond sets his baseball bat aside and reaches out to offer assistance as you dangle from a white-hot steel beam. “No,” Rio tells him roughly. “Back up.”

Aemond shows his palms and complies, retreating several paces. Rio helps you down. Now you can see Aemond’s face perfectly. There’s a relatively fresh wound running down the left half of his face, the violent red of burgeoning scar tissue, clear stitches; his eye has been sutured shut. But that’s not why you’re staring at him. His other eye is a focused, hypnotic blue, his short blonde hair disheveled. He keeps touching his chin, a nervous tick. Immediately, there’s something you like about him. He gives you the impression of someone who has gotten very good at hiding how afraid he is. Aemond looks away from your gaze, thinking you’re horrified by his injury. Then, reluctantly, he comes back. There’s forbidden temptation the lines of his ravaged face, a curiosity, a hesitation.

“Thank you for saving us,” you say to your rescuers, tearing your attention from Aemond. It’s not easy. “That was really, really cool of you, and we know you didn’t have to do it. So thanks.”

“Yeah,” Rio adds. “Sorry your Tahoe is covered in guts now.”

Aemond turns to confer silently with his companions, then asks you: “Where are you headed?”

“Odessa, Oregon.”

He nods. “We’re going to California.”

“NorCal,” Jace says, holding his baseball bat across his shoulders. “Bay Area.”

“Are you two together?” Aegon asks.

“Yeah,” Rio says, misunderstanding the question.

“Not like that,” you clarify. “He has a wife and baby, that’s what’s in Oregon.”

“So you’re single,” Aegon says, grinning toothily. His fellow travelers—family? friends? classmates? a combination thereof?—grumble and roll their eyes.

“Um, I mean, yeah, technically…?”

“Aemond’s also single,” Madame Driver informs you, relishing the chaos.

“He’s single but deformed and traumatized,” Aegon says. “I am mentally uninjured.”

You chuckle awkwardly. Your eyes, by their own volition, flick back to Aemond. He peers down at the ground then up at you again, smiling, a little sheepish, a little wicked.

Aegon groans, swinging his golf club around. “Man, come on.”

“I didn’t say anything,” Aemond replies.

“No, it’s just right there, all over your fucked up face.”

Madame Driver feigns a sympathetic frown at Aegon. “How sad. Guess you won’t have anyone to give your syphilis to.”

“I don’t have syphilis,” Aegon tells you. Then, to the others: “I can’t be the only single guy! It’s pathetic!”

“I’m single,” Archery Team says brightly.

“You’re like twelve. You don’t count.”

“I’m seventeen!”

“Are you Army?” Aemond asks you and Rio.

“Navy,” Rio replies. “We were stationed at Saratoga Springs in upstate New York.”

Aemond is fascinated. “You’re deserters?”

“What are you gonna do about it, Brit Boy?” Rio says. Aemond blinks at him. Aegon cackles, drawing huge circles in the air with his golf club.

“Everyone’s deserting,” you explain diplomatically.

“They were going to evacuate the base and send everyone left into New York City,” Rio says. “Fuck that, we’d heard things, we weren’t about to go on some suicide mission. We weren’t even in a combat unit for Christ’s sake, we’re Seabees.”

“You’re what?” Aemond asks, puzzled.

“We do construction. That’s why we were still at the base. If they’re putting us on the front lines, the situation is desperate. I’m not going in the meatgrinder. I’m not gonna be like those Hitler Youth kids sent to Russia.”

Aegon is squinting behind his sunglasses, truly lost. “Huh?”

“We should go west together,” Aemond suggests. He’s attempting to sound casual.

“I thought we didn’t want to travel with strangers, Aemond,” Jace says pointedly, mocking him. “I thought they couldn’t be trusted, Aemond. I thought they might slit our throats and steal our Tahoe in the dead of night, Aemond.”

“We’re useful!” Rio bargains. “We can shoot things!”

Aegon is very confused. “I thought you did construction.”

“Everyone has to go through basic training,” Aemond tells him impatiently, watching you.

“She got the Marksmanship Medal,” Rio says, grinning, proud.

“A lot of people get that,” you demur immediately.

“We can give you guys weapons training,” Rio continues. “You seem…like you probably don’t know about guns. Like you read a lot of books.” He gestures to Aegon. “Except that one.”

Aegon snickers, unoffended, still swinging his golf club around. “I don’t read books. I read maps.”

“Okay, lets do it,” Aemond says. “We’ll stick together across the Midwest and split up before we get to the Pacific. That puts us at ten people, and there’s safety in numbers.”

“Why do you get to make all the decisions?!” Jace demands. “Who signed that fucking contract? I didn’t consent to those terms.”

“Because that’s what Criston told us the last time the phones worked,” Aegon replies smugly. “He said Aemond’s in charge. So he is. If you want to find your way to California on your own, you’re welcome to try.”

“Who’s Criston?” you ask.

“Our fake dad,” Aegon says.

“Oh, your stepdad?”

“No, our mom is still married to our dad, he just sucks.”

“He does suck,” Archery Team confirms.

Rio tells you: “Hey, Chips, you’re standing in a torso.”

“Am I?” You look down. Your boots are buried to the ankles in the rotting gore of a bare midsection with only one limp arm still attached. You step out of it and shake off the bits of decomposing organs. “Gnarly. Thanks.” You spot Parker’s backpack containing the extra ammunition, pick it up out of the dirt, and throw it over your shoulders.

“Chips?” Aemond says. “Like…chocolate chips?”

“No, like woodchips. I’m a carpenter. I mean, I was a carpenter, I guess. That’s what I did in the Navy. Some people call the carpenters Chips.”

“I was an electrician,” Rio says. “So clearly, now that all the power is down, that turned out to be a fantastic career path.” Then he formally introduces himself. “Hi everyone, I’m Rio.”

Aegon perks up. “Oh, like the Rio Grande.”

Rio pretends to be scandalized. “Wow, racist.”

“So racist,” you agree.

Aegon’s chubby pink face fills with horror. “No, wait, I didn’t…um…”

Rio laughs and taps the nametag on his chest, black letters stitched over green camouflage: Osorio.

“His first name’s Bryan,” you say. “But no one calls him that.”

“My mom calls me Bryan. Sophie calls me Bryan.”

Aemond points at his companions, one after the other. “That’s my brother Aegon and my sister Helaena. Jace and Luke are our cousins. Then Baela and Rhaena are their girlfriends. Well, Baela…she’s kind of a fiancée. But there’s no official ring yet.”

Jace says: “Unfortunately, all the jewelry stores were looted on account of the apocalypse.”

“And I’m Daeron,” Archery Team says buoyantly, waving. Then he shields his eyes as he notices something at the edge of the field. “Oh, guys…?”

There are zombies approaching with clumsy, staggering strides, only a few now, but more will follow. That’s the thing; they are in seemingly endless supply. It’s easy to get too comfortable with them, to think of them as slow and mindless, even comical, even pitiful. But they can surprise you. And it only takes one bite to become just like them.

“Time to return to the Tahoe,” Baela announces, waddling towards the driver’s seat. Rhaena climbs in the passenger’s side. The rest of you pile into the back. The SUV has nine seats; Aegon crouches on the floor without being asked to. He’s unfolding a map he pulled from the pocket of his salmon-colored shorts and laying it flat across Rio’s knees so everyone can see. Baela turns the key in the ignition and the Tahoe rumbles to life. You spot a few red gas cans under the seats. If you can’t find more when that runs out—siphoning it out of other vehicles, stumbling across a gas station that is miraculously not drained dry—you’ll be walking, biking, or skateboarding to the West Coast. Or embracing the Amish lifestyle with a horse and buggy.

“We were planning to swing by Fort Indiantown Gap,” you tell Aemond. He twists around in his seat to look at you, that absorbed crystalline blue gaze. “That’s where we were headed before our Humvee broke down. It’s a National Guard Training Center. It’s probably cleaned out like everywhere else, but if it’s not…we might be able to find some guns and ammo there.”

“Where is it?”

“An hour south of here, just outside of Harrisburg.”

Baela is watching Aemond in the rearview mirror. He gives her a nod. “How do I get there?” Baela asks you.

“South on Route 42. Did you see the signs on your way in…?”

“Yup. Got it.” Baela steers the Tahoe across the field, kicking up a vortex of parched soil. She intentionally runs down four zombies before swerving left onto a two-lane road. Then she turns up the volume on the CD player: War Pigs by Black Sabbath. “It’s a mixtape,” she informs you.

Aegon points to southcentral Pennsylvania on a map of the United States of America, highway arteries and local route veins. “We’re here,” he says, sliding around on the floor of the Tahoe as Baela drives. His index finger traces the path; it’s a precarious balance between avoiding the most heavily populated areas and still having access to the necessary trappings of civilization: supplies to scavenge, roads to follow, buildings to take shelter in. “We’ll stop by Fort Indiantown Gap and then head northwest, thread the needle between Pittsburgh and Cleveland, stay south of Detroit and Chicago, cut across Iowa, Nebraska, Wyoming, that top part of Utah, then go our separate ways in Nevada. Oh my God, it’s just like the Oregon Trail! Do you guys remember that game?! Fording rivers, getting dysentery, hunting bison to extinction?” He starts humming the theme song.

Jace smirks, chomping on a Twizzler. “Hope you don’t die of a snakebite or something. That’d be awful.”

Aegon ignores him and refolds the map. “Rio! Fuck, marry, kill. The last three first ladies before Biden.”

Rhaena says, exasperated: “Aegon, you have to stop asking people that. It’s inappropriate.”

“Oh, easy,” Rio replies. “I’m fucking Laura Bush.”

“That’s what I’m saying!” Aegon gives him a high five.

“And then I have to marry Michelle.”

“You gotta.”

“Which means Melania gets the grape Flavor Aid.”

“It’s the only logical answer.”

“I’d fuck Melania,” Jace says.

“Of course you would, you sick, sick man,” Aegon mutters, rolling down a window and sticking his head out like a golden retriever, his sunglasses still on, his blonde hair flapping in the wind. There’s a tattoo in black ink on his forearm, you notice for the first time: It’s not over ‘til you’re underground.

~~~~~~~~~~

Fort Indiantown Gap is a ghost town like a gold seam emptied, an oil well run dry, a collapsed coal mine. There’s no central armory but instead a series of arms rooms, one for each unit. Every single scrap of lethal metal is gone: no pistols, no rifles, no grenade launchers or machine guns, no ammo, not even pocketknives, although you do find clean PT uniforms for you and Rio to change into, t-shirts and running shorts and sneakers. Clothes are surprisingly difficult to acquire now. Most stores have either been looted or overrun by zombies, and Amazon is tragically no longer delivering. You can break into houses that seem abandoned, but then you have to hope the people who lived there just so happened to be your size and also aren’t waiting inside to eat you. It’s not usually a wise gamble.

You study Aemond and his companions as you move through the base clearing buildings, you and Rio with loaded M9s in your holsters and clutching borrowed baseball bats; gunshots are best avoided if possible so as not to attract unwanted attention. Aemond and Jace take point, almost always; Aegon hovers on Aemond’s blind left side, wagging his golf club around, occasionally slapping Aemond’s shoulder to remind him he’s there. Daeron prowls at the back and on the periphery. Baela pretends she isn’t struggling to keep up. Luke and Rhaena are the lookouts. Helaena fills her burlap messenger bag with small treasures you don’t even notice her accumulating: bottles of Advil, batteries, lighters, pens, tweezers, Band-Aids, Uno cards. You encounter only three zombies, easily decommissioned. Fort Indiantown Gap must have been evacuated weeks ago. You wonder what pointless battles her soldiers died in. Everyone knows the dead have won.

What the abandoned base lacks in weaponry it makes up for in food. You find a chow hall with an untouched kitchen, a wealth of shelf-stable delicacies: chili, saltine crackers, applesauce, fruit cocktail with bright red gems of cherries, peanut butter, strawberry jelly, green beans, carrots, peas, beets, tuna fish, chicken noodle soup. You feast—a Thanksgiving, a Last Supper—then settle into the barracks next door as the sun begins to set. There are plenty of bunkbeds and a closet full of pillows and sheets. Someone always has to be up to keep watch; Daeron and Jace immediately go to sleep so they can get some rest before they are shaken awake sometime around 2 or 3 a.m. Baela says she’s going to lie down for a minute and almost immediately begins snoring. Helaena makes silent amendments in her notebook; she keeps an inventory of everything the group has, needs, or wants.

Outside, Rio and Aegon are engaged in a spirited game of Uno. Luke is sitting cross-legged on the roof of the Tahoe with his binoculars. Rhaena is beside him softly reading a book out loud: The Hunger Games. Aemond is on a wooden bench on the front porch of the barracks, watching the sun sink into the west. When he notices you, he seems pleased. “Hi.”

“Hi. I’m sorry we wasted your gas to come here.”

“No, it was a good idea. It was worth a shot. And now we have a safe place to sleep tonight.” His eye drops lower, his scarred brow crinkles in concern. “What happened to your hands?”

“My hands?” In the haze of the adrenaline, you didn’t even notice. Your palms are blistered, swollen and stinging. “Oh. It was the transmission tower. The steel beams got really hot while we were up there. I’ll be okay.”

“Let me bandage them. You don’t want to get an infection.”

“Really, I’m fine, I shouldn’t inconvenience—”

“Sit down,” Aemond insists. You take a seat on the bench while he goes to the Tahoe to fetch a black nylon bag about the size of a briefcase. Rio casts you a furtive, crafty grin. It’s nothing, you mouth back, more to convince yourself than him. Your pulse is thudding in your ears; your cheeks are warm. You haven’t felt like this since you almost agreed to go on a date with that Marine you met at Corpus Christi, where your battalion had been dispatched to build a series of new airplane hangars. Aemond returns to the bench and begins wiping down your palms with antiseptic. “Sorry if this stings.”

It does, but you’re grateful for the distraction. “It isn’t too bad.”

“You’re not from Oregon.” He’s noticed your accent.

“Kentucky,” you confess.

“You aren’t making a stop at home before traveling west?”

“Why would I want to go back there?”

Aemond looks at you uncertainly; he can’t tell if you’re joking. You like the way his voice goes quiet when it’s just the two of you. You like the way he barely shows his teeth when he talks, like he’s keeping secrets.

After a moment, as the sky begins to turn to orange and pink and lilac, you continue. “People join the Army for a paycheck and a place to sleep, free college, health insurance. People join the Marines to prove they’re the best. People join the Air Force because they want to be in the military but think they’re too smart for grunt work. And people join the Navy to get away from home. I wanted to get far, far, far away.”

Aemond smiles. “Are you far enough yet?” He doesn’t mean by miles. He means the fact that the world will never be the same. Now he’s coating your hands in a thick white ointment, cool and blissful.

“I was afraid of so many things, and now none of them matter.”

“We all have brand new things to be afraid of.” He gets a roll of gauze and begins to wrap your palms, careful to keep your fingers and thumbs unencumbered.

“Aemond?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened to your face?”

He shrugs. He’s trying not to be resentful about it; he can’t change it anyway. “We were scavenging supplies from a Home Depot. We had to board up the house and wait until things…got quieter and it was safe to travel out of Boston.” And by got quieter, he means that the initial wave passed, the zombies began to wander out of the cities and disperse, the survivors were hunkered down and not participating in gunfights or Vikings-style pillaging in the streets. “A piece of sheet metal fell on me from the top shelf. Aegon and Jace dragged me home, they thought I was dying.”

“I’m glad you weren’t. Who treated it?”

“I did.”

You can’t disguise your shock. “You…you stitched up your own face?”

He smirks, finishing the bandages on your hands. “I was in medical school before all this.”

“You’re a doctor?”

“I was an intern. So definitely not a doctor, but the closest thing to one I had access to. And I had taken some things from the hospital when everything went to hell. So I got a little mirror, and I lidocained myself very generously, and I started suturing.”

You don’t know what to say. His eye?? He stitched his eye shut?? “I mean…you did a great job.”

“I’m aware I look like Frankenstein, but I guess it’s better than not being here at all.”

“No, seriously. You look amazing, Aemond.”

He stares at you, bewildered. You realize how bizarre it must sound. You both start laughing as Aemond packs his supplies back into his medical kit. He touches his fingertips to his chin a few times—restless, meditative—then stands to return inside the barracks. “I’m…going to go check on Helaena.”

“Yeah. Cool. See ya.” You don’t watch him leave. This takes intentional effort.

Seconds pass anonymously: no time you need to be anywhere, nothing late, nothing early, no television premiers, no football games, no State Of The Unions, no time zones to do mental math over. You aren’t even sure what day it is. The earth has erased your invisible prisons. Now all that remain are the real ones: weather, terrain, disease, predators.

There is the creaking of weight on the porch steps. You warn him: “I’m not interested in your commentary.”

Rio winks as he says: “Maybe you won’t die a virgin after all.”

[avifaunaa]

i tasted ash and knew [ it was you ] [ r.v. ] [ pt.2 ]

Authors Note: Okay -- wow. The feedback was unexpectedly amazing! Thank you guys so very much for the reblogs, tags, likes, and comments. I do not know how many parts I have set for this -- it could end after P.3 or it could go on longer depending on how I go about it. I hope you enjoy this! As usual, please check the content warnings and keep yourselves safe.

More Trivia:

Women could be pharmacists in the fifties! However it was a newer job field. Other new job opportunities for women at the time included: engineering and real-estate.

TV dinners were the first of their kind created and released into the world in 1953 as a quick meal that could be heated up in an oven and reduced the dishes one had to do, and fit onto a "TV tray". Added free fact: The first actual type of dinner of this kind was a Thanksgiving style meal and it was a success!

Milk was ordered through, humorously, a "Milkman" that would come door to door like the newspaper and deliver fresh bottles of milk usually daily and, depending on the company / location, took the empty ones.

Phone lines did use to connect the way they did through an operator and had multiple people trying to connect sometimes. What a tedious job!

Reader grumbling about religious scripture being sent to her home is a reference to Jim Jones — who would start the People’s Temple one year later [ 1955 ] and end up committing one of the most notorious religious massacres in history while murdering a United States official. It was a terrible tragedy and it opened a gateway to other cults who preyed on people just like Jim Jones did.

PART ONE | PART THREE

MASTERLIST

Pairing: Rio Vidal x Fem!Reader

Summary: Death has caught up with you but she has not come to retrieve your soul as the natural balance demands and has for the near seventy years you've evaded your fate. Rio appears to be seeking some form of stability and control through you, but you are going to make it decidedly very difficult.

Content Warnings: Dark -- use caution and keep yourselves safe, flashbacks that contain period-typical views on gender norms and sexuality, discussions of death and past abuse, Rio making R her housewife, kidnapping, misuse of magic [ Rio ], manipulation, obsessive behavior, really stupid murder attempts [ reader giving lmao ], Stockholm Syndrome beginning to take a tiny bit of effect, READER CRASHING OUT, non-con, face sitting, fingering, ruined orgasms [ all Rio!receiving ], magic strap [ r!receiving ], breeding and possible impregnation [ r!receiving ]

Word Count: ~7.6k

2024

Rio was doing it again.

You did not have proof of it but you could just tell she was.

The stuffed duck at the foot of your bed was taunting you and you wanted to strangle the hell out of it if you weren't on strike right now, willing the fake witch to take her physical form and become visible to you.

After having been chained to her for a period of time you had come to know when she was close. It was the one part of the magic she worked that you had never revealed to her and she hadn't assumed to ask if you could sense her presence like she could yours depending on proximity.

The beady, blank eyes of your companion was the only way you knew she remembered your interests -- or ones you had at one point.

It was an old, much loved thing. Won at a fair back when you had first come to grow closer with her after the death of your husband. She insisted on getting you out of the house and event was only for a week and she bribed you with the promise of a Ferris wheel ride that you'd always dreamed of riding.

It was one of the items she had waiting for you upon setting you up in this bedroom and told you to. "stay put" while she went and did her Deathly duties which you assumed included brooding and prowling ally ways when she was bored.

The bedroom was designed to your tastes and it made your tongue curl into your throat. She had been watching you long enough to get to know you all over again -- how the years had reshaped you so she could adjust to them accordingly.

She had even taken the new cookbooks you'd purchased from your coffee table, price sticker partially picked and all, and placed them in a very noticable way on the stuffed bookshelf in the corner.

Your door creaked open. Your head moved from the stare-down with the duck to the direction but found only Rio's idea for a gift sitting in the doorway with sharp eyes.

She got you a fucking cat.

A large, fluffy thing with a long feathery tail and tufted ears. Dark brown with sharper stripes than most knives you used to cut your ingredients and so standoffish you wonder if she found him in a dumpster somewhere and took him screeching, spitting, and hissing.

Well, tough luck dude. She did that to you too.

She had deposited him onto your lap not even fifteen minutes after fucking you into a stupor and you threatening to kill her with a smug smile. "His name is Billy. I figured you'd need something to take care of while I'm out working."

Billy had hissed, affronted, at Rio and scrambled off of your lap to somehow squeeze under the sofa across from the one she had lead you upstairs to recover on.

"You got a cat," you said, eyes focusing briefly on the spot where the tabby had disappeared before returning to Rio's features.

"We got a cat," she corrected, flopping down onto the couch next to you. "I can't have you getting bored and destructive when I'm gone at work, can I?"

Rage coiled inside of you tighter than a bedspring. "I wouldn't be bored," you started with an attempt to keep your tone steady, "if you hadn't trapped me in a cage."

"Hardly a cage, angel," Rio rebutted, legs stretching and feet crossing across one another on the coffee table. "I gave you the entire house and backyard to work with -- pool and yard included. That's three floors and a basement. An upgrade since the last time we did this, no?"

Her eyes stared holes into the side of your head and you refused to meet her gaze. You knew what you'd find, anyway. You'd find that prodding and incessant glint that she always had when she spoke to you in that fucking tone.

Your rage could only be filtered into one thing at a time and you decided that fighting a battle you couldn't win right now would only succeed in humiliating you further. So you decided to focus your melting attitude onto something you could absolutely control.

"Get your feet," you replied, teeth gritting, "off the fucking table."

That grin became feral in the corner of your eyes but she did as you bid and uncrossed her feet and spread her legs lazily across the floor instead. "Yes, ma'am."

"We do not have things to care for a cat."

She tilted her head at you. "Don't we?"

You blinked and opened your mouth to argue with her, but in an instant you were quickly set quiet. A large cat tree with multiple tiers sat in the floor to ceiling windows of the entry way not far off, cat toys and beds seemed to appear in the house later, too.

Not to mention the random cat food you found in the cabinet when you went to fix something later that night to get away from her.

But now Rio had bid you adieu with a peck to your cheek and a shit-eating grin.

You nearly smacked her and had your fingers flexing as if debating the outcome and if the repercussions would be worth it. Rio laughed and puffed away in an air of smoke before you could so much as lift your hand.

You and Billy now had an alliance of sorts. He had allowed you to put a collar with a cute bowtie and a bell on it so you could hear him prattling about -- only after you fed him a numerous amount of treats.

He also despised Rio and swatted at her if she came near if he was cuddled up to you. It was fun watching Rio ride out the consequences to her actions and she often threatened to make a new hood from his coat or use his teeth in a potion, or went the most mature route and hissed back at him.

But still -- you appreciated his company even if he often times only graced you with it fifty percent of the time.

"What do you want?" you finally asked the feline, who had taken your silence as an invitation to skulk into the room and rub himself across the furniture.

Letting him do whatever it is cats do, you return your attention to the duck and curl your fingers into the bedspread beneath you as the memories start to take over.

1954

Rio had been your rock for the last six months in which she took you in. For the first two you were in a numbed state of shock that barely had you moving about out of bed if Rio hadn't encouraged it.

Perhaps she was right in how she had confronted you so boldly that night you appeared on her doorstep. There was no grief in your heart for your husband as you planned his funeral with the help of your mother and father, sister in tow.

No grief for what "could have been" should he have not been in the accident that took his life when you bleakly watched from a distance as funeral goers left and four men began to lower the cheap casket into the grave.

There was not a drop of regret in you as you approached and dropped a green rose from Rio's gardens into the grave instead of dirt as your past and marriage was buried all in one.

You sold the house like Rio suggested. It was empty without his complaining and too clean when there was no bloody noses to clean up. No beer to restock or work clothes for the next day to be pressed and set out early for him.

Instead you handled well-kept skirts and fine women's wear without being asked.

Rio had found you one day after returning home from her work -- a pharmacy technician, according to her.

"I handle medications that doctors prescribe for people," she told you when asked. "Make sure they get the right dose and that the paperwork is handled. Call doctor's offices if needed and consult with the patient."

You had given her a look that she had memorized for the rest of her life. One of shock, awe, and absolute wonder. "You're able to do that? Isn't that a man's job?"

Rio smiled at you, leaning into the doorway. "This world is starting to become less theirs and more ours, angel. Society cannot run on the basis of the male gender alone and many areas of the workforce are recognizing that."

You had accepted her answer as truth.

She had three white medical jackets in which her name was stitched onto them provided by the drug store in town for her that you made sure to wash by themselves and iron before she went to work each morning.

She would often watch you do laundry -- hers or yours, after you moved in -- even if you were simply ironing in front of the television in the living room while she sipped on a bear in her suspenders and untucked white button-up, eyes focused on you rather than what the current state of the country was.

You had also changed the state of her eating habits in the time you'd been there, as well. You were horrified with what you found in her refrigerator and pantry.

Which was nothing pretty much.

The first night you had stayed over at her home you had also tried to cook. Mostly to have an excuse not to return to that dark, empty house just some stretches away, but also to thank Rio for creating a plan to ensure your comfort would remain.

Only to find she had little in terms of food. She had five TV Dinners stacked haphazardly and you cringed backward. Those were perhaps only good for Saturdays when one could sit in front of the television and enjoy their shows. The thought of Rio eating one every night left you nauseous.

You spotted an empty milk glass and snatched it out to set on the porch to be grabbed and replaced in the morning with fresh milk.

You stomped to the phone dangling on the wall and waited to be connected to the operator on the other line.

"Hello, number please?" the bored drawl asked.

You gave the older woman the number Rio provided and the answering clearing of a throat filled your ears. You heard a few flicks. "Thank you, please wait while we connect you."

"Sure." You held the phone to your ear and waited until the ringing started again.

"Westview Pharmacy."

"Rio," you greeted, wrapping a finger around the curly cord. Your heart paced in your chest at the sound of her voice.

"Hello, angel," she responded back, sounding pleasantly surprised. "What can I do for you on this fine day?"

"You have a sad excuse for a kitchen," you told her plainly, "and had you not taken the car I surely would have myself to go to the supermarket."

"I left some food for you to heat up, angel," she told you, confusion filtering through the line.

You huffed. "That is not -- I wish to cook, Rio. I may be a terrible baker but I am quite good at cooking otherwise and your lackluster pantry is ensuring I cannot do so."

There was a brief silence on the other end and for a moment you worried you'd overstepped, but then Rio let out a breathy chuckle. "Okay, okay. I apologize for any offense my kitchen and I caused."

You flushed. "I should hope so," you grumbled back, "I simply cannot understand how you lived this long. Did you not cook for your husband ever?"

"We weren't homebodies before he was drafted, no," Rio told you. You heard a rattle and assumed she was filling a prescription as she spoke with you. "He had a heart for eating out in diners and picnicking at the park. Every day was a new surprise."

"I see." You bit your lip and tapped the tiled floor with your flats. You regret bringing it up at all. "Well -- I only called to ask if you could run by the store on your way home and grab some essentials. Just enough for me to cook with until I can take the car."

"Of course I can," the brunette agreed instantly without thought. "And on that topic just start making a list of things you think we need so that way the next time we do go out we can grab it."

"I can do that."

"Good girl," the woman said. "Now, thank you for calling and asking me for something you needed. I do have to get back to work though. I will see you tonight?"

"Of course," you agreed, heart fluttering in your chest at the image of her walking into the doorway with that soft grin, "Sorry for keeping you."

"Never apologize, angel." With that, the line disconnected and left a low buzzing tone to tell you the line was dead. You hung up the phone and smiled wistfully to yourself.

It had been the first of many nights wherein you cooked for her and did her laundry and cleaned her house. She never missed a minute of telling you that she was grateful, or pointing out how well the dynamic seemed to be working out damn the gossip you feared would crop up.

Things changed drastically six months in as autumn began taking over Westview in a chokehold with no release.

The leaves were a falling and leaving the ground covered in the dark orange and yellow hues that you loved so and a chill began to sweep and take over the summer heat.

You eyed the calendar up on the wall in the kitchen and noted that Rio seemed to be gone more often in October, November, and December.

You had wanted to ask why but your engrained sense of minding your business and leaving it be kept your tongue stabled to the roof of your mouth for the most part.

"You're burning holes into the wall, sweetheart," Rio called from the kitchen table. She was sitting neatly in the chair reading the morning paper, coffee in front of her as she waited patiently for breakfast.

"I'm sorry," you murmured, returning to the stove and slipping the skillet before the bacon could blacken the bacon completely. The two strips fell onto the plate next to the eggs and you carefully set the skillet back down.

Your plate was empty on the counter next to the stove. Rio had few rules but one of them was that you made yourself a meal first unless you had time to share one together, and then make hers while you ate.

It was odd and very unusual for what was normally expected from most "housewives" in this case, but she was insistent and you were hardly one to deny Rio after she's taken you in and practically cared for you in place of you having to work.

You didn’t protest to her few rules — you obeyed them willingly and dutifully. In turn she ensured you had her company and you were comfortable.

Rio was at work one afternoon before a fair you had agreed to attend together and your mother had come to take you to lunch at a hot new diner.

She was updating you on your sister and her children, and the new car the family had obtained. Though eventually she asked when you’d find yourself a way out of Rio’s home— an opportunity to do something new and get out of the town where it all occurred.

You had simply looked at her questioningly, and asked, “Why would I ever want to leave? Miss Vidal has become my best friend and a dear comfort to me. She knows what I go through.”

Your mother’s lips pursed and her eyes crinkled around the edges in a way that was all too familiar. Like she knew something you didn’t. “Sweetheart, that’s why I wanted to sit you down really. See your father and I have been communicating with the sheriff. You remember Richard Howards right? You were in the same class in grade school.”

A town as small as Westview hardly awarded privacy and the idea of being strangers to others. So you simply said, “Of course.”

Your mother nodded and fiddled with her pearl necklace as she spoke, “After the funeral we went down to settle the business of your husband’s work details. We wanted it done through the sheriff’s office just in case they tried to cause problems for you.”

“Why would they do that?” you wondered as you sipped your coffee and looked out the window toward the drug store Rio was contained in.

Your mother frowned deeply. “Have you not been looking through your mail? I suppose most of it must be trash — a lot of it is advertisements and magazine samples these days — but Eastview Grain Milling wanted to deny wrongdoing. They were going to try and drag his widow — you — through the mud in the process.”

Your eyes flashed back to her, eyebrows shot up high. “Under what grounds? I’ve no money and he certainly didn’t have much after his paychecks. He died in their factory.”

Your mother nodded slowly. “Precisely the issue, isn’t it?”

“Is it taken care of?” you asked hesitantly.

“We handled it. Mostly your father — he’s, well, you know how he is.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Your mother eyed you. “When did you become so uninterested in what happens to you, darling? You used to call your father if you got religious scripture —“

“Shouldn’t it be wrong to send that to someone’s home instead of finding other creative ways to advertise? Who wants to join an indescribable society without merit and has no name?”

“My point,” she interrupted before you could get riled up, “is that you haven’t been . . . You. Not for a while.”

“Well, my husband died.”

Your mother gasped your name out, slamming her cup on the table in shock. You stared back at her with a weak shrug. “It’s true. I���m trying to . . . I don’t know, Mother. Rekindle my desire to live?”

“Then go to the doctor!” she cried, and you paused to note the look of desperation in her gaze, “Come home to your father and I while you recover — you know we’d take care of you. But please, sweetheart, something isn’t right about this woman.”

“You don’t even know her,” you snapped. Then you breathed out, startled at your own tone. You gathered yourself, your thoughts, and said, “She’s my only friend. My neighbors aren’t kindly women, Mother.”

“Have you asked her anything of value?” she demands. “How she came to be widowed? What year she got married? How they met?”

“Why are you so suspicious of her? Do you think she’s a commie? I assure you, Mother,” you bit out, “after the death of her husband she’s never been more drawn to this countries’ ideals.”

“No.” Exasperated, the woman who looked so much like yourself leaned back into the shiny leather booths and rubbed her temple. “Mister Howards did a check on Miss Vidal’s records.”

“Mother, you didn’t.”

“She was never married,” she blurted once again, cutting you off from whatever it is you began to say.

You sat in frozen silence, shock more than anything coating you like a wet blanket. “W-what?”

“Rio Vidal has a completely blank canvas, sweetheart,” your mother told you, eyes softening when she took in your expression, “and I’m afraid that means that no records indicate she was ever married, much less to a man in the service.”

2024

You flipped the page of the current cookbook and steadied it on the stand, dropping a few chives into the soup you were prepping.

You almost destroyed the kitchen in a fury when you saw perfectly tailored apron that you always eyed in the store hanging on the hook near the back door.

You settled for dumping out Rio’s beers instead and getting to work. She allotted you as much time in the kitchen as you requested — but the knives you used were somehow spelled to never turn against her no matter how hard you tried. They would be come heavy in your hands and eventually disappear when you grew defeated.

You had an entirely different plan for her instead of stabbing her to death. Less messy and a lot more manageable in terms of sneaking it into dinner.

You didn’t know if you could kill Death — but you sure as shit would try. She’s kept you cooped up for no less than three weeks so far and any and all attempts were met with mockery and depending on her mood, you facedown and fucked into oblivion.

You hated it.

Fuck.

You emptied your brain for now to keep your attention focused on making this dinner as heavily flavored as possible. You tipped in a little wine for extra flavor, even, and took a giant gulp from the bottle yourself.

You set the table and poured wine for both of you. Your hands shook despite yourself and your body was stiff. You folded napkins just as perfectly as your mother had taught you and set the silverware in order.

You served each bowl a helping of the soup.

At the last second before you knew she would be walking through the door, you opened the box of rat poison and dumped all of the contents in and stirred carefully and hoped there was one thing that could defeat Death.

Your desperation — it was making you sloppy. Perhaps if you had waited it out longer and thought about it you would have decided that fucking rat poison wouldn’t work on her.

But it didn’t cross you — not when you could feel the subtle shift of the invisible chain around your throat that dug in anytime you inched too close to the property line. Not when you tried to make a new design for the rooms and ended up in bed for hours for thinking you could try to enjoy this life again.

Never. Again.

She came in through the garage door with a flourish. For whatever reason you couldn’t grasp, she wore suits when she left and came home as though she were going to a normal nine to five job instead of reaping souls for her jars of whatever the fuck she did with them.

She strides through the house, calling your name and finding you waiting at the table with a fake smile plastered to your face and your chin resting on your palm as you greeted her.

“What a sight,” she drew out as she took her jacket off and slung it over her chair before rounding the table, “and what a beautiful dinner, too,” she added, finger lifting your chin. You let her guide you into a soft kiss, playing your role until you could unleash yourself entirely.

“Mm,” you said, then spread a hand out. “I made something new. It may not be up to my normal standards, considering.”

Rio eyed you curiously as she undid her sleeve cuffs and sat down across from you. Steam was still rising from the bowl and she stretched her arms out to allow her sleeves to ride up.

“I am sure that whatever you’ve made will be as delicious as the things you’ve made ten times before.” She went for the glass of wine first, so you followed in suit.

For once you started to feel like the lioness stalking her prey rather than the prey itself. You knew for sure that Rio could sense your observant gaze — how you kept attention to her over the rim of your wine glass and as you twirled and sipped at your soup.

It sparked curiosity and perhaps even a little suspicion from her end of the enchantment she had on you. Good. It was your turn to play a game with rules she couldn’t possibly follow.

“What did you do today?” she asked, setting the glass down and going to grab the spoon laid pointedly out instead. Dipped into soup, lifted to a mouth.

You smiled as she sipped it, and said casually, “Oh I didn’t get up to much. The house is quiet even with Billy around to keep company. Too big. I pulled some weeds from the garden and harvested some vegetables.”

“Did you now.” Dark swirls of magic in her eyes — an illusion to keep you from reading her. You hated that she used it so often.

“Mm.” You ran your finger around and around the rim of your wine glass. “I think a dog would be nice too. More company and would be enough to keep me busy.”

“A dog,” Rio echoed as she ingested a second sip of soup. “I thought you hated dogs.”

“Until I learned they hated you. Now I think one would be rather nice.”

Eyes locked across the table, and a small smile formed. “My angel wants a dog. As if it would protect you from me.”

Silence filled the room as you prepared for a standoff. Something about her demeanor had grown darker and more pronounced than when she stepped through the door — and if Rio knew you a hundred ways you knew her at least ninety-nine.

She knew.

She finished the entire bowl and let the spoon fall with a clang into it, leaning back into her chair to finish her wine. “Angel, what a delicious meal. I was worried I would never get to taste your cooking again. It’s one of the ways I can understand how you’re feeling without invading you with my. . . Abilities. Your cooking is your tell.”

You held your glass loosely in hand, allowing your features to come across as lazy and uninterested despite feeling as though a bloody battle were about to ensue. You lay your chin on the top of the back of your hand holding the glass.

“Oh?” you say, pretending curious reactions to keep her talking. She would be gone by now if the poison had worked, so you could only hope she couldn’t have tasted it. “What did this meal tell you about me tonight, then?”

Rio takes one of her index fingers and runs it along the inside of the bowl until it comes back with remains. She sticks it onto her tongue and leans forward as if to tell you a secret.

“It means, angel, that tonight you gambled with Death and you were feeling bold and tried something new and out of your usual style. So fucking bold that you thought a mortal poison — a weak one at that — would destroy me.” Something deadly and calm crossed her face, but the smile was something you’ve only seen a few times on her, “I am no rat, angel. All you’ve done tonight is play a little game I indulged in.”

Blood filled your ears. You could hear your heartbeat so fucking loud and you were drowning in the thickness of it.

Then pain pulled you out of it as quickly as it forced you in. You jumped, turning and realizing you’d broken your glass. Wine mixed with blood as shards of glass struck deep into your skin.

The pain didn’t do much to douse the fire that was your rage, your upset, your years of distress.

It lit them all up like gasoline on a volatile fire. You slammed your bloody fist onto the table and shoved it into Rio, who grunted in surprise as her hands flew up to catch it before it rammed into her abdomen.

“I am not your plaything for you to amuse yourself with when you’re bored and can’t find Agatha to annoy,” you spat, shoving the chair with your foot and causing the table to inch deeper into her palms. “I will find a way to destroy you — collar or not.”

Something you said was wrong, or perhaps the way you said it. One moment she was shocked and even bemused at your explosion and next she shoved the table back into your direction. You had to leap out of the way with the speed in which she had kicked it.

Glass and silverware went flying as the table slammed into the entryway and wall, shattering into broken pieces. A piece from one of the bowls snagged your cheek but the pain was minuscule and you grabbed the empty pot from the sink and threw it at her.

“You’re fucking pathetic, sweetheart.” Rio whipped her hand out and caught the pot with a swirl of dark green. She twisted her fingers and you watched in despair as the object was crumbled like a ball of paper and tossed out the window behind you.

You ducked for cover and cursed viciously as she crunched through broken plate ware and kicked aside table-legs for good measure in case you got any ideas.

She knelt down before you and wrapped her hand around the back of your neck tenderly, caressing the spot where her sigil hummed the loudest when she was near.

"You are my only focus now," she told you calmly, then grinned as though sharing a joke, "As long as we don't count the soul-reaping I do. But that's not really something I can simply give up, I'm afraid. I will admit I was impressed by your sad attempt at freeing yourself from me that I rewarded you with . . . enclosed freedom. I decided to decrease the size of your enclosure, really, is all I did. You never left me."

You bared your teeth at her in a meek attempt at having some sort of shield from her mocking. Blood dribbled into your mouth, between your teeth, and soaked into your tongue.

"I will never be complicit to this again," you spat at her. You hoped the droplets wouldn't wash out of her pants. She ignored the staining as though it were a common occurrence. "You can't make me happy, Rio. All of this -- from the day we met -- has been built on a lie that has crumbled around you. You aren't lovable."

The pressure suddenly eased as Rio seemed to process what you said to her. You had hoped to hit a weak spot and get her angry enough to back off, but her next response was the exact opposite.

"If I cannot make you love me," she whispered, leaning down to press a gentle kiss to your ear, then your jaw, "then I will give you a part of me that you have absolutely no choice but to love. Much better than a dog."

Dread slapped you across the face as Rio pulled back and snapped her fingers.

You were out before you could process her statement entirely.

You awoke in the bedroom under the cool sheets. You had a distinct throbbing in your head that reminded you of drinking too much or pulling an all-nighter during the nineties when you went to college for the first time.

You sat up slowly to prevent the increase of pain and crossed your arms when the sheets fell. You were naked -- entirely fucking naked -- and there was no evidence of any indication of Rio being around while you were out.

You trembled when you went over the events of the night. The alarm clock said it was five in the morning -- dinner had been at six. you slept for eleven hours straight . . . or were kept in a controlled state of unconsciousness by Rio until she could decide what to do with you.

As if summoned by your loud thinking, the door opened and in came Death herself. She looked rather stern as if you had started a stupid, petty fight and were at fault for it.

You wanted to wring her neck.

She took your silence in, the hostile expression, and swaggered on over to the bed like it was an invitation rather than a warning. She was wearing a silk robe and on closer inspection you noted her wet hair was in a bun.

"Did you get the tantrum out of you?" she asked casually, leaning over to turn on the bedside table lamp.

You curled your lip at her like a tethered animal that's been cornered and whipped.

"Because, you see," she continued, undoing the belt of her robe and letting it slide off her shoulders to reveal nothing but her prone form underneath, "I've decided that despite your outburst to give you a gift."

"I do not want," you breathed, finding leverage and support in the sheets keeping you covered, rage now leaking into your every word, "any gift you think to offer me. I don't want it. Fuck off."

Rio sat down next to you with a pout as she revealed a green rose in perfect beauty to you. "From my own personal gardens. It grew and died for you, my love."

The phantom sting from your thumb where one of her roses had cut you when you first saw one of those damned things in years made you fist the mattress underneath the comforter and sheets covering you.

"I am tired of things dying for me."

And suddenly a palm was on your forehead, shoving it down onto the soft, feather-stuffed pillows as Rio flung a leg over your waist and leaned over you. "Well, isn't that just too bad?" she murmured. "I don't get your love, and you don't get to stop those that lose their lives in your place. A pity all around."

You tried to ignore her, dragging your eyes upward to the ceiling instead as tears threatened to rise. You were so fucking tired -- of her, of living like this, of fighting.

"You're going to make me feel good in return for that stunt you pulled during dinner," Rio told you in a matter-of-fact tone, not minding you not keeping focus on her as she ripped the protection off your body and allowed the cold to sweep over your skin. "And after, I'm going to give you something I've only ever given to one other person."

You did not follow the line of discussion, the branching topic she wiggled in front of you like meat on a string. You told her you did not want it because her gifts always came with unspoken implications.

She moved suddenly and quickly, her body moving upward until she was hovering over your upturned face and she reached a hand down to run fingers through your hair. "Remember to breath, angel," she purred and then lowered herself onto you. Then she tugged when she got no initial reaction, “You’re gonna touch me, sweetheart. Go on. Don’t make it worse for yourself.”

Even as your tongue began to lick upward on instinct, you debated with yourself on biting her. Hard.

She’d probably only be mildly irritated at most and take it as a challenge rather than an attempt to get her off of you.

Your hands shakily reached up instead and with one hand you dug fingers mercilessly into the meat of her hip while a second hand scrunched between you two so you could thrust two fingers upward at the same time as your tongue entered her.

Rio released a moan that was breathy and sweet in essence as her thighs took form around either side of your head. You felt the headboard move and figured she was grabbing onto it with her other hand.

“Fuck — you still remember what I need, don’t you, angel? Good girls always remember even if they don’t want to,” she whispered in unsteady gasps as you found a rhythm. She kept herself from moving at first, instead using built up energy to dig nails into your scalp as your fingers thrusted upward while your tongue created tight friction.

Everything about her made you ache — down to the familiar smell of her and the way she twitched when you thrust slowly in the circular motion that she liked.

She was going back and forth from offering praise to you to being unable to form coherent words for some seconds when you let your teeth graze her clit every so often. Never enough for her to come.

“You’re being a tease,” she told you obviously, grip tightening with warning. However the grip faltered ever so slightly when you found the spongy tissue inside of her and added pressure. She fell into a low gasp and a knock against the headboard made you guess she had dropped her head on it.

“Fuck — right there. Yes, angel, keep going.”

You obeyed for a brief period in order to draw her closer to the edge. She was fiercely grinding her pussy down against your face now as she kept herself balanced.

Her thighs were beginning to twitch around your head and she was getting slicker by the moment. She was entirely vulnerable above you but you now knew not to make the mistake and think she didn’t have some sort of defense ready if you did something really stupid.

Just when you knew she would tip over is when you pull away, allowing your fingers to brush her g-spot one last time and sending her careening over that sharp edge. She let out a choked moan, surprised, as you abruptly removed all stimulation minus the forceful grinding she was giving you.

She panted above you but she didn’t sound satisfied like she usually does when she has an orgasm. She sounded wrung out, like reaching something with no payout.

“You have some goddamn balls,” Rio snarled, slipping away from your face and snatching it in her palm despite the wetness covering it. “You ruin my orgasm and think it’ll go any good for you?”

You stare her down with unwavering contempt. “You still came, didn’t you?”

“Oh, I’m loving this new part of you. The vile rage that seeps from your pores every second you’re around me,” she sneers as she wipes a trail of her slick from around your chin and shoves the appendage in your mouth.

You bite her finger but she does not flinch, does not blink. She only grins at you. “Oh yes, you wild little thing of mine. I am going to enjoy what I am going to do next. It will dampen that fire in your belly — or perhaps it will enrage you further. I cannot wait to see.”

You were grabbed so roughly you hardly at time to fight back. Arms and legs were rearranged and your face was shoved facedown into the pillows this time as fingers drifted gingerly down your spine.

“So pretty,” your captor mused, as if considering a piece of art in a museum. They trailed down even further until they brushed against the backs of your legs and angled them up so your knees and ass rose into the air. “Yes, angel, I’m going to want you to stay like this. Be my muse.”

“I will destroy your entire being,” you vowed as the magical directive took effect and your muscles relaxed without your consent. The weight of the bed lifted as Rio removed herself and murmured something under her breath.

“While you work on that, I think I’ll work on something else more productive,” she mused as she rejoined you a few moments later with her pelvis resting against the very bottom of your ass.

“You say a lot of words but speak such bullshit,” you snarled back, unable to move your hips an inch despite your attempts.

Rio laughed. “Fuck, I love you so much. Which is going to make this all the more fun.” And then you felt it sliding between the crevice where your cunt was.

“Absolutely not,” you jerked your upper body forward in desperation with no prevail, you were unable to get away. To make it worse she placed what she believed to be soothing hand on your now clammy back. “Rio — Rio, stop.”

She ignored you and tested you for wetness, and you were embarrassed at what she found when she sought it out. She leaned her body over your upturned hips and whispered, “So wet and yet you claim you want me to stop?”

“That’s how consent works, Rio,” you panted, jerking your shoulder but gaining no traction as she moved just out of reach in time. “I say stop and you stop.”

“I’m afraid that’s not in our contract, my love,” she sighed as she fingered the area around your neck and somehow managed to pull tight. Your airflow was restricted and you gasped out for air. “I own you entirely and have for a very long time. I decided you were mine the second I was called to take you away. I’m gladly taking others instead — and you’re granted a lifelong advantage on top of that. It’s time we add to it — don’t you think? Keep that destructive, wandering, little brain of yours busy will do wonders so I don’t have to dumb you down with my magic.”

She released you and your head fell back down as you gasped and inhaled for breath, fingers flexing into the sheets as dizziness swirled around you.

The tears started then. Rio crooned as she kissed gently down your back and entered you with an ease of a lover who actually cared would.

“Oh, angel, there is no need for those,” she murmured as she sucked bruises where each kiss was left. “Tears are a waste of your energy when considering why you’re crying.”

“Fuck you,” you sniffled, the emotions overwhelming you too much and your brain filled with an overload of pleasure chemicals to say much else.

“I’m so trying,” she promises followed by a very deep thrust. “Do you know what I’m doing, love? Why I chose to wear the cock?”

You didn’t answer her, too wrapped up in your own feelings to play her game and amuse her as she fucked you like her life depended on it.

“It’s because,” she continues like she was discussing the weather with you, “I’m going to breed you. I’ve put some thought into it — you’d be impressed how much time I spent thinking instead of acting on innate desires.”

Your body shuddered when the ridges of her specially designed cock rubbed your walls, followed by one of her arms reaching around so she could cup your breasts. “You never liked being bored, did you?” she grunted as she found a better angle and upped her speed.

You let out a sob-filled moan and suddenly you could move your hips again — and the first thing you found yourself doing was thrusting them back in time to meet her.

“Good girl,” she whispered, kisses lining your jaw, down your neck as she squeezed your breast and kept you in a constant state of physical overstimulation and unable to clearly think. “You’re doing so fucking good despite how fucking difficult you’ve been lately. That’s okay — we’re going to fix that aren’t we?”

Suddenly you were drawn upwards until you sat on her thighs, with her chest pressed against your back as she rolled her hips as deep as they would go and held you up with the arm holding your tits.

“I’m going to make sure you stay, angel. I’ve lost — I’ve lost too much already.” Through the fucked out haze you thought you detected despair and need within the tone she used — but she didn’t allow you long to process it as her other hand reached down and started rubbing your clit with harsh beats that met her thrusts.

“I’m going to — I’m going to give us a better life, okay?” she whispered just as the build up continued to grow with no possible escape in sight.

You gave in — at least for this — and closed your eyes and leaned your head back against her shoulder as she kept her pace violent and unyielding, seeming to have a goal to achieve.

It didn’t take much longer — not for you or Rio. Both of you were thrown into orgasms that had you rocking forward back down into the bed, your groan and gasps eroding away at any belief she would ever let you go.

A tingle that you came to associate with her use of magic started rippling across your skin like electricity until Rio stopped moving inside of you, growing briefly still.

You were shaking and trembling, biting your tongue so hard that blood filled your mouth as you contained your devastated cries and curled your legs into you.

Rio brushed some hair away from your neck and rubbed at your back in an effort to comfort you. Perhaps she thought you were overwhelmed in the way she was — you weren’t entirely sure ever what Rio thought most days.

“It’s going to be okay,” she tried to soothe, her touch like burning oil as you tried to flinch away from her. “Angel? I promise. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to be a family. I am Death. Nothing will take us away.”

But who was Death really when she was able to create life? The very thing Rio had once claimed was against her rules.

Rio and Reader will return in Part Three.

Taglist [ holy shit I remembered ]: @girlsgotissues ( it won’t let me tag u im so sorry )

PART THREE

[piratekane]

A post-ep piece from ep. 7 of Agatha All Along, Death's Hand In Mine (aired October 23, 2024) below the cut!

Death comes for Lilia, softened at the edges.

No, not Death. Rio. Rio, face rounded in sympathy, so unlike the vision in the tunnels. She smiles and it’s warm, caring. In all the dreams Lilia had about Death, it was never a face she recognized, never a face so open and kind. But as reality leaks away, she thinks: maybe this is a face I’ve seen before. Maybe I’ve been seeing this face my whole life.

“Did you take Alice?”

Alice. Her coven sister. Protector. The Knight of Wands. Lilia hopes she was held, helped. And Rio, that softness still etched across her face, nods silently. Lilia exhales, some of the pressure in her chest easing away.

“And Jen? Teen?” She pauses. “Agatha?”

She doesn’t imagine the slight flinch on Rio’s face. She can see now. Everything. All threads. All motes in the air. All flecks of want in Death’s eyes.

“They will face the road,” Rio finally says. “I will be there if they are ready.”

Lilia hopes—if, if they fail, if the road swallows them whole—that Death is kind to them. That Death comes in a soft green shawl like the one she’s wearing now, a flower in her hand and a warmth in her eyes. They deserve that. Jen. Teen. Even Agatha deserves a moment where the world stops pushing at her. If only she would stop pushing back.

But they are her coven. They are her family. She sacrificed for them, gave them a way forward and stayed behind to seal the path from the danger she could control. And she would do it again. It’s probably why Death comes to her as Rio, a kindness for a kindness. The choice she was always destined to make. All roads led to this Road, led to these people, and for the first time in centuries, she had something worth losing.

They are her coven. Death will not take that away from her.

“I’m ready.” She declares it with a strength that she thinks has always been there, just dampened for so long.

Rio smiles, a slight sharpness in the corners before it’s gone, and offers her hand. “Then let’s walk, witch.”

Witch. She loves the sound of that.

Lilia takes her hand and the world shifts into muted colors that stretch as far as she can see. At the end, something sparkles. She knows that place, the face at the end of the tunnel. Hope blooms in her chest as the picture takes shape. She feels herself running, body shifting as she goes, and it becomes easier. The air tastes sweeter. The sun is shining.

Rio’s hand slips from hers and she feels weightless, but tethered to a moment in time—a first in a long while.

She doesn’t hear the goodbye. Death whispers it still.

[florencebirdsong]

note: i wanted to get this out so all works are easy to find but it won’t be a pretty masterlist for a little while

All smut. 18+ minors DNI

ao3 | thoughts tag

wip wednesday tag | wip updates tag

Events

Agatha All Along Week 2024 Masterlist

Valentine’s Day Event 2024

✩ non-xreader 𓉸 dark

Series

Sharing is Caring (2/2)

-> bad decisions: rio lets agatha have a turn with her pet, she never said she wouldn’t join in

-> welts and caresses: pain is just as delicious as pleasure when it comes to them

Healer Knows Best (2/3)

-> open wide: you have a problem you can’t ignore anymore. The local healer, Agatha, is more than happy to help

-> healing hands: you can’t seem to get the same feeling Agatha gave you

-> special tool: the problem only seems to be getting worse. Agatha has just the tool

Trick or Treat (1/2)

-> Trick: with Agatha away planning a trick, Rio decides to have a little treat

-> Treat: it’s your turn for a little treat

Wanda Maximoff

deep breath

-> Wanda wants to see just how good you can be

Agathario

you can run but you can’t hide ✩

-> Agatha wants Rio’s attention and now she has it. Quick and dirty style

Bent Over

-> joining in on Agatha and Rio's special brand of foreplay is just like flipping a coin

Agatha Harkness

Dreams 𓉸

-> Agnes has a nightmare. You make the mistake of letting her stay.

Rio Vidal

Wolf Hunt

-> Rio needs to get out some of those animal instincts

Kate Bishop

Pull, Don’t Push!

-> Getting stuck under the bed hadn’t been on your plans today. Your girlfriend fucking you however…

The Only Gift I Need Is (The Smell Of) You

-> What better present to give to your horny girlfriend then fulfilling a kink of hers. Or, Kate loves the smell of your cunt

[brights-place]

Hiii I have 2 req ideas and I can’t really choose between them so could you choose for me??

1: miles42 finding out that his little sister has a bf

2: miles42 having a little sister that works at achemex too, but she didn’t really do what she’s supposed to do on missions and just messes around all the time

42! Miles Morales finding out that his little sister has a bf

Pairings: Miles & Lil Sister! Reader

Warnings: Fluff

A/N: I'd say that it'd be funny fr miles 42 staring down at his sister when she has a boyfriend and be like "Who you sneakin off to" like how rio acted to miles 1610 when he went off with gwen.

- You've recently started to date a guy your age and he made you feel happy about yourself and felt close - So obviously you had to hide it from your brother and mama rio because you weren't exactly to tell them since whats going on with the city - Here you were getting read for a date with him but as soon as you opened the door you had miles staring you down - you were like one year younger then him but here he was arms crossed and scowling "who you runnin off too" it felt like you were under investigation - "No one" as you try to move past he blocks it "uh uh you tell me where you going? who you going out with? is it genkie? I never liked that guy" "YES YOU DID AND HE'S YOUR BESTFRIEND?!" "Shush" (yall better get the refrence) - So here you were sat down as he pryed you off of every information - "So where you running off to?" "To a karoke place then bowling" "With who" "Lila, Mari, Will and [Guys name}" and here was the longer even worse stare down as he spoke "Does ma know" "of course she does!" - So when you left he was obvs in his prowler costume making sure you were safe walking around but when he noticed how you were holding a guys hand he was 100% gonna scold you and then tease you - As your older brother he was worried yet he made so much fun of you - If you go on dates he makes sure your protected properly with everything you need and make sure that he treats you right when he picks you up miles doesn't want any of that stupid bullshit - Uncle Aaron scared the shit out of your boyfriend Him and Miles was obvs staring him down and he 100% was scared but they welcomed him but reminded him that if he ever broke your heart they'd make sure he gets hurt - Miles 42 would be an amazing brother every version of miles is and he protects you cause your his younger sister even if its one year apart - Miles likes to tease you alot I mean you teased him about his partner so he had the rights to tease you back - def walks into your room when you and your bf are cuddling and makes sure to keep the door open as you shout at him to close the door - Broke into your room again when you were gonna kiss your bf but he was holding a shoe "Nah bro dont even try it or try me drop my sis" - Miles and your bf become gaming buds and the fact he makes fun of him when he loses oh how smug he is and makes fun of your boyfriend proudly - he's very supportive after awhile but is still defensive he already lost his dad and you along with your mother are everything to him he can't lose another uncle aaron and him also may have tabs to make sure that he never does anything shitty to ya.

reblogs + comments are appreciated ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡

©brights-place 2024 — do not repost on another platform, copy, translate or edit my works! if you fit my DNI list please don't interact

[luckofmylife]

100% deserved sebita, best tournament of his career and in brazil no less

i'm devastated for mariano tho, he grew on me😭

[stateofsport211]

📸 🎥 Tennis TV

The second set almost became a one-way traffic according to the scoreline, but the flow might have had a different say. Trusting his forehands were Sebita's means to control the flow while Navone visibly ran out of steam as a result of all the tennis played in the past week, where the former scored a forehand winner to secure an equalizer before he broke due to Navone's flat forehand error early in the second set. Sebita proceeded by consolidating his position to 3-0.

Afterward, Sebita kept striking with a forehand down-the-line finish spotted to win the second point in the fourth game, where he ended up having 2 break points due to Navone's backhand error. The qualifier then saved them with a forehand winner and an unreturned serve, but it was insufficient due to his forehand errors afterward suggesting he was unable to keep up with the pace, thus Sebita doubling the break to 4-0. This was followed by the fifth seed's incredible defense to finish another point, but Navone's forehand winners not only paved the way but also helped him to finally break back 4-1 with a volley finish to the rally.

However, Navone could not keep up with such moments. His backhands became even more vulnerable, in this position, which resulted in Sebita's break-back, earning the latter an opportunity to serve for the championship. Thanks to a 0-hold to seal that game, Sebita served a second set breadstick (6-1) to secure his fifth career Tour title, with this becoming the biggest career title by far (his maiden 500-level title).

[ygorarepairs]

Writer claims open! (Dec. 24-27)

Claims for the 2024-2025 mini bang are open! As a reminder, writers will write 2000 words minimum based on their partner's art piece. Claim summaries are anonymous and art drafts can be revealed after everyone is partnered. Review the claim summaries here: https://docs.getgrist.com/eiATHExv47au/Claim-Summaries-2024-2025/p/3  Filter the summaries by using the stickied menus at the top of the spreadsheet. Submit your writer claims here (open through Dec. 27): https://docs.getgrist.com/forms/n65Xt2iVFut247eo2UEXih/4 Ship list: 1. Fawnshipping (Weevil Underwood/Maximilian Pegasus) 2. Yuga + Yudias 3. Crewshipping (Sawatari/Ootomo/Yamabe/Kakimoto) 4. Samuraishipping (Noboru Gongenzaka/Yaiba Toudou) 5. Sickleshipping (Yami Marik x Thief King Bakura) 6. Judai/Yuri 7. Numeronshipping (Don Thousand x Astral) 8. Rulershipping (Reiji/Jack) 9A. Zwijo/Yuudias/Kuaidul 9B. Manabu/Nyandestar 10. Occultshipping (Yami Bakura/Ghost Kotsuzuka (Bonz)) 11. Vexshipping (Mazaki Anzu x Yami Bakura) 12. Crystalshipping (Shou &/ Johan) 13. Isono x Rishid Ishtar 14. Omenshipping (Carly x Misty) 15. Foolshiping (Judai Yuki/Saiou Takuma) 16. Senseishipping (Kalin & Radley) 17A. Yami Marik/Yami Bakura/Jounouchi 17B. Yami Bakura/Otogi 17C. Jounouchi/Shizuka 18. kuaiyuuga (Kuaidul Velgear x Ohdo Yuga) 19. Scytheshipping (Bessho Ema/Taki Kyoko) 20. Fateshipping (Rafael x Yami Yugi/Atem) 21. Tealshipping (Ryo Marufuji/Johan Andersen) 22. Rise Falcon x Dark Rebellion Xyz Dragon 23. Rio/Ruri 24. Nohopeshipping (ZONE/Aporia) 25. Darkangelshipping (Alito x Vector x Yuma) 26. Agelessshipping (Seto Kaiba/Judai Yuki) 27. Hauntshipping (Bakura Ryou x Yuki Judai) 28. Darkcosplayshipping (Kuroda x Sota) 29. Traumashipping (Ryou Bakura x Juudai Yuuki) 30. Sadisticshipping (Aki Izayoi/Kiryu Kyosuke) 31. Blueghostshipping (Aoi Zaizen/Specter) 32. Spikeshipping (Honda Hiroto/Mutou Yuugi) 33. Yuya x Aoi (Skye) 34. Tieshipping (Miho/Honda) & Buddyshipping (Jounouchi/Honda)

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[sandytrish008]

There are 5 days left until the opening of the Paris 2024 Olympic Games, and to celebrate I drew my favorite mascots from different Olympics and Paralympics, in ascending order:

Misha - Moscow 1980

Hodori - Seoul 1988

Cobi - Barcelona 1992

Powder, copper, Coal and Otto - Salt Lake City 2002

Miga, Quatchi, Sumi and Mukmuk - Vancouver 2010

Vinicius&Tom - Rio 2016