#scab leader | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

dadsbongos · 3 months ago

Text

cycle & jerk

5k words / warnings - pinv sex (unprotected, creampies), breeding kink, light choking, hair pulling, chilchuck's a mean dirty old man, heat cycle, i haven't written in awhile so like. idk don't execute me if this isn't a slay

summary - you are a rat-half foot-hybrid mix, king of the junjile but still social and fierce, and you go into heat and chilchuck can smell it (ew) and he's the only one that can help

~~~

Huffy panting causes Chilchuck to stir in his bedroll. A whine muffled into thin fluff, then the gentle drag of scratchy blankets catching on clothes as a lump grows more apparent beside him. Shyly, a hand wanders from clutching his arm to petting down his chest -- pausing at his belt and scrunching his shirt with a hearty groan. He watches quietly, heart thumping into his chest because he’s just not sure how to breach this.

Stupidly he’d assumed he still had more time. Looking back, he’s genuinely unsure as to why he ever thought that. The signs were there that tonight was his culling, weren’t they? He should’ve been more prepared.

four days prior.

Despite only servicing a single party in your entire adventuring career (and only wanting the one), you have a very strict set of dates in which you’re unavailable for work. Yet this month, regardless of his numerous efforts, your party leader has kept you in the dungeon past expiration.

“I told you I needed out of here before today, didn’t I?”

“You did…”

“And where am I?”

“Still here…”

To his credit, Laios appears earnestly ashamed -- hands folded in his lap and head bent to avoid looking you in the eye. He murmurs soft apologies, even as your attention is called across the room by Marcille.

“Take it easy,” she coos, which only infuriates you further, “What’s so important that you have to be so mad, anyway?”

“It’s basic decency,” you throw an arm out at your side, gesturing to your fellow half-foot on the right, “Chilchuck, back me up!”

“She’s right,” Chilchuck shrugs, “Although it sounds unfair to put all the blame on Laios.”

“I can’t leave before we’re done here,” you grumble, swiveling to face him fully (Laios sighs in gratitude that your wrath has been directed elsewhere), “I don’t get paid upfront, you know?”

“Huh, wonder if there was some way you could’ve fixed that.”

“I only work with Laios, why would I need to join a union?”

“Scab,” he coughs, far more teasing than of genuine frustration.

“Maybe we could help get you back to the surface if you told us what the problem was!” Marcille rolls around onto her hands, eyes wide in curiosity, “C’mon, share! Light a fire under us!”

“It’s embarrassing,” you scooch closer to Chilchuck before sagging against the wall, joining him on the ground. You fail to notice when he flinches at your proximity, “My business is my own.”

“Best leave it alone,” Senshi agrees, “We’ll just have to stay outta your way ‘til we’re done here.”

“Well, don’t avoid me,” you continue to scoff, watching as Izutsumi rustles along Chilchuck’s lap just to bat at your rounded ears with both paws, “Izutsumi, don’t touch those.”

She hisses quietly, only diverting her attention so far as your tail sandwiched between yours and Chilchuck’s thighs. You allow her to malleate the flesh, only because she makes no off-hand comments about how strangely cool the skin is (just the memory makes you glare over at Laios again, who cowardly shrinks back).

“You’re irritable today,” Chilchuck glances at you warily, tone equally cautious.

“And?”

His back slides down the wall until he’s nestled fully into his bedroll and turned away from you onto his side, “Nothing.”

Izutsumi hums quietly, head plopping into your lap, you two exchange confused glances before collectively deciding to let his sudden retirement go.

Since that night, Chilchuck has been avoiding you. You’re certain.

Initially, you’d attempted to rationalize it as a sense of hysteria, that you were simply hyper aware of his presence after the incident shared with Izutsumi. Until more incidents began compiling atop each other, and you were unable to pass them as individual misunderstandings.

Such as that next morning.

“Oh, you getting water?” Chilchuck rose from his slump against the far wall, gaze honed on Laios.

Your leader nods before thumbing towards you, “Yep. Found a small fountain across the hall. Wanna come?”

Chilchuck looks at you, blinking stupidly, before shaking his head, “I’ll probably wait until we set camp again.”

Then there was lunchtime.

“You’re so far away…” Marcille whines, stretching her arm out as if to manhandle Chilchuck back towards the rest of your party.

“There’s no room over there.”

Everyone stares at him for that, Izutsumi curling into your side protectively while Laios points down at the gaping space between you and Senshi with his plate. He grins, full of heart and goodwill, “There’s room right there, Chil’.”

“Oh,” Chilchuck’s shoulders slack, body unenthusiastically scooting across the floor until he’s awkwardly inserted beside you. Noticeably closer to Senshi than you, chuckling distantly and gazing solely into his food, “Duh. Didn’t notice that.”

Izutsumi smacks her lips in a rush to swallow her bite before contradicting, “You were staring at that spot for five minutes.”

“Thought you were gonna take it,” he recovers quickly, then promptly shutting his mouth the rest of lunch.

And the next day.

Anytime you spoke, he’d find an exit from the conversation. He’d conveniently need to speak with Laios, or Marcille, or Izutsumi, or Senshi whenever you approached. Not to mention how glaringly obvious the physical space between you was, whereas he usually traveled towards the middle of the pack with you he’s now suddenly braving the front alongside Laios.

Each effort on your part to shut down tension was swiftly dodged, only managing to thicken the strain between you.

Until that night:

“I’m heading for the bathroom,” Chilchuck rises from his bedroll with a yawn.

“Want me to go with?” Laios offers.

“No,” but his kindness is wasted on Chilchuck, who grimaces at the thought of pissing with a silently listening Laios.

Laios frowns over at you, “But it’s dark out there, I would’ve kept him safe.”

“He’ll live,” you retort, frustration with the lockpick boiling over into an eye roll.

You feel a lithe finger dig into your thigh, finding Marcille turned onto her tummy in her blanket, “You could go confront him now. He’ll have no excuses with nobody else around.”

Figures someone as invasive as Marcille is so invested in yours and Chilchuck’s recent friction.

“Yeah, I’ll just go up behind him while he’s peeing. Great idea.”

“Scare him into submission,” Izutsumi adds, though betraying you by selfishly occupying Chilchuck’s mat across the room. She snuggles into the warmth he’s left behind, yawning loudly -- looking about three seconds from drifting into slumber.

“There’s ale stocks along the way,” Senshi now joins the conversation, and is arguably the most helpful, “Some of ‘em bound to be full. He won’t turn down a drink.”

“Huh,” you tease the idea further. Even if by some uncharacteristic possession, Chilchuck does refuse the offer of alcohol, you can always beat him with the bottle. Knock him out to tie down and force out answers once he’s awake, “That could work…”

You replay that very thought process in your head as you await for Chilchuck to wander back down the hall. You passed as far as the corridor after the ale shelves before realizing how strange lingering outside the bathroom is, then deciding to sit with your back to the wall. Not long now, Chilchuck will be right in front of you.

He won’t jump back in shock, either. He’s heard you walking, you know he did because you heard him pause, sigh, and continue at a much, much slower pace. You’d almost be swooning over how he could discern it was you by your walk, if only there wasn’t such a vexing reason for you to be out here.

At least you have the advantage, your superior rodent vision can make him out in the pitch dark, meanwhile he’s relying on estimation as to where you are. If you wanted, you could probably just throw the ale at his head and get the knocking-him-unconscious bit over with.

“Okay,” he sighs again, louder, arms folded across his chest, “What?”

“Me what? How about you what?”

Chilchuck leans his head away from you, as if he can’t so much as stand to look at you, “What’re you talking about?”

“Just sit,” when he makes no such move, you lift one bottle in your hand, swirling the dark liquid inside, “I brought a bribe just to be nice, don’t let it go to waste.”

“Where’d you get that?” his curiosity blocks out his better instinct, sitting at your side to snatch up the bottle. You can see the instant he regrets it -- his nose wrinkles up and he swallows harshly, “Okay, what do you want?”

You ‘hpmh’ at his testy tone, letting him stew in the unpleasant silence before he’s uncorking the bottle and taking his first gulp. His nonchalance is more irritating than his avoidance; now he wants to insist you’re the weird one when he was dodging you as some toxic, erratic creature. Rage spurs you to your feet, swinging around to stand directly in front of him.

“You’re avoiding me, I know you are!” in retrospect, you will be glad you’re so far from the party so you two can yell without disturbing them.

“I am not!”

“Stop being defensive, just tell me what’s wrong so I can fix it!”

“I can’t,” Chilchuck grinds the heels of his palms into his eyes, face blooming red. That tangy aroma usually hidden until it was right under his nose, flooding his mouth. It was now overpowering your usual scent, and he assumes the only reason you’re so oblivious is because your own advanced smelling has grown blind to it, “It’s nothing you can fix. I’m just cursed with heightened senses.”

“Huh?”

“Huh?!” you stumble back, arms curling around your stomach, “No way! You can…”

Oh, God.

“Yep.”

Oh, God, no.

“Gross!”

Chilchuck shrugs, tilting the ale against his lips and murmuring into tinted glass, “Usually it's only the bloody part we can pick up on, but uh,” he sips the bitter liquid, clearly hesitant to finish his thought until your curious hum encourages him, “I guess beastkin are more… potent…”

“Ew!”

“I didn’t want to finish saying it!”

“But you did,” you gag, “You’re a pervert, phrasing it all nasty like that.”

“What? Would you rather me say it how Laios would?”

“Don’t even joke about that,” you go rigid suddenly, heart seizing at the mention of Laios, “He can’t find out about this.”

“Agreed, it’d be disgusting to hear him ask all those personal questions.”

“So,” you emphasize, clasping your hands nervously, “I need to get it taken care of before I become a problem.”

Chilchuck freezes. Eyes drifting slowly from his bottle to your pinched face, “No.”

“What?”

“No. Ask Senshi or Marcille -- hell! Knock out two problems in one swoop and have Laios help! He’ll leave you alone for the rest of your life if he can get all his questions out now.”

“I wasn’t saying that,” you totally were, and you should’ve known better due to his aversion to interpersonal party-relationships, “Just, I dunno, keep me away from the others.”

“Why me?” he groans.

“You’re the only one who knows…”

“What about Izutsumi? Can’t she be your guard?”

“No! I wanna preserve my positive image in her mind as long as I can.”

Chilchuck scowls, polishing off the bottle with a loud gulp and rolling the neck between his hands, “Guess this is why we never saw you around this time.”

“Uh-huh…”

“And you’re gonna be miserable down here until it's over.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And it’ll only be worse once you actually go into heat.”

“I know, Chilchuck, I’m thirty -- I know how my own heats work.”

You watch confirmed and suspected information sink in for him: Chilchuck was surprised to meet you upon joining the party, as far as he’d heard from whispered tales beastmen looked human most of their lives. Yet you’ve got large, circular ears with a light layer of fur, a pudgy button nose that twitches, and a fleshy tail unfurling to your ankles. You store fat easier than any other half-foot he’s ever met, your legs are stronger and faster than any other half-foot, too.

As terrible as it sounds out of context, your body fascinates him. Not to liken himself to Laios, but well… Ideally this could be his perfect excuse to fully explore, he could have so many questions answered.

Are there humanoid ears hidden behind your hair? Does the peach fuzz on your tail match what courses over your thighs and arms? Has the strength of a rat’s jaw proportionally stretched to your own, like with your legs? Is your whole body warm like a humanoid or cool like your tail? Do you only leave every other month because your rat heat is worse than your human ovulation?

Would having sex with you be like with any other half-foot, or would you be a completely new experience?

Have your strange circumstances forced you into a romantic stasis, making you vulnerable and sensitive to his experienced hands?

If he refuses you now, would you take the bait and ask Laios for help instead?

“Laios seriously doesn’t know about this? At all?”

“I’m sure he knows menstruation exists,” and by proxy ovulation, “but no, I haven’t mentioned my heat.”

“I would’ve thought he’d constantly ask about your… anatomy…”

“Honestly, I think it’s why he approached me to join his party, but I told him off after the first weird question,” you laugh quietly at the memory, “Funny enough, he didn’t seem weird. Most men that approached me were dogs, so meeting him was a relief. Never wanted to work for someone else after our first dive together.”

Chilchuck nods slowly, smoothing the pad of his thumb across the emptied bottle and staring into his dark, murky reflection, “You’ve been in the party longest. You gotta be fond of the guy by now.”

No, he corrects, judging by how you phrased it -- you’ve always been fond of him.

“I guess…” you shrug, “but I’m not fond fond,” you cross your arms defensively, humiliated chills racing up your arms at his unspoken rejection, “I could be, if you’re so adverse. It doesn’t have to be you, Chilchuck. Sorry for asking something so intimate.”

Chilchuck lays the bottle down, shaking his head as he stands, “Don’t ask that dolt. I’ll help.”

“Really?”

More questions infiltrate his mind, unwelcomed as they are interesting.

Do you squeal or huff when you cum? Are you the type to leave scratches? Do you bite (and thus, back to the jaw strength thing)? Would you let him yank your hair? Your tail? Both?

“Thanks, Chilchuck,” you feel the inexplicable need to whisper your appreciation, as if raising your voice could somehow rouse his testy attitude and result in backtracking.

“You should call me Chil.”

“Huh?”

“It’d be awkward to hear my whole name during sex. That’s about as close as people can get, right?”

“Oh!” you’re taken aback. You thought he was against that, though clearly…

His face is flushed (however his decisive speech and sturdy stance negate any intoxication allegations), and you can almost make out the thump of his heartbeat in the filling silence. Or maybe that part is your imagination. Maybe you’re hoping his heart is racing as fast as yours.

“When would be best?” he clears his throat, pulling at the collar of his shirt as though it's choking him, “Now?”

“No!” you cry, mostly out of shock he’s that willing, “No, it wouldn’t do anything now since I’m not… you know. Yet. We’ll have to wait.”

“How long?”

“Not sure. This is why I like to be at home during.”

“I get it,” he runs a hand down the length of his face, hissing quietly in exasperation, “I hate playing these things by ear.”

“‘These things’?” you chuckle as Chilchuck’s face goes red at the implication, he storms past you praying you drop his slip-up, “You do this kind of thing often?”

“Shut up.”

“So, you’re just the guy to go to, then! I should come to you every other month!”

“Shut up!”

…

“Glad to see you two made up,” Marcille’s cheery tone is the first to rake through the room next morning, “Though…”

You’re practically draped over Chilchuck’s back, already feeling your body temperature climbing unnaturally. He’s patting your sweltering cheek sympathetically, allowing you to burrow your face into the bend of his neck. And you’re pressing your chest obnoxiously into his back.

“You’re a bit close,” she teases in a quiet giggle.

Chilchuck rolls his eyes, biting back any replies to avoid unintentionally spilling your secret.

He turns, lips brushing your temple as he whispers to you, “How’re you doing? I could probably lie to Laios and- “

“No,” you whine, embarrassment evident in how you curl your arms tighter around his waist and shuffle closer, “I can’t right now, that’s so… weird.”

“Sure, that would be weird.”

That night, both you and Chilchuck jammed into an off-room from the rest of your party. You two having made the escape after everyone else fell asleep to avoid questions about why you were separating yourselves.

He chooses not to comment on how you strip down to only your panties before falling asleep.

…

While he’s internally debating the ethics of chickening out on his promise to you, you’re suffering. Bad.

Sweat clings along the back of your neck and all down your molten face. Worse than that heat, is the one between your thighs. You’ve been duly rubbing at yourself through your panties for the better half of eternity, earnestly hoping to deal with this yourself rather than following through with using Chilchuck. That in itself is proof you’re barely in your right mind, masturbating has never worked before -- obviously it won’t now.

All it succeeds in is making you wetter and messier.

A little physical stimulation, you reason, can’t be bad. So you faintly trail a hand over Chilchuck’s soft stomach, pausing before his crotch and feeling your chest pound at the thought:

Below his navel is his penis.

Then there’s the next thought:

His penis should be inside you.

You moan quietly, eyes clenched shut and cheek smushing into your bedroll. Were you not preoccupied with the broiling in your stomach, you’d probably be feeling the ache in your knees holding up your weight. Your back arched and rear presented for mounting.

Just as you’re delirious enough with desperation to shake Chilchuck awake, he’s turning onto his side and carding stray hairs from your damp face. Fire licks up his fingertips and he frowns, “You’re warm.”

“Chil,” relief fills you at his voice, something else filling the seat of your underwear. The hand on his tummy winds up to the collar of his shirt, you fumble with the top button, “Chil, can you- ? Please, I feel so fucking hot, Chil. I need you.”

Chilchuck casts the others a brief glance through the door before pushing up onto his elbows, one hand joining yours between your legs. He swallows harshly at the warmth, slithering beneath the waistband of your panties to skim his fingertips directly along your pussy. You push back into his hand with a mewl, near the point of gasping for breath at the new sensation of a man’s fingers pressing inside you.

“Slipped right in,” he muses, tilting his head to be level with yours, “So wet and ready, you should’ve woken me up before. Could’ve saved you the embarrassment.”

Anything impactful like words and vowels is slurred as you rock into Chilchuck’s hand, bottom lip tugged between your teeth. The pads of his fingers dive towards the pouch of your stomach, curling in search of one specific spot.

You gasp sharply and buck back, unabashedly and with no care if it catches bleary eyes from the other room, making him sure he’s found it. His other hand juts out to press up on your tummy, only aiding the pressure of his fingers inside you.

“Not- uh! - not gonna finish like this, Chil,” you whine pathetically, batting your lashes at him wetly.

“Who said anything about that?” he slips his fingers out of you, then swishing the soaked digits around your clit just to hear you try, and fail, to muffle a squeal into your pillow, “Finish: like it's a job. I’m trying to watch you squirm like the bitch in heat you are.”

You hadn’t assumed he was the type, given his opposition to being personal. His consistent, almost annoyingly thorough, separation of business and pleasure. This (apparently incorrect) observation stems from how you also hadn’t assumed he was the type to be curious about you.

Chilchuck teases your slit to watch if you'll try smothering more moans by biting your mat. He inches his face to yours, listening for pinched curses and wails. Eyes trail down your face to your chest, studying the way it pillows against the bedroll. He feels every part the creep he accused Laios of being.

“You're so sensitive,” he notes, shuffling onto his knees behind you, shoving his pants midway down his thighs, “What? Not used to this?”

You swat at him in protest, though still humping pathetically. Every twitch and moan is based on pure instinct, you’ve got no clue how to intentionally be sexy -- you’re just praying Chilchuck is too hypnotized by your cunt for your inexperience to be glaringly obvious. Between work and the fetishizing of both your race and curse, a partner has been hard to find: making you a rare half-foot approaching your golden years as a virgin.

Chilchuck lubes the head of his cock with your syrupy wetness before sliding inside, hands playing the fat of your hips. He lets out a low groan, one hand groping from your side up the curve of your ass and along your spine before winding in your hair. His fingers slot around the roots, taking the base of your skull to use as leverage while he fucks you.

He can make out the choked sound of you tempering a moan by sinking your teeth into cushion. You reach back, nails snagging his exposed thigh to anchor him deep inside your wetly clicking cunt. Chilchuck wrangles your back against his chest by your hair, placing his hand over your mouth as a muzzle. Hot breaths fan the soft skin of his palm, skin slapping skin slowly growing louder in a way that should make Chilchuck more careful than it does.

Rather, he speeds up, hand on your hip rounding to circle your sloshed, swollen clit.

“Just shut up and take it,” he grunts, releasing your mouth to seize your throat, until ribbed tissue presses into his palm.

Gagged whimpers and gasps die as sputters in the pit of your chest, Chilchuck biting and sucking your neck to silence his own wanton crowing.

Every glide out of you is met with your violent heat and need sucking him back in. Your head swivels, putty nose rolling against his cheek as you press sloppy kisses along his cheek.

Heeding your frantic, whispered pleas, Chilchuck shifts to return your kisses. Tongue against tongue, hands pulling your bodies into one sticky tangle.

“Gonna let me breed you?” he growls, using his weight over you to suddenly pin you against your bedroll. Your wetness dripping toward the mat, down his wrist, and along his pelvis, “Gonna give me a baby? Make me a daddy?” your ass perks up, tail coiling around his thigh to tether him, he chuckles cruelly down at you, “Yeah, such a good mousy cunt for me. Open and wet, taking my cock.”

“Yes, yes, yes,” you chant, gasping aloud now only for Chilchuck’s hand around your neck to return to your face -- two of his fingers depressing your tongue. Even with the obvious attempt to hush you, you call to him. Garbled, braindead slews of pleas for his cum and begging for (somehow) more attention.

“Is this really all your heat, or are you just such a secret slut?” your whine and clenching stir him up, gooey and compliant and bursting at the seams just for you, “Trying to be all cute, asking for help,” his thrusts quicken when you arch back, hand snatching around his at your clit, “If you wanted to be my cumslut, you could’ve fucking said so.”

You bury your face into your makeshift bed, muffling something in the mat, and Chilchuck yanks your head up by your hair,

“What was that, slut?”

Your thighs are quivering, cunt gushing around him, chest pounding erratically with the need for air, “Just want your cum, Chil!”

Chilchuck stills against you, shuddering and cock heavy in your gut as he cums inside you--

Not that you’re finished yet.

“So good!” you sing, welcoming the reprieve and stubbornly tucking Chilchuck deeper inside you despite him being spent. He throws his head back, eyes rolling in his skull as you continue, “Just a bit more, Chil, please, please, please!”

“Desperate whore,” he slumps forward, biting your shoulder before whirring onto his back, “You do the work now, if you’re so fuckin’ greedy.”

“So mean,” you pout, though the complaint doesn’t deter you from sinking onto his cock like this.

“You’re gonna fuck me asleep,” Chilchuck is courteous enough to languidly snap his hips up into yours, “Needy, desperate bitch.”

For as much as he teases you -- he’s on the brink of tears from overstimulation, voice clipped and throat raw with the need to cry.

“Just one more,” you whine, hands scratching back against his chest, “Gimme one more, please?”

“Fuck,” Chilchuck sucks in a sharp breath, icy tears pricking at the corner of his eyes, “Fine.”

An airy giggle flows through your lips, ditzy and hot and eager.

A few aggravated plaps is enough for Chilchuck to be puffing and shaking, your bounces deteriorate into heedy grinding. Chilchuck winds both arms around your midsection to pull your back against his chest, frustrated tears caking his lashes the longer his abused cock cooks inside you.

“C’mon, babe, you can cum for me. You gotta feel good, too, right?” he’s murmuring in your fluffy ear, flicking your clit with his thumb, “No point in this if you don’t feel good, too.”

His words are not what flips you into euphoria, but rather the sensation of his cum trickling from your swollen cunt -- fucked loose from your incessant jerking on him.

You toss your head back, Chilchuck narrowly avoiding a broken nose by swerving to the side. Loudly thunking together, your clamped knees trap his hand between your thighs -- gurgled cries for breath and his name croak from your hanging mouth.

“Good slut,” he lays sloppy, open-mouthed kisses against your neck, fingers slowing to a pause on your clit, “Best cunt for me.”

“Thank you,” you sigh into the open air, voice all soft and sweet.

Chilchuck laughs at the sound, lulling to the side to spoon you, “You’re way nicer like this. Could get used to it.”

“Don’t ruin this,” you yawn, pinching his wrist.

“Whatever, this better be enough to satisfy you,” he pulls the blanket over your conjoined limbs, too drained to pull up his pants and redress you.

“Hey,” you call, met with a soft groan of acknowledgement, “You know I’m not a mouse, right? I’m a rat.”

“Mhm,” he lazily confirms, “Sounds better than ratty cunt, though. So pick your battles.”

The next morning, a hand is shaking you awake. A soft and polite gesture immediately ruined when you realize the hand is much larger than Chilchuck’s. In a panic, your eyes shoot open to see your cheerful party leader.

“Thanks for going in the other room,” is the first thing out of his mouth, and you want to punch him, “I figure you two would want to get sorted out before everyone else wakes up.”

“Laios…”

“Hm?” his hand is still burning a hole through the sheet on your shoulder.

“Stop touching me.”

“Sorry!” he clutches the offending mitt to his chest, then rising to a stand and waving goodbye, “See you in a bit! Try not to take too long, okay? I have a lot of questions.”

“Get out.”

Unbothered by your mortification, Laios gives a thumbs up and creeps out into the room with the rest of your party.

“We should kill him,” Chilchuck husks into your ear.

“We should.”

“So,” Chilchuck cups the pouch of your tummy, squeezing in a way simultaneously strange and affectionate, “‘s this gonna become a problem?”

“Hm? Oh, no, I think I’m infertile.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. Rat eggs and human eggs don’t actually mix well.”

“Well, it’s a relief I won’t have to raise another kid, I guess. How terrible would that be? I’d be on my deathbed when it gets married.”

…?

???

“Hey, wait,” you roll over in bed, brows furrowed at the man, “Another?”

He nods sluggishly, judgment clouded by both drowsiness and libido, “Three daughters already, so that’d be my fourth,” he cackles at your shocked face, “What? Sex with a coworker you don’t know isn’t panning how you thought?”

“Oh, shut up. I know you, just not your family. Totally different.”

“Definitely. Opposites.”

“So,” Laios swings his head towards Chilchuck, smiling politely, “How many nipples?”

~~~

stupid bonus

“What?” Chilchuck’s eye twitches.

“Sadly, I think it's only two because there’s only two visible mammaries…” the blonde has the gall to sigh at such a thought before suddenly blooming excitement, “Unless there’s more hiding in some kind of wrap! Are there?”

#chilchuck tims x reader #chilchuck x reader #chilchuck smut #chilchuck tims smut #dungeon meshi x reader #dunmeshi x reader #dunmeshi smut

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dunmeshistash · 22 days ago

Note

If Mikbell is a foil for Chilchuck (cowardly to Chils bravery, scab to Chils union leader, Kuro parents Mik while Chil tries to father Izutsumi and so on) and Mik grew up homeless and without anyone does that mean Chilchuck had a (relatively?) privileged upbringing with lots of friends and family?

Chilchuck has a big family and his estranged wife, who he had 3 kids with, was a childhood friend

So I suppose so! And even opposite to Mickbell who now has people he's close to Chilchuck now lives away from his family and avoids getting too close to others cause he's so focused in work

#chilchuck tims #mickbell tomas #chilchuck #mickbell #dungeon meshi

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dwaekkilinos · 8 months ago

Text

savior complex (pt. 1) | bang chan

summary: Your father had wielded you to become a machine; a weapon. And a machine you would become. Sleep with one eye open. Find food. Tread on until dark. Repeat. He taught you how to protect; specifically how to protect your family. But he never taught you how to survive with other groups, especially when their leader seems to have it out for you.

pairing: bang chan x fem!reader rating/genre: 18+ Minors DNI | strangers/enemies to lovers + zombie apocalypse au, angst, fluff, smut word count: 19.9K chapter summary: you'd always known the end, and it had always known you. you just didn't know the beginning would be waiting for you when your time finally came. warnings/notes: zombie apocalypse au so . . . blood, guts, gore, sad, sad, sad. beware. lots of inspo from every zombie thing i've literally ever seen (twd, tlou, train to busan, etc.), typos probably, parental death, actions of violence and murder, religious TRAUMA, religious undertones, reader does not believe in god but she's deeply influence by it bc of her childhood and it haunts her, reader comes from a small toen and it's not explicitly stated where she's from but hollows are mentioned, hunting, reader wishes for death multiple times, chan goes by chris, no smut in this chapter but there will be in every chapter after, i think that's it but let me know if i missed anything, and enjoy! <3

chapter one: i know the end (and it knows me) ( series masterlist | next → )

Sometimes you felt like a ghost. It happened when the world was so silent that you could almost hear the beat of your unsteady heart pounding in your chest; when everyone else was asleep and you stayed up, eyes watchful and searching for threats. That was when you felt like the lost faces that haunted you.

It hadn't always been this way, at least not until the world ended. Most of the time you tried not to think about it. You tried not to think about much except survival these days.

Because that was smart. Surviving was smart. Anything else was stupid; anything else would get you killed.

Ironic, how you used to fear that very thing. Death. Now it was all you knew.

The apocalypse had come.

You knew how it sounded. Honestly, you didn't believe it when it first happened. You had been too afraid to admit it; too scared that if you did, you could never go back. There was no going back anyway. That was something you wished you had known back then. And as you sat on a log in the middle of those dark woods, overlooking your group who all slept silently while you stayed up, bloody knife in hand, and eyes watching for threats, it was hard to ignore the fact that this was your cruel reality.

Because the reality of it all was: you were living on borrowed time, trying your best to do right by your father and keep your family alive. You'd faltered that night, dotting the line between protection and predation.

And now . . . now you couldn't help but think about the beginning. How you would've never ended up like this if things had been different. But things hadn't been different. Things had happened exactly the way they had, and it'd left you with rot in your bloodstream and hate in your heart.

That was what made you clutch the knife closer, nearly cutting your own flesh. Because things hadn’t been different, but they also hadn’t always been this way. You hadn’t always been like . . . this.

You supposed it was because it was easy to kneel when you were just a girl. It was easy to ignore the ever-present scabs on your knees when you didn’t know any better. It was easy to tear yourself down the middle, pulling stitches from the back of your legs when you knew it’d all be re-sewn by morning. It was easy back then when the world hadn’t died.

From the moment you were brought into the world, barely kicking and silently screaming like it was a sin to voice your pain, you had been taught to be that girl; that easy, complacent girl with not so much as a rotten thought. From the moment you were born, you had been taught the foundation of the Church and its vocation, and it had carved its way into your rotten flesh even when the world was no more.

At age four, you were in the pews, listening to the words of God while creating imaginary friends in the statues. At age seven, communion. Then at age eight, you had begun to become an altar girl, fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, bringing up the gifts and the book, among other things—essentially being a servant to God. At age fourteen, confirmation. At fifteen, your mother doused you in holy water before your first date with a boy from school. Sixteen, heartbreak, praying to God and begging for him to help ease it all, only to be left with no response . . . even after all you had done for him.

Seventeen and the stitches down your legs remained undone, the scriptures now more of a question than a statement. Then . . . eighteen, the timer clicked into place, and you felt yourself begin to rot along with the world, forcing you to realize your entire life was just a cycle of kneeling before God, praying, and asking for forgiveness for your sins.

It had been easy to kneel when you were just a girl; when you didn’t know any better. And then it happened.

It.

Armageddon.

The Rapture.

The fucking apocalypse.

It didn’t matter what you called it. Doomsday was still doomsday even dressed up with fancy scriptures and sacred wine.

The apocalypse had come. Humans were deemed horrible creatures by some almighty who you didn't give a fuck to acknowledge. It didn't matter. Someone or something had deemed the human race unworthy.

The apocalypse had come, and you were deemed worthless. You were made to die. It was inevitable.

The apocalypse had come. There was talk that it had begun in the North. But much wasn’t known in your town. Now you realized they tried to keep it a secret. It was a way of controlling everyone, you supposed, but not like it mattered much now.

That was just how things were. Your mother refused to let you and your younger sister watch the news, refused to let you search anything about what was going on in the world, adamant that everything was lies and those lies would cloud your mind. A religious town bordering on a commune that resembled a cult perhaps just a tad too much. You realized all this now, of course, but back then your knees were still covered in scabs from kneeling before a God who would never come. Back then your mother kept you kneeling until the final bell tolled, her hand firmly clutching your shoulder to keep you in place.

You were only eighteen then. And while the outside world was torn apart month by month, its people haunted by death piled upon death, your town continued on as it always had. The whispers of a war that would end the world were just whispers, covered up by scriptures that the local preacher would sight every Sunday morning just after you’d collected the eggs from the chicken coop and put on your best dress like your mother had always taught you.

But it was different for you, even back then. Because while it had been easy to kneel when you were a girl, you had begun to grow. Eighteen then, but you had begun to see the flaws within the Church when you were sixteen. And by eighteen, you knew better.

By eighteen, you could see the sweat beading along the preacher’s forehead. By eighteen, you could hear wavering in your mother’s voice when she proclaimed that this was just a test. That this was meant to happen. That the Bible had always predicted this, and if you remained faithful, then you would be saved . . . spared.

But by eighteen, you knew better.

It took one quiet night and a hammering heart for you to sneak into your father’s study and head straight for this desktop. It took even less time to discover what had become of the world. One. Two. Three clicks and then . . .

You remembered the choking feeling bubbling up your chest as your eyes scanned the news articles. A virus. One so horrible and unforgiving that it could take a healthy vessel, and within twenty-four hours, the body would succumb to death. But, you’d seen stuff like this before, right? You knew there had been plenty of diseases and viruses and they all had cures. They all had to have cures. They had to.

That was just the thing: no matter how hard you looked, you couldn’t find any article that explained how this virus came about. It was unknown, deadly, spreading rapidly, and there was no way of telling when it’d reach your town. It was just . . . just . . . (It was the first time you truly felt helpless.)

You remembered staying up with the sun, looking for answers, only to come out empty-handed. And when your father discovered you in his study that morning, you nearly confessed right away, sobbing into his arms. But no shame was brought upon you that day.

Your father had been a good man. He had loved you so. He had loved his family, no matter the consequences or conditions.

This town, your town, was small. It consisted of around only three thousand people give or take, all of which were either Christian, secluded, or . . . your father. In all the years you had been alive, not once had your father stepped into the Church. You never asked. You never worried. Your mother just always told you your father was busy every single time, and you believed her because back then, you’d trusted her with all of you.

As you grew, your suspicions of him did, too, but you remained silent as you always had in life. And it was only until that morning when he wrapped you in his arms and let you cry into his shoulder, did you realize why he never entered the Church, why he never spoke the prayers your mother praised, why neighbors would talk of his name only in hushed conversations.

He didn’t believe.

No, he believed in something just not . . . this sacred word your town so desperately worshipped. And that morning, he told you the truth. From his childhood to how he ended up in a town like this. He told you it all, and then he told you the truth. He told you how your mother was scared (how she always had been) and how one day he hoped with enough trying, she’d see the world for what it was ( . . . she never did). And then he told you about the virus, and everything was so much clearer.

The town had everyone convinced this was some kind of test. There was no virus to them. This was the reaping. The scriptures were true to them. And so every Sunday, you were forced to acknowledge that Pestilence, War, Famine, and Death—the Four Horsemen of the apocalypse had come to earth with the power to destroy humanity.

That was how it had been explained to your town, and all its people believed. A sickness had struck the world, yes, they told that much truth, but they chalked it all up to being some kind of plot point in God’s plan. To top it off, it was said that if the townspeople all repented and did right by his name, then salvation would be given.

That was what was told, and that was what was believed.

You remembered the preacher’s voice even now.

Then I saw when the Lamb broke one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, "Come." I looked, and behold, a white horse, and he who sat on it had a bow; and a crown was given to him, and he went out conquering and to conquer.

— Revelation 6:1–2

That scripture haunted you just as your father’s face did, but back then you hadn’t realized the detriment it would have on you. Back then, you played your part. Back then, you dressed as your mother advised, went to church, and listened, and then, when all was said and done and your mother had gone to her room, you snuck off to accompany your father on his hunts. And during those times, you’d learn the truth.

While the two of you hunkered down, waiting for deer to pass through your side of the woods, he told you about what was going on with the rest of the world. He explained how the CDC had claimed this thing; Pestilence (as your town believed) was some kind of virus, yes, only they wouldn't release the survival rate except for a few things that stated it was deadly, spread rapidly, and anyone could have it, but by the time symptoms had started to kick in, it would be too late.

As the weeks went by, as the more hunting extravaganzas you went on with your father piled up, his news became more worrisome. At first, the virus was contained in the North of the world, but as it took more lives and less information about it was being provided to the public . . . people began to panic. Hysteria spread throughout the world. Cases of this unknown virus peaked, and the government released statement after statement informing the public that face masks would be required to prevent the virus from spreading and travel restrictions would soon be put into place.

Only by that time, it was too late.

Carriers of this unknown virus had already traveled far and near, spreading the disease throughout the world. This so-called Pestilence might have only been given reign to a quarter of the world, but his disease had spread farther than his radius.

And while you had been young, you realized that this virus had only one purpose: to kill. There was no survival rate. No hope.

The world shut down soon after more and more people started dropping like flies, succumbing to the miserable disease that left them with boils and blisters covering their skin. Hospitals became overrun. Schools were wiped out with kids coming home with this deadly virus. Workplaces were abandoned, the people wishing to stay at home with their families, too afraid to step outside without any real knowledge of how this virus worked.

Your town remained oblivious, too, as the region shut down, gates being made so no one could enter or leave. It was safer that way they claimed. All of those who could be saved would be saved and helping those seeking a refuge was against the rules. It all felt like some kind of sick plan if you had anything to say about it.

By the time your father had taught you how to shoot your first deer without you sniffling in fear, Vaccines were finally attempted, but nothing worked; the disease only spread, and more people died.

Then . . . it all just stopped.

But your town continued to spread its lies.

The story remained the same even all these years later. You remembered how while you had learned the virus was supposedly coming to an end, your town still painted the picture of the Horsemen. Tales of Pestilence’s reign still remained.

They went on and on about how he rose from the depths of Hell. Pestilence had come. He, who sat on his white steed, had a bow, a crown that had been gifted to him by his gods had come, and when he had, he went out conquering. And so he did.

Until he was put to rest; until his conquering had come to an end. You listened with half a heart as the preacher went on and on about how his time had ended, yes, but this was not the end. All you had to do was keep praying, keep repenting, keep . . . kneeling, and you’d be saved.

But you knew better.

While others would attend midnight mass in addition to morning, you claimed you had to pray on your own, and when your mother had left with your sister on her hip, you snuck off with your father to learn of the world. You snuck off to better your shooting arm, to seek comfort in the only person who seemed to have their head screwed on right, to shoot ducks and geese and deer and everything in order to keep your town fed while everyone else prayed to a God that wasn’t doing half your work. And yet, every time, every kill, your father knelt beside the animal and prayed, until you had begun to do the same.

You weren’t sure why he did it. You had never asked. You never thought you needed to. (Now you would’ve done anything to know the answer.)

And so . . . life went on like that. Completely cut off from the world without the help of the internet your father provided for the two of you, life went on.

The virus no longer spread further, and many believed it was all just some hoax. News stations came to life again, but not much else was restored. That was how everyone found out the virus had concluded. Hell, even you remember being twenty-one years old, having your first legal shot with your father in the middle of the woods while the two of you watched news reporter after news reporter claim the virus had mutated and mutated so much to the point our bodies had accumulated a natural resistance to it.

But you couldn't believe it.

Three whole years of this deadly disease taking out population upon population, and then it all ceased. It felt almost too good to be true.

Of course, the town believed this too. Pestilence had conquered, and that was just the problem.

Every day, day in and day out, words spread throughout the hollow, the word in the Church mutated each week, even your mother who had spent the last three years praying to Jesus, Joseph, and Mary; your mother who had gone through rosary after rosary begging for God to have mercy on your family; your mother who had always forced you to attend those days at church on Sunday went around the house, boarding up the windows and hiding the special silverware in the basement, claiming that he would come next.

He has conquered, she had hissed over your shoulder when you and your father came back from one of your hunts.

Pestilence's reign had ended (according to your mother, who you were almost certain had a few screws loose). You didn’t believe it for a second, ignoring your mother's desperate ramblings.

War will come, she warned.

War will come.

But . . . you knew if something did come, it wouldn’t be this War.

And then . . . then he did.

The first sighting of the dead coming back was spotted just months after the virus that had plagued millions had ceased. And this time . . . the town allowed its folk to see the reports. Even your mother had brought the television from the basement to witness the dead rise . . . or rather . . . War. The news stations had captured a recording of these . . . people; people who had suffered from the virus coming back, and then with only their teeth, tearing any live thing apart. The recording was aired all across the world, fear, and hysteria spreading like wildfire.

The government was still up and running at this point with only one mission: to shoot down these seemingly reanimated corpses before they could cause more harm. People believed this to be a fluke, but your mother's words had stuck with you.

War will come.

It was all a little hazy now, but you remembered bits and pieces of the world back then. War had been quick, ruthless, and determined.

This was no man. This was War.

And it all became clear soon after.

While Pestilence had been silent, War had wanted an audience.

The things he could do; the people he could hurt . . . it was all so gutting. Those lost to the virus kept coming back, all with one purpose: destruction. With one bite, their victims would soon fall ill to that same virus, and then once it had taken their body, they’d come back, reanimated with the same gruesome purpose.

The government finally fell when the dead could no longer be stopped. Quarantines dropped, people ran, and everything just . . . stopped. These creatures tore through cities, sinking their teeth into civilians. And you watched it all on the television, until that, too fell, leaving the rest of the world in the dark.

That was when you realized just how real all of this was. That was when you realized the past three years of hunting with your father was not just something the two of you would look back on and laugh about one day when this virus was over. No . . . it seemed . . . it seemed you couldn’t quite see the end or maybe . . . maybe you could and that was the problem all along.

Your father, the man he was, tried to remind you that this was not War; that this was not the supposed God’s plan everyone was convinced of in your godforsaken hollow. And you tried to hear him, but for a while, you wished to be like everyone else in the town. You wished you could believe this was some greater plan. You wished you could believe that this was all because of some Horseman . . . but you knew better, and your father seemed to know this as well.

(And yet, when you thought back on it now, the stages in which the world ended still presented themselves as the Horsemen in your troubled mind.)

Because, well, you supposed that was truly when the world had ended—the day War came.

War will come, your mother had warned, and you knew that to be true the day the electricity stopped working. War had come, and he'd taken civilization with him. And while he reigned over the quarter of the world he'd been gifted, the rest of the world lay in the dark, trying to navigate throughout this new world.

From time to time you had heard talk of distant wars. You, however, had never seen one.

But War's ruthless hand still reached your town.

There was no news or contact with the outside world other than the people you could see with your own eyes. No transportation, no government, no nothing. It was said that cars had even been abandoned on highways as people tried to leave town to find their families. But they never got far; not with this newfound order bestowed upon the earth.

Because truly . . . War did not need to come to earth to corrupt it.

The government had fallen, the world had ended, the apocalypse had begun and that was all it took for chaos to ensue. People became their worst selves at the end of the world, you'd been told all your life through media upon media. But you had to disagree. You thought, perhaps, the end of the world brought out who people truly were deep inside. It allowed people to let go of civility.

And you discovered people really were perhaps even worse than this supposed War himself. Or rather a product of War and his righteous hand.

(Although, how righteous could he truly be?)

While War reigned, the rest of the world scavenged. Your family stood stagnant in your childhood home, holding up there for as long as you could. It was still warm when the second wave hit. You knew you'd need to find a different shelter when the time came.

The cold wasn't your only problem either. People were at their worst. When the news broke out in your town, the scriptures they held so dear began to fall apart. A lot left, some stayed, and others turned on each other, leaving houses with bloodstained splatters and a fear of thy neighbor. Your family stayed, however. Your mother read scriptures every day. Your father recited the truth. And they argued, while you sat by the window, terrified out of your mind as you watched the empty streets.

That was when you realized another truth about yourself. You were just about to turn twenty-two, the world had gone to shit, and you had never been so scared. Pestilence. War. Famine. Death. Their names raged on inside your head and it was as if you were still just a young girl, kneeling in church despite the scabs. Except now, you were a girl who could no longer kneel in church, and yet you were still so scared.

It felt cruel. Perhaps even unreal.

The scriptures had predicted this—the four harbingers coming down to scorn the earth. But you hadn't believed it. You were forced to now.

It was War’s reign back then. But Death would come one day. He had come to kill you all; to finish off everything his brothers hadn't touched, and one day he would.

It had been predicted. The words stuck in your head even now.

When the Lamb broke the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying, "Come." I looked, and behold, a pale horse; and he who sat on it had the name Death; and Hades was following with him. Authority was given to them over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by the wild beasts of the earth.

— Revelation 6:7–8

Your mother told you long ago of these scriptures. When you were a child, you'd cover your head with your blankets, hiding from the mysteries of the night. Somewhere in your innocent mind, you'd convinced yourself the devil himself would find his way into your room, wrap his bony hand around your ankle, and drag you to the pits of Hell.

Back then you'd feared death. You'd done everything to steer far from its clutches.

She’s afraid of the world, your peers would hiss under their breath, not knowing you'd heard every word. And you knew they were right. You knew you had always been a scared kid, trying your hardest to keep the monsters at bay.

You wished you'd realized there had been no real monsters . . . yet. You would've lived more. Now you knew the consequences.

Now there was no more living, just surviving.

Still, sometimes you found yourself missing it; missing life. It was a bitter thought—what could've been had the world not ended all those years ago.

Back then—before the end—you'd feared death.

How far will this go? you remembered thinking back then when it was still War’s reign. How long until things are normal?

You didn't have the stomach back then to come to terms with the truth. You barely remembered it now.

But you did remember the day everything truly changed for you.

Up until that day, you'd been following your father's orders, huddling up in your home with your mother and little sister as the four of you survived day by day. Then . . . your house had been broken into, the intruder coming in through your window.

Back then you had feared death. You had thought you were going to die.

You'd thought this up until the very last scream ripped through your throat just as your father emerged from the shadows, a look on his face you’d never seen, moments before everything went red. You remembered that to this day. While everything else was blurry, that moment was clear. You could still feel the blood splatter on your face as you watched your father—the man who used to tie your shoes for you before you hopped on the school bus—kill a man before your very eyes, ripping out his jugular with his bare teeth.

Once a girl who could no longer kneel in church, became one painted with the blood from another. And you remembered a small part of you—the part that had once knelt so much her knees had turned to scabs—that this was all War’s fault.

You thought it until you watched the man pale, falling to your childhood bedroom floor with a thud. You remembered how his eyes stayed wide open, locked on you as he gurgled and choked on his blood, bleeding out onto your pink carpet. He didn't blink. Not once. Not even at all. They stayed cold and empty as your father breathed heavily above him.

And then you looked at him.

Your father was a good man. He was kind and just, despite the town. He believed in science and facts. He wanted the truth. But none of that mattered if his family was at stake.

Your father was a good man. He loved you, and he would’ve done anything for you.

Your father was a good man.

Your father had ripped out another man’s jugular in front of you.

Your father was a good man.

Your father had killed someone.

This was the end. You knew it, and it knew you, too.

(It wasn’t talked about, and you never brought it up again. He simply embraced you in a tight hug and kissed your forehead, leaving a smudge of blood from the man in doing so, and whispered apologies that would never sink deeper than your skin.

(Now you wished you would’ve told him you understood. Now you would’ve looked at him and seen an image of yourself staring right back. Now you would’ve hugged him back.))

That was all it took before your father took it upon himself to gather your mother and little sister, put all necessities in the car, and collect enough portable gasoline as he could before the four of you set off down the road. Where you were going was undetermined. There was no knowing . . . because there was nowhere to go.

The world had ended. There was nothing left. You just had to go.

You have to grow up. No more kid stuff, your father said to you that night on the road while your mother and little sister were fast asleep in the back of the car. One day I might not be here to protect you. You have to learn to protect yourself.

And you'd promised him you would. Because you had to. You had been old enough then, after all. You had been twenty-one . . . technically an adult.

(Now, however, you realized you had still been too young. Twenty-one wasn't old enough to face the end of the world.)

But . . . what happens when a scared young girl is forced to grow up too soon? She turns into a machine.

Sleep with one eye open. Find food. Tread on until dark. Sleep with one eye open. Find food. Tread on until dark. Sleep with one eye open. Find food. Tread on until dark. Repeat.

Your father had borne that burden back then, when you first set off on the road. The car hadn't lasted long. Not that it mattered. The world was a wasteland anyway. Walking from town to town on the vacant streets and highways was nothing new now.

You just have to survive, he kept telling you. Survive long enough to keep them alive.

And you always knew what he meant. He was training you for the day when he would be no more. Because when that day came, you would be the one left in charge. He'd turned you into a machine because that was the world you lived in. You were the oldest. Your sister was barely five years old back then. And your mother . . . your mother who once believed this was all some greater plan, was now convinced that if she prayed hard enough it'd stop Famine from following after his ruthless brother.

It was your job to remember what your father had taught you when Pestilence first came to reign—how to hunt, how to shoot a shotgun, and now . . . how to survive.

And when Famine came; when you caught sight of the words Famine has risen spray painted on a billboard on the side of a highway, reminding you of your sick home. It was then you finally learned how to survive. You didn't realize how hard it would be until a year after Famine's birth, your father had passed because of you (because of a stupid decision that you had made which you still couldn't bring yourself to acknowledge).

Survival became all that you knew after that.

Your father was gone. It was just like he had warned. You were in charge now, and you had one purpose: keep your family alive.

The burden became yours to bear.

This was your purgatory and you'd do well to repent for what you'd done; for the man you'd sent out to die; for the father you'd lost.

Survive, survive, survive. It was all you knew.

And when the final Horseman rose, you knew what you had to do. It didn’t matter if it killed you, you couldn’t let your family die at the hands of one of those . . . creatures.

Death had risen. The entire world was a wasteland filled with undead and wars made by man.

If you crossed paths with one of those creatures and let them lay a finger on your family, your oath to your father would be broken. Death would kill you all.

So you kept going, trying to outrun the inevitable.

Because you had to. For him. For your father. For the ghosts that haunted you.

Your father had wielded you to become a machine. And a machine you would become.

Sleep with one eye open. Find food. Tread on until dark. Repeat.

The routine was ingrained in your brain, going on and on like a mantra. You couldn't escape that. Not that it mattered. Survival mattered. Keeping your group, your sister, your mother, and your family alive mattered. They were all that mattered. You would skip as many meals as your body would let you if it meant they'd stay fed.

Sometimes you found yourself laughing at how naive you had been in the past. At twenty-five now, you were equal parts machine and woman, still oozing blood when wounded despite your protests. You didn't tremble at the sight of blood now. You didn't fear death.

When you were a kid, death was your greatest fear. Now, you envied it. Envied the fact you had to walk the earth; the same earth the dead destroyed. Because you couldn't die. That was the harsh truth: you couldn't die.

You'd feared death for so long and now as you sat awake, keeping watch while your group slept, you yearned for the clutches of death to drag you into nothingness. It was almost laughable.

In a world where people now fought for their lives, trying to outrun the dead, you wished to succumb to death. You knew it was wrong, and you'd never speak it aloud, but you yearned for it. This world was shit. Complete and utter shit, and you wanted to give up. Everything in you wanted to just wait like some brainless sitting duck and let Death or disease or even those wretched beasts you heard groaning in the dead of night have their way with your hollow body.

But you couldn't . . . not when you promised your father you'd protect them. He'd died for you, and it was your duty to keep your family safe. Your duty.

You couldn't die, not when you had to keep them alive.

So you let yourself turn into a machine.

And a ruthless machine you had watched yourself become.

That night had been enough evidence of this. Because that night as you sat on a log, slowly dragging yourself out of the past and into the present, you realized one thing. A bloody knife sat in your hand while you watched over your sleeping group, eyes searching for any sign of the dead, and that was when it dawned on you that you had been right all those years ago—the end of the world brought out who people truly were.

You were a machine. You didn't feel. You couldn't.

Glancing down at the bloody knife in your hand, you realized you hadn't felt anything that night.

That night you'd done something you never thought you would. That night your group was attacked by a man with a gun; a man who wanted to harm; a man who had put his hands on your little sister. She was only eight going on nine, and she was your responsibility, and as soon as his hand clamped down over her shoulder while he held a gun to her head, threatening to pull the trigger unless you gave up all your food, you lost it.

Everything went black. You couldn't see. You couldn't breathe. You couldn't even think. You just felt this pure blinding rage.

When you finally regained your sight, you realized what you'd done—you'd killed the man.

No, killed was too vague.

Like the true machine you had become, you had slaughtered him; the bloody knife in your hand was evidence enough of that.

The man was dead, a chunk of his jugular ripped out while he clutched the many stab wounds piercing his stomach. And you . . . you stood above him, eyes wide, bloody knife in hand, and the bitter taste of blood on your tongue.

You'd never killed anyone before. You'd put people out of their misery, but you'd never taken another life like this. You'd never had to.

But you had that night.

And now you paid the consequences.

It had been hours since then. No one had spoken a word since. And your sister . . . your little sister had only looked at you once since then, and you could see the utter terror her round eyes held. Normally she would sleep by your side, but she'd curled up next to your mother that night.

She was afraid of you, and you couldn't blame her. You had once given your father the same look.

So you sat alone on that damned log, bloody knife in hand as you thought back on how you managed to end up in this Hell. Sometimes you felt like a ghost, and now you knew why.

Your brows pinched together. You couldn't help but think: is this what your father had intended?

How much of a machine had he meant for you to become? Were you supposed to clutch onto the part of yourself that was still human? Or had becoming a monster been part of the deal when you'd signed off your soul for machine parts?

You weren't sure. You weren't really sure of anything anymore.

Your sister had looked at you like you were one of the monsters that plagued your earth, slowly destroying it region by region.

Were you no better than the dead to her?

You swallowed hard.

Had you become a monster?

“You did what you had to do,” you heard a deep voice from behind you, perhaps answering your thoughts.

But you didn't jump as you turned to see Felix sit down on the log beside you, exhaustion weaving through his delicate features. You didn't speak a word, just stared at the side of his face for a second before you glanced back down at the bloody knife in your hand.

You did what you had to do.

You nearly laughed. It was just like him to say such things.

You see: Lee Felix had joined your group around the same time Famine took his reign, and ever since then he'd been following you around like your own personal shadow. That was three years ago now. Your father had saved him, offering him to join your family on the road. Perhaps your father had seen something in him. Or maybe he had just saved him simply because that was just who your father was: a hero.

Not that it mattered. You'd taken a liking to Felix, too. He was kind.

Kind had been rare back then. It still was.

And Felix stayed kind.

When your father passed, Felix stuck by you. Your mother had begun to look at you as if you were a stranger, and your little sister still had been too young to understand much. Felix had made life easier.

You'd taught him everything you knew partly because you needed to and partly because you liked being around him as if he were the younger brother you’d never had. Little bird, you called him . . . because you'd taught him everything. You'd taught him how to survive. And sometimes you thought maybe you would've been friends outside of this. If things were different, if you'd met in a world where the apocalypse hadn't happened . . . then you'd like to think you could have met; that your paths would've crossed.

But things weren't different. You weren't even sure if you could let him in entirely. Your friendship would surely put him in some sort of jeopardy. Because, really, it all came down to survival, and you needed him to live. You didn't care what happened to yourself. You just needed to stay alive long enough to make sure they'd all make it.

That still didn't stop the feeling of relief that washed over you as soon as you felt him lean into you, arm touching yours. He was trying to comfort you in the way that he knew, and you couldn't help but lean against him further.

He was still just as kind as the day you'd crossed paths.

But you?

Well . . .

“I ripped his throat out . . . " you heard yourself roughly mutter before you felt the words tumble from your tongue. You lifted a hand to your blood-stained lips and swallowed. “I ripped . . . throat . . . his . . . with my teeth.” You swallowed once again, harder this time as your eyes drifted to your little sister's sleeping figure. She had been so scared. You had done that. You had scared her. “She looks at me like I’m a monster.”

”You’re not."

“Lix."

“You’re not,” he reiterated, his voice as harsh as he could manage (which was not harsh at all) while he clutched your blood-stained hand and took it into his. “You did what you had to do.”

Your eyes flicked down to your hands. But you didn't look at him. You couldn't. You just kept thinking and thinking and seeing that look on your sister's face. And then . . . then you felt yourself say. ”She says all life is precious. She cries when we have to put down a squirrel for Christ’s sake. I should’ve known. I should’ve—”

”She’s just a kid."

“I didn’t have to kill him,” you continued. “There was a point where I could’ve knocked him out. I thought about it. And I still killed him.” Your eyes finally snapped to his then. “I wanted to kill him, Lix.”

A muscle in Felix’s jaw twitched. ”It’s people like him that make me wonder if this world got it all right,” he admitted after a second. “I’m glad he’s dead. I just wish I could’ve been the one to do it.”

Your breath hitched at his words, not because they'd shocked you . . . but rather because you found yourself agreeing. But that wasn't . . . right. Felix was kind. You were not. He was good, and you . . .

”You don’t mean that,” you mumbled, squeezing his hand. “You’re not . . . “

”Not what?” Felix countered, eyes searching yours. “Hmm? Not what?”

You blinked, your throat constricting. ”Too far gone,” you choked out.

His brows twitched, his expression softening. ”Neither are you."

His hand touched your face a second later, his thumb wiping the dried blood from your chin. You weren't a monster in his eyes. You were just his friend. He didn't fear you, but you knew he should've.

But for a second, you let yourself forget this. Instead, you closed your eyes, allowing him to clean your face of the man's spilled blood. And when he was done, your eyes fluttered open just in time to see him try to reach for the knife in your hand, probably to release it from your tight hold.

However, you shifted it out of his grasp. His eyes snapped to yours then, questioning.

You offered a weak smile—something you didn't do often, but would for him. ”Sleep,” you hummed, patting his shoulder. “We need your brute strength in the morning.”

”We need your brain more,” he countered, tapping a finger to your forehead.

”Sleep, little bird."

He rolled those round brown eyes. "I wish you'd stop calling me that."

Nevertheless, Felix listened to you. He shifted down onto the ground, resting his head on the log, crossing his arms over his chest as his eyes closed. And you watched him until you were sure he was resting soundly. Then, your eyes went back to watching, making sure to keep your promise to your father.

But just as you were sure it was just you and the silence of the night again, you heard Felix’s voice filter through your ears, ”You’re not too far gone."

You swallowed hard but said nothing.

You're not too far gone.

Oh, how wrong he had been.

As if like some sort of phantom, your knees had begun to itch like they used to after mass all those years ago. For the first few days, you tried to ignore it, writing it off as poison ivy or not bathing for a few weeks, but even when you’d scratch, the itch would remain. You came to realize that this wasn’t something you could write off; this wasn’t something that hadn’t been caused by anything other than . . . you.

A few nights ago, you’d killed a man. You’d ripped out his throat with his teeth, and for a second too long, you’d enjoyed it. Now . . . now you wondered just how deep your guilt ran. Now you wondered if given the chance, would you do it again?

But you already knew the answer.

Your knees had begun to itch once again . . .

And you tried to ignore it. Honest, you did, but his screams; how easy it was to bite into his flesh; the bitter taste of metallic blood on your tongue which oddly tasted too similar to honey; the life in his eyes quickly dissipating as you towered over him like a predator to its prey; all of it kept playing in your head over and over again. You couldn’t escape it, not even when night came and you were forced to close your eyes.

His face was always there.

Sometimes you wondered if any of it had actually happened. Sometimes you wondered if none of this was real or if you even were. Sometimes you wondered if this man had been Death; if the tales your town preached had been real and this was your test.

Sometimes you wondered if you had failed.

And you knew you had.

At night, you could hear your mother whispering prayers under her breath, pleading to the heavens that she and her daughter would be spared. And every time, you knew which daughter she meant. Every time you knew she was praying to be spared from you. Every time you knew it was you who she feared the most in this world. And every time you wondered if one day he’d finally answer her prayers.

You couldn’t even blame her, because a few nights ago you’d done the one thing you’d never thought you’d have to do—kill a man. You knew you were some kind of fucked for that alone.

Then, last night, you began to wonder if this was how your father had felt. You began to wonder if this was why he was dead and not you. You wondered if he’d done it to save you, and to put himself out of his own misery.

And then you began to pray, too. You’d stopped believing in God years ago, but it was an old habit that you sometimes indulged in for some sick kind of comfort. And this time, in the dead of night, you’d shut your eyes and beg for your father’s ghost to return to you. You begged for just one more minute. One more minute and he could tell you how to deal with this; how to survive this, too, just as he had taught you how to endure everything else.

But no ghost ever came, only the perpetual darkness galloped in, consuming you whole.

Your father was gone, and it was all your fault. Guilt was your ghost, not him.

He would still be here if you hadn't—

"Mom thinks you've been possessed by the devil," your little sister's voice brought you out of your mind.

You blinked once. Then, you glanced down at her, taking note of her skeptical eyes and furrowed brows. It was almost as if she were inspecting your face, trying to decipher if you, her older sister, really were possessed as your mother had claimed.

It had been the first time your sister had spoken to you in the past week. The four of you had been walking through the woods, steering clear of the main roads ever since you’d come into contact with that man—the man whose blood you could still taste on your tongue.

She’d taken to walking hand-in-hand with your mother, just a few feet behind you and Felix as the two of you led the way into the unknown. You didn’t know where you were going. You never did. That was the thing about the end of the world—the only thing that mattered was surviving day by day. There was no end-point.

But today while you led the group through the woods, eyes searching for any rodents or small animals to capture for food, your head stuck in the past, your sister had taken the chance to walk into step with you. And those . . . those had been her choice of words.

Mom thinks you’ve been possessed by the devil.

And now with the world a ghost of itself, you thought perhaps maybe your mother could be right. You’d changed. The world had changed you. The old taste of blood on your tongue was evidence enough of that.

You’d killed a man. You’d ripped out a chunk of his jugular with your teeth and plunged the very knife in your belt into his flesh over and over again until you were sure he couldn’t do more harm.

Kill or be killed, sure, but . . .

. . . You’d still killed a man.

You’d actually taken a life.

(You weren’t expecting it to haunt you this much. But it had. You could still see his face, hear his voice, smell him, feel him. He was still very much alive in your mind, haunting you like a ghost.

It didn’t matter if he was more monster than man . . . you had still killed him. You had still taken a life without a second thought. His evils didn’t matter . . . guilt still seeped in.)

Mom thinks you’ve been possessed by the devil.

And maybe you had been.

That would’ve been easier to fathom.

But instead of voicing these thoughts aloud, you adjusted your backpack on your shoulders, touched a finger to the knife tucked into your belt to make sure it was still there and tightened your grip on your father’s shotgun in your hand before you finally spoke.

"Mom's off her meds," was all you offered. It was all you could say. And it hadn’t been what your sister was searching for.

Your sister stepped back, allowing you to walk alone. You knew you were losing her. You knew she barely trusted you now just as your mother stopped considering you a daughter.

And you couldn’t blame them.

The end of the world brought out who people truly were, and you were someone not worth saving.

The sun had begun to set when you finally declared you’d be stopping for the night. It wasn’t a solid resting place, which meant another night of no sleep on your part, but that didn’t bother you much anymore. All that mattered was there were no signs of the dead, no low groans in the distance, no immediate danger, and the small creek running just a few meters from your camp would provide just enough for you to wet your face and clean any dried blood from your skin. That was what mattered—a temporary sanctuary.

Felix had taken to accompanying your little sister to the creek, while your mother gathered small twigs and broken branches to add to the fire you had just started. But your eyes never stopped watching your little sister, keeping an eye on her to ensure no danger would reach her or Felix while you were occupied.

That was your only concern. Your second was food. There had to be some crawfish lingering in the creek that you could fry up. That was your second concern right after the fire was steady enough to last until nightfall.

With a soft sigh, you forced yourself to tear your eyes from your sister’s smiling face. You tried to ignore how she smiled at Felix while he splashed water at her. You tried to ignore the soft laughter you could still hear as you stabbed at the fire with a branch. You tried to ignore the thought that she’d never look at you like that; never laugh like that with you; never trust you like that again.

You tried to ignore how you had become more of a loose end your family needed to tie off, than a daughter or an older sister.

But you couldn’t. The thought was always there. There it would remain, you were sure of it.

Clenching your jaw, you added the branch in your hand to the fire, watching it crackle under the embers. And for a moment, you wondered what it would feel like if you were to reach forward and let the flames lick your fingertips.

Had he felt like this, too?

Had your father had these thoughts before he died for you?

Did he ever wonder if—

“You’re just like him, you know?” your mother nearly whispered, tearing you from your mind as she set down the pile of branches she had collected.

You glanced at her once, then glared into the fire. “Is that supposed to hurt me?”

She shook her head only once. “It should scare you,” she clarified, standing to her feet so she could tower over you once again. “God’s plan—”

“God’s plan?” you immediately spat out with a humorous scoff, now standing to your feet as well. You were taller than her now, unlike when you were a kid; unlike when you used to do everything she told you; unlike when she still considered you her daughter. “What does God’s plan have to do with my father?”

A muscle in her jaw twitched. “He has protected us this far. He couldn’t save your father. I’m worried if you continue down this path, he won’t be able to save you either,” she muttered back as she clutched the cross around her neck as if she thought it would ward you off like you had become one of the evils she’d warn you about when you were just a girl.

But you were no longer small; you were no longer moldable by her hand, and now, you were only made of anger. “You think God’s the reason we’re alive?” you questioned her, eyes narrowing into slits.

Your mother remained silent but clutched her cross harder. And you knew what that meant.

Your eyes flicked from her hand to her face. Then, you took a step forward, chin jutted out. “Is it God who kills so we can eat? Is it God who got us here, to this point? Is it God who holds dad’s gun?” you bit out as you touched a hand to your chest. “God doesn’t have a fucking plan.” You drilled a finger into your chest, your angry eyes never leaving hers. “I do. And God couldn’t save dad because it was supposed to be—”

But your words halted in your throat. You couldn’t admit it to her. You couldn’t tell her you were the reason behind your father’s death. It didn’t matter if she already knew. You just . . . you just couldn’t admit it to her face.

“God doesn't fucking exist,” you muttered out instead, turning away from her. “And if he did, he’s sure as hell dead now.”

“Your father filled your head with lies.”

You turned back to her, eyes glaring into hers. “Bullshit,” you scoffed, shaking your head in disbelief. “He was the only one who ever told me the truth.”

Ignoring your words, she took a step away from you, her hand remaining on the cross around her neck. "Your father . . . I knew he was deeply flawed when I married him, but I just figured he’d change. I figured he’d see the way, instead he only got worse, but he knew when to control it. He knew right from wrong,” she went on, her voice steady, but her eyes had begun to water. And you knew tears would come, and when they did, you’d leave to kill the crawfish. "But, you, honey . . . I don't know where we went wrong with you. It's like you came out of the womb defective. You got all the bad traits of your father and nothing else. I look at you and I see this angry little girl. And, you know, sometimes I ask myself how in the world we managed to raise a daughter who is even more deeply flawed than her bastard father, but I never seem to know the answer."

There were the tears now.

But along with it came a knife in your chest that kept twisting and twisting the more she spoke.

Twist the knife, and she did.

"There's something wrong with you,” she whispered again after a moment’s silence, the tears starting to roll down her cheeks. “You frighten me.”

Twist the knife, and you refused to pull it out.

This was what you deserved.

Still, you didn’t cry, not for yourself. Never for yourself. Instead, you continued to stare at her with no emotion in your eyes as you muttered, “Talking ill of the dead is a sin, remember?” And then you began to turn.

But your mother’s hand landed firmly around your arm. “Don’t you turn your back on me, girl,” she warned, her words sharper than the knife she’d twisted into your chest.

Swallowing hard, you sucked on your teeth. “What else do you want me to say?” you questioned, but didn’t bother to turn and face her. “I have nothing else to give you, mom.”

She released your arm as if you’d burned her and hissed, “Don’t call me that.”

Your brows furrowed in confusion for a mere second before you realized what she meant; before you realized what you’d said; what you’d done. It was an honest mistake, as well. You hadn’t called her that in so long, and yet it still came out. You hadn’t meant to say it, but it still came out as if you were still small and thought the whole world was in her arms.

“Then what do you want me to call you?” you asked, your voice quieter now as you took a step back. “If not mom, then what should your daughter call you? Hmm? Or is the answer nothing? Is that what we are to each other now? Will that make God come down from the heavens and give us salvation? . . . If you abandon me?”

Your mother remained silent.

And you knew her answer.

Sucking on your teeth, you nodded in acceptance. “What?” you spoke in a whisper as you took another step back. “Am I not being loud enough for him?” You outstretched your hands at your sides, gesturing to the heavens. “Should I scream it? Will he finally fucking answer then?”

“Stupid girl—” your mother quickly scolded, grabbing you firmly by the arm— “don’t you dare put this family in danger,”

But you only tilted your head in question. “Does that include me?”

Her eyes fluttered, taken back. “What?”

“This family,” you reiterated. “Am I a part of this family?”

Once again, she remained silent.

But you knew the truth.

“God’s plan as long as I’m out of the picture, right?” you muttered under your breath, swallowing hard once again. “At least we finally agree.”

Then, you were tearing your arm out of her grasp, but you didn’t move, you didn’t even look away from her. Instead, you kept still. You kept your eyes locked with hers as if breaking that eye contact would sever the final string holding the two of you together. She didn’t speak either, and she refused to move. She wouldn’t move first. You knew that. She’d always been that way. So had you . . .

And when you were sure the world had begun to rot around you, you could have sworn her bottom lip quivered as if she were on the verge of saying something . . . anything. Only, when her lips parted a mere sliver, a shrill scream sounded from behind, and the perpetual darkness of your world crept back in through your peripheral vision.

Beat. Your heart shot to your throat.

It happened too quickly for you to think.

Beat. Beat.

You heard the scream and you knew your sister was in trouble.

Beat.

Without a second thought, you dropped everything and ran toward the scream; toward the creek; toward your sister. It wasn’t far, but it was far enough for you to catch sight of two of the dead. One Felix fought off, while trying to grab his knife from his belt. The other had found its way to your sister, pinning her to the forest floor as she thrashed and screamed, her weak limbs desperately trying to keep the thing from sinking its teeth into her flesh.

And you knew what to do.

For a brief second longer, there was screaming. Then the squelch of a knife being plunged through a skull. Then nothing.

The world faded away. No noise. No people. No nothing.

One. Two. Three seconds, then the world started to return.

Breathing heavily, you watched carefully as your mother rushed past you, tearing the dead corpse off your sister and holding her closer . . . closer than she’d ever held you. Your nose twitched for a mere second as your gaze shifted from your mother and sister staring at you in shock ((?) no, maybe it was horror) to the stilled corpse, and finally to the bloodied knife gripped tightly in your hand.

You’d killed that thing, yes. But you hadn’t even thought about it. You hadn’t stopped to think that this thing was once a person. You hadn’t even seen it as such, unlike your mother; unlike what the town had tried to drill into your head during Pestilence’s reign. And . . . you could see that realization in your mother’s eyes.

. . . You were getting worse.

Your legs had begun to weaken at the thought, but you quickly stabled yourself, afraid they’d see it as another sign to put you down like the violent dog you knew they saw you to be. Instead, you tore your gaze from the knife in your hand and met your mother’s eyes once again (but you couldn’t bring yourself to meet your sister’s tearful stare). “Tell me, mo—” you quickly stopped the word from tumbling from your tongue, then went on— “is this still what God’s plan looks like to you?”

But your mother didn’t reply, and you didn’t wait for her to. You could barely stand to hold her gaze for a second longer. Instead, you wiped the blood from your knife on your pants, shoved it back into your belt, and turned, walking back to the fire you had begun to make minutes before.

And as you walked, you took note of the silence which followed you. You took note of how even Felix hesitated slightly before he followed after you. You took note of how your mother and sister sat near that creek for a few minutes longer and didn’t bother to wander after you as if you were no longer their blood.

The final string tying your family together had begun to wear thinner. You wondered when it would finally snap. You wondered how long it would take for a violent dog to succumb to its instincts; how long it would take you to become the lost cause you knew you were destined to be.

Would they make the decision to put you down then?

Four days. Two sleepless nights. And one squirrel shared between the four of you. You felt a fever coming on a couple days ago. You saw the infected cuts from the fight with that man. You knew your body was weakening day by day.

If you didn’t stop soon, you’d sure become one of the dead.

But you tried your best to ignore it. You had to.

Your mother; however, remained hopeful (of course). You could hear her chattering on to your sister throughout the day while you watched the world.

According to her, no one really knew why the Horsemen came to earth. She claimed the world needed saving from certain people (what you were sure she was leaving out was the fact that she was convinced you were one of these people). So, she went on and on and on, and you quietly listened, too, because you were still a girl who used to kneel in church, after all; because you could still feel the bruises on your knees; because you could still see the scars left behind from the scabs.

So, you listened, but you did not believe.

The world was fucked and needed cleansing. People were inherently bad and God saw no other way for salvation (apparently) than to send his four loyal Horsemen to destroy Earth and its people. . . . Well . . . supposedly. You knew the truth; however. There were no Horsemen. There was just death. Something had gone wrong and no one really knew what, so they blamed it on some higher power.

Whatever.

(Supposedly) Pestilence had been a shadow. War had wanted an audience. The world fell before you could get a proper grasp on Famine. And now Death was here. He’d been walking the earth for two years now, and still no one knew why.

Just like the town, your mother had her theories. And while she believed this God was still on your side, still searching for the good in humanity, you thought him fucked up. The human race was just his playthings.

He’d made sure there was nothing left.

Hell, you knew there wasn’t even a god. The world was just fucked. The end.

Point blank: it didn’t matter. Nothing did anymore.

Survival was all that mattered.

Everything else was fucked.

And as you continued to lead the way into nothingness, listening to your mother’s ramblings about the Bible, all you could do was ignore how your knees had begun to itch once again, while you focused on one thought: survive, survive, survive. But . . . not for yourself . . . for them.

Survive long enough for them.

For your father.

For your sister.

For your mother.

For Felix.

For them.

By sundown, Felix managed to find an abandoned warehouse for the night. It wasn’t much, but it was better than sleeping out in the wild. Perhaps all of you could get some shuteye that night. Sure, luckily it was around Fall or maybe just before where it was still warm, but sleeping on logs wasn’t ideal. (Not that you could be picky. Not that you were.)

But, just your luck, sleep never found you.

Beside you, Felix softly snored, laying on his back with his arms crossed over his chest and his head resting in your lap. Your hand found its way to his dark waves, gently scratching his scalp as he slept. It brought you peace where you normally had none.

Sometimes you wondered when Felix would finally realize the monster you’d become. You wondered what it would take. How many more people would you kill for them in order for him to look at you as if you were a stranger?

You didn’t want to see that day come.

It’d already come for your mother the day your father died. Then for your sister when you’d butchered that man. You couldn’t bear living through Felix’s realization.

With a sigh, you glanced over your shoulder, eyes landing on your mother’s sleeping figure as your little sister curled up into her side, miles away in her dreams. You hoped it was better there; that her dreams were still pure and innocent despite the world.

You tore your eyes from them a second later, instead opting to glance out the large opening in the warehouse where a window used to be. The world was so bleak now. Even the sight of the empty lands before your eyes stirred nothing within you. It was just so . . . distant.

Nothing was left.

Truly.

Reluctantly, you shut your eyes, trying your hardest to drift off into sleep, but the pounding in your head and the scratch in your throat kept you up. You were getting worse. You squeezed your eyes tighter, hoping this fever would subside soon. The world was darker now, the nothingness intensifying. You weren’t even sure if you could sleep anymore. Had you been? You couldn’t remember.

But just when you were sure sleep wouldn’t greet you that night, forcing you to keep watch, you could’ve sworn you heard an inhuman howl echo throughout the darkness beyond.

Your eyes snapped open, heart hammering.

No.

It couldn’t be.

Another howl echoed throughout the air. But this was no howl from a wolf or even a beast.

You’d heard stories from survivors in the towns you’d passed through in the two years Death had taken his reign over your lands. You’d heard the stories of Death and his steed. His steed, pale in color similar to a corpse, was rumored to have this cry.

The cry was no ordinary cry. Death’s steed cried similar to a wolf or rather a beast, hungry for blood. It was a war cry—a warning sign.

Of course, Death was not real and there was no horse with their cry. No, you knew what this was. You’d heard these cries in smaller amounts. You’d heard these cries as you plunged your knife into each undead’s brain, killing the parasite living within. And a howl like this only meant one thing—a horde.

You swallowed hard.

Death was near.

You’d thought the undead didn’t horde unless . . .

The man.

Your eyes widened.

The night the man had attacked your group, you had managed to hotwire a car. That had been your plan. You were going to use that car to get your group farther and safer. But because of that man . . . because of what you’d done to him, you’d accidentally popped one of the tires in the process, forcing your group to stay the night in those woods when you should’ve been on the road.

And his screams . . .

You’d slowed down and made yourself known, and now they were following the noise.

And . . . it was all your fault.

You exhaled a shaky breath.

Death was coming.

Immediately, you swung into action, quietly waking Felix up. His eyes questioned yours before he, too, heard the war cry.

Death was coming. Felix knew this now, too.

The two of you silently awoke your mother and sister, Felix informing them of the matter they had on your hands, while you gathered your father’s shotgun, crouching near the window for a better look. If they were near . . . how near?

You swallowed hard.

Maybe you could still run. You could still get everyone out if you ran. It could work—

But then you saw it.

In the distance, you caught sight of the undead as they cried, following each other.

You checked the gun’s chamber, removing and reloading the cartridges just to make sure they were in place in case you were forced to fire. Your grip tightened and loosened, and you could hear Felix whispering your name, but your eyes were transfixed on the horde up ahead.

Death was here. So close. Too close.

They couldn’t see you now, couldn’t hear you, but . . . if you ran, they’d catch sight of you. They’d kill your family. They’d kill Felix. They’d kill you all.

There was no way you could outrun the horde. Not when they were this close; not when they could smell you; hear your every breath.

Fuck.

You wanted to scream.

Fuck, fuck, fuck.

Your father had trusted you. They all had. And now you were going to let another person down all because you’d been stupid one night. You’d fucked all of you.

“Snap out of it,” Felix whispered, his hand on your shoulder. “Ideas?”

You could only shake your head.

Felix swore, running his hands through his hair. "There's no way," he nearly gasped at his words. "Fuck."

You swore you felt your heart drop as you slumped against the wall. They were going to die. Because of you.

There was no way out; no way any of you would make it past the horde without them noticing. The moment they saw any of you, they’d follow you until they could get their teeth into your flesh. And while you had no care for your own life, you still had care for theirs—the people you'd sworn to protect.

Your father had died for all of you. He knew it wasn't safe, and he still went out. He'd traded his life for yours. He'd made you swear to protect your mother and your little sister, and along the way, you'd sworn to not only keep them safe but to keep Felix from harm. You'd sworn that, and you were not one to fall back on your word.

There was no way out together. But . . . there was one way out.

You knew what that meant.

This was what your father would've wanted. This was what he would've done; what he had done.

It was always going to turn out this way. You'd known that.

And in that moment, you accepted that. After all, you'd always been told you were your father's daughter.

This was how you made things right.

You nodded at your thoughts.

Then, you felt your eyes burn, your brows scrunching in confusion. Wetness slipped down your cheek and you briefly touched a finger to the tear, finding you were crying. You hadn’t cried in so long.

Angrily, you wiped the tears away. You didn’t get to cry.

This had been your fault in the first place. This was how you made it right. You didn’t get to cry. You didn’t.

So you sent one last glare at the horde up ahead, then turned to Felix. Fuck. He would be the one in charge now. You trusted him, yes, but you knew how heavy that burden was. That was what you would regret the most—putting Felix through this agony, too.

Still: "Little bird," you whispered.

Fearful tears were already in his eyes. "I wish you'd stop calling me that."

"Can't help it. I taught you how to fly," you hummed, voice soft and unlike you.

You both knew what you meant. You'd taught Felix how to fire a gun, taught him how to gut a fish, you taught him how to survive—you taught him how to fly. But he didn't need any more teachings. Like a baby bird, he'd flown from the nest ages ago. He could fly without you. The thought brought a melancholic smile to your chapped lips as you fought back the burning in your eyes when they met his worried gaze once again.

"Makes me feel important." You touched a hand to his cheek. He felt soft under your calloused skin. "But . . . you don't need me anymore."

Felix exhaled with a strained choke, his eyes widening in realization. "No," he rushed out, shaking his head as his soft brown eyes searched yours. "No." His hand enclosed around the one you'd touched to his cheek. "Don't. Don't."

You knew what he meant. Don't be the hero.

But that wasn't his decision to make. You had debts to pay; people to protect.

Living had never been something you wanted in a world like this. Sometimes you felt like a ghost; when the world was quiet and your heart beat a little slower—you felt like one of the many corpses you'd passed by on the daily.

Years ago, you promised your father you'd take over his job and protect. You'd never wanted to live, but you had forced yourself. Back then, you made a promise to yourself—you had to stay alive, not for yourself, but for them; you had to stay alive for the one you had lost. And you'd upheld that promise, but now . . . in order to save them, you had to break it.

You knew this.

Felix did, too.

He rested his forehead against yours. "Please. Don't. It's supposed to be you and me."

Your eyes squeezed shut. "I'm the reason he's dead."

The two of you knew what you meant. This was how you repaid him; how you repaid your father.

"Then let me do it," Felix muttered, hand dropping from yours to grasp the shotgun in your other hand.

You were quick to rip it from his hold. "It was always going to turn out this way," was all you said, and he knew what you meant.

The sound of the cries coming closer made you spring back from him. Your head swiveled, taking in your surroundings as your hands found their rightful place on the shotgun. Your eyes briefly found your little sister's—her round eyes wide with fright, only furthering your decision. You knew doing this for them, for her.

"Fine," you heard Felix hiss in a quiet whisper. "But I'm coming with you."

Your head snapped to him. "Like hell you are."

"You don't get to die."

"Neither do you."

"Then I guess we have a predicament."

Your eyes softened. "Lix."

His brows pinched together. "You don't get to die."

And you almost felt yourself smile. "Little birds are meant to fly," you hummed. Little birds are meant to fly; they aren't meant to die.

He shook his head.

You swallowed hard.

The cries grew closer, and your heart raced. You were out of time. This was your last goodbye.

You gripped his hand. "Protect them."

He latched onto your shoulders. “No. No. I’m not ready. Don’t make me say goodbye to you.”

Against your will, your bottom lip trembled. “It’s not.”

But it was. You both knew that.

Felix could only shake his head. “Please.”

“See you later, little bird,” you hummed, weakly, kissing his forehead before you tore yourself from him. And he reached for you, begging you to stay.

But . . . no amount of pleas could change your mind. You were already moving before Felix could stop you. You didn’t have the heart to glance back at your sister or your mother. You never wanted to live in a world like this, but if you looked back, you feared you might’ve found salvation in their eyes. You couldn’t put them through that. You’d put them through enough.

You worked quickly. You had to. For them.

The quiet cries of the horde approached, moving slowly. You kept your eyes on their figures, stealthily stepping down the creaky stairs to the bottom floor. From there, you moved to the woods surrounding the area. You quickly crouched down in the dark forest, clutching the shotgun even tighter. This was your father’s, now it was yours, and you were going to use it to save your family.

You weren’t naive enough to think that you could actually kill all of them. But that didn’t matter. You were solely supposed to be a distraction. You would fire that damned shotgun at those things over and over again, not caring if it even did any damage. You just needed to keep their attention long enough to get them to follow you in the opposite direction. That would allow your family to escape. That was all you intended to do.

You knew there was no surviving this. And you were fine with that.

Death didn’t scare you. Not yours, anyway.

So you hunkered down, hands clutched on the shotgun as you waited for the horde to get near enough to strike.

You heard them before you saw them. The cries echoed throughout the dark night, making your heart pound faster. It became louder and louder, so loud you felt yourself start to tense, and then the first came into view.

It came to a gentle halt, almost as if it had been expecting you. But that couldn’t be. It hadn’t seen you. You were still in the clear.

Still, you watched, remembering the lessons on hunting that your father had taught you. This was how you hunted—quiet, hidden, and alert.

The creature tilted its head back, eyes closed as the moonlight cascaded across its pale face. Your brows scrunched in confusion as you watched it, tilting your head to the side. It was almost as if it were basking in the moonlight, soaking up the feeling of the satellite shining down on it. And then you realized what it was doing: sniffing you out.

Behind it, the world was bleak as the rest of those damned creatures sauntered forward. The trees seemed to sag, the grass stale, and it was quiet, so very quiet. Every step they took, decay followed.

And then they began to move . . . toward the warehouse where your family still resided.

Your jaw ticked as you raised the shotgun. Your father’s instructions rang through your ears and you lined up the barrel, aiming at one of the creature’s chests as it was perhaps the only part of it you had direct access to. You were certain the impact wouldn’t kill it, you were almost certain it wouldn’t even hurt it, but . . . it would distract it, and that was all you needed.

Last week, you killed a man. You ripped out his jugular with your teeth. You’d slaughtered him. So this, killing this entity shouldn’t have made your stomach churn, but it did.

Your world was gone. Death remained. And it was all his doing.

Still . . . still, your finger hesitated on the trigger.

You would die tonight . . . by its hand, no doubt. And perhaps that scared you. Perhaps a part of you truly didn’t want to die. But you dumbed down this hesitation to just pure fear.

Fear that those things would find your family after disposing of your body; fear they’d kill them; fear all of this would be for nothing.

You swallowed hard and adjusted your grip on the gun. You had to try. Your life for theirs. It was that or you all died tonight, and you wouldn’t have that, not after all you had done; all you had put them through.

All you had to do was pull the trigger. And yet . . . you still hesitated.

Fuck. You closed your eyes, clenching your jaw as your heart hammered in your chest. Fuck, fuck, fuck.

And as your eyes remained closed, you heard their voices then.

You're not too far gone.

Mom thinks you’ve been possessed by the devil.

There’s something wrong with you. You frighten me.

You have to grow up. No more kid stuff.

Your breath hitched. You have to grow up. And you had. Too quickly you now realized. It was always going to end up this way.

This was the only way to save them. The only way.

Your eyes snapped open, catching sight of the creatures still sniffing the air like they could just smell your terror. You sucked in a breath, then pulled the trigger. Exhale.

The ringing in your ears was almost immediate and the explosive sound echoed throughout the silent night. You barely even noticed the shotgun’s kickback, too focused on the creatures before you, watching with wide eyes as the pellets hit one of the things, knocking it entirely to the ground.

The others cried out, their noses no longer needing to be depended on as their eyes searched for the origin of the noise. And then you caught the eye of one, and you knew it was the end.

You faltered at the sight, stumbling backward as you tripped on a root, causing your body to hit the ground. A low groan escaped you before you could stop yourself.

Fuck.

Had that been too loud?

Heart pounding in your chest, you slowly glanced up, eyes landing on the creatures. More eyes stared back at you, hungry with . . . something as a few had begun to make their way toward you.

You swallowed hard.

Death itself had seen you.

Acting fast, you hastily grabbed the shotgun. You weren’t sure how long you could keep this up, but you needed to buy your family more time. You needed to end this.

And end it you would.

You clutched the shotgun tightly in your hand and sat up, groaning slightly when you felt a sharp pain in your ankle. But still, you went on.

Remembering your father’s teachings, you knew what a machine was good for at the end of its reign: making a lot of fucking noise.

And so with a heavy heart and angry tears pricking your eyes . . . you belted out a loud yell.

There was no hiding now. They had all heard you. And that was all that mattered to them.

“Come on, you fuckers!” you took it a step further as you yelled at them, clanking the butt of your gun on a tree to make as much noise as you could. And then, when you heard their cries echo with yours; when you saw one turn to two turn to ten following you into the woods, you knew it was time.

With a fleeting look at the warehouse where your family still resided, you fought back the urge to crawl into yourself and let that anger you’d been holding inside yourself for years now finally just . . . snap. You didn’t know if you fired the shotgun at one of the creature’s heads first or ran off further into the woods, still screaming. You didn’t know the present from the past, but you did know you couldn’t look back.

And so, you let yourself be loud, screaming for yourself, for the people you’d lost, for the people you’d never see again, for your father. You yelled and yelled, racing through the woods as they all quickly followed after you, releasing cries of their own.

The world fell behind you in those moments, time moving in slow motion as you weaved through the dark woods, your feet bounding off the ground as if you were in zero gravity. Sound evaded your senses, only the muffled noises of your rapid breathing could be heard echoing in your ears.

But you just kept running, letting the world escape you. Even when you’d trip over hidden roots, your knees buckling as you fell to the ground, surely bruising and cutting up your skin, you persisted each time. Like your father’s daughter, you pulled yourself to your feet each time, sparing a glance over your shoulder only to be met with the sight of the horde getting nearer and nearer. And every time, you’d force yourself to swallow the bile crawling up your throat before you cocked your shotgun and fired into the horde, taking off screaming for them to follow after you.

This was the end, and you planned to gather as much of them away from the warehouse and closer to you. You knew it would hurt, but you didn’t care. Their teeth ripping into your flesh would never be a match for the sins you’d committed in this lifetime. That was why you met every dead that got in your path with a lethal hit from the butt of your shotgun and a silent prayer that your damned soul could be traded for the safety of your family.

You were sure you would have continued running had your foot not slammed into a divot in the ground, twisting your ankle with such force that you hit the ground instantly, crying out in pain. And this time when you tried to stand to your feet, you realized the pain was too much to stand.

It hit you then.

Beat.

This really was the end.

You couldn’t run.

Beat.

The horde was gaining on you.

This was the end.

Beat.

Swallowing hard, you clenched your jaw, shutting your eyes as you realized what you needed to do. Clutching your father’s shotgun close to your chest, so close it nearly touched your heart, your lips parted, and a scream bubbled up your throat, ripping through your vocal cords as it echoed throughout the dead of night.

But before you could inhale and breathe out another war cry of your own to match theirs, a hand slapped over your mouth, muffling your screams. Another hand was gripping your arm the next second, pulling you off the ground and shoving your back against the nearest tree.

Your eyes shot open, dropping your shotgun as your hands instinctively clasped around the wrist of the hand covering your mouth. Deep dark eyes stared back at you, a sense of urgency in them as you realized what was going on.

It happened so fast, too fast for you to process. But you quickly realized the eyes belonged to a man not much older than you. Dark eyes. Full lips. Sculpted nose. It was your first time seeing a man other than Felix . . . other than the one you’d gutted . . . in a long time.

What was he doing?

But you couldn’t ponder long as his eyes twisted to the scene behind you, and you could’ve sworn you felt his heart beat faster against your lips where his hand still lay. And at that sight, he kicked into action.

“You listen to me. We have a few seconds before those fuckers are at our throats,” he spoke in a hushed tone, his voice deep and controlled, but you could sense the fear on him. It was different from yours. “When I tell you, you run as fast as you fucking can in that direction and you don’t stop. You follow me and you don’t get lost or you’re dead.” His hand fell from your mouth as he began hastily digging through the pack over his shoulder. “Got it?”

You skipped a beat, not answering.

His eyes were on you instantly, expectantly.

But you only blinked.

You didn’t want to be saved.

No, he couldn’t do this. It was your time. This was your punishment. He couldn’t—

Your thoughts were cut short as he pulled something out of his pack, and you quickly realized a grenade now sat in his hand. Your eyes widened. He was going to—

“Run,” he bit out, an order.

And it all happened so fast.

You stayed put.

He turned from you, quickly pulling the pin and chucking the grenade as fast and hard as he could from your location. You watched the weapon soar, your heartbeat stilling in your throat as the seconds of anticipation crept upon you.

Beat.

Be—

A loud explosion sounded in the distance, the ground shaking beneath your feet as ringing in your ears commenced. Only then did you realize your feet had been moving on their own, carrying you farther and farther away from the scene as you caught a glimpse of the horde following after the explosion. But you wouldn’t do this. You had accepted your death. You wouldn’t—

Your feet weren’t moving of your own volition. The world had fallen away from you, you realized, but as you turned your head away from the horde you realized it was the man who was dragging you away from the scene. You realized in your daze, that he must have locked his grip onto your arm and took off running, dragging you along with him despite your injured ankle and dormant mind.

And for some reason, despite the urge to fall to the ground and let yourself fade away, you allowed him to drag you further and further into the woods. You didn’t realize just how much land you had covered until the sound of the horde was so far, that he’d begun to slow down ever so slightly. You didn’t realize until the woods turned into sparse grassland, until the sight of what appeared to be a latched roof to an underground bunker of some sort. You’d heard of shelters like these, but you’d never seen one. You always just assumed the military had covered it all up, leaving people to die while they sat safely under the barren earth.

Your mind raced with a million thoughts, but you could barely see straight let alone think right as you allowed this man to drag you to the entrance. Hell, you allowed him to shove you inside, as you crawled down the ladder in the tunnel. It was a subconscious action, honest. Otherwise, you would’ve begged him to leave you outside to die. But there was no breath for begging as he followed in after you, shutting the hatch and twisting it closed to ensure it was tightly locked.

And when your feet finally met the metal flooring of the inside, you stepped back in shock.

As you had predicted, this was a government bunker. A rather large one at that. You swallowed hard. Fuck.

And when you turned around, your eyes searching the area, you were met with the scene of a group of survivors staring back at you in confusion. People. And they were alive. You hadn’t seen so many people since before Famine.

What the fuck?

But before you could react, something hard cracked over the back of your head, throbbing pain followed. The darkness seeped in instantly, your mind losing control of your body as you smacked the ground, eyes fluttering as you faded in and out of consciousness.

There it was, you realized.

Your punishment.

You were going to die.

And you couldn’t help but allow yourself one last selfish look because maybe there was still a small part of you that wanted to be alive. But that part could only live if things were normal again, if things were the way they had been before the world died. Still, that part of you took over and you watched silently, your vision fading in and out as you caught a glimpse of those dark eyes that had saved you, just moments before the world faded into darkness.

The next time your eyes fluttered open, a metal ceiling stared back at you.

There was a throbbing in your head, searing through your thoughts, and your shotgun was nowhere to be found. You released a soft groan, trying to shift in your spot, but you were met with resistance. You tugged and tugged, but your body didn’t budge.

In confusion, you glanced around, finding yourself on a medical bed, your hands tied together with rope, attaching you to the bed. This didn’t make sense. You hadn’t seen a bed in months maybe a year now. This didn’t make sense. Where were you? How did you—

And then . . . then the memories all faded in.

The warehouse. The man. The shots. The horde.

This was Death’s doing.

The town had warned you of this and you’d denied it. You still didn’t believe. You couldn’t. God was dead and the Horsemen were just a figment of fearmongering. But for a second, you wanted to believe. For that second you were strapped to that bed, you wanted to believe that this was your purgatory and Death was punishing you. That would be easier: if you believed.

Death was an entity; one you had no idea about. There was no knowing what exactly he could and couldn’t do. And this . . . being bound to a medical bed with not even a soul to be heard felt utterly ordinary if he did exist, considering what you did know about this dark being.

But . . . why were you still alive?

Slowly, you lifted your head, groaning at the pain that followed as you assessed the rest of your body. You were alive. Cuts and bruises everywhere, but you could still inhale, exhale, breathe. You could still hear the beat of your heart if you closed your eyes and focused. You were alive.

You were alive.

Your jaw twitched. “I’m alive,” you whispered to yourself, a bitter taste left on your tongue. “I”m . . . alive.”

And for a second, you truly allowed yourself to believe Death existed. You allowed yourself that he had done this to you; that the two years he’d reigned all led up to this very moment. You allowed yourself to believe that he had kept you alive because suffering was for the living.

Was this his way of being kind? Sparing you?

Swallowing hard, you glared up at the unfamiliar ceiling. If you prayed, would he give in? Would he end this suffering? Would he finally give you your punishment?

Your mind wasn’t allowed much longer to ponder as the sound of a door opening brought you out of your repenting. Wearily, you watched with stern eyes as a man stepped in, carrying a bowl in one hand and a washcloth in the other. You watched as he let himself in, still not looking up while he closed the door behind him with a heavy sigh and finally . . . glanced up, meeting your gaze.

Him.

The man.

Slowly, your face softened as confusion consumed you. Him. He had done this to you. He had been the one to lead you here. (He’d also been the one to save you . . . ) He had knocked you out cold. And now . . . now here he was.

You clenched your jaw hard.

The man just stared a minute longer at you, his gaze stern, cold, calculating. Then, he was walking toward you, resting the bowl on the bedside table beside your head before he reached forward and tapped a finger to your chin, tilting your head so he could analyze the wounds on your face.

And you let him, analyzing his actions, preparing for his next.

“You’re awake,” was all he simply said as he dropped your chin and diverted his attention to the bowl on the bedside table. “Sorry about the blow and the rope . . . it’s . . . protocol.”

But you remained silent, watching.

"Your stunt back there . . . could’ve cost us this entire place," he muttered, his voice calm and controlled but you knew he was seething inside. He remained quiet as he dipped the washcloth into the bowl of what seemed to be warm water before he turned to you once again, his eyes lethal. "Screaming only attracts more of them, don’t you know? If you wanted to die, you should’ve just stayed put.”

You swallowed thickly.

There was something terrifying about a quiet rage.

"There's always someone like you," he continued, his eyes racking up and down your body in a menacing glare before the warm touch of a washcloth to your cheek startled a quiet gasp out of your lips. "Someone who ends up surviving longer than they should have." A scoff left him. "Someone who doesn’t care who dies for them as long as they get out unscathed. Did you even think there might be other survivors around before you took off attracting all of those things? If there were children? Families? People who survive together and want to stay alive without running into someone like you?”

And you hadn’t.

You never thought yourself to be stupid or any of the sort. You hadn’t been thinking. There hadn’t been enough time. You just needed to do something so your family could make it out alive. You hadn’t thought that there could be others. You hadn’t thought that saving your family could damn another.

Had your mother been right about you?

Were you really just a stupid girl? A stupid girl playing hero?

The man pulled a chair from the corner of the room, and placed it beside your bed, sitting on it as he dragged the washcloth down your arms now. His touch was somehow gentle despite his glare. Perhaps it was because no one had touched you so gently in so long. Perhaps it was because you had given up, but you let him clean the wounds on your body as you rested your head back onto the pillow, your muscles relaxing ever-so-slightly.

"No?" he questioned, reiterating his accusation. “In my experience, people like you don’t find themselves in trouble like that unless they’re planning something.”

You remained expressionless as you watched him, taking in his words. He thought you’d lured the dead here, and for what? Looting? Or just plain insanity?

Had you really become that corrupt even a stranger could sense it on you?

Slowly, you blinked, wondering if your father had ever felt this way before his death. And as you wondered, the man beside you continued cleaning your wounds, but this time, remained silent. Maybe he realized you wouldn’t answer. Or maybe he already knew the truth about you and your damned soul.

And as the minutes of silence ticked on, you did your own inspection.

Now, under the light, the man sat beside you, his eyes fixed on meticulously cleaning each wound with care despite his lethal words. It had been so long since you’d seen another man like this; a man that had to be around your age; a man so young yet so riddled with age. His dark hair was slightly curly, more tangled and messy than anything as if he hadn’t slept in days. The dark circles under his equally dark eyes were enough to show his evident sleep deprivation. And yet, he seemed almost too alert: his full lips were hidden as his teeth worried his bottom lip while he continued to clean the blood from your skin.

(You’d be lying if you said he wasn’t beautiful; so beautiful it almost made you believe in God once more.)

And for a second, you let yourself wonder what else your mother had been right about. You let yourself believe once again. You let yourself be a girl who could finally kneel in church without bruises being left behind. For a moment, you let yourself believe that she and the town had been right; that this whole thing was God’s plan; that the Horsemen had come; that they could be saved, but you would be condemned.

Then . . . you began to wonder if you had already been. Maybe it was the blow to the head you’d taken or the fever raging through your body or maybe it was the truth, but you began to believe that perhaps this was your purgatory; perhaps you had died in that horde and you’d been sent here; perhaps the beautiful man beside you was Death himself.

Was this it then? Were you always meant to see him at the end?

Oddly enough, he reminded you of this small dog your sister had found near one of the abandoned houses your family had stayed in over the years. This was during Famine’s rule—when food became sparse, when lands became stale and yellowed; when the dead had only just begun to migrate south. This tiny dog found your younger sister then, and she’d brought it home, leaving you no choice but to care for the little thing.

Your sister had named her Berry. (A few months later you had to put her down; it was what we had to do to survive, you’d told your sister back then. You were sure it was then she first started to hate you.)

And as you stared at Death, taking note of how his eyes were a particular shade of brown, you realized they were the same shade that the silly dog had.

You tilted your head. Death somehow had eyes that were kind; eyes that were warm; eyes that reminded you of Felix. Was that how they planned to transfix you? Was Death meant to be this beautiful; this familiar so you’d go willingly? Had God forgotten you’d already condemned yourself? Had he forgotten you didn’t need to be tricked? Had he forgotten where your prayers resided?

Only a moment later, when you felt his hands running over your torso, did you snap out of your exhaust-ridden daze. You realized quickly he was cleaning the last of your wounds which resided on your ribs. And when he was done, he tossed the washcloth into the bowl without another care before he slowly leaned back, arms crossed over his broad chest as he watched you with scrutinizing eyes.

Death narrowed his gaze, but it wasn’t menacing this time. Rather, he seemed almost perplexed. "Why aren’t you fighting?" he questioned. "You didn’t stop to run before. Why calm your fire now?"

Why aren’t you fighting?

The thing was: it was over. Your fight was over.

Sure, you were still trying to wrap your head around the fact that Death was painfully beautiful . . . but it went beyond that.

It was surely daylight by now.

Daylight had come, hours had passed, and Death had you in his hold.

By now, Felix had probably taken your mother and sister onto the road again. They’d escaped, and they were miles and miles away from you and Death. They were safe.

So . . . where was your fight?

You didn’t have one anymore. This was the end. Death would either kill you or make you suffer again and again and again, and your family would live. You’d once told yourself that you never wanted to live in a world like this, but you’d kept yourself alive to protect your family. Only now . . . you didn’t need to fight because there wasn’t anyone left for you to protect.

Your fight was over. Maybe you could rest now. Maybe he’d let you.

Death seemed to catch onto the shift in your demeanor as he narrowed his eyes. "Do you not speak?"

For a moment, you considered not replying. Until: "There's no point," you heard yourself say, voice dry and hoarse.

The look on Death’s face was unreadable as his eyes shifted across your face, his mouth slightly parted. "You smell of death," he muttered, gaze still searching your being.

And you almost laughed.

Because this was your end, and Death himself just told you that you smelled like shit or well . . . like him, you supposed . . . apparently.

It all felt a little unreal.

Death must not have liked your silence as he shot you one last glance before he pulled away and walked toward a table on the other side of the room. As he walked, you caught sight of the blood painting his body, his skin, him.

You swallowed hard. You’d brought that horde to him. He’d fought his way out. You’d caused those wounds, and now he was more than likely going to do worse to you. He’d probably take that scythe you were told he carried and cut your head clean off.

But unlike what you thought, Death sifted through the miscellaneous items on the table before pausing and grabbing a small knife. Your brows furrowed in confusion as you watched him approach you, knife in hand.

There it was.

This was the end you were promised.

Was he going to slit your throat and leave you to bleed out? Or cut you open so you could see just how dark your heart had become? You wouldn’t put it past him. Hell, you might have even welcomed it. But as he approached you, your eyes closing in anticipation, he did not bring that knife down upon your body. No, instead, with a few quick motions and the sound of the rope being cut, you slowly opened your eyes just as your hands were released from the rope’s grip.

On instinct, you brought your hands close to your chest, rubbing your raw wrists. You couldn’t even speak, you just watched as he kept the knife in his hand but returned back to his position of leaning back against the chair with his arms crossed over his chest and his eyes on you.

"You're human," you found yourself uttering as you watched him watch you.

His brows twitched in confusion. "Of course I am.”

But Death couldn’t bleed. . . . Could he?

"You bleed,” you spoke your thoughts, dumbly.

His eyes met yours, but only briefly. "Am I not meant to?" he bit out before his gaze fell back on your hand rubbing your wrist. "Even the dead bleed."

Your confusion only spiraled. This was your end; your purgatory. This was Death, was he not? Your mother had been right. She had to have been right otherwise you were still alive; otherwise, you had managed to escape death once again without so much as a punishment. That wouldn’t be fair. That wouldn’t be right. That wouldn’t be just.

This had to be Death. You had to be dead or somewhere in between. It didn’t matter, this just had to be your end.

So, why hadn’t he condemned you yet?

Why—

"Why—” Death interrupted your thoughts, once you finally dropped your hand from your wrist— “did you think I couldn’t bleed?"

You glanced his way, finding his eyes already on you.

His stare only unnerved you more.

Why couldn’t he just kill you? You deserved it.

Your brows furrowed. "Hasn't anyone ever told you not to play with your food?" you found yourself spitting out, finally finding your voice despite his devasting beauty capturing your words. "I put your lives in danger. I lead them here like you said. I could be with anyone. Having me here could kill you all, so take your revenge. Kill me."

The crease between his brows deepened further. "I'm not letting you die," he simply said, his anger quiet and calm . . . still. “You put my group in harm's way. I won’t pardon you for that . . . but . . . we don’t kill the living.”

That only unnerved you further.

Was this truly Death?

Surely he had killed before.

Although . . . you supposed perhaps he’d only just ever waited. Was that his fault? Waiting for the dead to find him? Is that how he found you in those woods? Is that how he’d taken your arm and helped you crossover to the other side? But . . . if that were true . . . where was your father now? Surely, he would’ve come to see you. Surely, he would’ve been the first one knocking at your door. Surely, he’d be here.

As you briefly wet your lips, your eyes flicked up to meet his. “Where’s my dad?” you asked, your voice barely above a whisper.

A look of deep confusion twisted onto Death’s face, and then he was leaning forward to feel your forehead with the back of his hand. “Fever,” he mumbled more to himself before he pushed himself to his feet, the chair screeching against the floor. “Get some rest. Someone will be in to bandage you up and . . . I’ll be back in a couple hours with medication.” His gaze dropped to the large gash on your arm from just a few nights ago. “When you’re healed, we’ll give you some supplies and then you’ll be on your way, understood?”

But you just stared at him, silently pleading. Pleading for what? You didn’t know. All you knew was if your father wasn’t here, you couldn’t be dead. And if you weren’t, you wanted to be. You’d be able to find him then, because although you were no longer a girl who could kneel in church, you could still feel the scabs on your knees from years ago; you could still remember what it was to believe so blindly; you could still feel that insistent desire for there to be something beyond this world . . . something after this world.

There just had to be. You had to see him again. You had to find him.

You could die now. You could find him now. You would find him.

“Great,” Death muttered under his breath, breaking you out of your own mind. And with one final glance at your exhausted body, he began to turn and head for the door.

Fear struck you then. You had to find your father. “Wait, please—” you hastily grabbed onto his arm, only being able to reach his hand enough to dig your nails into his skin to halt him— “I beg of you.”

His eyes snapped to yours, wide and cautious as if at any moment, one wrong move and he’d grant your wishes. And all you could do was hope.

“Kill me,” you weakly whispered, hopelessly searching his eyes.

His brows twitched, taken back.

“Death,” you begged in a whisper, your bottom lip trembling, “please.”

But Death only stared back at you with a perplexing look written across his face. It was as if he couldn’t believe your request. Had no one ever begged him to die?

A heavy beat of silence pounded in your ears.

Death only continued to stare, a world raging on behind his eyes as he took you in. His demeanor was still calm, still collected, but he seemed . . . perturbed by your request, by your presence, by you. And you watched as his eyes trickled across your face, searching for something until finally . . . his gaze zeroed in on your cheek, his brows furrowing.

Then . . . you felt it.

A tear had slowly begun to slip down your cheek as if your body knew it was a sin to cry. But you were . . . crying that was.

You nearly gasped.

Another tear trickled down your cheek. Guilt followed.

But just as you were about to angrily wipe it away, there was a sharp knock at the door, breaking both you and Death out of your spell. The door opened a second later, a man peaking his head in with a solemn look on his face.

The man didn’t spare you a glance, he only cleared his throat and said, “Chris?” His brows raised, a silent message passing between the two. “A minute.”

Death only nodded, and then the man was gone, the door shutting behind him. Silence followed, but Death stayed unmoving, his arm still in your tight grasp.

“You won’t run,” he slowly spoke, his words a statement, not an order, but he didn’t turn to look at you. He kept his eyes on the door. “I don’t kill the living. I won’t kill you.” He paused, audibly swallowing, and then his eyes were on you. “And I know you won’t kill us.”

And then he was gone before you could blink, quickly tearing his arm out of your grasp before he reached the door and closed it behind him. You were alone with yourself once again, your thoughts running wild as your hand remained outstretched, almost frozen in place.

I know you won’t kill us, he’d told you.

But how could you kill Death? How did he know you wouldn’t if he didn’t give you what you wanted? How could he be so sure that you weren’t a killer, when you so clearly were?

You had killed before, and if he didn’t take you to the other side, you’d surely kill again. That was who you had become. That was who you were. He should’ve known that.

And then as you slowly laid your head back onto the pillow and allowed the minutes to tick by, the throbbing in your head began to subside, and the world became a little clearer. You were no longer a girl who could kneel in church. You did not believe anymore. The world had gone to shit, and it wasn’t because of God’s plan. There were no Horsemen. Your family was gone. And that . . . that man had not been Death.

Squeezing your eyes shut, you swallowed thickly. What was happening to you?

It all hit you then.

These were a group of survivors. That man surely was their leader, and you had just led hundreds of the dead to their doorstep. They should’ve killed you for that alone. You would’ve. You wouldn’t even hesitate if this had been your family. You would’ve done everything to keep them safe, even if it meant killing others, and yet . . .

I won’t kill you.

But why? You deserved it. You could see it in his eyes that he knew.

These were good people. And you were their bad omen.

It wouldn’t be long before your presence brought misery upon them, too, just as it had to your family. And it’d be all your fault.

You’d live, only to see many die. You’d make it out unscathed just as you always had, while they’d suffer, just as he had said.

It was then you realized this was not your purgatory, it was your Hell.

taglist:

@amaranth-writing @binchanluvrr @dreamingsmile @eternalrajin

(i did post the teaser like a year ago, so if you want to be taken off, send me a lil message <3)

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deardoomedworld · 11 months ago

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I know that Kim noticing this detail about the scab leader is an example of Kim being a good, observant detective - but I love that when you have to guard the bridge, he decides to just yell it in anger? Really makes it sound like a jab lmao. Why are your clothes four sizes too small for you?! LOSER.

#disco elysium #kim kitsuragi

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bubbles-for-all-of-us · 6 months ago

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Hello friend I was wondering if I could request a fourth wing x reader fic with xaden? Maybe where instead of Violet being tortured by varrish its reader? And maybe we see a bit from xadens pov?

Hurts like hell

The pain was like no other. The concept of time had slipped away a long time ago. Your body was sore and stiff. Nor could you distinguish if it was the sound of your blood dripping on the floor or the condensation of the cellar walls. “This could be so much easier, wing leader”, Varrish's venomous voice fills your senses and suddenly you wish you hadn’t blinked. Hadn’t made him aware of your consciousness. “What do you know about the rebellion, girl?”, he takes fistfuls of your hair, yanking your head back. Your angry eyes glare up at him, “Eat. My. Shit”, you hiss through gritted teeth as the back of his hand slams into your cheek. The rings he’s wearing crack the scabbed-up cuts all over again.

And it’s as if he feels it. Every blow. Every cut. Every scream. Xaden had lost the amount of time he had vomited since they had taken you. Or more since you had saved Bodhi’s and Garrick's asses and was taken instead of them. Had he beaten both of them up for it? Yes. And he planned on repeating it once you were back in his arms.

“There’s nowhere else they could be keeping her”, Imogen says, tapping her finger on the map. Everyone had been looking for you for three days now. “Unless he’s usually magic he shouldn’t”, Bodhi adds, making Xaden let out a growl. It was driving him mad knowing that you were taking a beating for his slip-up. They weren’t being careful enough. They weren’t thinking about the consequences when they smuggled such a big load of weapons out. “Tonight. There’s an upper-hand meeting at seven that leech of a man should be there”, he grunts, his shadows drowning his hands in the darkness. “Imogen you will make sure he stays there for as long as possible”, and for the first time, she only nods, because she too can feel that Xaden is on his last straw. “You two will come with me. Fuck knows what they have going on down there”, running a hand through his hair, Xaden watches as both Bodhi and Garrick nod. Hold on, he pleads, just for a bit longer. Because he would kill them all. Burn this whole academy down if you were… and that’s enough to make him go ridge once more. He couldn’t let himself think about it.

His heart is beating so fast and so loudly that he doesn’t even hear his footsteps as they navigate the dark corridors of the dungeons. Checking every nook and cranny. Every room. Every floorboard. Until the metal gates leading to the back cellar catch Xaden’s eyes, and the way his shadows rush to it in a frenzy. His legs step forward before he even realizes it. Breathe hitching in his throat.

“Y/n”, he mutters rushing forward. His hands are shaking so much that he can barely push the hair away from your face, let alone look for the pulse. Face. Barely recognizable face. So cut up and bruised. Drowned in angry purples and blacks. “There’s a pulse”, Xaden’s head snapped to the side, he didn’t even realize that Garrick had followed him in here. “Faint but there”, he clasped Xaden’s shoulder, “But we need to get her out of here”.

And he tries, tries so hard to get the ropes of your wrists but it’s as if his own body is going into an overdrive. “Bodhi, get Xaden out of here”, Garrick orders, freeing your legs, reaching to press his fingers to your neck once more. “No”, Xaden argues, pulling at your hand, “Baby, you need to open your eyes”, he mutters looking at you, “Tell me that you hear me”. But there’s nothing. Just your limp body. Drowning in blood and filth. A firm palm presses against the back of his neck and his head is turned away from you.

“We are getting her out. Do you understand?”, Garrick’s firm words slip past the haze. “You will go with Bodhi because you can’t help out anymore and I will carry her and keep her safe”, and it’s no longer a question. It’s a statement. An order. One that Xaden follows. With Bodhi reassuring with the whole way. Catching one last look at you. Of Garrick carefully scooping you up as he mumbles, “Come on, girly, we need you here. Don’t you give up yet”.

Xaden doesn’t move from your side after Brennon meds your wounds. The Rioroso house was the only place they could think of that was safe for you. But even here his mind doesn’t ease up. It’s been a week and you haven’t shown any signs of waking up. So just like any other night when he came to visit you, he’s carefully running the healing balm into the cuts on your face and arms. Needing to know that he��s doing something. Helping in some way.

And it’s the pain sigh that leaves your lips when his fingers brush over the cut on your temple that has his stalling. “Baby”, he breathes, gaze now fully fixed on your face. His lips brush over your knuckles, “Please, open your eyes. I need to…”, and it’s as if his words coxed you out of your slumber as you blink rapidly. Scared eyes scanned the place.

Xaden leans closer, carefully bringing his fingers through your hair. Trying to soothe you with the feeling of him. “Xaden”, his name on your lips is enough to finally make him crack. He lowers his head onto your shoulder as ugly sobs echo through the room. He knows that he should be strong. To be calmer and colder but he was convinced that he was never gonna hear the sound of your voice ever again. “I’m here, my little fighter”, he sniffles, looking back up at you, “l will never let you hurt like that ever again”.

#xaden riorson #xaden riorson x reader #xaden riorson x you #xaden riorson imagine #xaden x reader #xaden imagine #xaden fourth wing imagine #xaden fourth wing x reader #fourth wing imagine #fourth wing x reader #iron flame imagine #iron flame x reader

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allthecanadianpolitics · 6 months ago

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“This is a long-awaited victory for workers’ bargaining rights in Canada,” said CUPE’s National President Mark Hancock. “And let’s not forget, this is what happens when the NDP - backed by the labour movement - put the rights of workers front and centre in the House of Commons. Let’s also not forget that Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has voted against anti-scab legislation not once, not twice, but eight times in the past. The Conservatives only voted for it this time because they knew better than to pick a fight with the labour movement as we approach the next election.”

Currently, employers are able to hire scabs in order to break the morale and bank accounts of striking and locked out workers, as is the case with members of CUPE 2614 at the Port of Quebec, who have been locked out and replaced with scabs since September 2022.

Employers also use scab labour to ship jobs out of the country, as is the case with members of CUPE 2815 who have been locked out from their jobs at Videotron in Gatineau, Quebec since October 2023. While these workers have gone seven months without a paycheque, Videotron is able to continue business as usual, while paying bottom-dollar to ship jobs out of the country.

Anti-scab legislation will make all of this illegal. Employers will no longer be allowed to hire replacement workers (scabs) during strikes and lockouts, thereby balancing the scales and giving more power back to workers to fight for better wages and a better life. [...]

Tagging: @newsfromstolenland

#cdnpoli #workers' rights #NDP #Conservatives #Pierre Poilievre

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disco-elysium-via-polls · 1 year ago

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If you're rejoining us after the last post, know that we learnt nothing of importance about the case. It's time to get to the other reason we're here: Measurehead.

6. "I need you to be my champion against Jean-Luc up there."

SCAB LEADER - "No." He slowly shakes his head. "I'm not a fighter -- I'm a WORKER!"

7. "I'm just going to leave now." [Leave.]

🎵 Your Body Betrays Your Degeneracy

MEASUREHEAD - "YOUR RACE DESCENT HAS ONLY *WORSENED* SINCE I LAST SAW YOU -- YOU HAVE REALLY LET YOURSELF GO."

6. [Physical Instrument - Formidable 13] Knock him out.

We've gained a few bonuses to punching him. I also made sure to change into the tank top for the best chance.

+1 Volition says do it again! +1 Advice from Scab Leader.

PHYSICAL INSTRUMENT [Formidable: Success] - Just like that, instinct took over -- a solid strike straight into his throat, into the cartilage! You could swear you felt the soft palate break...

MEASUREHEAD - The man is reeling, gasping for air, time stands still around you. In the distance the sounds of the harbour are falling silent.

PERCEPTION (HEARING) [Easy: Success] - All you hear is a small gurgling sound as a trickle of blood appears on the man's lip.

Wait-wait, what should I do?

(Rip into him with a right hook.)

(Back up and perform a 360° flying spin-kick.)

MEASUREHEAD - Don't wait. You've only got a millisecond -- he's coming to, time is breaking loose from the stupor, his left hand curls up into a fist...

COMPOSURE [Easy: Success] - That fighting pose -- watch out, he's *expecting* the hook!

3. (Back up and perform a 360° flying spin-kick.)

MEASUREHEAD - The man lands with a dull thump, like a broken down puppet of muscles and sinew. For a moment he still tries to keep his head up, dazed eyes looking at you with unimaginable surprise.... To your left is *The Button.*

#disco elysium #scab leader #measurehead

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racetrackmybeloved · 4 months ago

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one thing that i really love about once and for all is how clear it is that spot does not forgive jack.

yes, they shook hands, yes spot stayed to distribute the newsies banner (when, let's face it, he would have been perfectly within his rights to head straight back over the brooklyn bridge the moment jack scabbed), but spot still does not like jack.

i talked here about how spot is someone who fully commits, he sees things through to the end. he had little respect for jack going into the strike, and required proof of commitment before signing on. to someone like spot, going back on your word is the worst thing you could possibly do.

spot's expression when katherine is reading the banner conveys so much disdain for jack. when katherine says "union leader jack kelly", he side-eyes jack so hard and looks him up and down. and yet he stays. he sticks to his word, even though jack did not stick to his.

honestly kudos to tommy bracco for making such a huge role out of so little, he's one of the most memorable on screen despite the fact that he only has four lines, and is completely underused as a dancer (mini rant on that here lol).

#i just love spot conlon ok #if you couldn't tell lmao #newsies #newsies fandom #livesies #jack kelly #newsies broadway #newsies analysis

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neo-novaa · 2 years ago

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enamored

or ; 5 times when you see neteyam, and one time when he sees you.

*ੈ✩ 𝐩𝐚𝐢𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠: neteyam x na'vi!reader

*ੈ✩ 𝐰𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬: slowburn (?) some brief depictions of blood/cuts, a bit suggestive towards the end, only partially proofread

*ੈ✩ 𝐰𝐨𝐫𝐝 𝐜𝐨𝐮𝐧𝐭: 4.1k

*ੈ✩ 𝐚𝐮𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐫𝐬 𝐧𝐨𝐭𝐞: i love writing 5 things fics <33 also !! definitely going to make a pt 2 to this. i was going to just smush it all together, but this had already gotten much longer than anticipated. enjoy!!

-> update: part 2 is posted :)

the first time you see him, you feared it’d be your last.

all of your people were in a frenzy. word traveled quickly to the healers, word of the hunting party being attacked by a pack of starved viperwolves. at first, they were only there for the slaughtered sturmbeest-- an easy meal. then, once quickly realizing how vastly they outnumbered the men, they attacked.

“maite,” your mother calls out for you, her eyes crowded with affliction. she’s just entered your tent, along a boy in her arms. “i need you to take care of him.”

you carefully inspect him at a distance, watching as your mother sets him down on your mat. the body of the limp boy, close to your age, having a torrent of small cuts and bruises on his arms--

his head lolls to the side; you recognize him immediately.

your eyes shift across neteyams body. you can feel your eyes widen. “mother…i--”

“an elder has already done most of the work, you would just need to seal the wound.” you’re walking over to her, inspecting the laceration on his oblique. to your surprise, the bleeding has almost completely ceased, and you can see the glisten of a translucent balm encompassing it.

you look over to your mother, a newfound sense of urgency in her eyes.

“your father was wounded.”

you can feel your heart quicken in pace.

“and I need you to help neteyam,” she holds your face in your hands, tenderly brushing her thumb over the apple of your cheek. “so I can help him.”

your eyes are transfixed on the slow rise and fall of neteyams chest. you barely manage to nod, and all you can register is a soft kiss on your forehead before you’re left with the unconscious son of your clan's leader.

in a heartbeat, you’ve brought the materials you’d need over to him. with one hand, you apply a sap-based paste along the edges of his wound; with the other, you hold the two sides together, hoping the glue will be enough to help seal up the wound.

and, much to your relief, it did.

you’re liberal with the second layer, quickly following it with flexible silk leaves to both protect the laceration, and moderate the swelling in the coming days.

and once you’ve finally cleaned your hands of the different balms and salves they were covered in, you gently put your head to his chest.

“please,” you beg silently. “i need to know that he is still alive.”

a moment passes. and then another--

there it is,

a heartbeat.

you let out the air in your chest. relief is flooding your veins, and you can feel yourself breathing again.

you look up to him, examining his face. you note the light bruising on his cheekbone, the dried blood on his temple, the light scratches all over his neck and shoulders--

you can only pray he doesn’t wake up in pain.

the second time you see him, he walks in by himself.

the bruising on his face and torso is all but gone, but you can tell in the way he favors his right leg that the skin on his side is still healing.

“neteyam,” you greet him formally, watching as he mirrors the way you slowly bow your head, quietly whispering your name in return.

“how are you?” you ask, inviting him to sit down as you inspect his healing wounds.

“better,” he rasps, hissing as you peel away the silk leaves. and, to your satisfaction, he looks much better. the concoction of yours and the sky people's medicine had done wonders to his healing wound. already in just a month, the two sides were nearly connecting into a jagged gash.

and with the way it was gracefully scabbing around the edges, you should assume a full recovery in the next few weeks.

“it looks better.” you say at last, noting the way he lets out a sigh of relief. you reach to your side to bring back that sappy paste, gently running it down his side.

you can’t ignore the way he stiffens when your hand touches him,

and you can’t ignore the satisfaction you feel from it.

“you shouldn’t be doing anything extraneous until it is fully healed,” you say, distracting yourself from how fast your heart is beating. “if you do, there is a risk of it splitting open, which would make it bleed again.”

“i got it.” he says weakly, and you discern the way he’s placed his arm above his head as to not get in your way.

you smile at that.

you’re finally layering on the new silkleaves when he speaks up.

“how long will it be until i am fully healed?” neteyam asks, watching intently as your hands work against his body.

“maybe two weeks,” you say passively, smoothing your fingers over the edges of the leaf. “but i am sure your mother will be able to take care of you.”

your ears suddenly perk up.

why was he seeing you about all of this? his grandmother was the peoples tsahìk, his mother a skilled healer--

why was he here?

why would he be seeing you?

“okay,” neteyam breaks the abrupt silence, lowering his arm and bringing himself to his feet. “thank you. for everything.” his hand is hovering on his side as he exits your tent, leaving you with a clouded mind, and far too many questions.

because why would he, of all people, be seeing you?

the third time you see him, it’s unexpected.

you’re learning so much during your time with mo’at, a spot your mother was able to secure due to her relationship to her. in that time, you’d gotten closer to the sullys, especially their eldest daughter.

kiri is kind, despite her prickly outer shell. it’s incredible to be able to learn alongside someone, and watch as both of you grow into stronger healers.

but now, it was just you and mo’at, with kiri being somewhere deep in the forest with her younger siblings, and that human boy that they couldn’t quite shake.

and she’s teaching you the rich benefits of a slinths venom when you hear the flap of the tent flutter behind you.

it’s neteyam, and he’s looking better than ever.

there are no more silk leaves on his side, the only proof of him ever having a wound being the discolored scar you could barely see behind his arm. you shouldn’t be this surprised, it had nearly been two months since you’d been in such close vicinity to the boy; but yet, you couldn��t help but feel proud at how well he’s healed.

“what is it neteyam?” mo’at says, barely looking up to recognize the presence of her eldest grandson.

but he looks surprised at your presence. shocked, even.

his eyes shift unevenly between the two of you, only to rest comfortably on his grandmother. “it is a’ewì, she is awake.”

mo’ats ears twitch at the name. a’ewì, you were familiar with her: the young girl, not much older than tuk, with a terrible respiratory infection that she’d been battling for the past week. you’re cheerful to know that she is in better condition than the last time you heard her name.

“thank you neteyam.'' is all she says before standing, presumably to tend to the young girl.

you turn to watch her leave. “should i come with you mo’at?”

“no, stay here,” she affably commands. “continue to dilute the venom. carefully.”

and with that last word of wisdom, she is gone.

you silently follow her commands, trickling the venom through layers of cloth and charcoal, finally dripping into a clear solution.

“venom?”

the voice beside you makes you jump, and you can’t hide the shock on your face when you see that neteyam is still with you in the tent.

“yes.” you say, dully. “yes! it is slinth venom.” you correct your cadence, adding an authentic excitement to your words.

“can’t that kill you?” he’s leaning closer to the small contraption-- or, rather, closer to you.

“well…if it is injected in you from the slinth, then yes, it can.” you shift, giving neteyam room to sit next to you. you smile when he finds the space next to you, and your heart skips a beat when your knees brush against each other.

“but there is a way to extract it so that it loses the harmful toxins. and, by diluting it, it can be used to accelerate healing in wounds.”

you two sit there as the venom drips into the solution as it shimmers a vibrant green. the bright color dissipates as its diluted in the clear liquid beneath it.

“did you ever use it on me?” neteyam asks, sounding hesitant.

you look over to him, at his bright yellow eyes, the way his pupils have dilated from the darkness of the tent. he’s transfixed on the contraption, and you settle nicely into the few moments of silence in which you appreciate how truly beautiful he is.

you startle when he turns over to you.

“no!” you say abruptly, turning your gaze back over to the venom. “i don’t think so, i didn’t do too much to you, i just helped seal your wound so it could heal faster, the elders got to you before i did.”

from the corner of your vision, you can see the way his gaze lingers on his face, and it takes far too much strength to ignore it.

“are you going to be busy tonight?”

you twitch your nose at his question. “probably not, i should be done studying with mo’at before eclipse.”

“good.” he pauses. “would you like to come and fly with me tonight?”

the shock at his question is enough for you to give into your temptations, and turn your head to meet his gaze. but you don’t see a well-hidden quip behind his eyes, or a poorly stifled snicker in the back of his throat-- in fact, you don’t see anything comedic about his question, nor his demeanor.

neteyam was being genuine.

“sure,” you’re nodding before you speak, watching the way his face lights up at your response. “it has been a while since i’ve been out with pasuk, i’m sure she would enjoy the air as well!”

he smiles at your enthusiasm, sending heat straight to your cheeks.

“meet me by the waterfall,” he says, leaning closer to you. “just before eclipse.”

mo’at nearly stomps moments later through the tent's flap, her abruptness causing both you and neteyam to quickly pull away from one another.

“skxawng’evan,” stupid boy, she mumbles to no one in particular, leaving both you and neteyam to look at each other in bewilderment.

“neteyam, your brother got himself injured again.” she says, directly to her grandson, and you can hear neteyam curse under his breath.

“what did he do this time?” he stands up, helping mo’at collect small jars and bowls to help aid his brother.

“he provoked a hive of hellfire wasps.” she’s heading towards the exit when she looks back to neteyam, shaking her head. “i’m surprised that the boy hasn’t killed himself yet.”

once she had exited the tent, neteyam turned back to you “hey!” whispered loudly, bringing your attention undividedly onto him. “midnight, the waterfall.” he reminds you.

“okay!” you responded in the same volume, as if the two of you were planning was something forbidden. “now go help your brother, it sounds like he’s had a rough day.”

all neteyam does is give you a lop-sided smirk before he disappears through the flaps of the tent.

tonight. midnight. you remind yourself.

it’s a date.

the fourth time you see him, the air is so thin that you find yourself struggling to breathe.

it had been so long since you were out with pasuk, your lovely ikran, that you’d forgotten how thin the air can be when you’re above the mountains.

but what you lack in proper air to your lungs, the astonishing terrain makes up for tenfold.

you looked down to the forest below you, the massive leaves blocking out almost all of the bioluminescence on the ground. yet still, there were gaps that found their way through the foliage, resulting in a purple and blue speckled sea beneath you.

neteyam is barely ahead of you, and you note the way he keeps turning around to look at you. he looks beautiful at night; the freckles on his body reflect the stars above you, and you have to stop yourself every time you think of your fingers dragging between each bioluminescent dot on his body.

he’s obviously a much more skilled rider than you. nearly every other second he’s flying loops around you and pasuk, flipping his ikran through the air, and diving down towards the ground only to quickly rise above you moments later.

it takes you a while, but you figure out why he’s doing this:

neteyam is trying to impress you.

it’s something that goes straight to your ego: the olo’eyktans son, sneaking out away from his family and his duties, to try and impress some girl he’d met only a month ago.

and -- oh, it was working.

you hear his ikran shriek beside you, and you can see neteyam signal for you and pasuk to perch on the cliff right beside you. you nod to him, turning over to the steep edge.

“look,” neteyam points up to the sky filled with millions of stars, and you struggle to see exactly what he is pointing out.

“there is a meteor that will pass by soon,” he says, making you turn your gaze back to him. “the sky people say that it only comes every one thousand years, this will be the only time any of us will be able to see it.”

you smile brightly, looking back up to the sky. “then i guess we better keep our eyes peeled.”

for the next few minutes, it’s the two of you sitting in silence, clinging to your ikran, gaze fixed on the sky above you.

and that's when you see it.

it’s bright, green, and it's fast. it leaves a trail of stardust behind it, and you can't help but laugh at the sight of it. it’s flying across the sky, faster than anything you’ve seen before. and, just as soon as it was there, it was gone.

but it leaves its mark: the shimmering star dust, perfectly incandescent, shining as bright as any other moon.

“it’s beautiful.” you say, and in your enticement over the asteroid, you don’t notice the way neteyams eyes are completely fixated on you.

“yes,” he whispers. “it is.”

the fifth time, everything is different.

you’re leading him by the hand through the forest, stepping over tree roots and under low hanging branches. if memory serves you correctly, you’re on the right path.

two months since that night in the sky, and now you’re on the forest floor with the sun high in the sky.

“why won’t you tell me where you are taking me?” he asks for the umpteenth time, and you can’t help but look back at him and laugh.

“you are so impatient, why can’t you just wait and see?”

“because waiting and seeing could result in you leading me to a thanator den?” he says, hopping over an overgrown root.

“neteyam…” you swing his arm side to side, slowing down your steps. “why do you always have to worry? why can’t you relax once in a while?”

you say it with a smile, because while his vigilance could get on your nerves, it was tied directly to his tenderness. which was, inarguably, your favorite trait of his.

“i can’t help but worry, i would really hate for either of us to die.” neteyam says, suddenly squeezing your hand.

“i promise that we will not die,” you say, returning the gesture and tenderly squeezing his. “in fact, i’m pretty sure i can see it just up ahead!”

only a few moments later do you break through the foliage, finding yourselves in a bright clearing. the leaves above you have managed to stay clear of this area, leaving bright rays of sun to peak through.

there are tall plants surrounding the area, as if eywa herself had carved a spot clear of foliage-- save the grass and the vines that snuck down from the trees above you.

while you loosen your grip on neteyams hand, his only grows tighter.

he’s standing next to you, eyes darting around him, above him, below him--

“this is where i like to come when i want to be alone,” you tell him, watching every slight movement he makes; the way his ears bend back whenever an animal calls out in the distance, the way his bright yellow eyes are moving so erratically, and the way that his pupils have shrunk nearly half its size from the bright light shining through above you.

“i haven’t shown it to anyone else.” you quietly add, which is what makes him focus back on you. he takes your other hand in his, his stuck eyes on them as he slowly brushing his thumbs over the back of your palms.

“thank you,” neteyam says, looking back up at you. “it’s beautiful.”

something shifts in the way you’re seeing him; the smile tugging at the edges of his lips, the slight twitching of his ears, the quiet swishing of his tail against the tall grass--

you can feel your heart in your throat.

you can tell that something pivots for neteyam as well. his eyes are darting quickly between yours, fighting so hard not to look at your slightly parted lips, and he’s suddenly hyper aware of how small your hands feel within his.

neteyam’s callused hands are slowly moving up your forearms, just as yours begin to reach his biceps. you can feel your body moving on its own accord, detached from your brain, from your logic, your reasoning--

his hands are resting against your neck, cradling your jaw and timidly thumbing at your cheeks. your palms are gently cupping the sides of his face, and with how close you are, you can feel his breath on your lips.

“neteyam…” you whisper his name against his lips, and you can feel your blood rushing to your face.

you can’t stop yourself-- you wouldn’t want to, even if you could.

in moments your lips are on his; slow, purposeful, passionate-- saying everything you wish you could. telling him how long you’ve yearned for him-- for this, for the solitude and the intimacy of this moment.

neteyam is fervently returning the sentiment, his grip on your face has turned more firm, his lips pressed against yours so hard that you can feel yourself stumbling backwards. every word you say against his lips, he matches it; every movement your body makes against him leaves him aching for more.

you only pull away when your lungs begin to throb, and you’re left gasping. your eyes are darting quickly between his, and the air around you is thick with the knowledge of what you just did.

neteyam whispers your name, his forehead against yours.

he doesn’t say it, he doesn’t have to--

you know what this means.

soon enough, it’s neteyam who sees you.

nearly six months since that fateful night; six months since your world had changed, since neteyam had unconsciously stumbled into your life-- since you’d finally felt whole again.

five months since that night under the stars, four months since you’ve shared that kiss with him.

and once again, you are leading neteyam through the forest by your hand.

except this time, it’s deep into the night.

and this time, he knows exactly where you are going.

he’s been on this route dozens of times during his youth. all the times he’s visited with his parents, with his siblings, with his friends; all the times that he’d come to utral aymokriyä, the tree of voices, to hear the songs of his ancestors from years ago.

and now, he is coming with you.

the bioluminescence around you lights your way, your heavy steps leaving bright footprints on the grass beneath you. just like that day, more than four months ago, you can hear neteyam laughing behind you.

“are we almost there?”

“neteyam,” you laugh through your hiss. “you know exactly where we are going, can’t you figure that out yourself?”

“maybe.” he nearly trips over a root. “but i prefer it when you tell me.”

you’re leaping across the fallen trunk of a tree, over a shallow pond, when you finally turn around him. “well, neteyam, if you use your eyes and look up,” you point to the sacred flora, biting back the snark in your voice. “you’ll see that we’re already here.”

your grip on his hand fails to falter as you approach the tree; neither you nor neteyam can remember the last time either of you had been here.

the energy is palpable; with every step you take closer to the tree, you can feel your body buzzing. the bright light of the glowing stems.

you can feel the ground beneath you carry that same energy, that same low, constant buzz. it’s exhilerating-- it’s intoxicating.

“i can’t remember the last time i was here.” you say, lost in the beauty of the flora around you.

“neither can i.” neteyam adds, just as easily transfixed as you. “i forget how beautiful it is.”

all you can do is nod.

when you finally drop his hand, it’s to reach out for a group of those glowing, electrifying stems. carefully-- shakily, you grab your queue from its braid, watching as the sensitive tendrils wrap around it.

and you can hear them.

in the way that you can hear your own thoughts, or feel your own heartbeat; they are not only around you, but inside you, feeling everything you feel, seeing everything you’ve seen.

and, in turn, you can feel your ancestors, their joy, their unbridled happiness from being somewhere with their families from long ago.

you can feel neteyam make the same link besides you, and for a moment, you can feel him, as well.

you’re stuck there, for who knows how long, absorbing every ounce, every fibre of your lineage’s memories. as much as you can, at least-- as much as your mind can handle.

you only break the bond to look over to the boy beside you, finding him with a sense of childlike wonder in his face, his pupils dilated so far that there’s only a golden ring of his iris visible.

you approach him, your hands delicately running along his shoulders. neteyam turns to you, pulling his queue away from the tendrils.

just like that day in the forest, your hands are slowly moving up his arms, reaching for his face.

neteyam is tantalising-- enticing, the amarenthine glow of the world around you making him all the more phantasmic. he looks unreal, other-worldly, like some transcendent being from a universe far, far away from here.

it’s impossible to look away. your eyes map out the freckles on his face, trailing down to his jaw, dispersing along his shoulders and chest. you recall all the time spent wanting, yearning to draw lines between those dots with your fingers, and how many hours you’ve spent doing just that.

neteyams hand on your cheek takes you out of your trance, and he whispers your name like a a promise.

you don’t hesitate.

your lips are on his, much like that day in the forest. but this time, there is something behind your movements-- something more ardent, more greedy.

again, neteyam is matching your favor, kissing you so hard that you’re sure your lips will bruise.

he wanders; your cheek, your jaw, your neck-- all the victim of the onslaught of his mouth. you’re holding back, biting back to pull him closer, deeper, until your skin is so close that you feel like one person.

“neteyam,” you murmur his name, pushing up on his jaw until his eyes meet yours again. but you’re fixated on how puffy his lips are, and you’re distracted by how dilated his eyes have become.

he doesn’t say anything, but he knows. you know.

he can feel it too.

neteyam's hands cradling your face, thumbing a certain freckle on your cheekbone that he seemed to be constantly obsessed with.

he was enamored with it-- with you.

with your eyes closed, you can feel his forehead resting on yours, as three simple words utter from his lips:

“i see you.”

#neteyam #neteyam x reader #neteyam sully x reader #avatar #avatar x reader #avatar the way of water #atwow #awow #✧. ┊ avatar !

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