#still climbing up there in the List

[creachiergh]

anyways. WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT.

[stop-breaking-my-heart-dragonage]

Okay I thought I was done but apparently I'm not. I need to talk more about this banter you can get during the Legacy DLC between Aveline and Warden Carver because it makes me want to scream.

Aveline: I'm glad you found a place with the Wardens. Carver: Well, it's not the city guard, but it'll do. Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you. Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

In my last post, I talked about how Aveline had no place telling the guard to refuse Carver's application, regardless of if he was "right" for the job or not. But I believe he would've made a great guard, and getting that job not only would've provided for him and his family during a desperate time, but would've prevented him from either fate of becoming a warden or a templar. He was unfairly robbed of a chance to prove himself because Aveline believed he wasn't right for the guard.

This is one of the banters I brought up but didn't go too in depth about. At this point, it's been between 3-6 years since Act 1, depending on if you decided to do Legacy in Act 2 or Act 3, and every line here is important.

Carver's response to Aveline saying she's glad he "found a place" with the wardens is so telling. Not being accepted by the guard is still on his mind after all this time. He wouldn't bring it up if it didn't still bother him, and implies that he still would've preferred the guard over the wardens.

Which... yeah. Listen, I'm a dedicated "Carver joins the Grey Warden" player. I don't like leaving him behind to become a templar, and I certainly don't like him dying. For me, the Grey Wardens are the best outcome he has. It’s where he seems the happiest and finds the most fulfilment, and it fits well with how I play my Hawke. But it obviously has some tragic issues.

Like the fact that becoming a Grey Warden only delayed his inevitable death within the Deep Roads. Eventually his Calling will come, and Carver will go back down there and fight until the darkspawn eventually kill him. I'm sure that's not traumatic to think about given he was a soldier at Ostagar and then watched Bethany die at the hands of an ogre. Oh, and there's the whole nightmares and voices thing.

Carver didn't choose this life for himself. It was either this or death, but a "what if?" still lingers in his mind about the city guard.

Something Aveline ruined for him.

And continues to ruin.

Aveline: Carver... it wasn't the place for you.

You hear that? In the distance? That's me screaming.

I must reiterate; what makes Aveline believe it's her place to tell Carver whether or not the city guard was right for him? Why did she think she should get a say in whether or not the guard takes him? What's made it HER call?

And still, after all this time has passed, she believes it wasn't right for him and she's unwilling to consider otherwise. Maker forbid she do some reflection and question if she was in the right for interfering at all, too!

Carver is standing right there before her, proving everything she said about him wrong, and she just doubles down. There's no reason to say this to him unless she's trying to remind him of his place; he's a Grey Warden, and she's Guard-Captain of Kirkwall's city guard. But c'mon, Aveline, he's hardly a threat to your precious guard anymore given the whole dedication to killing darkspawn thing he has now.

Maybe if you paid more attention to the threats within your guard, Kirkwall would be a safer place with less murder going around? Just saying!

But isn't that how it's always been? Aveline putting him in his place, making sure Carver remembers she's always outranked him?

Carver: Did you approve my application? Aveline: I can't make you a guard, Carver. Carver: We were both soldiers. Why won't they take me? Aveline: I was an officer. And I follow orders. Carver: [laughs] No you don't. Aveline: I also think of others before myself. You seem tired of that, and that's dangerous. Carver: Just when it's not my choice. You told them not to take me, didn't you? Aveline: Yes.

That he should remember who he's talking to?

Carver: I'm surprised you still travel with us, Aveline. Aveline: Carver, don't. Carver: You're ever so busy with the guardsmen. It must be a burden to slum with the refugees. Aveline: It's oddly comforting that you insult me like I'm family. Carver: That wasn't... no, I didn't mean that. Aveline: I know. But you should be glad that's how I took it.

That she's in charge?

Aveline: Your form's sloppy, Carver. Stiffen up or the darkspawn will take your blade. Carver: Right. I'll keep that in mind. Aveline: And you're angry, why? Carver: You didn't fare any better than I did the last time we faced darkspawn. Aveline: If they take your blade, people die. That's not happening again. Stiffen up. Carver: Yes ma'am.

Oh, and she used to spy on him [and Hawke].

Aveline: I don't like some of the people you've been associating with, Carver. Carver: Talk to my brother/sister. He/She's the one in charge. Aveline:  Maybe, but I know you get around. This city's full of people who are dead set on ending badly. I don't want to see you end up the same way. Carver: Would asking you to stop spying on me help in the least? Aveline: No.

That's their banter.

But sure, she's glad he found a place in the wardens. I don't think she's being ingenuine when she says that, but I think it's a little more complicated than a mere "congrats on doing well, I knew you could do it."

But Carver's response? Oh Maker's ass. It actually hurts me.

Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well...

I... what can I even say?

He accepts it, but you can tell it hurts to do so. It DID cost a lot. More than Aveline will ever understand. And it doesn't matter now! He can't become a guard now anyway, so what would be the point in him disagreeing with her? Carver acts as the bigger person here because he does get it, even if Aveline doesn't.

But it's that last part... that last damn part... Don't be alarmed, that screaming you hear is still me.

Here's the deal; Carver acknowledges that he could be an ass back in Act 1. Hell, he acknowledges it IN Act 1. For example, when you talk to him after finding your grandfather's will, he's an ass to you about Bethany no matter what you say.

But y'know what? You can be the biggest piece of shit to him and have Hawke literally call him a "lazy brat with a chip on his shoulder," and Carver will still be the one to be apologetic for what he said and attempt to explain his feelings.

"Brother/Sister... I feel... I don't know. It's like Mother taking things out on us. She was just scared. I don't have a place in the life she's trying to bring back…"

Carver can be an ass, but he's aware of that and actively tries to change his behavior. If you bring him and Fenris with you on the Mark of the Assassin DLC, there's a moment where Carver says, "You still don't like me? I've tried to change." And if you bring Varric, he once again acknowledges that he used to be an ass.

BUT... that being said. If you don't remember, "I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I?" is referencing back to this conversation in the barracks of Act 1:

Hawke: This must be a very different pace from serving King Cailan. Aveline: It's just one more change, though. The real end for me was Ostagar. What about you Carver? You were there. Do you feel something similar? Carver: No. Aveline: All right, then. Bit of a tit, your brother.

Now, I've already expressed my beef with Aveline over insulting Carver in the middle of the barracks just because he doesn't agree with her view point on Ostagar... but consider the fact that Carver says nothing. He just lets her insult him without a complaint! Carver Hawke, who tends to complain! And he says nothing!

Not only that, but he actually internalized that insult enough that years later he's able to repeat it back to Aveline word for word, and all she has to say is, "Well..."

This isn't the same thing as him reflecting on his past behavior and acknowledging his flaws. This is Carver accepting a snide jab Aveline made that hurt him because apparently he was wrong for not wanting to discuss any trauma Ostagar left him with as openly as she does.

Oh, and don't forget that any other companion you brought along dogpiles on, too!

Carver: No, it's all right. It is. It cost a lot, but I get it. I really was a bit of a tit those days, wasn't I? Aveline: Well... Varric: No shit. Fenris: Insufferable. Isabela: Legendary. Anders: Maker, yes. Sebastian: I've heard as much. [If Hawke has a humorous/charming personality] Hawke: Spoiled, annoying, thick-headed, brattish little nitwit of a... oh, have we stopped?

Y'all ever wonder why he's so on edge or hostile with the other companions?

Also, I have to point out that Merrill is the only companion who doesn't say anything in agreement if she's there. In fact, across all their banter, Merrill's never been rude or insulting toward him. All she does is ask him if he's talking dirty to her and compliments him on what a great sworder he is. It's pretty obvious why Carver develops a crush on her, c'mon.

But to wrap this up-

This banter strikes a nerve due to how telling it is about both characters involved.

Carver has grown and done what he can to improve himself, but there's regret that lingers, a longing for a better life he could've had if given a chance. Maybe he would've failed, maybe he would've succeeded. But there's nothing he can do now, so he looks forward, just as he's always wanted to do. He's a damn good Grey Warden who wants to do right.

Aveline remains stagnant. She hasn't changed, nor has she improved, and maybe she would if she could figure out how to dislodge her head from her own ass. She still believes she was in the right to tell the guard not to accept Carver's application despite knowing the Hawke's were desperate and that Fereldan refugees couldn't find work. She knew Carver's a skilled soldier who fought at Ostagar just as she did. The guard wasn't the place for him so she's in the right to deny him any chance. Aveline knows best.

And y'know what, I think all I have left to say is...

Fine, Aveline. You're right. It wasn't the place for him.

Carver was too good for your city guard.

[corvineblue]

WIP Wednesday

to my own surprise, i am still on my soft (horror) magical au nonsense. yes, this is icemav so ofc let me bring in slider into the mix instead

-

“What are you?,” Goose demands, waiting until Carole clears the room before finally rounding on Ron. Who, of course, doesn’t even have the decency to look the slightest bit ruffled as Goose stalks towards him. No, instead Ron looks perfectly at ease - standing before the window, watching as the flurries madly sweep by. 

Asshole.

“What do you mean?,” he asks and already Ron sounds so bored with the conversation, barely acknowledging Goose’s presence with the slightest tilt of his head. But that’s how it had always been with Ron - from the moment he and Maverick had first met him. There was this irreverence to him that had always grated at his nerves. As if he were skating a thin line between politeness and open mockery. 

Carole had always laughed with a little shake of her head whenever he’d complained about Tom’s associate, amusement clear in her eyes as she blamed his southern sensibilities for his irritation but he knew a diversion tactic when he saw one. Especially one launched by his lovely wife.

“What do I mean?,” he echoes, grabbing Ron by the arm and whirling him around, forcing him to meet his gaze head on. “Are you… are you kidding me right now? All of this!,” and Goose throws his arms out, as if that was enough to encompass everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours. As if it was enough to encompass the fear clawing at his throat at the sight of Mav laying bloodless and prone on the bed while Tom was simply gone.

“What answer could you possibly have to explain any of this?,” he demands, practically yelling as the frustration rises like bile in the back of his throat. All around him the chattering grows louder, the words forming an unknown melody that tears at his patience, making his head pound.

“Just –,” and Goose wants to scream, he wants to grab Ron by the shoulders and shake the answers out of him; anything to get him to react.

“Are you even human?"

[junewild]

local girl forgets what a heelhook is 13 times in a row

[bravevolunteer]

what if we kissed on the wiki page for disembowelment

[marinerainbow]

//I can imagine Poppy gathering flowers or cutting dress fabric in the other room and singing one of these two songs https://youtu.be/y8CANw0gblY?si=ElLOiBaifPwGORaB

https://youtu.be/VBfW0bTSSmk?si=gg4pa6khVe_sC9FX

And Smarty's ears perk up because he never knew she could sing! So he stops to listen and feels somewhat relaxed and sits in his chair smoking his stogie and when Poppy enters he's asleep with his hat over his eyes.

Oh my god!!! This is so cute. She'd totally sing songs about love, or just lovely things in general. I can also see her singing Daisy Bell!

Or, if she was in a different kind of mood (*cough* or a stage singer), she'd sing some blues, or just slower paced songs in general I can see her singing songs like Is You Is or Is You Ain't My Baby?

As for that Smarty-Pop imagine, yes!!! I love that so much. Poppy would find him, be a little surprised, and then wonder if he really heard her. But then she'd smile, realizing that she actually got her stressed friend to relax that much, and also appreciate seeing the rare sight if a Smartass with his guard completely lowered. She'd throw out the burnt out cigar, see if there's any way she can make him more comfortable (like taking off his jacket or any jewelry that looks like it's about to slip off and clatter), and then let him rest and try to make sure none of the others disturb him <3

How do you get all these amazing ideas???

Hm... I'm not entirely sure if I want Poppy to be skilled in singing? She's definitely not on Shiny's level. But in general, I imagine her voice is more soft. The kind that would probably be best singing lullabies? And she doesn't really sing that often. Only while listening to music and she's absorbed into the song, or she's off in her own little world. But she does notice when her voice cracks or she carried the tone wrong, and will remember to try singing the lyric a different way next time. So she may not be the most practiced singer, she does have the skills an at home singer would have, if that makes sense?

But at the same time, the thought of Poppy surprising everyone when she plays the piano and sings along the lyrics and tune is a nice thought. So I'll have to think on this one more.

[toastsnaffler]

ughhhh

[pseudowho]

"Why the fuck...does this vacuum cleaner smell like cheese?"

Kento was yet to arrive home, and you saw this as only a blessing for him. Staring down the barrel of the hoover, the house finally hushed from the sounds of rowdy children, you wore your finest holey tank top, and pyjama shorts which covered asscheek, pussy and belly (but only ever two at a time, at any given time).

Your antiperspirant didn't have the same stamina as you. You swore as you trod barefoot on Lego, staggering and cussing like a mad old witch.

Bra-less, and without the time to scout the laundry pile for underwear, you hoovered crumbs and war-detritus like a skrunkly raccoon; hungry, cross, and in need of a shower. Your mind was lost, running between the alleyways of your chore-list, when the door clicked open, and closed.

You vacuumed, and vacuumed, not even looking up as you heard the rhythmic tack, tack, tack of his brown Oxfords approaching.

"There she is."

As if you were the Venus de Milo.

You grunted, lifting the rug and picking up an abandoned, squashed peach with an ugh! and cursed your sleeping offspring. You stood up with a huff, blowing sweaty hairs off your face, your breasts swinging independently of you.

"How's my darling wife?"

Pristine as ever, crisp and ironed and with the faintest tang of sweat and cologne, you wondered if Kento would ever arrive home looking like he'd been intimately acquainted with a trash can. The day had not yet come. Whiskey-deep eyes drank you in, parched.

Your heart ached with how handsome he looked, and how pathetically mismatched you were against him.

"Kento. You're home."

"Mmmm."

Either in confirmation, or having seen something delicious; you weren't sure. You suspected the latter. You scoffed as his hands reached out to slip round your raggedy waist, and you scoffed, and he shushed you, and you berated him, and he mumbled sweet nothings into your neck until you were finally folded into him, his missing ingredient.

And how he looked at you, as if you'd hung the stars and orchestrated the seasons.

You breathed him in, lax against the brick-wall solidity of him. You could have cried.

You still had sloppy peach remnants in your hand as Kento kissed you, soft and mellow and longing. You huffed against his lips.

"Kento, I am a fucking mess--"

"You're lovely--"

"--I absolutely am not--"

"--ravishing--"

"--you're ridiculous--"

"--gorgeous--"

"You're an idiot."

"I've missed you."

"God, I've missed you too. So much. You don't even know."

"I'm sure I do."

You sighed, nuzzling your face into the hard planes of Kento's collarbones, growling away a day of frustration. His chuckles rumbled up, tickling your nose. You rested your cheek against Kento's chest, your weariness bone-deep, having had no agency over your body or your time since dawn.

You surveyed the carnage together in silence; toys strewn as if the bodies of soldiers, abandoned laundry with stains of suspect aetiology, congealed meals, lovingly prepared and never eaten. You felt the weight of the day threaten to overwhelm you, feeling the panic and anxiety climbing, tidal waves on your waterline--

"Sit down. I'll make you a cup of tea."

The floodgates almost opened. "I can't do that-- you've had a long day-- so much to do--"

"And, I'll do it."

"No you won't, I--"

"Sit down. And I'll make you a cup of tea."

A single, slow kiss to your sweaty forehead. You sniffled, no strength left for another battle. You offered paltry smiling complaints as Kento nuzzled your hair, gripping you closer, growling into your neck as you squeaked and laughed.

You felt the familiar heavy press and twitch of his cock against you, and he groaned as you squirmed in his grasp, giggling. You caught his eye, as he twinkled down at you, pressing one slow kiss to your lips, possessive and full of promise.

"...I'm not apologising for anything. You look incredible."

"Ridiculous man, Nanami Kento."

[oceantornadoo]

bad day (simon riley x reader, best friends to lovers)

honestly, you should have seen it coming. staying in a safe house with four men who have never ending stomachs? but today, it was the last straw.

“you ate my last cookie?”

soap’s face dropped, jaw open. your voice was on the verge of breaking, tears forming in your eyes. you never showed this much vulnerability in front of the team, and he was flabbergasted. he shot a look at gaz, who was equally as confused. “‘m sorry, bonnie, i didnae ken-“ you pushed your hands on the table, shoving your chair back and out. “it’s ok. gonna take a nap.” you were wiping your eyes furiously, feeling unstable. first you got your period four days early (asking price to add pads to the shopping list was something you never wanted to experience again), then you couldn’t find your heating pad, and now your cookies were out? maybe it was the hormones, but you were done.

“oof.” you had ran into a thick wall. scratch that, the wall was moving. your vision was blurred by tears you refused to shed that you didn’t even realize it was your closest friend ghost. “dove?” you hiccuped. why did he always have to be so nice to you? gruff and mean-sounding to everyone else, but an avid listener and sweet talker when it came to you. “jus’ trying to get to my room, didn’t see you. sorry l.t..” you tried to maneuver around him, but unfortunately a 6’4 machine of a man did not move easily.

“why you cryin’, baby?” shit, simon did not mean to call you that. he did not want to have this conversation right now, especially when you looked like you were about to break down. you were always so strong, having to work ten times harder as a woman in the military, and he was always careful to not undermine you or your struggles. unfortunately, that landed him firmly in the friendzone for the past year, unable to confess his feelings without breaking your trust. he maneuvered you to the closest room, which happened to be his. he sat down on the bed, intending to sit you down next to him, but instead you still stood, walking in between his parted legs.

“‘m sorry, just on my period and everything hurts and it’s all hitting at once.” your eyes were red, avoiding his. he could see you were in pain, and as someone who had endured enemy torture and the hardest forms of training, his heart never hurt as much as it did now. he reached a gloved hand towards your face, brushing away your tears. his other hand came to your lower belly, rubbing circles over your clothes. “shhh, ‘s okay. you wanna sit down?” you shook your head in disagreement. you felt like a child, but you were never allowed to be weak outside of your own room. for some reason today, you let simon riley see you weak.

you walked around his body and laid on top of his covers, curling into a fetal position. he let you get comfy, finding a way to lay down that lessened your cramps. finally, you were done moving. “si?” you never called him that unless you absolutely needed him. he got up and locked the door, not wanting to disturb your peace. “yeah, baby?” might as well use it now, you hadn’t complained. if anything your face softened when he said it, and simon riley would die a thousand deaths just to see a moment of relief on your face. “will you lay with me?”

he eagerly stripped out of his gear, climbing on top of his bed to lay down with you. he placed a hand on your arm, letting you choose where you wanted him. you dragged his hand under your sweatshirt, using it like a heating pad for your cramps. you let out a soft moan of pleasure and he answered it with a low growl, pulling you into him by the stomach. his thumb caressed your bare skin with small circles, memorizing every dip and valley. he strived to commit the moment to memory, not knowing if you’d ever be this vulnerable again. “feel better, dove?” you nodded, finally succumbing to sleep that had evaded you the past night. he smiled under his mask, placing a small kiss to the back of your head.

finally you were at peace, and all because of him.

[kurooh]

SUMMERTIME SEX.

☆ includes: aged up! bakugō katsuki, todoroki shōtō, kaminari denki, takami keigo.

☆ warnings: 18+ content, fem! reader, fluff + smut, not proofread..

☆ note: thank you to pinterest’s summertime bucket lists. happy summer! even if you hate it (: also experimenting with a new layout

KATSUKI.

— though he usually doesn’t care about what you wear and finds you gorgeous in everything, there’s something about seeing you wear sundresses or skirts that genuinely makes him go insane.

— “the red is fuckin’ beautiful on you, baby.” katsuki’s rough hand rests on your thigh, pushing the skirt of your dress up ever so slightly. he’s driving to the your favorite restaurant, reservations already booked and awaiting for you in a half hour.

— suddenly, not far from the restaurant, he pulls over into a semi empty parking lot and exhales hard, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. “okay, get in the damn back seat.”

— “why, katsu?” you ask innocently, adjusting your skirt so that it hikes up further, the lacy edge of your slutty panties peeking out at him.

— of course, he stares, his face warm. crimson eyes meet yours and he demands, “get in the backseat right now.” as you unbuckle and start to climb into the backseat, you wiggle your ass ever so slightly and he slaps it hard, drawing a surprised moan from you.

— immediately he’s in the backseat with you, all over you; his lips desperately slam into yours, his hands groping you all over. despite how badly he wants to see you naked, he doesn’t make any moves to pull your clothes off and instead twists his fingers into the fabric of your skirt in frustration.

— dazed from his kisses and on fire from his touch, your body falls back onto the seats and your legs spread for him, still in your skirt. he tugs your clothed pussy towards him, nearly tearing off your lace panties as he yanks them to the side. “careful, kat.”

— katsuki ignores your warning and eats you out rather roughly and quickly, sucking on your clit just right. he groans when you cum all over his tongue, his cock growing tight in his pants; he draws you into a sex flavored kiss and allows you to taste yourself on his lips.

— now, he yanks off his pants and boxers, leans back on the seats. he grips his cock at the base, “be a good girl and fuckin’ sit on it.” you reach to take your dress off and he shakes his head immediately.

— panties to the side and slicked up, you slowly push down onto his cock, gasping when the head nudges right against your sweet spot. katsuki groans desperately when you roll your hips onto him slowly, smacking your ass hard, another way of telling you not to be a tease.

— “okay, okay,” you relent, suddenly bouncing on him fast and hard. your red skirt rises and falls steadily, and he’s so fucking breathless. it’s uncharacteristic for katsuki’s eyes to roll back as much as they are now, for his mouth to be entirely dominated by sounds rather than words.

— “you like it, kat?” you smile at him, and it quickly dissolves into an expression of absolute pleasure. “i—fuck! you know i do, don’t stop,” his cock throbs inside of you, almost pulsing as he shakes beneath you.

— he cums with a shout, hissing as you ride him through it steadily, fending off your own in order to stay in charge like this. when you do eventually get close, he flips you over and fucks you through it, yanking your skirt to ground himself.

SHŌTŌ.

— the two of you were at a bonfire with friends and assistants of the agency, when you snuck away with shoto after one too many beers. now, behind a barnacle covered rock, you’re on your knees in front of him.

— “sho..” your moan is muffled on his large cock, which is pressed tightly between your lips and deeply at the back of your throat. he’s been stressed at the agency lately, coming home and having dinner with you and going to sleep, leaving no time for sex.

— of course, you were frustrated by this, hoping that the cause for his stress would finally blow over and he’d be back taking you in the hallway again. you’d seen his stress dissipate over the course of the 3 hour bonfire at the beach, over some beer. together, you drank and drank until he was grabbing at you and leading you behind some rocks on the shoreline.

— shoto hushes you, cupping the back of your head firmly and bucking his hips into your mouth. “oh god, i m-missed this so much, you have no idea,” he gasps, slurring some of his words. “i’ve missed you so much, my love.”

— your fingers slip past your swimsuit and rub sloppy patterns against your clit, trying to keep up with the pace of his thrusts into your mouth.

— you choke when he spears his cock into your throat a little too deeply; “i’m sorry, i’m so sorry—fuck!—your throat feels amazing, i’ve needed you so badly.”

— his balls smack against your chin and shoto continues to groan, the alcohol and horniness making him surprisingly talkative as he fucks your mouth. “it’s just, the people at that a-agency!” his cock stays hard, despite the fact that he’s thinking of his coworkers.

— out of the corner of you eye, you watch the waves crash on the sand, and after a particularly large one, the pace of his hips grows erratic. “ah—shit, i’m gonna fill up your mouth!”

DENKI.

— you and your boyfriend had been enjoying a picnic in the middle of a grassy field, far away from anyone in all directions. you shared fruit together, cuddled, watched clouds, but then things got a little sweeter.

— “denki!” you giggle with him as he lays you down on the picnic blanket, shifting his body so that he’s on top of you. his lips mesh with yours, and you taste the sweetness of the watermelon you’d shared with him earlier. your hand tangles in his soft golden hair, tugging gently, but just enough to draw a whine from his lips. denki’s hips grind against yours with a sloppy desperation, the lovely picnic and its food forgotten.

— he pulls his lips away, peppers kisses all over your cheeks, then starts to trail some down your neck. denki takes in your smell, the sounds you make, the feeling of your hips twisting beneath him; he nips at the soft skin, then sucks at it lovingly. “i want some more sugar,” he whispers against the shell of your ear, his breath warm against your hot skin.

— “denki, we just finished a whole watermelon.” “mmm, i’m not talking about fruit.” unable to hold it back, you let out a laugh, and he finds himself laughing with you.

— “may i?” he pulls away, and moves towards your pelvic area. his eyes sparkle with joy, and his fingers rub quick circles into your thighs. “of course.” your breath hitches when his fingers hook into the waistband of your panties, tugging them down your thighs. he flips your skirt up, then makes himself comfortable on his stomach, facing you. your thighs fall open easily, and his eyes are on yours as he moves to give your clit a kiss.

— denki’s large hands rest on your ass cheeks, his fingers digging into your skin as he swipes his tongue against you. he savors your taste, whining slightly as he dips his tongue inside you. all you can do is moan and shame as he fucks your pussy with his tongue; it feels so good, and yet so teasing.

— “babe, stop teasing me.” you jerk your hips towards him, spreading your thighs wider.

— “but it’s fun,” he disagrees, now licking your clit slowly. he stops playing his little games with you when your fingers twist in his soft hair, yanking his face right into your pussy.

— now, he’s fingering you roughly, and sucking at your clit as though it’s a lollipop. denki holds your thighs open when they shake, threatening to close on him as your orgasm mounts, the pressure inside of you becoming stronger by the second.

— “denki, i-i’m gonna cum, please please don’t stop..” he doesn’t stop, licking your clit hard as you cum and fingering your puffy pussy even after you do; he likes to hear you cry about how sensitive you are.

KEIGO.

— when there’s a blackout in the early evening due to a thunderstorm, the temperature in the house quickly rises to 85° f / 29 c. you and your boyfriend sit on the floor, covered in a thick sheen of sweat. you’re both eating melting popsicles and worrying about how you’ll sleep without the ac on. you are the first to rise to your feet, dropping your thin shorts and shirt on the floor. his wings flutter when he unabashedly looks over every inch of your body, and your cheeks warm at the obvious desire visibly thickening in his shorts.

— “kei, let’s take a cold shower together.” you groan in distaste as you sweep your fingers over your perspiring forehead. he stands, strips off his clothes, and pulls you into his arms bridal style.

— “where to, dove?” he nuzzles his nose against yours, then gives you a sweet kiss. giggling, you wrap your arms around his neck, “the shower!”

— when you arrive to the bathroom together, you’re barely out of his arms before his lips are on yours, eager hands impatiently pulling at boxers and panties. keigo moans as you lightly palm his hardened cock, fingers sliding from the base to the tip.

— “you’re perfect,” he mumbles against your cheek as he practically claws off your bra with one hand, the other tugging your body impossibly closer. thunder rumbles outside of your apartment, the room darkening as it starts to rain and storm outside.

— “oh, we probably shouldn’t be doing this,” you giggle, remembering the dangers associated with showering during storms. “fuck that,” is his swift answer, and he pulls open the glass door and turns on the faucet.

— as you stand closely beneath the misty spray, a warmth presses against your backside; you gasp when he angles his cock to slip between your thighs, his hot tip bumping against your slick folds.

— his wings shift behind him when you turn to look into his eyes. he kisses you, “bend over for me, okay?” you plant your hands against the shower wall and angle your ass towards him, arching your back just right. his wings flutter, and he moans at the sight of you, wet and ready for him. with one hand, he reaches behind him and shoves down his rising wings before he finally presses into you.

— just feeling your tight heat on his tip already has him gasping out, his eyes rolling back and his face crumbling as he pushes all the way inside. “o-oh, angel,” he moans, then laughs nervously, gripping your hips and thrusting into you steadily, “god, i’m already gonna cum.”

— he does end up filling you up rather quickly, but he doesn’t dare to pull out. keigo fucks your creamy pussy with tears in his eyes, shuddering as he forces himself through his refractory period and cums again. this time, he’s rubbing your clit, desperate to cum at the same time.

[dcxdpdabbles]

DCxDP fanfic Idea: Lights and Camera

"There he is," Tim whispered, looking out from behind the library bookshelves. Besides him, Bart, Kon, and Cassie lean over him, stacking each head on top of each other so they can adequately see who Tim is pointing out.

Across the libary, Babs shales her head with a sigh but doesn't call them out. For one, it would be unnecessary loud and another....well, she enjoys having blackmail on her vigilante coworkers and the Young Jutice team climbing on top of each other to stare at a random civilian was the good kind. She turns back to her list of books to stamp and scan back into the system.

Tim had mentioned seeing someone he wanted to recruit for his and his teammates' fake online clothes store. It was the cover the teens had come up with, for an explanation on how they all had such different backgrounds but had still become friends.

The other bats thought it was a mere cover, but Babs knew how seriously Tim took his fake store. It was mostly due to Tim's team making very realistic cosplay outfits that are commissioned to their site. Since they catered to such a nitch community Tim wanted each job to be perfect. (Also he's a nerd like that)

Or maybe it had everything to do with Tim's not-so-secret adoration of photography.

Bart made the clothes, Cassie and Conner modeled and Tim took all the photos. It helped that the speedster was used to making clothes in the post-apocalyptic future, but no one could deny his master of the needle. Cassie and Conner were both rather good looking, and they seemed perfectly fine with showing off this fact.

The thing is, their store is starting to gain traction. If it weren't for the fact, Bart could move as fast as he could, Just Us fashion would be behind orders for months.

Tim was worried someone would catch on and figured they should attempt to hire a co-tailor. They attempted to reach out to fellow heros but no one their age was interested and they seemed rather put off by the idea of asking a adult.

Everyone was still tense from the last time Young Justice asked the Justice League for help.

Tim then decided to attempt to find a civilian who would help them with smaller pieces. Or maybe someone he could throw in front of a camera and pretend Conner or Cassie had taken a step back from modeling to help out with the orders.

His team allowed him to search for someone since they had no idea where to start. Tim scouted through all of Gotham, and ended up landing on Danny Fenton.

Babs had looked into Fenton's background as a favor to Tim and to satisfy her own curiosity. There wasn't much to the boy. Born and raised in a small town in Illinois, Fenton dropped out of high school to get his GED around his junior year. The notes on his file by his English teacher, principal, and school counselor indicated he was bullied out of school.

He passed the exam on the first try and, within a year, moved four states away to join Gotham School of Arts with a major in fashion. His parents were certified geniuses with a family company working in security and "ecto-entities." His sister was going to Gotham University for a physiology major.

The Fentons are a comfortable upper middle class family with no criminal history; the only blemish on their record is Jack Fenton's speeding tickets.

Fenton lived in the better parts of the city, paying his way through college and his own expenses by working as a remote tech support for various companies. It seemed he had inherited a knack for computers from his parents.

Barbara wasn't sure what about Fenton stuck out to Tim. The boy barely participated in public events when it came to his fashion. He only turned in assignments, and unless Tim made a habit of walking through the school of arts, he would have never seen his work.

"Wait, is he wearing-?" Conner whispered, squinting at Fenton, who was tapping away on his laptop. "He is! That's Flame-Flame battle pants!"

"No way." Bart gasps, standing on his toes to lean closer. "They look so good! Where did he get them?"

"He made them," Tim says with a certain lift to his voice that Babs recognizes easily. Aw, her little computer partner has a crush. "He makes all kind of fandom merch that can be worn out in public."

"Tim, we got get him on the team. Look at that Flame-Flames sweatshirt! I need it" Cassie hisses, rocking in place. She nearly causes Conner- who was leaning on her- to tumble over. "Go talk to him."

"I can't"

At that, Babs glances up. She's never heard Tim be nervous to speak to anyone before. Yet that's what she finds as the Young Justice team disappear aroudn the coner surrounding a red face Tim.

"What do you mean you can't? Why not?" Conner asks

"Look, I already tried to recruit him but messed up my pitch." As he admits, Tim kicks his feet, not bothering to look anyone in the eye. When he locked eyes with me, I choked on my spit midsentence."

Cassie slaps a hand over her mouth, but she is not fast enough to hide the snicker that slips through. The glare she gets from the only regular human could have sent her to her uncle Hades. "I'm sorry, you choked on your spit? Mr. CEO of WE? Mr. Suave? Mr. New Lover, every other Tuesday?"

"Shut up you don't get it! He was dressed in a really cool outfit of the Ninjas of Konoha, okay!? I wasn't prepared."

Barbara glances at Fenton as the team attempts to tease Tim. Rather loudly. It's like they forget they are in a really old building, so the acoustics pick up their voices really easily.

Based on his blushing face and hunched-over form, Fenton can obviously hear them. He keeps sending short glances to the shelf the other teens hide in. Fenton glances at his computer screen before rapidly fixing up his hair and straightening his clothes.

He fixes his scattered papers just as Tim rounds the corner of the bookshelves, looking rather nervous as he scoots to Fenton's desk. Babs watches the remaining young juice team whisper and shout encouragement as Tim stands next to Fenton.

Fenton's face, if possible, go even redder, and much to Babs' shock, he even starts to twirl the end of his ponytail around his figure as Tim starts talking.

This is cute. She thinks, aiming her camera phone at the pair. Taking three different shots, each displaying Tim's fumbling mess and Fenton's obvious interest, she quickly sends it to the bats with an evil smirk. And sort of pathetic.

She gets answers instantly, almost everyone teasing Tim or making "They grow up so fast" comments. The messages make a warm feeling of the family burn in her chest, reminding her of all that they argue about; the Bats truly care for one another.

It's Bruce's thoughts that shatters the chat with a simple text.

Why is Tim flirting with the Ghost King?

Babrbara stares at the words for a long moment before she types

Babs: What do you mean? Who's the Ghost King?

Bruce: That's the Ghost King or his human form. He rules the ghosts and our flip dimension. The Justice League Dark has him marked as a level 15 threat.

Damian: I beg your finest pardon? There are only five other beings on that threat level.

Bruce: Exactly. Tim knows not to speak to him.

Steph: Ugh Bruce none of ous knew that.

Bruce: He was in the yearly safety warning PowerPoint. You all said you reviewed it.

Jason: That thing is nine hours long! Of course, not all of us would actually look through it.

Bruce: I worked very hard on it. :'(

Duke: Guys? Shouldn't we worry about Tim? I mean is the Ghost King going to hurt him

Bruce: No, he's known to be very benevolent. Just as long as you don't accidently insult him.

"I'm not a whore!" The voice cuts through the air like a bullet. Barbara glances up just in time to see Tim backing up with a panicked expression as Fenton sneers.

He quickly gathers his things with a flick of his wrist, having all left in a bright green glow, and pushes by the shuttering vigilante. He stomps his way out of the library with an inhuman growl.

Tim throws his face into his hands with a wail of dispair. "I should have never listen to Dick's flirting advice!"

Barbara slaps a head over her forehead before texting the rest. So Tim may have called the King a whore.

Bruce: This is why I ask you to read my safety PowerPoint.

[sexilene]

boy nextdoor!jj is so hot hehe him choking me while he fucks me in a matting press AHHHH. want to see him smirking down at me through his floppy blonde hair wet with sweat as he puts his other hand over my mouth so my parents don’t wake up :3

ohmygoodness stop it right now. the way i smiled reading thisss pleaseeee!!! adding this to the kinktober list cuz why not!! #19 (ignore any spelling mistakes sorry lol!)

anotha little boynextdoor!jj x girlnextdoor!reader thought ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪

when your boyfriend does manage to sneak in through the window by climbing on a tree…he usually spends the night. your parents go to sleep fairly early, like soon after dinner early, so that gives you and jj some alone time in the dark without worrying about one of your parents randomly entering your room to check on you. it's happened before and though jj is getting better at running to find a hiding spot, it's is not ideal.

your parents figure you like to fall asleep to the tv you have in your room watching your little movies, and that it’s the movies making the little sounds. while that is true on some nights, this time around both the tv, you and your boyfriend are making sounds.

“jay!” you squeal when he throws your legs over his shoulders, bending down again to press his flushed hard cock deeper into you. “shhh, gotta be quiet, like a little mouse, quiet okay?” he shushes you, your little movie still on in the background, providing a decent amount of light to illuminate his features and yours.

“uh huh…okay” you nod, still a little dazed due to the past two orgasms he gave you by fingering you a little over 20 minutes ago. once he pushes into your puffy pulsing heat, he wraps a strong hand around your throat and starts to squeeze down, causing you to furrow your eyebrows and grip the hand on your neck. jj is practically trapping you there, underneath him getting incessantly plowed by his big dick.

“wanna hold my hand?” he offers you the hand that’s not on your neck, you mewl at his sweetness, he’s still trying to make you feel as loved and safe as possible even if he is fucking you like he hates you.

“mhmm!”

“here babydoll” he takes your hand in his, the sounds of skin slapping skin faintly bouncing off the walls, not wanting to risk waking the whole neighborhood up with the way he really wants to be pounding into you right now.

your lips are swollen from his kisses, drool threatening to escape the corners of your lips, tear stains on your cheeks glisten due to the lighting, your hair all messy, and still jj thinks you look like the prettiest little thing.

“y’look cute, c’mere” your boyfriend grunts, pulling you up by your neck for another kiss, “harder jayjay, please harder!” you whisper, needy as ever.

“i know babe,” jj chokes you harder and uses his other hand to rub your clit in fast circles, “g’nna cum again!” you squeal out.

“gonna wake up your parents, hold on,” he takes his hand off your neck and covers your mouth to keep you from making any more loud noises, as much as he loves to hear them….

“alright kittie cat no more screamin’ or im gonna have to press your face into the pillow,” he whispers in your ear.

“mph- nmm” your words muffled by his big hand,

“yeaaaah good girl, almost done baby, just keep takin’ it…” he bends your legs back further into a mating press and starts thrusting in again. the position causing his dick to go in deeper and hit the spots that make you melt. that combined with the way both your bodies all sticky with sweat and how he smells all salty and musky, makes you roll your eyes back and then squeeze them shut.

“h-ha…shit, y’so warm and wet holy fuck i love you so much.” jj grits through his teeth, bringing that hand back down to play with your pulsing clit. you whine into his hand as you cum hardddd on his dick, squeezing him so hard he can barely pull out to thrust in again.

“shhh sh sh, there you go…reaaal yummy huh?” he coos, bringing that hand back up to choke you again, “baby girl likes getting choked huh? dont’cha?”

you try and make a sound but you just can’t with how hard he’s squeezing your neck. “yeeeeaaah she likes it, little pussy gushes on me when i squeeze your throat like…thisss…” he gives a few final hard sloppy thrusts, letting go of your neck to give you a breathing break, sweat dripping down his chest, before he shoots hot strings of cum into your cervix.

he doesn’t pull out to keep all that cum stuffed in you and bends down to give you wet sloppy ‘good job’ kisses, whispering an ‘i love you’ after every kiss.

“think we were pretty quiet this time?” your boyfriend whispers looking into your eyes, and all you can do is give him doe eyes, pout and let out a little “mph!” ⋆𐙚₊˚⊹♡

[prael]

STEPS

Newjeans Hanni smut (M reader) - the title is a hint to the TW.

6.6k words

Masterlist donations/commissions

It didn't happen through a cliché.

Well, maybe it did, but not one of those where she's stuck head-first into some kitchen appliance or something of that ilk, though you would say this really did happen by accident.

What? She tripped, fell, landed on your dick?

Not quite like that, but the point still stands. You didn't begin that day, or even that evening, intending to fuck your step-sister, but, well…

"My apartment. My TV. My choice," you told her, as you have so many times before.

"But this film is supposed to be the best. It's got great reviews. Dani loved it..." Hanni was talking far too fast to even really pay attention. She soon started reeling off a cast list and everyone involved, and how this review called it a revelation to the genre, but you had long since started ignoring her. You know how she gets. Excitable beyond the point that someone normally would be. It's an endearing trait, if not also annoying. The rundown of her reasons was cut short as she threw her body at you in attack.

"Hanni! What are you—"

"Just gimme the controller already!" She shouted right into your ear as she threw her arms over your shoulders. You held it out in front of you, keeping her behind your back so her arms couldn't reach; not that it stopped her from trying. "Just one time. Please? Pretty pretty please?"

You climbed up from the sofa. Hanni clung to your back like a young panda, with her legs locked tight around your waist and her arms still fumbling around. You grabbed her by the ankle, trying to pry it away so you could drop her, or something, anything other than letting her continue. "Alright fine. Just let go, you idiot. You’re going to tear my arm off."

She loosened her hold, just enough for you to swing her around; one arm and leg slipping free so you could throw her onto the couch. In your flailing she managed to take the TV remote with her, but the moment of peace, of silence, of satisfaction in hearing your idiot sister bounce against the cushions before breaking into a laugh and asking, "what the hell was that for?"

"What did I ever do to deserve the step-sister from hell?" You said as you flopped down at the opposite end of the couch.

"Have a mother hot enough that my dad wanted to fu—"

"You're sick." You cut her off before she finished. She smirked, lifting her sock-clad feet onto the sofa and settling in for movie night. She brought her knees up below her chin and started flicking through the options on the screen to find the one she wanted. Her eyes were wide in her stare, her lower lip bitten. It was pretty much the last time you ever looked at her in this innocent way again.

It was another one of those shitty horror flicks. The kind that didn't even slightly live up to the billing she gave it before. This, however, was Hanni's thing—whenever she convinced you, or otherwise, to finally give up control of your TV, she would put on one of these cheap horror movies and spend the whole night tucked behind a cushion.

As much as you tried for it not to be, it's become something of a ritual, pretty much any night that she was at home, and not unbelievably tired from being overworked and didn't have to be up at the break of dawn.

It's your acceptance of things like that which really showed how much the two of you had grown. You remember fighting for your life against your mother and stepfather to not have to take her in. Convinced that if she wanted to move into the city so badly, she could get her own place, or go to one of those company dorms. Ultimately, you were made to see reason. Your apartment is close to her company, and you had a spare room, after all.

Not that she ever stopped annoying you beyond belief.

The movie, if you could call it that, had you fall into a slumber, and when you woke up Hanni had crawled across the length of the couch and was laid against you, her arms wrapping one of your own. She didn't even realise you had woken up, staring as the credits rolled with a slight, peaceful smile on her face.

She had tied her hair up by now into a ponytail, pulling the hair away from her mostly bare shoulder, where the thin strap of her cropped pyjama top rested. As you peeked down at her, your eyes accidentally fell on the space down her top. It wasn't your fault; they were just right there.

"Shit..." you muttered, catching Hanni's attention.

"Still alive there?" She chuckled a little as she gently patted her palm against your cheek. You feigned a yawn and shut your eyes, settling your head against the pillow once more.

"Hanni, put something else on. This movie is dumb."

"You fell asleep after like ten minutes."

"Yeah, and it seems it didn't take long for you to use me as a body pillow."

Hanni pursed her lips. A red flush ran through her cheeks, and then she quickly sat up. You were watching her the whole time through half-open eyes, chuckling under your breath at her reaction.

"You're an idiot," she says. "Always have been."

You shrugged in reply, "And you're easy to tease, always will be."

"Asshole." She kicked at you.

She tried to kick again, and you caught her foot. You held her bare leg in the air and then lightly kicked her back, hitting her thigh.

"Let go! I'll kick you again. Asshole!" She shouted at you, again and again, struggling to break her foot free from your hand. When you finally let her go, all her struggles made her stumble off the couch. As she went, you kicked out again, this time catching her right on the ass. "Ah! Fuck be careful you hit my plu—" She brought her hands right to her mouth when she realised what she was saying.

"Your what?" You asked.

Hanni cleared her throat, blushing to the point of matching the colour of her red short shorts. "Nothing."

She turned away from you. Just standing there. There's a part of you that wishes that you could go back to this moment. You would have left it there and gone to bed—never kicking her a third time.

But you did it.

Your foot flicked gently against her ass a final time and you felt it. Something hard tucked between the softness of her cheeks. She yelped again. You pinpoint this moment as the catalyst for everything that followed. It’s the part where her innocent image crumbled before your eyes and that’s what allowed you to do what you did. Though really, can you ever be sure that if it didn’t happen now, it wouldn’t have just happened the next day, or next week, or a few months down the line? You tell yourself it was inevitable.

"Is that what I think it is?"

She spun around, facing you once more, trying to muster something. She stumbled over and stuttered her words. "No! I... it's not mine. Minji loaned me one for... just to try... it's not." She held the bridge of her nose and closed her eyes. "This is... oh, god. This is so embarrassing."

Hanni slumped back onto the sofa and pressed a cushion tight against her face. "Why'd you loan it?" You ask her, only to see her tighten her grip.

"Because."

"Because what?" You sat up by her side and said something that at the time you thought would make it better, but looking back, probably came off rather creepy. "I clean your room, Hanni. I have seen worse things."

Hanni slowly dropped the cushion into her lap and looked at you with a glare. "The fuck?"

"And if you're going to use my laptop, try deleting the history." At this point, you were just piling on the embarrassment.

"Fuck! Oh my God, what did you see?" She threw the cushion into your face.

You picked it out of the air. "Nothing." You lied.

"Bullshit!" Hanni swore. "Did you see everything?"

"Nothing at all..." you said sarcastically while standing up. "I definitely didn't see all the step-brother porn you were binging last week."

She screamed and jumped up. You threw the pillow to stop her and stepped out of reach. "I hate you! You freak!" she shouted, cheeks burning red as the fury rose within her.

"Says the chick wearing a buttplug." You taunted her again as you darted across the room away from her.

"What happened to boundaries!?" She lunged at you again, and you quickly sidestepped her. 

She tried jumping at you once more and missed, only to strike her knee against the corner of the coffee table. She hopped back on one leg with the pain.

"You're an asshole, you know that!?" she shouted, holding onto her knee. You stepped closer, thinking she was really hurt. Until she used the chance to lunge at you and grab you. "What's wrong with a girl enjoying some fantasy? Not like I want to actually fuck you."

You realise now that the proper thing to do would have been to match her disgust. Tell her something along the lines of how the thought repulses you. Continued to tease her about how fucked it is that she would even look at that sort of stuff. The whole thing could have dissolved, but it's when she had hold of you, hammering her fist into your arm, that you said, "don't you?"

Then the long silence ensued. The one that said a hundred unspoken words. As her punches turned into light taps and then to her just holding onto your upper arm. She looked up at you with her pretty eyes open wide. Her lips parted slightly and the tip of her tongue rested on the bottom one as if she had something to say, but the words wouldn't come.

That's the first time you kissed her. Your own step-sister, a girl who should be off-limits in every conceivable way. Yet she opened her mouth and accepted you in that moment. The taste was so sickly sweet.

It was brief, but it told you everything you needed to know, and everything seemed to spiral from there.

First, there was the confusion. The immediate aftermath where you both let go of each other to turn away. Your backs turned on one another as the awkwardness reached its peak. Neither of you was willing to confess the enjoyment of that little exchange.

Then came the passing of the blame. First, it was Hanni who turned to you with a "What the fuck are you doing?"

And you replied with "Me!? You're the one who kissed me!"

She scoffed and shouted a response, "That was all you! Stop being such a perv, freak!" Hanni stomped past you towards her room, face half-full of anger and topped off with shame.

"I'm the perv? You're the one who I hear moan through the walls while, apparently, watching step-brother porn! I think that makes you the messed up one!” you called after her.

A pause. The hesitation. The possibility of confession. She reached her door, and it flew open. In she walked before slamming it closed with a, "you're sick!"

You stared at the door and vainly said under your breath, "you're the sick one." In your head you had realised the real truth to that; how maybe you're both sick because, as the dust settled, you can only think about a handful of things.

The kiss. Her ass. Her cute little tits.

You didn't see her again for the rest of the evening. She reserved herself to her room, while you resigned to the couch with nothing but the television keeping you company.

It had been a long time since you had a shouting match like that with Hanni. See, it used to happen all the time when she first moved in. The problem with a girl like her whose whole world revolves around singing, dancing, media training and beauty is that she lacks any sense of what it's like to be an independent adult. It seemed like the fights would never end, on account of her being seemingly incapable of washing a dish, her clothes or even cooking the most simple of things without burning it or setting something on fire.

But this? This is uncharted territory.

The night wound down, and you were headed to bed, but you found yourself outside her door. Your hand raised, ready to knock. Your breath held. Right when you finally built enough courage is when you heard it. Heard her. Moans muffled through the wood of her door. Your stomach knotted. Your groin twitches.

You lingered, unable to tear yourself away. Even as your logical side began arguing with you that you were in the wrong. That you're probably the worst sort of pervert imaginable and you should feel nothing but guilt.

The other voice, the more confident one; the devil on your shoulder told you that it's Hanni's fault. You had just warned her, and this is what she did in response, like it’s all some sort of game. You refused to admit to yourself that hearing her groaning, whimpering, and moaning through the wall influenced you—tempted you.

Louder and louder. Her voice raised higher, getting to the point where you knew she was practically screaming in the throes of pleasure. Harder and harder you grew. The rational side of you was saying that you should ignore it. Just go to sleep. Forget about it.

"Fuck!" she moaned, and you remained, listening through the door—lost in imagination.

Then you heard footsteps. Bare feet patting on wooden flooring coming closer and closer towards the door. A rush to retreat and you slipped toward your bedroom door. You barely reach the handle before the door across the hall opens.

There was a moment. The two of you locked eyes. Every fibre in your being fought against looking down.

"What?" she asked with a stone-cold expression.

"Nothing." You said, and your willpower broke. You glanced down. Completely naked, she stands at the door, her nipples peaked to fine little tips. And your gaze drifted down her soft curves and slender figure, her wide hips and full thighs.

"Nothing," she mocks.

Her eyes glanced down for a second, then back to your face, and her gaze narrowed. You panicked, dipped into your room and slammed the door just like she did earlier. You press your back to it, the cool wood against your burning body. Your mind raced.

Her feet slapped again against the wooden floor and headed toward the bathroom. That should have been that. You slipped into your bed, frustrated and confused. The sound of the shower running quickly drifted through the walls, but her cries from earlier replayed in your mind until you fell asleep.

That should have been that.

You woke to the darkness of the room—not the morning sunshine—sometime later. Half in a haze, not quite conscious yet, but something had roused you from your slumber: a movement under the sheets and a strange sensation. Warm and damp. Your eyes flicked open, adjusting to the darkness. Your hands jerked reflexively toward your groin and then your senses sharpened.

Someone between your legs. A warm and wet something sliding up and down the shaft of your hardness. Tongue? Yeah, a tongue. Your fingers reached and buried themself into hair. Stomach muscles spasmed as your hips thrust up on their own. Your lips parted as you moaned, "Fuck."

You glanced down.

Hanni.

Naked.

The tip of your cock at her mouth, lips pursed around it. Her smiling eyes sparkled and her skin glimmered, bathed in moonlight coming through the open curtains. Hanni giggled when your eyes met. Your hand dropped to her shoulder.

"Hanni..." Your throat choked dry, and you pushed at her shoulder.

"Shhh." The word whispered against your sensitive tip.

"What the hell are you..." You tried to ask, but Hanni shook her head before sucking in a breath. Then she drew the length of your cock into her warm, wet mouth and the question escaped you. "Holy shit," you gasped.

"This can be our dirty little secret," she said when she lifted her head, fingers stroking you. "We can pretend it didn’t happen in the morning, but for the rest of the night," her finger tickled down the underside of your cock as she spoke, "it can be as real as you want it to be."

You remember being convinced that it was a dream. Maybe one that you would wake up from with a mess in your shorts and, honestly, that probably would have been bad enough—having a wet dream about your step-sister. Reality intruded and threatened to drag you back from your delusion. Hanni took you into her mouth again and it was so very real.

There was no doubting the pleasure, and it was too good to make her stop. You took your hand away from her shoulder, allowing her to do as she pleased. Maybe if it was just a dream, you could allow yourself to indulge in the madness just one time…

"Fucking hell, Hanni." The words slipped from you, and with it, her warm mouth left your throbbing cock.

You peered down at her. She wiped the drool from the sides of her lips and smiled at you. Her eyes were wide as she lowered her head and slipped your dick into her warm mouth once more. Your body jolted as she put her tongue to work. She swirled the tip along the contours and ridges, then licked down the underside of the shaft and then right back up the top, leaving a thin film of saliva on your hardness.

She clasped her hand around you and it all felt far too real. Mixed emotions. There was a cold sense of terror in your heart, even with the heat of arousal radiating all over. The things she did with her lips and her tongue made you doubt your sanity.

"Does that feel good?" She said as she took a quick pause, stroking her hand along the full length. She had just caught her breath in the one moment where she stopped sucking, the first chance where her mouth wasn't busy trying to draw the soul out of you through the tip of your cock.

"You were right." She spoke almost as quickly as your mind spun. "About... the step-brother thing. It feels sick, and gross, and... wrong. It makes me feel dirty." Hanni pauses for a second, seemingly running her eyes over your body and then asks, "how depraved does it make me that it gets me really, really horny?"

Hanni had no clue that the same thoughts filled the back of your mind. Only that you weren't able to string it into words like she did. She was right. It felt really wrong, and yet there was a rush to do something that should never be done. This was where the next step began. The breaking of the boundaries. The perverse excitement in the face of the taboo.

Her hand reached out behind her and pulled back the sheets that covered her body. She was crouched between your spread legs, head still by your cock, her soft ass in the air. The cool light from the moon kissed her skin as she slowly slipped her fingers between her plump cheeks. "And this only made it worse. I've been so horny ever since I started wearing it."

Her hand moved slightly, just out of view behind her, and she let out a breathy moan.

"Hanni. What're you—

You're interrupted. "It hurt a little at first. Just a bit but you get used to it, and if it's in a good spot, if you hit it right..." She kept touching herself in front of you, and another breathy gasp escaped her lips and then she looked up at you still lying there. "What are you waiting for? Isn't this what you want?"

That's when you stirred. Reciprocated. You sat up and she rose to meet you. In seconds, you were embracing. Frenzied. Wild. All teeth and tongues and roaming hands. Shorter than you. So much smaller. She let out a yelp when you grabbed her, though she instantly silenced it by shoving her tongue back in your mouth and kissing you deeply.

Pressed against your bare chest, her breasts felt small but supple, perfect little handfuls. Her waist is slender beneath your grasp. The thick flesh of her thighs was so full and shapely. When she opened her eyes, they had such want. Lust—pure and undeniable.

So close, and the faint whimpers at her throat are a seduction. You felt it was an invitation, and your lips kissed her chin, trailing kisses down her neck. "Yes. Yes. Yes..." she encouraged you lower. Your tongue tasted the saltiness of her skin, teeth grazing and then pinching softly. Her arms were tight around your head, nails biting into the base of your neck.

She trembled at your every caress, shook each time you teased a pert nipple. Gasped louder each time you nibbled her collarbone. You turned, lifting her, and then she fell back and presented herself to you. Her legs splayed open and her bare, wet cunt dripping, begging you to take it, but...

"No," you told yourself, "it's too fast," and you began a line of kisses down her stomach, beginning at her cleavage and trailing straight down her stomach. The muscles beneath her pale skin twitched and clenched in response and her breath had gone erratic. You reached her belly button and she hooked her legs over your shoulder, and when you dipped further she clenched her thighs and squeezed as you toyed with her.

You remember savouring the moment. Savouring the pleasure, savouring the veniality.

"Lower, please," she begged in the most needy voice. "Please, I... fuck, oh, fuck please..."

It's hard to describe it all.

Somehow, in the night, you both reached a state of understanding. A state of consensual debauchery that came with a sense of agreement; a pact signed with tongue on skin in this moment of depravity.

You kissed her, playfully moving between her legs. Thigh to thigh, to dangerously close to her wet core, and there you lingered. The air grew humid. Hanni's sweet scent filled your nose. You ran your hands up her legs and felt the warmth in your palms. She gripped onto the hair at the top of your head; her fists tightened.

"Why're you teasing me, asshole?"

Hanni's moans grew louder and more needy when you used your tongue against her. Her legs wrapped tight, hooking behind your back. There was something satisfying about her reactions to your actions, something exciting about seeing her squirm.

The tip of your tongue ran up the lips of her cunt, dipping between the fleshy folds and coming to suck upon her swollen clit. Her eyes widened at the touch, and her jaw slacked to the point her words went incoherent. Her whole body spasmed as she arched and moaned out something filthy.

One moment you had hold of her thigh, feeling her clench up and quiver, the next you found that your fingers had moved downward and pressed against her slick opening. At the slight touch of your fingertips to the tenderness there, a short cry slipped out of her again. She tightened and clenched around them as you pushed in deeper.

"Who's teasing?" you asked before you buried yourself to the knuckles in her.

A smirk formed, and Hanni was about to speak, but no words came. You pumped her at a steady pace, curling your digits within her while lapping at her clit. The taste of sin never tasted so sweet. 

The combination drove her insane, and it didn’t take long until you were on the verge of making your step-sister cum.

You wrapped your lips around that swollen nub of hers and flicked it with the tip of your tongue, faster and harder, until her many moans became one, long, drawn-out and passionate, as a climax rocked through her.

Her ass lifted off the bed and her legs quivered, shaking uncontrollably while her fingers tugged painfully at the hairs on the back of your head. She jerked and gasped with a look of ecstasy on her face as she moaned your name over and over, almost reaching a scream. Your name on her lips again, and again, and you were drunk on this euphoria.

She released your head, and you postured over her, still slipping a pair of fingers into her, but slower. She drew a deep, trembling sigh and forced a smile, watching you. "I hate you," she managed.

"Do you?" you asked as you drew your cum-soaked fingers out of her. Her legs rested on your hips and the underside of your stiff cock was against her pussy. You reached around her hip, to her ass, to the plug still sat between her cheeks. Hanni hissed at your touch, biting her lip at the sensation.

"Yes. I hate you," Hanni whimpered, giving the softest moans as you tugged on the metal. Her eyelids fluttered.

"Why?" you asked.

"I just do," Hanni weakly gasped, struggling to stay strong in the moment. "You make me feel things. Things I shouldn't feel. It shouldn't be this easy."

"In that case. I hate you too, sis'."

There was this moment after you said that, where you shared a stare. Maybe the most confusing stare of your life. Calling her sis', in this position, should have been horrifying. And it was, but only at a peripheral level. Otherwise, it felt surprisingly... hot.

You dipped into her for another kiss, and this one seemed ever more ravenous than the last. You kissed with hunger and her hand ran around the back of your head. Kissed as lovers would. She was just as aroused as you and eager for more.

Slow and soft, you rocked yourself against her wetness. Your length dragged between her lips, up over her clit, and down again to poke at her entrance. You moved over and over, enjoying the tease.

The slow, sticky friction between the two of you. Her breath was sharp, as you slipped yourself over her and kissed at her neck. Every rock of your hips, she ground back against you.

"I think..." She hesitated. "Fuck. I think I'm ready. Just... go slow?"

The guilt of what's happened was a distant thing, a buzzing fly on a summer afternoon. The kind of thing that when you're so enthralled by something else, it becomes invisible. Then, with a nod and a shivering sigh, she reached down and gripped your cock. You bent back from kissing her so she could guide you.

Her tiny cunt. Her beautiful wetness. Her forbidden, decadent treasure.

Her breath was shaky. Her next words came out amid a tremble, "I've never... No one else."

You brushed stray strands of hair out of her face and ran your hand over her cheek. You gave her the reassurance she needed.

She told you, a few weeks later, how grateful she was that it was you. See, for all the filth that ran through her mind on an almost daily basis, she never imagined what it would be like. It being you—who you are and everything you meant to her—made it easy. Natural. Wonderful.

That first time, you took it all so slow. With her legs raised over yours. Watching the subtle changes in expression as you gradually moved more and more of your cock into her. Sinking deep between her pink, delicate walls. Your step-sister, panting and squirming beneath you.

"You okay?" you asked her.

"Ah... yes. This is... I love it," she responded between whining breaths.

It was just enough, the reassurance, so you could push into her the rest of the way. Her hand found its way to your shoulder; bracing as you eased in, her delicate frame tensing as you buried fully.

You watched her reaction and tried to be still as you felt her slick cunt pulse around you, wanting you. She swallowed and gripped you with the muscles within her. The second of respite didn't last long though; you weren't sure if it was a request or accident when her feet tapped against the curve of your ass, but it prompted you to fuck her.

"Feels... fuck." You sucked your breath between your teeth and braced yourself up on a shaky arm. You drew out slowly, and you noticed her nails digging into the arm you supported yourself upon. 

You groaned in relief more than anything else as your hips pumped the shallow strokes that sent electricity through your body. She started pushing herself onto you as she clutched your back, drawing her heels over the small of your spine. You looked down to see her eyelids were flickering, and the sight only served to inflame you more. Her moans were so erotic and encouraging.

That first time, it was special. You took your time together to explore each other's bodies, the curves of hips, the muscles, the valleys and ridges. You caressed your stepsister's gorgeous body and then tried your best to put her through another climax, as if your efforts to reach your own were less important.

"Fuck you're so tight," you told her, during those final thrusts, buried to the hilt in her tiny, soft pussy.

She spoke, her voice weak and shuddering, "You're big... inside me..."

The fact that she held you tighter in her embrace and how it seemed that she refused to let you out of her even as she came apart was telling.

She came that night, again, this time all over your cock. The first of many times to come. A string of incomprehensible cries erupted from her in the throes of that first proper fuck. Hanni's thighs flexed around your hips. She clung desperately to your body as she cried into your mouth as she climaxed.

Not long after is when you felt it too, that impending release. A coil of pressure. Unfamiliar and intense. The mere thought of emptying inside her drove you mad. Your fingers dug into her hips as you fucked your step-sister with complete abandon.

"Don't. Not inside. Please, not inside," she murmured in an incoherent mantra of guilt and pleasure, right next to your ear.

You didn't, of course. You drove yourself right to the edge and pulled out. Her juices coated your length, slick and wet as your cock twitched in anticipation of the final moments. Hanni wanted your release as badly as you did. She took you into her hand for the finish, gripping tightly and jerking that first hot shot of cum onto her soft tummy. You thrust through her hand to let the pleasure course through you. Each thrust sent a long rope splattering onto her naked skin as she grinned up at you, flushed and sweaty, covered in your lust.

That was the first night, but definitely not the last.

The next morning arrived with Hanni in your arms—the little spoon. The little naked spoon pressed against your body. Skin to skin. She woke you with the slow rocking motion of her body, grinding her plump cheeks against you.

"I could get used to this," she whispered under her breath, smiling against the crook of your arm. "Good morning," she said to you over her shoulder. "Sleep well? You had some pretty naughty dreams last night, didn't you?"

You responded with your erection growing against the warm crevice of her butt and a gentle hum as her ass rocked over it. That was no dream. "I did," you said groggily. "As naughty as yours."

"Mmmm," is all she had as a response, lost in the pleasant distraction, grinding herself back into you even more. As she did so, you grew harder, until your stiffness pressed against the plug still wedged into her ass. Hanni had left it there overnight. "The thing about dreams is that they're easy to forget. Want to remind me of mine?"

You ran your hand down her thigh, and that's how the second time started. You caressed her flesh for a while, feeling the softness of her thighs while she silently lay there, patiently allowing you to enjoy her.

Then, you grabbed her by the knee, opening her legs and then she spoke, "Are you going to make your step-sister cum again?"

So quickly did she become so utterly shameless. You grunted in reply and then you held her leg up by hooking under the knee, and shuffled down slightly, letting your hard cock slip from between her cheeks and go between her legs.

You closed your eyes and leaned into her. Lips at her shoulders, the kisses soon trailed to her neck. She hummed as you ground your cock between her folds. Not even putting in the effort to try to actually enter her just yet, just teasing your stepsister for the moment.

Her voice filled with the sweet sound of passion.

Your heart began pounding and a flush rose to your cheeks. You could have written that first night off as a mistake. One you would regret, forget and never make again. Not after this. This is a definitive choice. One of sound mind and body, not under the tension of an argument or anything else that happened before.

This is different.

Hanni reached her hand down between her legs, pulling your cock so it would slip into her when you shift your hips. "Fuck me," she begged.

You did. You slipped inside her and heard her moan in such sweet ecstasy. She gripped the pillow she slept on the night before, burying her face in it, and moaning into it in such sweet rapture. "Fuck, yes, harder," Hanni moaned.

When she pushed her hips back onto you, her ass brushed against your belly. The rhythm began. Slow. Lazy thrusts. Enjoying every sensation in the post-sleep haze, savouring the fact that you knew how good she felt on the inside. How incredible her wet, silky, tight depths felt when you slid in and out of them.

"Is this what you wanted?" Your voice is low, near a growl. Your arms around your step-sister. It shouldn't, by all accounts, feel natural to have her like that, but it did.

"Yes, it feels incredible. Please don't stop." Your cock bottomed out within her. As deep as you could go. You groaned, and stayed there for a while, feeling your stepsister clenching down, her inner walls trying to pull you in further.

Hanni's hands gripped at the bedsheets, clutching tightly to them. The position pressed the metal of the plug between her asscheeks, and as your thrusting continued, the sensation sent a tingle through her body. It was a filthy combination. One that allowed every stroke you drove into her cunt to simultaneously send an equally blissful shock straight into her ass.

It was madness for her to indulge in the ecstasy—for both of you to lose yourselves.

You grew faster, and she unwound completely. She grew limp as she reached her climax. She couldn't even grip the bedsheets, or the pillow, her body simply submitting to the pleasure. She merely lay there as your hips battered against her soft ass, fucking her right through it.

Then she asked you, right after it subsided, "Ever fantasised about cumming on my ass before?"

The way she asked that made the question feel almost normal. "That the sort of thing they do in the porn you watch?" You slowed for a bit to deliver the tease.

Hanni couldn't keep the shy smile from creeping across her lips. "There was this one video where a guy put it all over his sister's butt. Seemed like he really liked it."

The fact she talked to you about the dirty things she likes helped it all along. It was the extent of her experience, the videos, but it helped. What it told you about what she really likes, what she enjoys... It became the basis for all your dirty experiments.

"That sounds hot. You have a cute ass."

She giggled to herself, rolling her hips, getting up onto her hands and knees and facing away from you.

You seated yourself onto your calves, giving her space and watching as she turned, giving you the view you craved. "I do?" She said as she glanced back over her shoulder, showing her innocence and naïvete in all its splendour. Her eyes sparkled and then a smile spread over her lips to match that look in her eye.

"The cutest," you told her as you kneeled behind her. One hand caressed the outside of her thigh while the other gripped the base of your cock. Eyes firmly set on that beautiful plump ass. That was the second time in just a few hours that you covered Hanni in your cum.

She watched every second as you did, barely managing a blink. Arousal and delight danced over her features in equal measure, and your name left her tongue in the form of a delightful, drawn-out groan. The effect was very apparent. With every streak and ribbon of white landing, she gasped and moaned while staring at the mess.

From that moment on, you entered regularity. It seemed like for months, every chance the two of you got to fuck, you fucked. Her room. Your room. The shower. The sofa. The kitchen. Against that window that overlooks the city's skyline. A public bathroom. A hand job in the car while you're stuck in traffic. Riding your face in a park, hidden among trees, grass, and bushes. Fucking, kissing, and biting until the both of you are exhausted and sore and dripping with sweat. It never ceased. Two insatiable appetites. Your mutual loss of control continued. The affair felt so exhilarating. An explosion of forbidden sin in an otherwise normal existence.

It all came with its fair share of close calls. That Saturday morning surprise visit from your parents where you answered their knock at the door and they invited themselves in, all while Hanni lies naked in your bedroom. How you sneakily warned her before she emerged and spun the story to them both about how she slept on your floor out of fear after watching another one of her horror movies. They bought it, of course, because they couldn't imagine there being any other explanation.

Then there was Hanni's near miss with her group. She told you all about how Minji had picked up on how something had changed with her; about how convinced Minji was that Hanni had found herself a boyfriend. About the look Minji gave her as Hanni protested, and finally how she got away with a half-truth.

She told the girls it was because of you and how you would work out together on weekends to make her feel better.

Everything was going so well, which made this week even more confusing.

It's been days since you last saw her. The longest you have gone in some time. Long hours and staying over with her members are one thing. Going days with no word or anything at all is another. She ignored your texts, never returned your calls, and stopped showing up at home like you'd come to expect.

No warning.

Nothing.

[yeyinde]

STRAW HOUSE, STRAW DOG

Baby Trap + Soap x Fem!Reader : or, Johnny finds a wife in the woods and decides to take her home.

18+ | DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT: noncon, kidnapping, breeding/baby trapping. somnophilia. implied stalking. obsessive behaviour. forced reliance/dependency. non-con drug use (implied). vulnerable character (injured reader) being preyed upon by an opportunistic scavenger.

Somehow, getting hurt in the remote wilderness of Nahanni National Park without any immediate rescue is the least of your worries when a rugged man shows up and claims he's going to help. Out here, you've been told your biggest fear should be bears, steep canyons, and a swift death with fangs and claws.

But maybe you should have been more concerned about strange men with crowlike smiles and blistering eyes.

ADDITIONAL TAGS: descriptions of injury. implied head trauma. bearded Soap. smut. this is my love letter to NWT and a what not to do in a national park.

BABY TRAP MASTER LIST | AO3 LINK

It happens in an instant. 

The trek up the fjord narrows suddenly. Chossy growing slick from rainfall the night prior. You pace yourself, stepping carefully on the wobbling slate, testing its resilience before you take another step. Climbing higher. Higher.

There's a storm brewing in the distance. Its burgeoning pace grows rapidly, nipping at your heels as cool winds whistle through the steep valley below.

The park wardens at the visitors centre warned you about it when you set out into the rugged wilderness of Nahanni this morning. Brows pinched, wary, when you'd come to them—all alone—and signed your name on the barren ledger collecting dust on the counter. A fact that drew your attention when you flipped through the empty pages. 

Don't get too many visitors around here, the man murmured, eyes cresting in apprehension at your question. Not the most isolated or remote, no. That's probably higher up. Quttinirpaaq, maybe? Heard from some buddies up there that they had no visitors last year. We do pretty well. About one thousand a year? Usually filmmakers and the like. Adventurous types. Gets kinda lonely up here. Ain't no Banff, that's for sure.

They added that the weather was unpredictable this time of year. All year, really. Nahanni is known for sudden swells and white-outs, for weather that can turn in an instant, going from calm to cataclysmic within seconds. 

(“Storms,” the man huffs, and you think the sigh was meant to be a laugh. One that falls flat when he takes in your hiking boots (too big, but the sales lady at the sporting goods warehouse assured you it was fine, that you would grow into them), and your cheap Lululemon knock-off tights. Your flimsy rucksack. The tinge of green around your ears; the stench of an overeager novice. “And, uh, it’s urban legends.”)

Valley of the Headless Men, he intones, squinting up at you when you ask about them. Adding: be careful out there when you turn to leave.

Dauntless, you still set out into the park, determined to at least make it to your campground before it set in. But the majesty surrounding you on all sides distracted you from your pace. Eyes caught on the Xanadu of an untempered wilderness slowing your trek to a crawl as you took in the steep, rolling batholiths reaching high into the aether, their sides sloping down in a dizzying, vertiginous drop to a lush valley below of scheele’s green below. It all looked so perfectly symmetrical from the high point in the valley where you stood, breathing in the scents that perfumed the air. With the rugged mountains cupped around a winding white line where the river sawed through. 

A lone moose grazed at the bottom of a rolling fell. The sight of her stopping you in your tracks long enough that the plume of darkened clouds—all a terrifying burnt sage—had time to catch up to you, crackling overhead as thunder rumbled through the canyons. 

Your campground is at the top of this ravine. Three nights spent inside a cabin with nothing but yourself and several paperbacks for company. Into the Wild amongst them—a morbid parting gift from a friend on what not to do—and its inspirational predecessor, On the Road. 

You won't read it. You never do. But it sits, a humourous paperweight, in your rucksack as you clamber up the ravine. An anchoring comfort. A piece of home. Something that reminds you you're not completely alone even though you are. 

The book, your friends, and the encroaching loneliness that you feel prickling behind your eyes, all weigh on your mind. Spooling out before you in loose, loop threads. You follow them eagerly, glad for something to abate the unnatural silence, and—

A sound.

It comes from the left, hidden in the thick tangle of furze. A click. It shatters through the eerie quiet of the sprawling boscage. An animal, maybe. Hopefully. 

It must be, you think, heart hammering thunderously in your chest. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You hold your breath. Eyes glued on the thatch of green shrubs lining the base of the dense forest. 

Nothing happens. You blink, shifting on your feet—

A red line pierces through the gap between the leaves, aimed straight at your ankle. It's thin, diaphanous. Slips over the scraggy rock like liquid.

It's so out of place here that it takes you a second to familiarise yourself with its unexpected presence. A laser—

An explosive boom fills the ravine the moment the thought connects. A rifle. Aimed right at you. It happens fast. The world turning over itself, spinning right off its axis. You fall against the ledge in a crumpled, heavy heap, legs so close to dangling off the precipice. 

Gravity is a choking weight on your sternum, pushing you down, down, toward the jagged, rocky shoreline. A fall like that—

You curl into yourself instinctively. 

“Ah, shite—” is all you hear amid the roar in your ears. “Y’alright? ah didnae see ye thare—”

In your tear-stained periphery, a man appears. He stands into the glare of the waning sun, limned in a halo of gold. There's a pinch between his dark, thick brows. A steep ravine.  He's ragged. Wild. Tuffs of black hair hang loose past his ears and nape, curling slightly at the ends. It blends, almost seamlessly, into his thick, scraggly beard. He pushes a hand through the top, grabbing a fistful in his palm.

“Easn't expecting anybody oot 'ere. Nae this far intae th' woods.”

He seems to be speaking to himself more so than he's talking to you. There's anger writ in the fine lines of his face, but this ire isn't turned toward you. It's inward. Self-admonishment. His eyes darken when they flicker down to your ankle, as if reminding you of the hurt there when you'd been so focused on how out of place his accent is in the Northwest Territories.

The ache in your ankle brings you crashing back into reality. The pain seems to vibrate from within your marrow, riveting up your bones. 

You chance a glance—

You swallow down the drum of panic. A trick of the light. It must be. 

A dream. A nightmare. 

But the man appears. His hand falls onto your knee, holding you steady. 

“Ah will hae tae put oan a tourniquet. Will hurt a lot, doe.” 

Absently, you nod. Keep nodding. Can't stop. 

There's a hole cut through your ankle. Tore thro' yer Achilles, he's saying, words water in your ears. He instructs you to wiggle your toes.

"Ah know it hurts, but just dae it fer me, okay?"

You do. You—

Nausea buds in your guts, churning your stomach. The apple you ate earlier is choked out into the bushes dotting along the ravine. Insides purging themselves, replacing everything—food, water, coffee from earlier, bile—until nothing but shaky panic remains. It tastes like iron in the back of your throat. 

“Ah know, doe,” he's saying, fingers knotting into your slick hiking trousers. Lululemon knockoffs from an outdoor warehouse in the city. A pocket knife follows, and cuts a seamless line inches below your hip. 

Sad tae see ‘em go, he murmurs, accent thickening around the words. Saturating them in a drawl that's too liquid for your unpractised ears to catch. He makes a mournful sound when he slides the blade down your leg, adds, “hugged yer arse like a dream, doe.”

Another trick. The mountains do funny things to sound, you know. It must be all in your head. All—

“Don't worry,” he's shushing you now as he peels the fabric off your legs, groaning low in his throat. “Ah have ye. Ah will take care o'ye, tae, doe. Bonny thing, aren't ye? a' alone. Nae anymore, doe. Jus' me 'n' ye now. Jus' us —”

You always thought you'd have your wits about you in a traumatic situation. Be able to think clearly, rationally. Make appropriate decisions that befit the situation unfolding. Life saving ones. Practical. 

To gear up for this trip, you watched survival videos on YouTube. How to make a fire. How to make drinking water. How to build a shelter. Tips on weathering down for a sudden storm. Tucked it all inside your head, and thought, I got this. 

Had to, really, because everything you've read about Nahanni says it's unpredictable. Calm weather, gorgeous views one moment, and then a sudden deluge the next. Snow falling quicker than you keep up with. Animals blend in seamlessly with the landscape. Slips, falls. It's so easy to get lost, someone wrote. 

But as he uses the scrap of your trousers to wrap around the wound on your broken, mangled ankle, you realise all that planning was for nothing. This was one of those moments when you discovered just how much you bit off. That panic made you mute, made you freeze up. 

The pain is almost secondary to the surge of adrenaline. Fear.

You need to go home. You tell him this, slowly. Muttered through numb lips. 

There's something almost like pity in his eyes when he glances up at you. 

There was a mix-up, he says, slowly. Cautiously. You got yourself turned around in the opposite direction. There's no campground on the fjord above. All the lodges and cabins are in the opposite direction. 

Y'got lost, he tells you. Turned the wrong way out. Ye'r in th' backcountry.

“I'll go back,” you press, urgent. Insistent. Panic is acidic in your throat. Corrosive. It burns when you swallow. “Please, just tell me which way to go, and I’ll—”

"Cannae dae tha'."

“Why?”

“Storm,” he points in the distance where a plume of cloud gathers. So dark, they're almost black. Ominous. “Gonnae skelp solid. Na choice but tae git oot."

“I don't have anywhere to go—”

He rakes his hand through his hair. “Ah kin take ye tae mines. Git a cabin in th' woods. Juist ootdoors o' Nahanni Butte.” 

“No, I—”

His hand squeezes tight around your ankle. The pain makes itself known in a visceral, awful throb that travels up your leg, curdling at the base of your spine. Wrong, wrong. Something is wrong. Your body is trying to reject the agony. The breaking of your bone. It's foreign, it doesn't belong. But there's nowhere for it to go. 

Pain pulses in tandem with your heartbeat. 

You don't realise you're screaming until you hear the echoes of it rebound against the limestone walls. And then there's a whisper in your ear. You feel the scratch of his beard against your cheek.

"Shush, bonnie. Cannae let ye go oot oan yer own. Gonnae take ye home, yeah?"

Home. Home. You nod furiously, and it's only when the scraggly black curls covering his chin and jaw catch on damp skin do you realise you're crying. 

He leans away from you, arm stretching toward the rucksack behind him. 

The rifle leans against it. You feel sick all over again. 

“Drink this,” he says, unscrewing the cap. “It'll make ye feel better.” 

He presses the lip to your mouth, a hand slipping over the back of your head, tilting your chin up. “Drink,” he says again, and it's firmer this time. A command. “Ah promise ye'll feel better, doe.” 

It tastes bitter. You swallow it down. Keep swallowing.

“Good,” he rasps, hand sliding down the length of your spine until it rests against your lower back. “Keep drinkin’, sweet thing.”

It pools in your belly, sloshing uncomfortably when you move, but it washes the bitterness from between your teeth. You keep drinking. Swallowing it down. You know you shouldn't, that you might get sick again, but it's a distraction from the mess that is your ankle—bloody, twisted, mangled—

Nausea swells. You choke it down until you can breathe without feeling as though you were going to be sick again. 

“You'll be okay,” he's saying, moving around you with a practised efficiency for something so broad. It's almost graceful. Agile. 

He patches you up as much as he can with the supplies he has, but you refuse to look again at your ankle. It's broken, that much is clear. You can feel your bones grinding, sliding against each other. The sensation is horrific. Wrong. You turn your head to the ledge you were standing on just to distract yourself from the agony of it all. 

You're surprised you're not crying. Screaming. The urge is there, just beneath the surface. But for some odd, unfathomable reason you find you can't. Your chest feels heavy. Lungs sluggish. Slow. 

It must be an adrenaline crash, you think. Why else would you feel so tired, so exhausted. 

“I'm—” you start, but you feel dizzy. “‘m—”

“Shush, doe.” He mutters, and it sounds far away. Garbled. “You need yer rest. Had a traumatic accident. But don't worry. Ye can trust me. A wouldnae let anythin' ill happen tae ye ever again."

“Yeah,” you breathe, nodding. Nodding. You can't stop, can't—

“Lay back. Git some rest. A'm almost done, 'n' then ah will hae ye back home in no time—”

You come to on a groggy whimper, head buried in the messy locks curtained over his nape. There's a soft, pulsing thud in the back of your head when you try to lift it up. It feels heavier than it should. Leadened. You groan again, fighting against the currents dragging you back down to those soporific depths—

Your head is a slurried marsh. Thoughts ephemeral, broken. Fragmented. They slip through your fingers when you reach for them, diaphanous wisps you can't seem to catch. 

“Don't worry, doe—” your world quivers when he speaks. Words vibrating through your chest, catching on the heavy rails of your ribs. The seismic vibrations rumble in your ear, coming to life as a mere echo in your head. “Ah will keep ye safe.”

It's comforting. A raft in squall, something to cling to as the waves make futile attempts to drag you under. Your arms, dangling loosely over his shoulders, sluggishly flatten to his chest, linking over his chest. 

He grunts at your touch, palms slick on your skin. 

“Thank you,” you slur, words thick in your throat. Sluggish. “Thank you for helpin’ me. Fer savin’ me—”

Your body shakes when he trembles. With your forehead against his nape, you hear his thick swallow. The air ghosting out of his lungs in a soundless whisper. 

His hands flex around the backs of your knees. Squeezing tight. The man doesn't say anything for a moment. In the silence, the pursuing somnolence catches up to you. It digs heavy fingers into your eyes, dragging you back down into the sticky, thick tar. 

Sleep finds you in an instant. 

You try to read his words in the quiver of your bones when he speaks. Make sense of the tremble reverberating through the hollow gaps, tangling in the pulpy mess. 

But there's a mistranslation somewhere. A missing decibel. A forgotten wavelength.

It almost sounds like he says—

“Wouldn't leave mah wife alone in th' woods like tha’.”

How funny, you think, and hide a giggle into the hardened ridge of his shoulder blade. 

Cognisance is a transient flicker.

You're not sure how long he matches through the thicket with you on his back, navigating the unending chaparral with an ease that feels innate rather than practised. You stare down at the ground, world hazy around the edges, and think, suddenly, intrusively, that you ought to remember the steps. Every left, every right. 

You get to seven lefts, three rights—a small ravine, a flattened coppice; a gnarled spruce sat alone in a valley of lush green and clumps of topaz podzol—before your eyes are too heavy to keep open. They slip shut. And you think, only for a moment. Just a second, I just need to rest my eyes, and then come to at the sound of a groggy engine growling to life. 

The world morphs from a dense forest intercut with sheer cliffs looming, indomitable, in the grey distance, to the faded beige felt covering the ceiling of an old truck. 

Your blink is a slow crawl, lashes weighed down by anchors dredging over the seafloor. Gritty, raw. It hurts, now, to hold them open. A furious throb jabs at your temple. It aches like a bruise. But it's nothing compared to the nauseating agony that floods your core each time your foot is jostled. Nerves being lit aflame in an endless throe of pain unlike you'd ever experienced before. 

Your mouth feels sealed when you go to speak. Lips glued together. Sluggishly, you squeeze your tongue through the crack between your teeth, licking along the seam. 

A plastic bottle appears in your periphery, nozzle tipped toward your mouth. A hand curls around the body of it. Fingers overlapping. It looks small in this big hand. Tiny. Long wisps of black hair cover their ruddy knuckles, spreading in a dense crop up their forearm, growing thicker at the wrist. 

Their skin is pale, tinged slightly pink. Even through the brume, the lambent light of the sun catches on their skin. Illuminating small scars, cuts. Little scratches from the snagging furze. 

Their hand shakes. The dark veins that branch off from the white-capped peaks of their bent knuckles pulse under the thin skin when they move. 

“Drink, hen,” he murmurs, bringing the bottle to the jut of your lower lip. “Ye’ll need it.” 

A plastic bottle is an odd choice to bring into the backcountry, but as you peer through the translucent skin, you find the water inside is cloudy. Chalky. 

“Donnae worry—” he gives the bottle another shake, disturbing the sediment congealing at the bottom. “It's electrolytes, ken. Nothing fishy.”

Your teeth ache from the cold when he slips the rim between your lips, prying them apart. With your head already tilted back in the seat, the water slips in. A slow trickle. He feeds it to you, humming in appeasement when you swallow. 

“Tha’s a good girl.” 

It carves a jagged tunnel through the murk in your head. The praise slipping in, liquid, until it coats your burgeoning trepidation in a sudden swell of endorphins. With their unpractised, gauche hands, they paint a mockery of Sargent in the gaps of your synapses, stuffing the spaces between with oversaturated hues of teal, white, yellow, orange, and pink. 

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. 

But despite the shoddily crafted pastiche, it works. 

Your eyes flutter, bones growing heavier, heavier, as they're forced to carry the weight of your liquified flesh. This molten heat in your chest turns your insides into putty.  

Water dribbles down your chin. He sees it and coos.

“Ah, doe. Right mess ye are now. Ah will hae ye home in no time. Git ye a' cleaned up."

The idea of home melts you further. You sigh in the seat, soft and drawn out, and shake your head slowly when he wriggles the bottle in front of you again. 

“Get some rest, doe,” his hand falls, heavy and warm, on your thigh. Thumb stroking along the curve of your leg, fingers curling into the seam, digging deep. Resting there. 

It's too high to be appropriate. You know this. Went through lesson upon lesson in school of bad touches and what's considered friendly, polite. But when you try to open your mouth to say something about it, you catch the spread of his palm over your flesh. Wide, broad. Masculine. It catches in your throat, and gets tangled in the mush at the base. 

It should be fine, you think, dizzy over the way his hand swallows you whole. He saved you, after all. 

But it burrows. Digs deep. Some sense of wrongness permeates out from the firm grasp he has on you. It feels possessive. The sort of thing you might expect between people who are intimate with each other. A couple. You've known him for—

Hours, maybe? 

Most of it was spent in a pain-induced hypnagogia. 

It curdles in your stomach. Rotten, spoiled milk. 

But—

He saved you. 

You'll choke yourself on it if you keep thinking about it. So, you don't. You push it down. Cover it beneath the sediment, and bury it deep. 

He's just a man. 

Kind. Helpful. 

As you dig a hole for this unease, he keeps his hand fixed on your thigh. The other is pressed against the steering wheel, the ball of his palm under the curve at the top of the wheel. Relaxed. Easy. You try to adopt his nonchalant disposition and glance out at the blurry world around you. 

You feel exhausted. Unsettled. The sort of fatigue that comes with a raging fever. There's sand in your mouth. Your throat is dry. 

You don't ask for water. 

In the lull, he pitches the truck forward with a grave rumble. The silence is broken by the crunch of vegetation and gravel beneath the wheels as he ploughs forward. 

There are public roads to get to Nahanni. The floatplane you entered into the park on was chartered by Parks Canada. And yet—

He commandeers the truck around a flatbed of rock and dirt. Muskeg dots the tops in some places, and he veers expertly to avoid them. 

It's less of a traditional road and more so a forged desire path. You know the highway has to be close by, the link between Fort Liard and Fort Simpson, but as you peer out the window, the world around you looks overgrown. Wild. Alien. 

Sloping hills in lush green stretch out into the distance, meeting with the dense montane forests dotted along the stretch of land. The grassy coppice under his wheels is matted down, and interspersed with clumps of brown, wet muskeg and crushed slate. 

Over the grey peaks of the mountains in the distance, a thick, black cloud looms. The sky turns gunmetal, almost indistinguishable from the monoliths jutting beneath them. 

At some points, he takes his hand off your thigh to navigate winding turns better, but it always ends up back on you. And always a little higher than it was before. 

Your mouth is filled with lead. Tongue thick, malleable. Tensile like mercury. You can't speak. So you just ignore it. Dig your crown into the headrest, and breathe in the woodsy scent of him. Laurel, tree moss. Coumarin. Rotting pine. Sweet acacia. It tickles the back of your throat. Sticks there, glued in the syrupy mess. 

You'd hoped it would get easier to ignore, but it stays there, a constant weight, even as the world outside fades into a hazy twilight. 

In the hush of the cabin, he squeezes your thigh. “Cannae wait tae get ye home, doe.”

Against the staggering backdrop of a black, jagged mountain, a doe stands in the talus. Her fawn fur and tuffs of white spots stick out against the charcoal-coloured cliffs, and you watch, some distance away, as she bends down to fossick through the scree in search of food. 

With the looming clouds of gunmetal and ash gathering around the craggy peaks, her presence here feels dangerously out of place. Jarring. She shouldn't be here. She doesn't belong. 

But the beauty of this moment is breathtaking. Mesmerising. You stare in muted horror, awe, as she grazes in the rubble, slender neck bent in a graceful arch. The sloping handle of fine china. Her wet, black eyes are so open, so kind. Puddles of ignorance, naïvety, as she flicks her tongue out against the desolate rock, a fruitless search for grass in which to mull on. 

Thunder crackles over the snow-capped ridges. Her ears flicker, but she doesn't run. You should warn her. Scare her away. But you can't move. Can't speak. You're a mute spectator, a piece of dross on the ground watching the approaching calamity without a mouth. Horror churns. You want so badly to tell the doe to run—

An impossibility, you know. It's much too late for her to do anything at all. 

Around the doe’s leg is a shackle. 

Your skin rips, tears, as you force your jaws apart, blood pooling in your mouth. If you can make a sound, she’ll—

A boom echoes through the canyon's cradle. 

The scream gurgles in the back of your throat. 

Agony rips through your leg—

—you wake with a gasp. 

Sputtering, choking on the saliva pooled in your mouth. It tastes bitter, brackish. You feel something gritty between your teeth. It sticks to the backs, granular specks that dissolve, sour and chalky, on your tongue when you run it along the ridges of your gums.

You swallow it down, grimacing at the acidic taste. 

“Awake, aye?” His voice chips through the dense fog. You blink the haze away, glancing sideways at him through bleary, heavy eyes. 

His profile is lit by the harsh glare of high noon. The sharp jut of his ball cap. The curve of his nose set in the thick bushel of his scraggly beard and moustache. His broad chest concealed most of the view from the driver's side window. The lax bridge of his arm, knuckles loosely curled around the steering wheel.

He tilts his head toward you. “How're ye feelin’?”

Sluggish. Awful. There's sand in your eyes. Cotton in your head. You feel like you've been left out in the hot sun all day. Dizzy and sunburnt. Feverish. Heatsick. Your throat is dry, but you don't ask for water. You don't answer him at all. Can't. Your tongue is laden. Lips numb. 

It takes you a moment to reorient yourself, squinting through the glare of the sun—

That reels you back. Breaks through the fog. 

You know that the concept of day and night in the summer is different here. Twenty hours of daylight with twilight lasting all night. But even with the skewed perception of time and the heavy molasses thickening around the edges of your cognisance, you know that something is wrong. 

When you left the park, it was close to five in the evening. It should be twilight, not—

Your gaze lists sluggishly to the clock on the dashboard. Through the haze, the unmistakable gleam of one-fifteen stares back at you. 

It was the right time last night. 

“Wha—?”

You're not sure what you're asking. It's not even really a word, but a garbled sound. A noise of distress, confusion, in the back of your throat. 

He seems to understand it all the same. 

“Park had a bad storm,” he answers, pitch far too light for the severity of your situation, of what you're feeling. It makes you frown, sharp and sudden. “Washed through th’ river. Where ye were—well. Wouldnae ‘ave made it out, ye see. Would’ve gotten all torn up in th’ storm—”

You read that storms in Nahanni are vicious, sudden. Weather can turn in an instant, going from moderate to devastating in a blink. But—

What he's saying doesn't make sense. You remember bits, pieces, from earlier. He said you got turned around. Wandered too far off the trail, lost in the deep wilderness of Nahanni’s sprawling valley. 

“Where are we?”

“Nearly home.”

You push the wave of nausea down. “I need to go to a hospital.”

“Can't dae tha't'.”

“Why not?”

He doesn't answer for a beat, eyes fixed on the dirt path. Unblinking. 

Finally, he mutters: “had tae leave th' park oan th' opposite side when th' storm came in. No roads take us tae town.”

“I have—” you're not sure where your bag is. You hope he had the wherewithal to snatch it up after you fell. Hope. “I have a satellite phone. I can just call—”

“Sorry, hen. Yer bag flew off th' ledge. Ah coudnae grab it 'n' ye. Ah dinnae hae a phone oot 'ere. Never needed one—”

Hopeless. Hopeless. 

“How—how could you survive out here without one?”

“Nahanni Butte is a few hours awa'. Go intae town when th’ winter road is open. Inaccessible now. Th’ rivers flooded it. Cannae cross it. Can hunt, 'n' ah hae everything a'm needin' oot here.”

“So…” the reality of your situation is beginning to dawn on you. Helpless. Hopeless. “I'm stuck here until—winter?”

“Ah hae a friend flying oot fae Yellowknife. Comes tae drop off supplies 'n' th' lik'. He'll be 'ere in two months—”

“Two months?” This whole situation feels impossible. Wrong. You're so close to people—Fort Liard, Nahanni Butte, Fort Simpson. How could you be stuck here for two months? The idea of it is absurd. “You're not—you can't be serious.”

“Aye. I am.” 

There's a pinch between his brow. You wonder if it's meant to convey the severity of the situation, but as it grows deeper, deeper, you have the sudden sense that it's not an emotional decree of his sincerity. That it's, instead, a sudden twist of anger. 

It scares you. 

“I want to go home.” You mean for it to be forceful, but it comes out in a whimper. 

The man nods. The punch in his brow lessens. “Aye, me tae.” 

“Where are you from?” You pry, needing the distraction from the endless trawl of green and slate and permafrost enclosing in on you. “You're not from around here, are you?” At the gentle raise of his brows, you add, hurried, rushed: “you just. Have an accent, and I—”

“Fae Scotland,” he answers, and there's a quick grin on his face. Roguish. Charming. The sight of it has your start thudding in an uneasy gallop. “Edinburgh."

“Oh. Far from home.”

“Aye—” the grin fades, twisting into something ugly. “Had an—accident,” he spits the word out, brows pinching once more. Anger is writ in the hard clench of his muscles, his jaw. His knuckles blanche around the steering wheel, and you think you should have just kept your mouth shut. “Sent me here.”

There's a multitude of questions you want to ask. Vying for the top is the most obvious—why did this happen? why isn't he letting you go?—but what comes out instead is, “why?”

Just that. Nothing else. 

“Military.” 

He adds nothing, either. 

“Military?”

A nod. “Go’ hurt. Had rehab. Sent me here tae clear ma heid, and well—” his eyes flicker to you. You can't read his expression. “Got a fresh mission, dinnae I?”

“You don't—”

“I cannae leave ye. Both oo' us are stuck 'ere 'til someone comes tae pick us up, 'n' take us home.” 

The idea that somehow he's just as trapped as you are hasn't occurred. Why would it when he has a rifle, a truck, freedom—

But what good is all of that when you're landlocked in a place known for winter roads. Permafrost. The forced shift in perspective doesn't quell the anxiety roiling in your guts, but it lessens it. Somewhat. 

“Two months?”

He nods. “Aye.”

“And you have no cellphone? No satellite?”

“Ye can check it—” he makes a flippant motion toward the glove box in front of you. “Deader than ever.”

You hesitate only briefly. Long enough to level him with a searching look that yields no results before you reach for the compartment, gingerly pulling it open, and—

Sometimes, things get overlooked by their surroundings. Swallowed in the vacuum. Blending seamlessly into the muddle, the commotion. 

This isn't like that. 

It sits on top of a manila folder. Sleek black and cold silver. You're not terribly well-versed in guns—the extent of your knowledge stemming mostly from formulaic crime shows aired late at night; CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds—but you recognise this one instantly. Some sort of handgun. Police issued, you think. It's bigger than you'd expected. Looks heavier, too. 

Your heart stutters. The air galloping out of your lungs in a stammering rush. 

He makes a noise, soft and nonchalant, as if keeping handguns in the glove box of his old, burnt orange truck is perfectly normal. 

“Fer protection,” he mumbles. You catch the jerk of his chin in your periphery. “Forgot I had it in here. Been usin’ th’ rifle fer huntin’ mostly. Or th’ shotgun.”

Three guns. You swallow. “Why—” your voice comes out in a brittle whisper. You clear your throat. “Why, um, why do you need three?”

“Not fae around here, are ye?” He echoes your words with a wry twist of his mouth, eyes slanting in the sunlight. “Tha’,” he takes his hand off your thigh to jab his finger at the handgun. “Is fer wolverines.” His index finger falls, his thumb juts out. He jerks it over his shoulder. “Tha’ is fer huntin’. The shotgun back home is fer bears.” 

You try to move out of the way when his hand falls back to your thigh, but the pain radiating up your leg immobilizes you. There's not much you can do in this situation but endure.

Military. Wounded in action. Three guns. Touchy. 

You're not sure what to think. It would be easier if you couldn't. 

“What do you hunt?” You ask instead, glancing out the window to the barren landscape rolling out around you. There doesn't seem to be much in the jagged hills, and towering mountains. 

“Gettin’ hungry? Donnae worry, doe. Go’ tha’ pesky hare I was tryin’ tae shoot oan th' ledge fer dinner tonight.” 

It's not much of a comfort. The idea of being injured—by accident, he claims—to such an extent over a rabbit makes you feel a little sick. 

“That's it?”

“I can make a mean steak oot o' anythin'. Stews fer tougher meat. Fish—whitefish, arctic grayling, and lake trout. Learned how tae make a nasty fishfry from th’ locals in Nahanni Butte. Bannock, too. Got berries ‘round ma cabin. Caribou, Moose. Taste better in tacos or burgers. Mountain goat, Dall’s sheep. Been eatin’ better ‘ere than ah did at home.”

“And you're—just allowed to hunt them?” The website advised about a permit through some special outfit needed to hunt when you requested your pass into the park. Said that only aboriginals were allowed to do so. “You're not—”

“Aye,” he cuts you off with a small nod. “No huntin’ in th’ park. But. We're nae in th' park anymore.”

“Where are we?” You ask again, firmer this time. 

“I told ye. Nearly home.”

“And where is home?” 

The way he sucks his teeth makes you recoil slightly. Wet. Irritated. As if he's tired of this conversation already. 

“Close.”

You don't let his flat tone deter you. “Are we—are we still in the Northwest Territories?”

“Thereabouts.” 

It's not an answer. It doesn't reassure you in the slightest. 

You open your mouth to say so, words curling on your tongue when he jerks his chin toward the handgun, brow furrowed. 

“Thought ye wanted tae check oan th' satellite phone.”

His tone is severe. A growl curdling the ends, pitching it down, down. Displeasure, irritation, blooms in the gnarled petals of witch hazel when he narrows them into slits. 

You swallow, wrenching your gaze from the storm brewing over fields of wheat, and set your jaw. Masking your fear for annoyance. Confidence. 

But your hand shakes when you reach for the black box shoved into the corner. Palms slick with sweat. You try not to touch the gun, doing your best to curve around it. It feels—

Real. 

A real gun. In the real world. In a place you came to get away for a weekend, experience something you'd never had before. Freedom. Reliance on nobody but yourself. And now—

Somewhere in the Northwest Territories. Injured. Locked inside of a truck with a man who wavers between warmth—an unending heat, a furnace; a beacon of light—and severity like a swinging pendulum. You feel safe with him. You commit every turn to memory. He's in the military. He's going to take care of you. You think he's lying to you. He'll—

He'll let you go. 

You're sick. You're paranoid. You're taking all of your grievances out on this poor man who is just as trapped as you are, turning him into a monster for no reason at all. At the end of this, when he drops you off at the airport in Yellowknife, you'll have to grovel on your knees for his forgiveness. Sorry I thought you were a bad man. 

It could be worse, you suppose. He hasn't done anything untoward to you—touching your thigh like he's owed the right aside—and you shove it down. A problem to deal with later even though the suspicion tucks itself into your head, folded up against your skull. Metastatic. It eats all of his expressions, turning them over and over again for hidden clues. 

If he does something, you'll run. 

You'll—

“Almost there,” he murmurs, and you hear the rasp of exhaustion glued to the hinge of his jaw. You wonder how long he's been driving for. And why didn't he just go back to Nahanni Butte. Flooded he said. Too deep into the park. Never would have made it. 

If that's the truth, you suppose you should thank him. 

It sits in the back of your throat. You swallow around it, reaching for the phone instead. 

There's a small thread of hope in your chest that it'll work. That he's wrong, doesn't know how to work it, and all you have to do is press a button and it'll crackle to life. Freedom within reach. 

But when you press down on the button, the phone doesn't even whimper. Broke, as he said. Dead. 

“Can you—can you charge it?”

“Tried. Must’ve blown somethin’ inside. Fried it.” 

His words are a prison sentence carrying a punishment of two months. You knew this, of course. He said so himself. But the reality of it breaking over you is different from blind belief. The realisation of your predicament is a jagged knife cutting through tissue, letting corrosive panic entrench you as it spills out. 

This is the sort of thing you’d only read about. Novels, and biographies. Memoirs. Movies. An extraordinary event that could never happen to you. Never. 

And you're aware of it. Optimism bias. The not-me fallacy. But everything in your life thus far had been so unequivocally mundane that the possibility of it not happening seemed to eclipse any chance of it occurring at all. 

The crux of the bias, you suppose. Though it does little to stem the disbelief surrounding it all. Even when you told your friends, and your family, that you were going on this trip, the most mordant of them said you'd get eaten by a bear or end up lost in the wilderness. 

Injured, unable to walk, and stuck with a man you only marginally know (trust) seems like the plot of a lifetime movie. 

But—

Two months. 

You're sure in the meantime, someone will notice your absence. Raise the alarm. Call the police. They'll launch an investigation, and come searching for you. It's just a waiting game. 

And—

(You glance at the man once more, his profile limned in a halo of gold. The rim of his hat casts shadows over his face, eyes concealed in the thickening tenebrous that enshrouds him down to his broad chest, dense with corded muscles. Athletic. Trim. Big.)

—staying alive. 

Survival. 

If only for just two months. 

But the facts are cold, unforgiving. You are alone with a man you don't know. A man with three guns. Military. His experience in this wilderness vastly eclipses your own. 

He's fine. Fine. Touchy, sure. But he hasn't asked for anything. 

—his hand is on your thigh—

You'll be okay. 

It hurts to swallow. “Thank you,” you murmur, hoping the conciliatory lilt eats the panic you feel. “For saving me.” 

His gaze darts to you so sharply that the truck veers slightly to the left, tires crunching over thick beds of furze that line the forged road. The action is sudden—surprised, maybe, by your reedy gratitude. A deviation from the demeanour he'd shown you so far—calm friendliness. Affability. It jars you. Scares you. You grip the seat cushion tight in your fists as he mutters something sharp you can't discern under his breath. 

It only takes him only seconds to correct, rippling his hand away from you to commandeer the truck back into the centre of the beaten path. Even keeled now. Almost as if nothing amiss had happened at all. 

But it's undeniable. Congeals in the air, tense and unignorable. A vacuum that siphons the breath from your lungs. It sits in the whites of his knuckles, arsenic bones jutting from thin, rough skin, demanding to be seen; the terse set to his shoulders. To the grind of his jaw as he clenches his teeth. 

You take him in with bated breath, swallowing whole each microcosm that buds to the surface of his demeanour. Wary. Watchful. Squeezing the satellite phone tight in your hands. But he doesn't meet your wide-eyed stare, choosing instead to keep his gaze fixed on the dirt road. Knuckles popping, brows furrowed. Silent. 

But it's heavy. Oppressive. The same unrelenting chill as outside. You fight back a shiver in the blooming cold, wishing you'd packed more than just a pair of hiking tights (in tatters, now) and a thermal windbreaker for the trip. 

The hum of the engine, and the cracking of rock and muskeg crushed under the wheel, are the only noise that fills the cabin. You stifle your breath. Hold it in your throat. Skewer your eyes to the landscape yawning out around you. The deep, thickening sense of unease grows in the pit of your stomach. Metastasizing. 

Outside is a sprawling taiga forest. Emaciated spruce, balsam fir, jut out from the muskeg, dusted in a sparse layer of sphagnum. You can almost hear the trickle of a stream. The dirt road is wet under the tires now. A creek must be close by. A river. Flat River. South Nahanni. Further out might be Slave River. The Liard. Little Buffalo. Great Slave Lake, even. 

Narrowing it down seems impossible when nearly the entire south corridor of the Northwest Territories is wet marsh and snaking bodies of water. 

It both worries and reassures you at the same time. Getting to Nahanni alone was a challenge. With most of the surrounding area limited to a few year-round highways, there are not many places he could go without reaching dead-ends or winter roads closed for the season, inaccessible in the warmer summer months as the snow melts. 

Though—these highways arch as high as they can. From Yellowknife to Tuktoyaktuk, right on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. 

But he hasn't driven on any stretch of highway since you woke up. The road is unpaved, wild. You're confident you're still south, but the exact location eludes you. Northwest Territories. Yukon. Northern Alberta. It's overwhelming. Daunting. 

You try to commit the geography to memory. Sifting through an endless trawl of nothing to find something familiar. A mountain range. A sign. Anything. Anything—

“Ye mean tha’?”

The sound of his voice draws your attention, raspy. Hoarse from disuse. 

He swallows. There's something raw in his expression, fractured. Yearning, you think. For something. What that something is, however, you can't place. 

It stays on as he slowly slides his tongue out, licking over the bristles of hair covering his lip. 

You offer a shallow nod, unsure why this matters to him suddenly. 

“Yeah, I'd be—” 

You pause, words turning to smoke in your throat. Uninjured, is the first thought. Without him, your leg wouldn't be—

Whatever it is. Ankle broken. Achilles torn. A gunshot wound clean through tendon and tissue. 

But at the same time—

All turned around, he said. Lost. He was hunting, too. You must have somehow wandered outside of the park limits. Must have because the sound of a rifle would have drawn attention from nearby wardens. They'd have come to investigate. 

You swallow down the bloom of unbridled panic. The aftertaste is bitter in your mouth. The thought of being outside of the borders, all on your own—

“I’d be dead if it wasn't for you.” 

The hush that falls is immediate. Your own mortality dangling by a thin thread. Happenstance keeping you alive. 

He clears his throat again. Your fingers tighten around the metal until it hurts. 

“Names Johnny.” He twists in his seat, facing you. “Johnny MacTavish.” 

It's a bit late for introductions, but you take it in all the same. Johnny. Johnny.

(saviour—)

His eyes grow wide when you slowly, haltingly, breathe yours out. Letting it sit in the air where it dissolves into the silence, the weight of it somehow more damning than being alone in the woods. There's power in a name. In knowing it. Military. You're not sure why it matters, but it does. 

You fight another shiver when he says it back after a beat, much too fond, adoring, for the sparse companionship you've barely begun to build. 

“I'll keep ye safe,” he says your name again, accent curling in between the bridges of each letter. There's a heat in his eyes; pyretic. A sickness. “Don't hae tae worry aboot anything.” 

He turns back slowly, angling the wheel around a sudden bend in the thicket. The path is clearer here, looking more like an established dirt road than a sparse coppice. It twists upward, cutting a meandering line through a dense cropping of spruce. The canopy above—as thick as it is—curls over the road, enclosing it in a bed of conifers branching overhead. Concealing it from view. 

The sight fills you with a new bloom of unease. How quickly the wild swallows you whole, shielding you from prying eyes, prickles against the nape of your neck, dripping like hot oil down your spine. 

“Where are we?” It comes out in a whisper. 

He makes a noise in the back of his throat. In your periphery, you see him lift his hand off the wheel, but sit, paralyzed, when he brings it down to your thigh, giving what attempts to be a pacifying squeeze. 

“Home,” he answers, making the turn. 

A log cabin comes into view. It’s situated at the end of the clearing, covered by the same dense tangle of trees as the path. The forest seems to bend around the single-storey home, enclosing in a cradled embrace of intermixing wry jack pine, bold tamarack, dark spruce, and white birch. Trembling aspen peaks above the heads of the other trees, hiding the smoked black spruce roof from view above. 

It might look homey under different circumstances, but the thick, stripped logs—made of varnished white spruce—jutting out half-crescents to form the walls seem brooding. Claustrophobic. It's small—just a storey and a half. A camper's cabin not meant for longtime use. It wears its age in wood rot and peeling varnish. The scent of wet wood clings to the air when he rolls the window down, coming to a stop a few paces away from the single step leading to the porch. 

Firewood stacked high to the awning on both sides of the blue door, encased in metal to keep it dry. Moss-covered concrete foundations lift the house off of the ground, keeping it from melting the permafrost below. The remains of a snuffed, charred campfire is perched to the left of the winding path leading to the door. Felled lumber lays on its side, the top whittled down onto a seat. A wooden rack leans against a tree close by. The hide of an animal is stretched taut across the panels. Leather-making materials sit in a bucket beside it. 

A metal box—bear-proof, you're sure—is half-buried in the soil. Storage, perhaps, for the unusable remains of the animals he hunts. 

It's fairly standard for a cabin up north, you think. But something about this place makes you feel anxious. Trapped. You can't see anything at all through the dense cluster of trees, but you can hear the sound of running water. A river, maybe. A stream. It splashes against the rock, the current too quick for you to even think about swimming in it. 

It only adds to your unease. 

“This is home,” he says, jerking his chin toward the house. 

Home is a cabin nestled somewhere in the unorganised wilderness of the Northwest Territories. Nahanni National Park is several hours in another direction. Too few communities exist on highway seven for you to even stumble onto them—

Assuming, of course, that you could walk there to begin with.

The lingering pain in your ankle, the heavy bandage wrapped around it—it's an immediate certainty that you can't walk. Broken, you know, from the glimpse you'd taken before. Milkwhite against raspberry red—

You don't think about that. 

You don't think about much at all. 

“Right.” You murmur. This place is the furthest thing from home you could imagine. 

He moves in your periphery, reaching for you. You jerk back, driven by instincts. The need for distance, space—

The jostling of your foot makes you hiss in pain, and he offers a conciliatory hum. 

“Ye’ll be alright, bonnie. Lets jus’ get ye inside now.” 

The inside is made of varnished wood. A mix of black and white spruce. It's cosy, you suppose. 

It opens up to a living room immediately upon walking in the door. A mat sits under your feet. A small closet to the right with the door slightly ajar. Along the length of the left wall is a doorway spilling into a small kitchen. From your vantage point, you make out a sink, and then another door to the right. 

Along the back wall beside the arching doorway is a brick fireplace. Soft fur is spread out on the ground in front of it. An old, weathered couch is pushed against the left wall, a shawl tossed over the back. 

There's no television. A stack of books and magazines sit above the couch—used more for an end table than entertainment, you note, spotting the glass of water resting on the pile. A pack of cigarettes beside it. An ashtray on the floor. Bottles of beer sit on the small table shoved under the window. One of the chairs is covered in clothes. 

It's lived in, you note, but lifeless. 

There are no pictures on the wall. No personal artefacts littered around. It's—

Perfunctory. 

He comes home, shucks his boots off by the front door, and drinks warm beer on the couch until he falls asleep. An inference, of course; but as he carries you further into the house (his insistence—ye cannae walk oan tha’, doe, stop bein’ stubborn and lemme carry ye), your notion gains credence. It's sparse. Threadbare. 

There's a single plate in the sink. The old stove, separated from the sink by a small countertop, is covered in a layer of dust. A fridge is pushed against the back wall. 

The door you glimpsed in the kitchen leads to the washroom. It's tight. A shower, a sink, a toilet. No windows. A towel is hung over the curtain rail, still damp from his shower before. A single mat covers most of the tiled floor below. A tube of toothpaste sits in the porcelain basin of the sink. 

Beside the washroom is the master bedroom. The bed is unmade. An untouched glass of water is left on the end table beside a worn leather book and a bible. 

An open closet sits across from the bed. The window is open. The breeze flutters the old, jaundiced curtain. 

He gives you his room and says he'll take the couch. Under normal circumstances, you might have fought it. Insisted that he sleep in his bed. You're a guest. You couldn't put him out like that. But the door has a lock. 

“Thank you,” you murmur, and he seems to tremble at your words before nodding. 

“O' coorse.” 

Johnny places you on the bed before he sets to work rebandaging your ankle. You're all too aware of the fact that you need to know. You need to see what you're dealing with, and how bad the damage is, but the pain that cuts through you when he rests your ankle—as gingerly as he can—on top of an extra pillow makes you yowl in agony. 

It's vicious. Whitehot. The pain rattles through your bones. 

He shushes you as he unwraps the clumsy brace he put on in the park, murmuring incomprehensible things under his breath that you think must be Gaelic. Words of comfort, perhaps. 

You feel none of it except an uneasy dread pooling in the empty pit of your stomach. 

“How bad is it?”

He hums, brow pinching tight. “Th' hare took most o' th' damage,” he says, eyes tracing along the congealing blood on your ankle. Dark cherry red. You swallow down a gag. “Tore yer achilles, though. Clean. Doesn't seem tae be any fragments. Broke your ankle, though. But,” he taps your calf, just above the bend of your foot. It doesn’t hurt. “It’s a clean break. Maybe just a fracture. Shuid heal up in no time.”

“And what about infections?”

“Got some stuff oan hand if that happens,” he leans back, and gives you a wink. It feels out of place considering the severity of your predicament. Garish, almost. “But ah was a good nurse. Patched ye up nicely.” 

You don't ask anything else, and silence trickles in as he refocuses his attention back to cleaning your wound and redressing it. The bed is soft under you. Giving. You lean back, staring up at the log ceiling, and will yourself not to think at all. Each slight jostle of the wet cloth running along your ankle feels like fire licking at your skin. If you had anything at all in your belly left, you might have thrown it up on the side of the bed. 

This pain is consuming. Persistent. 

Your fingers knot into the soft blankets below, gripping tight until your knuckles ache. A futile attempt to exchange this pain for a lesser one. Something you can ignore, forget. 

Through the open window, you can hear the playful caws of a raven searching for food. You want it to distract you, to pull you away from the sickening sensation of your ankle separating from the heel, but it doesn't.

All you can think about is the fresh pain. Your flesh ripped apart. Torn achilles, he'd said. You feel it as he moves, washing away the dried blood, the viscera. The break in your tibia. It's a nauseating feeling. Visceral. It screams at you that something is wrong, reverberating through your bones. 

The raven caws again. 

“Gonnae ‘ave tae stitch yer heel up.” 

You make a sound—a pathetic whimper choked in the back of your throat. 

“Fine,” you rasp, tensing. “Just—”

Get it over with. 

Johnny seems to understand, offering a consolatory pat on your shin. “Ye'll be fine. Ah know what am doin’.”

You glance back at him, avoiding whatever is happening below his elbows. Refusing to look. 

He reaches up, fingers stained pink with your blood, and pulls the ballcap off his head, shaking the matted hair loose. His hair is thick, curling at the ends. Dark brown. Soft. You take in his expression, him, as he works, using it to churn your thoughts away from the prickling sensation of him pressing your torn skin back together, readying it for the needle. 

He's intense, focused, as he works. Eyes lidded to half-mast. Long lashes fanning out over the dark circles beneath his eyelids. Bruises that speak of long, sleepless nights. The empty bottles of beer and the full ashtray within arm's reach make a little more sense as you see the extent of his fatigue. 

It doesn't concern you. You rip your gaze away from the thin, twisting rivers of red that snake through the jaundiced whites of his eyes; the possibility of his vulnerability notches something inside your chest you don't want to think about. Can't. 

Your saviour, you think again, veering sharply on the edge of too cruel—

“Might pinch a bit, doe,” he mutters low, soft. His thick, even brows pull together at the centre. You feel the prick of the needle pushing through your skin—

Down his brows. The oblique curve of his nose. Bottled to a point. The thick bed of hair beneath his nostrils. Thin, pink lips jutting from the thatch of black bristles. The wisps curl down the slope of his neck, thinning at the hollow below before thickening back into a dense crop on the scant patch of his skin visible from his unbuttoned shirt. 

Another prick—

A thin, gold chain loops around his neck. Tucked against his sternum is a Latin cross. It's plain. Traditional. Solid gold, maybe. But not purely for decoration. Where the arms meet the body, the surface is smoothed down. Worn. In the reflection, you can see the thin, circular lines of a fingerprint. 

The bible on his dresser makes sense. You glance over at it, taking in the folds and creases on the leather cover. Aged and well-loved. Used. Pages are dog-eared. Waterlogged. Scotch tape holds the spine together. 

The Holy Bible gleams in faded gold lettering. Douay–Rheims is etched into the surface. 

The sight of a worn-down book and thumbed cross shouldn't relax you, but it does. A good ol’ boy, then. You turn back to him, eyes caught on the gleaming gold flush against tanned skin. It's tight to his sternum. Hung delicately around his neck. 

Seeing it now feels a touch voyeuristic. It wasn't intentionally bared to you. Wasn't offered up willingly for you to gawk at, mind looping around thou shalt not kill and do unto others as you yourself would want done unto you, and finding comfort in the ordered morality of its symbolism—however fickle that could end up being. 

You know a man is not as moral as his religion demands of him, but he looks devout. 

A good Catholic boy. 

Still—

You peel your gaze away from his chest as the thread slides through. The sensation is uncomfortable. Ticklish. Forcing your attention back to him, well above the neckline. His nose. Nostrils flaring when your knee jerks. His hands close over your shin. Mouth parting slightly just to say, keep still, doe. Donnae want tae hurt ye. 

His hair is slightly greasy near his scalp. Sweat from earlier dampens his locks, flattening it tongue head. It's longer at the top compared to the sides. An odd, asymmetrical hairstyle that doesn't feel like an aesthetic choice at all. Maybe he had a mullet. Or—

You see it when he tilts his head down, chin angled toward your foot. 

A scar stretches from his temple back, thinning the hair that lines his scalp on the right. The flesh is jagged, uneven. Cratered. It forms a ravine. The canyon walls clumped scar tissue. The nullah in the centre is all pink and raw. 

You think of a shooting star. Meteor showers in the indigo sky. 

You think of his words from earlier—ah know what am doin’—and the depth of his medical knowledge. It stands out now. You suppose he would, wouldn't he?

The thought has shame dripping down your spine like hot, slick oil. Burning. Tarry. You remember what he said in the truck about being wounded in action, the misery in his words, the anger, and choke yourself on the regret that swarms your throat. 

He looks up, then, catching whatever awful amalgamation of self-hatred, shame, and regret makes of your expression, and the words—sorry, I'm so sorry—tear through your throat until it's bloody and raw. Pulp. Unspeakable, now. 

It dampens his brow, but there's no embarrassment in his eyes when he holds them to yours. Nothing except an intense, dizzying sense of curiosity. Of—

Intrigue. 

It doesn't have a place here, and the sight of it is sobering. 

Why is he looking at you like that when you're gawking at his injury? Confusion knots deep. Uncertainty coiling around your ribcage. Maybe he didn't notice. Doesn't care. 

Is too used to it to worry about whatever conclusions you might draw from the jagged skin barely knitted back together. But his eyes flash. Understanding edging out the unfathomable greed lurking in hazel plains, nestled, restive, in the shade that falls over the sloping boscage. 

You almost miss the shadow when it appears. Wrought with Leashed ghosts. Tempered anger. Wild, frenetic. The chains holding it at bay tremble. Shake—

And then it's gone.

Dissolve back into passive cordiality. All ire stayed behind a wall. 

You want to apologize, but the words are ash in your throat. Unspeakable. Johnny doesn't address it. He dips his head down once more, silently refocusing his attention to your ankle, and offering no explanation for the scar on his head. 

You don't ask. Don't pry. It's not your place. But your eyes are still glued to it. 

It's a horrific injury. Survival from such a terrible wound seems like an impossibility. A gunshot, you're sure. Seeing the small chasm carved into skin, narrowly missing his eye socket, fills you with a blistering sense of pity for this man, and you quietly, quickly, peel your eyes away from the jagged surface, letting your gaze run across the room. A meagre sense of privacy, you're sure, but it lets you breathe a little easier when you can't see the way his temple split apart to make room for a bullet—

“Had a mohawk,” he says. “They cut it off when this happened.” 

A mohawk. The asymmetry of his hair makes sense now, and you can almost picture it as you stare at him. The edges shorn, the top long. Unruly. His hair has a slight curl to the ends, but is mostly straight for the first few inches. 

As wild as he looks now—untamed, rugged; the thick tangle of uncharted wilderness—the mohawk must have made him roguish. Boorish. With his broad shoulders, thick biceps, and piercing blue eyes, the mohawk would have added to the playful appeal. Boyishly charming with his cropped hair and puckish grin. The draw of a bad boy, a vandal. 

But as you try and shape this around him, you catch the strain in his shoulders. The terse set to his jaw. 

“You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.”

“Was shot.” 

It's said without a preamble as if he was waiting for you to ask. But the words are spat out like they're something foul in his mouth; like he's ridding the taste of it between his teeth. The anger, the aggression cows you slightly, but you offer a small, warbling smile you hope is conciliatory. Apologetic. 

“I'm sorry,” you offer around a stuttering exhale. You can't imagine what that must be like. Shot in the head. The idea is unthinkable. Improbable. And yet, the evidence slashes across his temple; a meteor shower carved into his flesh. 

He lifts his chin, staring down at you from the bridge of his nose. “Wasnae yer fault, doe.” 

“I know, I just—” 

Johnny gives a nod in response, ending the bubble of words and apologies building up behind your teeth. It is what it is, he mutters when you blink at him, flummoxed. This sort of reveal seems like it should necessitate a bigger conversation, a deeper one. Questions buoy to the surface—from prying (how did it happen, how did you survive) to intrusive (what did it feel like, does it hurt still)—but you trample them until they sit, a building mass lodged in your throat. 

He seems content, then, to continue with what he was doing, and says nothing more about it. And it's not your place to pry. To chisel into his trauma. 

You let it pass. Let it moulder. 

The raven caws once more. You lean back in his bed, staring through the fluttering curtains, mind reeling at this discovery. 

Stupidly, you feel more at ease in his presence. As if this show of vulnerability somehow negated the distress of your predicament, and the infeasible nature of how you ended up here, in his home. Gazing through the thick canopy of green to the golden sky above. A whole world away from your home. Broken. Injured. But the cross, the thumbed-through bible, and his human fragility seem to curl along the vicious dread curling inside your guts, soothing over the distrust with gentle, sweeping brushes. 

Quelling a frightened child after a nightmare. 

How strange, you think, but let yourself relax in his presence all the same, breathing in the scent of stale smoke, sweat. Coumarin. Tree moss. Fresh pine. It smells like the valley. Soft, waning detergent. Masculine. 

You pretend you're watching for the raven as you sneak small glances at him. Taking in everything with a new perspective. The broadness of his shoulders. The thickness of his waist. There's power in his arms, in his thighs. Sculpted musculature, honed and refined. Despite the thickness of his fingers, he has a delicate touch. Deft and sure, as if he's used to working his bulk around small parts. 

He's unkempt. The ballcap hid most of his dishevelled state, but he's not sloven. It reminds you of the outdoorsy explorers. The hikers you met on your trip out. Roughhewn and unconcerned about their overgrown beards and their tousled hair. 

There's something potently masculine about it, and you can't deny that even with the garish wound on his head, all mangled scar tissue, he's handsome. Rougish. The scar elevating it somehow—a testament, perhaps, to his resiliency. 

He catches your stare on the next glance, holding it as he leans back with a quirk of his lips. It's not quite the grins he aimed at you before, but the shadow of it lingers. 

“Now,” he utters, the severity in his tone makes you flinch. Sobering quickly under the weight of his solemnity. “Th' bad part.”

“Bad part?” You echo, confused. “What could be worse than that?”

He taps two fingers against your swollen ankle, urging you to look. You swallow and force yourself to glance at where he rests his fingers. 

With your split heel stitched up and wrapped in bandages, the sight of your leg doesn't make you want to curl into the fetal position and cry. But it's still horrifying to look at. 

A mass half the side of a baseball juts out from your skin. 

“Ankles dislocated,” he murmurs, sliding his fingers over the mound. “Gotta pop it back into place.” 

“That's not—” you shake your head. “That's impossible.” 

“S’okay, doe. I gotcha.”

“That's not the point. That's not—”

“Look,” his pitch lowers dangerously, firm now. “Gotta do it or you'll have problems later on. Much worse than a bit o’pain.”

“But—”

He inhales sharply. “Can't let it go, doe. Gotta fix it.”

You understand the logic in that. Leaving a dislocated ankle will undoubtedly cause problems later on. But—

“Will it hurt?” 

Your fear quiets the irritation brewing in steeled hazel. “Aye. I won't lie tae ye, doe. It will hurt.” 

You swallow around a whimper. 

“But,” he leans over, his hand sliding over your cheek. Cradling your face in the palm of his hand. “I'll do mah best tae be quick. Ah won't hurt ye, doe.” 

It must be the way he carries himself that puts you at ease, so assured in his abilities; confident in what he can do without any sense of grandiosity. 

“Fine.” The word is juttered out of your chest. “Just—”

His thumb catches the tears that spill over your lashline, swiping them away with a tenderness that makes you shiver. 

“Ah’ll be quick.”

He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two chalky white pills. Tylenol, he mutters, catching the furrow of your brow. It abates the unease somewhat, and you let him drop the pills into the flat of your palm, rolling them over with your thumb as he grabs the water on the end table. They're circular with a slit down the middle. 

“It'll take the pain away.” He says, holding the water up to you. “Ready?” It's uttered so severely, so seriously, that your breath hitches in your lungs. Mirth blooming between your teeth. 

“As I'll ever be,” you rasp out before popping the pills into your mouth, cradling them on your tongue protectively as you reach for the glass he holds out. They're bitter. 

You wash it down with a mouthful of stale water before leaning back on the bed, letting the scent of his sheets wash over you once more. 

Outside, the raven trills. 

The pain of popping your ankle back into place leaves you a weeping mess in his sheets, but Johnny doesn't seem to mind the shuddering sobs. He pets down your back, shushing you quietly under his breath as he mutters something in Gaelic that you're sure is meant to be soothing. 

“Ye’ll be fine,” he says, tracing figure-eights down your spine until the Tylenol kicks in, and the agony tapers off into an aching throb. “Jus’ breathe. Ah’ll get ye somethin' tae eat.”

He leaves soon after. You let the numbed, drowsiness of the pain medication lull you into a doze, listening to Johnny move in the kitchen. The squealing slide of unvarnished wood rubbing against old metal. The thud of a knife. The scent of hot oil. Muttered curses. A playful raven's caw. 

You're not sure how long you slip in and out of this dreamless state, but Johnny appears in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the frame. He watches you with hooded eyes, a small, secretive smile tugging on his lips.

Blearily, you yawn, somehow still exhausted despite how long you slept between yesterday evening and today. Trauma, you suppose, and say nothing at all about it when he helps you sit up in the bed. 

Dinner consists of leftover bannock—the fried dough soft in your mouth, the flavour buttery; smokey—and hare stew. He pulls a chair from the living room into the bedroom, eating on the edge of the bed with you. 

He's sloppy about it. Slurps all the meat and potatoes out of the bowl before sopping chunks of bannock into the gravy, shoveling it into his mouth with a grunt. It dribbles down his chin, and dirties his beard. This slovenly display might have churned your stomach before, but you're just as ravenous. 

And it's good. 

The bread leaves grease stains on your fingers, but the toes on your uninjured foot curl when you bite into the crispy surface, teeth sinking into the pillowy dough below. 

“This is bannock, you said?” You ask, dabbing the napkin he offered with a wink when you finish. At his nod, you continue. “It's good.”

“Aye,” he grunts around a mouthful. “S’the best. Make it every mornin’ so ah go’ fresh bannock tae go.” He swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, slurring out: “s’good wit’ jam.” 

“Did the locals teach you how to make it?”

He nods. “Scottish dish, originally. Made wit’ oats. Drier, too. But—fuck. S’good—nae. Better like this. Ol’ couple taught me when ah first came. Paler ‘n’ shite, they said. ‘n didnae ken a fuckin' thing about surviving oot ‘ere. Big man, Jim, taught me ‘ow tae hunt. Where tae fish. An’ ‘ow to cook it. Made this cabin, aye. He, ah, and his son. Offered ‘er up tae me when they realised ah didnae come wit’ shite all but a bad attitude.” 

“That was nice of them.”

“Most folk up ‘ere are. Quiet, ken? People take care’a ‘emselves, most. Take care’a others, too.” 

You mull over his words as he leans back in the chair with a satisfied groan, legs spread wide. His hands folded over his belly. The picture of ease. Contentment. This freedom of motion makes you slightly envious. 

“An’ wha’ about ye?” His eyes are lidded, leonine, and fixed on you. The intensity is always on the side of too much. Too dizzying. Consuming. 

You stamp it down, running your thumb along the inseam of his gingham throw. “What about me?”

“Why’d ye come here?”

His question throws you off balance. “It’s a pretty park,” you offer with a shallow laugh. “Who wouldn't come here?”

“Lots of pretty parks. Why this one?”

“Dunno. It was—”

“‘ave ye ever been tae any other parks? Anything like this?”

“I hiked a bit, and, um—”

He sucks out a piece of meat from between his teeth. “A bit, aye?” 

“Yeah. A bit. Why—”

“Ye came all the way here fer what? A pretty park? With no experience at all? And alone?”

The shift in his posture reads as angry, irate. You blink, bewildered by this sudden change. 

“Well. It was supposed to be an experience.”

“An experience, aye? Survival skills of a lemming.” 

It's derisive, cutting. You bristle through the sting of humiliation, grappling through the slurry of fatigue to cobble together some form of defence against this lambasting of your—admittedly—ill-thought adventure, but he's already moving on. Fingers tapping an off-rhythm beat against his belly as he levels you with a sober look. More serious than you'd ever seen him before. 

“An’ yer family? They just let ye come here oan yer own?”

The mention of your family makes guilt well to the surface, buoying above the indignant anger at his mocking words. Cowed, you shrug. 

“Sure.” 

Something cracks in the severe mein he carries; fracturing through the blatant disapproval. Cutting it like a knife. 

He sighs through his nose before reaching up and scrubbing his hands over his face. “Shite. Ye really needed me, aye?” 

You blink at the odd choice of words, brows drawing together in a tight knot. It's indefensible, of course. In many ways, he's right. If he hadn't found you—

Well. 

You temper that thought before it forms. You're too out of it, spatially unaware and unmoored, to let yourself fall into an existential pit of despair when you know you won't be able to climb out. Thinking of your assured doom out there, all because of a misstep somewhere along the path, makes dread bloom in the pit of your stomach. Nauseous, roiling. It froths over the basin, ready to spill over and drag you under. 

Swallowing around the surge of panic—mortality a fickle thing in a place like this—you offer a despondent shrug in response. Unable to scrape together any sense of a defence that won't make you sound childish and idiotic. 

You ready yourself for more mockery, having become the very thing the park rangers tried to warn you about when you showed, alone, in hiking boots much too big for you. 

But then he's shifting, expression clearing. The anger folded back behind a quick grin. 

“Pretty here, isn't it?” 

You're not sure what to make of his mercurial temperament; emotions cascading by, quicksilver and sudden. The flashes of anger, intensity, curiosity, and this, all happening within such a short period. It's overwhelming. 

It unsettles you. But—

“Yeah,” you mutter, unable to stem the awe from leaking through. 

The change in conversation is freeing. Sometimes it's just easier to let sleeping dogs lie, and that's exactly what you do. Tucking his odd behaviour behind a plexiglass of indifference, pretending it wasn't there, lurking just out of sight. Something to unravel later, when your heart wasn't on the verge of buckling under the strain of your anxiety. When your chest didn't feel like it was slowly being crushed. Your stomach is all twisted up in knots too tight to untie with your bare hands. 

It's easy to let yourself heave through jittering lungs, and pretend you couldn't feel the rot festering on the sides of them. Eating holes through delicate tissue. 

The majesty of this place hasn't quite worn off, and you use that as an excuse to drift. To close the doors on the overwhelming deluge of hysteria creeping up on you. 

You still think of the jutting fjords instead. The steep ravines, the moose in the distance—her colours sharp against the green backdrop—and let the untempered sense of reverence split you down the middle. 

It comes out in a flood, then—as if you've been biting back the words this whole time. 

You tell him about the valley. The waterfall. The white river. The marmot you saw poking its head out. No bears, you sigh; the forlorn lilt to your tone seeped with a touch of relief, an aspect he pokes at with a crooked smirk until you huff, rolling your eyes to the ceiling at his gentle ribbing. Huffily, you admit that as much as you want to see a bear, you're not quite ready to face them in the wild. 

Lots’a bears ‘round ‘ere, he taunts, rolling his knees out further as he sinks deeper into the chair. 

He dodges your next question of where, exactly, is here with a silky grin and a need tae know rolling off his lips before they tug downward in a sudden frown. 

You must be acclimating to the strange ebb and flow of his emotions because the lour grimace on his face doesn't deter you as much as it did moments ago. You pick up the slack when the conversation lulls, telling him about the places you've been and how they compare to Nahanni.

“They just—don’t.” 

It's hard to encapsulate the scale of it all into simple words; digestible pieces someone else can swallow. The park isn't too far from Yellowknife, and yet it feels like a world on its own. The remoteness, the vastitude of it all, is hard to describe, but Johnny seems to understand. 

He listens with a slight quirk to his lips. A smile you'd almost call fond. He gets it, you know. The words you can't say. The ones that feel too lacklustre when you do. 

“That really why ye came?” 

You hesitate for a moment, looping a loose thread around your finger. Contemplating. Mulling it over. You've never told anyone the reason for the trip outside of a new experience for yourself. Testing your mettle. But with Johnny—

There's a sense of kinship, you find. An understanding. 

“It seemed so—” he waits for you to find the words. “Lonely, I guess.” 

“Lonely,” the way he says the word is ruminative. Rolling it around between his teeth; testing the weight of it. “Ah suppose it is.”

“You don't think so?”

“It's—” he pauses, eyes listing to the side as he mulls over what he wants to convey. 

He does this sometimes, you think. Gets lost. Loses himself. Retreats inward. You can't help but wonder if this is a manifestation of his trauma—a head injury such as this would be classified as a traumatic brain injury, wouldn't it? You're not well-versed in this area, and it feels a little mean, cruel, to have this thought, but it blooms as his eyes fog over. As he struggles, almost, to find the words he wants to say, to give voice to what he feels, thinks. 

“Lonely, aye,” he grinds out after a beat, but he looks frustrated about it, and glares down at his lap, silently fuming. Annoyed. “Big.”

The word is ripped out from between his teeth, and you nod, hastily, to both quell the looming anger brimming in the terse set to his shoulders and to let him know you understand. Can read between the lines—if only just. 

“Is that why you came?” 

The shrug he offers is noncommittal but you can see the tension pooling in his brow despite your efforts to quash it. “Couldnae go home after this—” he lifts his hand, tapping his fingers against the scar tissue on his temple. “Wasn't safe. Had tae give up everything after. Maw. Da. Sisters. Cannae ever see them again.”

It doesn't make sense. None of it does. The innate understanding between you is shattered by the impossibility of this moment, and his half-formed words. What you gave up seems paltry in comparison to what he's confessing to. His family. His whole family—

“Might see them one day. Once that fuckin' prick is in th' ground, but 'til then—” he shrugs again, easy. As if the look on his face wasn't cataclysmic in its anger. It's rage. Sorrow. Hatred. You flinch back as if the blackhole of these awful emotions will eat you alive. 

Johnny sees it, and reaches for you, making soothing noises under his breath as his hand wraps around your thigh. “Ah, doe, don’t worry. He wilnae find us—” 

You're not sure what to say to that, but the grip he has on you is firm. Unyielding. There's a scowl etching over his lips, as if the mere thought of such a thing fills him with disgust, fury, and you shake your head slowly. 

“I'm not—I’m not worried.” You don't know how to tell him that this phantom prick from his past isn't what made you reel back, but the intensity of his wrath. The sudden infliction of his ire. So you don't. You give in with what you hope is a conciliatory smile. “I, uh, I trust you.”

It's loose. Shaky. Your conviction wanes around the edges, falling flat and hollow when it trembles out. If Johnny notices the brittleness around it, he doesn't show it. If anything, he seems to take it as a sudden gospel. 

“D’ye—” There's a crack in his voice. He swallows, then. Adam's apple bobbing harshly against the skin of his throat. You wonder if you've upset him. Angered him. But he's leaning down, eyes widening. Feverish. Blue lagoons. “Ye trust me.”

It's not a question, but he poses it as such. You nod slowly and unsure. 

Johnny ducks his head, then. Lifts one hand to rub at the bristles around his chin and upper lip. Lost in thought, maybe—

It's when he reaches around, scrubbing at the nape of his neck, do you see the flush peeking out from beneath the thick bed of hair covering his cheeks. The sight is jarring. Unexpected. 

You're not sure what to make of it. Of this strange reaction. But it passes almost as quickly as it started. The red is replaced by a wide, blinding grin. He squeezes your thigh. 

“Hah, doe. Ye really know what tae say tae cheer me up—”

You haven't said anything at all, but this, too, goes unacknowledged. And before you can even try to draw attention to it, he breathes in deeply as he sits up in the chair. 

“Ye finished?” He motions to the bowl and plate on the bed. You nod. “Alright. Ah'll put ‘em away. Get ye some tea.”

“Oh, I'm fine—”

“Nah, hen. Tea is good for ye. Will help ye heal.” 

He leaves without another word, carrying away your dirty dishes. The unfinished conversation lingers in the air around you, but beneath the loose strands of everything unsaid, you feel something tangle inside your chest as you replay his words in the back of your head. 

All alone in Nahanni, unable to see his family. You're sure the prick he's referring to is the one who gave him that horrific scar, nearly taking his life. 

Somewhere in the loop, a knot of pity begins to take shape. 

Johnny brings you Labrador tea—a speciality he learned how to make from Ethel and Jim, the couple from Wrigley who took him in. It's good. It tastes sweet, earthy. Honey and pine. You sip at it as he grabs sleep clothes from his dresser, watching him with a muted sense of listlessness. 

You can't imagine the next sixty days that loom before you. Restlessness, claustrophobia—it coalesces into this strange, itchy feeling that sits, uncomfortably, atop your chest; an increasing pressure. You wish you could pick it off like a loose scab. Dig your nail under the hard clot and tug—

Peel it all off until just silken new skin remains. 

Johnny looks antsy when you finish the tea. Eyes bright. Wide. 

As you contemplate the surrealism of your predicament over Labrador tea, he grins like a shark and tells you he only has one toothbrush. 

“Dinnae mind sharin’, doe,” he offers, too jovial, eager, for the notion of lending his toothbrush to a stranger he met less than twenty-four hours ago. Ah ‘ave good hygiene, he adds, as if that might make this any better. 

Putting away the disgust, the idea of sharing a toothbrush feels much too intimate to you. Something befitting a long-term partner, or kin, before a man you know only the bare bones of. 

But like most things lately, what choice do you have? 

Johnny grins brightly at your acquiescence. All teeth. He hands you an old sweater—his favourite football team, he adds with a wink when you blink at it—and then moves toward you with a wicked gleam in his eyes you try to pretend is just overeager hospitality. 

“Wait—” you start, jerking back instinctively as he looms over the bed. “What are you doing?”

A dip forms between his brows, and he cocks his head quizzically at you. “What're ye talkin’ ‘bout, doe? Need'tae brush yer teeth, don't ye?” 

“I—I can walk—”

He snorts. “Oan yer broken ankle? Will only hurt yerself more.” 

Despite the truth in this statement, the flippancy in his voice stings. Prickles under your skin. Your loss of mobility, of being wholly dependent on another person, is a bitter thing to try and swallow. Especially when you're here for the literal antithesis of it. To be free. Self-reliant. 

Not needing anyone at all except the grit in your bones and the determination to see things through. 

Having all of that ripped into pieces in front of you, by a man who says it with such nonchalant disregard—as if your efforts were meaningless, insubstantial for what it got it—is humiliating. 

You can't remember the last time you needed someone for something so simple as walking to the washroom to brush your teeth, to wash up. The loss of this minute freedom makes you want to cry; to break down. Rage. Break things with your bare hands just to show the world you still can. To fight against these shackles locking around your ankles, and run—

Johnny's hand falls on your knee, thumb brushing the torn edge of your tights, grazing the skin beneath the loose threads with each pass. 

“Don't worry. Ah'll take care 'o ye.” 

That's the problem, you think, chest burning. This awful feeling inside is churning. Frothingly acidic, corrosive. You don't want him to. You don't want to need this man at all. Ever. For anything. 

But—

“Thanks,” you choke out. It tastes like iron. Like defeat. 

He carries you to the washroom, cooing the whole time about how ye ‘ave nothin’ tae be embarrassed ‘bout while you blister from mortification, from shame. 

You came here to be self-reliant. To grind your mettle against the wilderness and come out on the other side victorious and better for it. But what you've accomplished so far is getting lost, getting hurt, imposing on a man you barely know—

One who has to sit down on the ledge of the bathtub with you cradled in his lap like a child, injured foot elevated on the lid of the toilet seat. He cups his hand under your mouth as you scrub at your teeth, trying to catch any of the foam from the toothpaste that spills from your mouth. 

It's mortifying. 

You've never felt so vulnerable in your whole life. 

“Sorry,” you choke out around the brush—his brush—as he slowly commanders the weight of you around enough to spit in the sink. 

He waves you off with a noise. “S’alright, doe. Ye can lean oan me all ye like.” 

So he says. But you feel the rapid inhales behind you. The soft pants spilling from his lips, lungs expanding, broadening his chest into your back. Exertion, you think, slightly cowed and humiliated. Desperately trying to hold some of your weight on your uninjured foot. 

“Nah, ah,” he breathes, arm slinking around your middle, tugging you firmly into his lap. “Ye jus’ worry about gettin’ ready tae go tae bed now. Ah got ye.”

He soothes his palm up and down the length of your arm as you finish up in a fruitless effort to calm your nerves, but it doesn't work. Can't. Because you know what's coming next. 

“Can I, um—” your tongue is thick in your mouth. “I need to use the washroom to–to, uh, washup, and stuff—”

His thigh jerks beneath you. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than normal. “Okay.”

But he stays where he is. 

“I think I can do it on my own—”

“And if ye step oan yer leg?” He tuts, arm tightening around you. “Only gonnae hurt yerself more, doe.”

“I'll be careful, but I really have to—” 

“S’okay,” he coos. “S’only me.” 

That's the problem, you think wildly. Hysterical. That's the whole problem, isn't it? 

“No, you don't understand. I need to, um, go.” He makes another noise, soft. Agreeable. Fuck. “I need to pee.” 

It comes out in a hiss. Feral, like a cat. Embarrassment turns you into more animal than man. 

Again, he hums. “I know, doe. Donnae worry, ah’ll hold yer leg.”

“Can't I just keep it, um, on the ledge?” 

“No, no. If ye put weight oan it, doe, ye’ll be in serious trouble. Dislocated. Broken. Jesus, ye cuid slip the bone out of place—”

No. No.

The idea of him holding your ankle as you piss is beyond any measure of shame you've ever felt before. You like your privacy. Crave it, sometimes. You don't think you've ever done this in front of someone since you were a child. 

You need—

A moment.

Time. A pause. 

But he doesn't give you a chance. 

Johnny's other arm loops under your knees, and with a small huff he stands, holding you aloft with an arm anchored across your belly. It's quick. Mercilessly so. He steps back and lifts his foot to toe the lid off the toilet seat, unbothered by the loud clang it makes when it hits the tank. 

“There we go,” he mutters, and sounds almost breathless for it. “Let's get ye ready.” 

It should be awkward. Clumsy. But he moves with a surprising agility that belies the firmness of his muscles, the bulk. He lets your uninjured leg drop to the floor, murmuring for you to put some weight on it as he cradles your shin in his hands, careful not to let your foot move more than it needs to. 

The strange dance ends with him holding your shin in his hands, stretching your thighs out more than they'd ever been before. An image that might have been comical under different circumstances but just makes you flounder at the suggestiveness of the pose. Added, in large part, by the firm hold he has on you. There's not an ounce of give. No threat of falling. 

You gasp when he moves, shuffling backwards to pivot you around until the back of your shin meets the cold porcelain. 

“Alright now, doe,” he motions toward the seat as he slowly bends down to a crouch on the floor, your foot still held in his grasp. 

You follow him down until you meet the seat, trying to avoid his gaze as you clumsily paw at your tattered pants, slipping the down your thighs in a hurry. Your panties follow after a moment of hesitation. 

When his breath catches, you say nothing at all. Pointedly avoid whatever face he might be making as you stare, fixed, at the panels on the wall behind his head. Wallpaper. Probably moisture-resistant. It's peeling in some places. Decades ago, it might have been a soft canary yellow. 

His breathing is shallow. You ball your hands into fists and press the flat of your knuckles against your thighs. 

It's hard to focus when you can feel the scorching heat of his body bleeding into your leg, your knee. Close enough that all he has to do is bend down a little more, and his face would be pressed against your thighs. 

There's no room, no privacy. 

You close your eyes and pretend you can't hear how his breath seems to fill the entirety of the small washroom, ghosting over your skin. Virginia Falls comes to mind—a roaring rush of water—but even in the solitude of your mind, you can't ignore the way his stare drills through your skin. 

You swallow. You can't do it. Can't do this. 

“Can you—” back off, go away. Stop breathing so heavily because you might get the wrong idea, like this whole thing excites him somehow—

His voice is rough when he speaks. Ragged. “Cannae ah what, doe?”

“Turn the tap on? I can't—I can't concentrate.”

“S’only me, bonnie girl,” he murmurs, but does what you ask. Leaning over you, broad torso swallowing you up entirely under his bulk. You can feel the soft give of his belly on your knee as he presses it into you, but it only lasts a second before you meet a wall of solid muscle beneath. He braces a warm, rough palm on your naked thigh, leaning in as he reaches over to the sink above. 

It's barely a fraction of his weight but the drag of it makes you blink in surprise. His skin is burning. Redhot. 

Opening your eyes brings you close to his chest, nose only a hair away from the tanned skin stretched over his collarbones. The metal chain gleams in the flushed light hanging overhead, sitting in a golden contrast to his sunkissed flesh. Its reflection casts beads of glittering lambency over the slope of his neck. 

Pretty, you think, watching as it coruscates in a mesmerising dance each time he moves. 

The faucet turns with a metallic squeak, breaking you from your reverie. Water gurgles up from the pipes, spitting into the basin with a hiss. You pull back, twisting your head to the side as heat floods your chest. 

“Thanks,” you mutter, unable to meet his stare.

His fingers tighten around your flesh. His voice is raw when he mumbles, “anytime.” 

The trickling rush of water reverberates around the room, and it's easy to close your eyes and pretend you're alone.

So that's exactly what you do. 

His palm grows slick on your skin. Damp. But you ignore it, focusing on nothing but the urgency of getting this over with as quickly as you can. It works, marginally—

(Johnny makes another noise in the back of his throat. 

That, too, you ignore.)

“Finished?” His voice is thick, wet. You nod slowly, peeking out from the sliver between your lashes to paw at the wall for the toilet paper roll. “Here, ah’ll help ye out of fer pants—”

Your head feels heavy. Limbs laden. The embarrassment crushes you into a fine powder; malleable, putty. You let Johnny take the lead after. Let him slip your tattered tights down your thighs, and say nothing at all when too much of his palm glides along your skin as he pulls. Needlessly, of course, when just two fingers would do. 

But it's fine. Fine. Maybe he's never taken off tights before. Maybe the material is too thin and he's worried about it catching on the scrapes over your knees, the bandage wrapped up to mid-calf. 

Your shirt, too. When he slips his fingers under the hem, splaying them wide over your belly before dragging them up until it bunches around his wrist. Tugging, tugging. Hands gliding over your skin, fitting along the contours of your body.

He keeps one hand moulded to your neck, fingers brushing your jaw, as he gingerly pulls the shirt over your head. The ragged pants in your ear, the soft groans when you slip into his old shirt—

It's exertion, really. Must be. He's tired from holding you up the whole time you brushed your teeth, washed your face in the sink. It's all fine. He's being gentle. Doesn't want to hurt you.

He's just being nice. 

(And when you notice that your panties are missing from the pile of dirty clothes he shoves into the corner behind the door, that, too, you ignore.)

Exhaustion takes you soon after Johnny tucks you into bed, dragging you under once again. He tells you he'll be on the couch. To holler if you need anything. Sluggishly, you nod. Thank him when he places a glass of water on the bedside table for you. 

(Bite your tongue when he brushes his fingers over your cheek as he bids you goodnight.)

Through the gossamer of sleep, you can hear the floorboards creak in the doorway, but when you look, there's nothing there. Just an empty kitchen. The soft flicker of the fireplace smouldering in the living room. 

Nothing, you think. It's nothing at all—

There's a weight on your chest. 

Warm, searing. It dampens your skin where it sits, heavy, on your breast, cold air ghosting along the sweat building up each time it moves. 

You stir. The pressure takes shape. A hand. A man's hand. Rough, calloused, and hot. In his palm, he holds your breast, thumb brushing along the curve of it. Sliding, sliding—

You come awake with a gasp. 

There's a twinge in your ankle when you move, and the pain grounds you, silences you. His thumb twitches on your nipple, but he, too, stills. Quietens. An impasse. 

And you suppose this would be where you'd scream. Rage. Slap him across the face, rip his hand off your breast. Curse at him for being a creep, and a pervert, and nasty, disgusting man because there's nothing at all that could justify the reason for why the shirt he gave you to wear to bed is tucked up over your chest. The bruising press of something hard digging into your hip negates any excuse he might try to give. This is unmistakable. You should scream, cry, and—

Leave. 

This is what glues your lips together. Keeps you from moving at all, from making a sound. Where would you go? How would you even get there to begin with? 

It's this—the uncertainty, your vulnerability—that paralyzes you. Keeps you still, silent, as his hands brush over your skin, touching, fondling. His palms are rough, calloused. Pyretic. He squeezes, kneading your flesh in his sweat-slicked hand like he's owed the right to touch you. Like he's allowed. 

He pants against your temple, breath warm, humid on your skin. Heaves like a dog in your ear, grunting low as he ruts his hips into your side, smearing something hot, tacky across your skin. Something you try not to think about, to inch away from. But he catches you quick, and stops your meagre protests before they form. 

His thumb and forefinger close over your pebbled nipple, pinching softly at your budded flesh. The shock of pleasure is unwanted. Awful. It churns your stomach, and you fight the urge to weep—

He leans up, ragged exhales growing heavier as he moves until milk-warmed breath shudders over your bare breasts. His excitement throbs against your hip. You swallow down around the sudden wave of disgust, the sickness knotting itself together in your belly. It devours the lingering pity you'd felt earlier. The safety, the comfort, that brimmed inside of you for him. 

(bleeding heart—

he gorges himself on it.)

Stay still, you think. And maybe he'll go away. 

But he doesn't. Of course, he doesn't. 

Johnny leans down, mouth closes over your nipple. It's all searing heat. Wet, soft. A sudden jolt of pleasure shoots down your spine when he sucks in tandem with the soft, rolling pinches he doles out on your tiger nipple, and you hate your treacherous body a little bit more for it. For how good it makes you feel when he flicks his tongue over your hardened peek, laving it sloppily. Messily. Drooling all over you—the big fucking dog—

You wonder how long he's been doing this. Touching you in your sleep. The thought sits like hot oil in your guts; sloshing against the soft lining of your stomach until it aches. Burns. You blame it on that when he grunts against your breast, the vibrations send a shiver down your spine. Have to, don't you? Because the alternative is to admit that you're slick, soft between your thighs already; folds soaked, inner thigh damp. Wet. Blame it on him, and the burden in your chest eases when you feel the stirrings of desire, lust, thicken in your lower belly. Bodily reaction becomes your clutch, your lifeline when he lays his upper body against you, the weight, the heft, of his bulk forcing the air from your lungs. 

Johnny lifts his head suddenly, eyes drilling into yours before you can feign sleep to avoid looking at him. You don't want this. Your body thrums with reluctance, with fear, but you can't drag your gaze away from him. The rapturous look in his eyes, burning in the low simmer of a never-ending twilight, is paralyzing. Electric. You can't remember a time in your life when another person has ever looked at you with such raw want. Desire. Need. It's covetous. Ugly. Marbled with heady streams of hunger, of awe, as if he's not sure whether or not he wants to eat you alive or savour you for aeons. Taking bites, nibbles, when this urge becomes too burdensome to bear; when the ravenous chasm in his guts threatens to devour itself, bones and all, like a man-made black hole. Under this heavy, unrelenting stare you wither. Submit. Your head rolls until your cheek is pressed against the pillow, neck bared. Offered up to him. 

(anything, you think, to run away from the naked want on his face. because with his mouth slack, lips slick, glistening with spit, he looks predatory like this. animal. bathed in gloam and flushed a deep roseate.)

He props himself up on his elbow, watching you. Feasting. Your quiet submission makes him moan; hips juttering at the slow reveal of your vulnerable neck. A paroxysm. As if he just can't help himself to hump against you like a beast in rut. 

He swallows. You watch his throat work from the corner of your eye, Adam's apple bobbing up and down, up and down—

Then:

He lifts himself up higher, angling his body until it's bracketed over you. Sliding between your legs until your slit is pressed against the coarse hair that covers his thighs. He keeps his elbow propped on the pillow, sliding up, up, until his forearm comes to rest beside your face. It boxes you in completely under his weight, and the position forces your legs to spread open to accommodate him. Not given up freely, of course; but your compliance in this is inessential, it seems. He moulds you how he likes, mindful of your injured ankle the whole time. A kindness that makes something molten thicken in your throat, stifling the scream that claws its way up your esophagus. 

You try not to stare when he clambers over you, chest bare against yours. Hips chiselling a gorge between your thighs wide enough for him to fit. To press his fattened length on the insides of your sticky thighs; groins drawing together. Your legs slung loosely around his tapered waist. A dreadful pastiche of lovemaking. Intimacy. 

But even as a mockery—bastardised as it is—it’s embarrassing how easily you open up for him. Legs falling, spreading further apart. Hot, sticky at the apex of your thighs. Wanting. 

Blame it on sleep, on this endless hypnagogia you've been feeling since he leaned over you on the cliff edge, and said, pretty thing, aren't ye? All alone. No’ anymore, doe. Jus’ me an’ ye, now. Jus’ us—

You swallow, fighting the urge to cry. Blinking rapidly against the tears that pebble against your lashline, but you're helpless to stop the flood even though the levee doesn't break, doesn't spill over. It just sits, a sorrowful lagoon with nowhere to go. 

In your attempt to hold back the deluge, you let your gaze wander away from the piercing blue that drills into your face—seemingly unbothered by the tears in your eyes, the ones that clot over your irises, stinging and hot—and stare down at his broad chest. A mistake, maybe, because you catch sight of the gold cross dangling around his neck. Like a pendulum, it swings. The motion is mesmerising. Hypnotic. 

It distracts you for a moment. Or maybe you've just grown accustomed to his touch, to the heat of his hand on your skin. Whatever the reason, it's enough to pull you away from the feverish trail his fingers leave as they make a steady drag downward. It's only when they dance over your belly button do you realise the muted tickle is Johnny, and by then—

“Shush, s’alright, doe,” he's cooing, warm breath ghosting over the plains of your face. It might be comforting if he didn't rest his weight on his elbow, freeing his other hand just to bring it over your mouth, thumb brushing under your eye. A warning maybe. Don't scream. “Ah go’ ye. Ah’ll make ye feel so good—”

There's a fever in his eyes. Wildfires spreading through the yawning boscage, burning everything in sight. The heat is hot enough to char bone; to blacken meat into a dessicated husk. Eating away at everything in its path. 

You know, almost immediately, that Johnny's beyond reason. Or, rather—

He's gone, turned inward; delusional enough to think that this is something he has to do. 

You'd seen all the warnings of the kindling fire before. Something you'd decided to ignore even as the hunger in his eyes surged; as the shape of it morphed into a frothing devotion that felt ill-fitting for two strangers stuck together like this. 

Stupidly, you thought you could outrun it. That he was a good man beneath it all, and wouldn't succumb to touching you in your sleep, to lulling you into a false sense of security—

Except. He hadn't, had he? 

He'd been blunt about it all since the beginning. My wife—

How silly, you thought. 

But the humour fades when he teases over your hips, resting his palm over your mound, middle finger perched above your clit. Just holding. Touching. The possessiveness of the action is unmistakable, unignorable. 

It shouldn't send a shiver down your spine when you'd rather he didn't touch you at all, but it does. There's something about him, you think. Electric. A lightning storm. It crackles in the air around you, humming low in the atmosphere; this unavoidable surge, natural phenomenon. Maybe that's what he is. 

More storm than man. A force you can't outrun, but can only endure—

His eyes flash when he slides his fingers further down your slit and finds your skin soft, hot. Drenched. When he groans your name out, it sounds like a prayer. An orison. 

“So wet, doe,” he's heaving out in a whisper, eyes nearly rolling back into his head as his touch grows bolder, more insistent. As if the softness of your flesh, the wetness that sticks to your inner thighs, is all the consent he needs. “So fuckin’ wet fer me, aye? Been waitin’ fer this, haven't ye?” 

You want to shake your head no but it's futile. He drops his head to look down the chasm between your bodies, watching his hand slide along your skin. Legs spread around his waist, inviting. He curses foul under his breath when he sees how wet his fingers are from just a touch, words mangled in the back of his throat. They sound less coherent as he roams your body, parting your folds and stroking through the slick spilling out of you, dragging it up to your clit. 

His voice is closer now. Lips bruising against the shell of your ear. Butchered English. Gaelic. An amalgamation of low whines, and rasping grunts. He sounds more animal than man. A booming thundercloud groaning above you, as if touching you is enough to please him, too. Siphoning it from your body as he presses his fingers against your clit, circling, stroking. 

It’s good. So good. And that's the problem, you think. It's easy to give in like this when he pets your pussy like the feeling of your fluttering heat on his hand is enough to make him cum. No one has ever touched you like they were starving for it. Needed it as badly as you did. 

The sensation is almost too much. The notion of it getting tangled in the back of your head, looping around the part of you still screaming to run. To go home. To push him away. 

(your arms are laden. your tongue is a puddle of mercury in your mouth—)

But just as the pleasure blooming in your belly raises with each pass of his thumb, he pulls away. Slides down, down—

Circles your hole with the tips of his slick fingers, petting with the same desperation he showed your clit until he deems you soft enough for him. He slowly sinks his finger inside of you to the knuckle, stretching your walls around him as he moans into your ear about how good ye feel around him, all tight. Hot. So fuckin' wet, do. So wet fer me—

He pulls out just as slowly, shushing the soft gasp you make when the ridge of his palm catches on your clit. 

“Ah told ye, didnae ah? Ah’ll take care’a ye.”

He presses two fingers inside of you as he peppers kisses over your cheek, cooing low about how badly you need him. Only him. 

Johnny fucks you slowly on two fingers. Gently. Deeply. Sliding into the last knuckle, petting against your slick walls, like he's owed the privilege and not touching you in your sleep.  

He brings you to the edge, takes you right there, and—

Pulls away. His fingers slide down as your hips flit, lifting to make them catch on your clit again. It's embarrassing how badly you want him to touch you. Shameful. 

He leans up and catches your mouth in a messy kiss. It's all tongue, wet, no finesse. The wild, unkempt tangle of hair abrades your skin, rubbing it raw as he devours you. Scoops out your tongue with his own, enticing it into his mouth. His teeth close on the thick of it, lips pursing. Sucking on the tip. 

His kisses are doglike and obscene. Leaves drool dribbling down your chin, soaking into your neck. He can't seem to decide what he wants to do, so he tries to do it all. Everything. Biting your lips, trying to choke you on his tongue. Slurping up the taste of you until his mouth is stained with it. Beard matted down, drenched. 

Despite it all, he's a good kisser. His pace is fast, breakneck. You can't keep up, but you try. Struggling along as he seems hellbent on eating you alive. But it's sporadic. He pauses just long enough to settle into an easy rhythm that makes you arch into it, silently begging for more as he fucks you on his fingers. Nips your tongue as he slides in a third, swallowing the gasp you let out, savouring your moans between his teeth. 

Johnny ruins you with just a kiss. Leaves you panting, unmoored. Mouth slack, open wide for him to do what he pleases because the taste of him is divine. 

“C’mon,” he urges, spreading his fingers inside of your cunt until you keen, whining his name. “Suck my tongue, bonnie.” 

It's disgusting. You do it, anyway. 

Your quiet acquiescence makes him moan, hips rutting against you. The hard press of his cock into your skin is bruising. It aches. Your inner thighs are tacky with your slick and the smears of pre-cum he leaves behind as he humps against you. 

He sounds mournful when he pulls away, mouth messy with spit, and whispers, “fuck, wish ah could taste ye again, doe—” You don't know what he means until his eyes drop down to his hand, working insistently between your thighs. 

Your stomach drops. Plummets. You thought this started when he was touching your chest, when you woke up to his hand on your breast—

“Ye didnae wake when ah did it before,” he says, as if sounding mournful, sad, over the fact that you didn't wake up to him eating your pussy while you were asleep, was normal. “Must’a had too much tea—”

You wish, so suddenly, so viciously, that he'd stop talking. You can't hear this. Can't bear to listen to him confess to all the needling worries that bloomed in the back of your head, ones you stamped down with a heavy foot and a potent sense of guilt, shame, for condemning a man who was just trying to help. 

It makes you want to cry. 

“Oh, doe, don't cry—” he coos the words out, contrite and conciliatory, but you can feel the way his cock twitches against your thigh. The unmistakable heat mushrooming in his eyes as the sight of tears streaming down your face. 

He seems to take it as misery over not feeling his mouth on your cunt, a plaintive assertion he whispers into your ear (poor thing, jus’ wannae feel ma mouth on you, aye? wannae feel me lick yer sweet pussy again?), and decides to rectify your sorrow by kissing his way down your body. 

His fingers slip out when he moves, resting them on your knee as he kneels back on his haunches. 

You spare a glance toward him, nervous with trepidation, and—

This whole time, his cock had been this phantom sensation against your skin, bruising and hot. Leaving wet smears over your thighs. Hidden from view. But like this, it's the first thing you see as it hangs, heavy and thick, from between his thighs. 

The sight is—

Something. 

You don't want to think about the heat in your belly. The nervous flit of your heartbeat. 

A pearlescent strand dribbles down the weeping, slick head, dropping to the sheets below. The shaft of his cock is similarly drenched, smeared with what seems like a copious amount of precum. It gathers at the base, a startling contrast of thick, black hair and globs of milky white. 

Something about it makes you recoil. Almost instinctively, primal. 

Your flinch just makes his cock twitch, spitting more out. 

The motion seems to unveil more of it to you, adding to the growing unease you feel because his cock is the furthest thing from pretty. 

It's flushed a daunting vermillion and purpling like a bruise around the engorged glands. Thickening at the base. Streaked with dark veins that run the length of it, like rivers intersecting and jutting up from his skin. Blotches of red, pink, purple, and peach make up the colouring of it. Marbled like a black eye. A busted lip. 

It bobs when he moves. Ugly, garish. You don't want it anywhere near you—

But Johnny’s wet hand on your knee keeps you from moving. Holds you in place as he bends down, resting on elbow to bring his face as close to your pussy as he can get. 

Johnny stares—unabashedly—at your bare cunt when he finally settles between your thighs, widening them further to fit the broad stretch of his shoulders. Eyes lit with a heady greed, a hunger, that knocks the air from your lungs. 

“Missed ma mouth, didnae ye?” 

For a moment, you think he's talking to you. Confusion colours the panic you feel, dampening the dread down until it's flattened by sheer bewilderment when you realise his eyes haven't left your slit. 

“Such a bonnie girl,” he purrs, breath ghosting over your cunt. “Been so lonely without me, aye? Poor thing.”

It heats you up from the inside out. The mesmerised, almost unfettered look of pure adoration shaded alongside the raw want on his face twists a sense of desire inside of you. Has anyone looked at you with such naked need on their face? As if the idea of not having a taste was somehow the most agonising thing they could experience? The way Johnny looks at you is enough to make you ache. And with anyone else, having him address your pussy instead of you would be awkward, humiliating, but somehow, him doing it makes you burn white-hot. Makes you want—

“Johnny,” you whisper, paper-thin, and his head shoots up, brows inching high on his brow. You're acutely aware that this is the first thing you've said since this started. Since you woke up to him groping you, touching you, in your sleep. And it's his name. Johnny. 

Not no, don't. Stop. Please. Just—

“Johnny.”

It's not consent. You're not sure you're fully capable of doing so right now, if ever. But it's the closest you think you could come to saying yes. Admitting that you want his mouth on you, even though the situation leading up to this still makes something ugly and awful twist in your guts, is as much as you can give. He seems to see this. To know. 

But Johnny takes it between his teeth as an unequivocal yes despite that, groaning low in his throat, midnight eyes rolling back into his head. The hands on you tremble. Shake. 

He breathes in deeply through his nose, the sound whistling as a great plume of air is forced through small channels, filling his lungs. Perfuming them with the heady scent of you, of sex, clotting in the air. 

“Fuck, doe. Gonnae give ye what ye need.” 

And then he bends his head, eyes lidded still, half rolled, and without any preamble, glues his lips to your drenched slit, forcing it between your soft folds. 

The first touch of his tongue is molten. Soft, tensile, he laves it over the whole of your slit from the sensitive skin beneath your hole, to the crest of your clit. Digs his tongue in, swirling it over and under your folds leaving no part of you untouched. Feasting. Devouring. 

It makes you mewl. Your back arches off the sheets, ankle throbbing in a heady, pulsing pain at the sudden movement, adding to the shrill whine in your voice. 

He notices, and pets your knee once before sliding his bicep under your leg, looping his hand around to secure your thigh in the crook of his below. Locked in tight. Immoveable. The other he pushes down with the flat of his palm, until your joints ache from the stretch. Your knee is almost flush with the mattress. Widening you further for his searing, eager mouth. 

If his kisses are dogish—wet, messy; sloppy with drool—then the way he eats your cunt is foul. Slobbering down his chin, slurping up the mess he makes with a series of chewed-off moans and muffled whines. He paws at you as if he was denied the pleasure of drink for aeons, feasting like a man half-delirious and starved. There's no finesse. No skill to speak of. Just a desperate man lapping at you like a beast. Worshipping you. 

He nuzzles his chin and cheeks against your cunt, drenching himself until his beard is matted to his skin. The feeling of his coarse hair grazing your sensitive flesh is overwhelming. Too much. Too ticklish. But—

It feels good. 

The contrast of his fleshy tongue rolling over your clit, and the rough brush of his hair when he nuzzles you with the point of his chin, cooing softly about how pretty this little pussy is, getting him all wet, is cataclysmic. The heat floods your belly, and you clench around nothing. Achingly empty. Moaning at the feeling of him bringing you right there, right to the brink, with nothing by the hair on his cheek. It's unreal. Inescapable. Your head drops, mouth lax, open wide as you pant and whimper through the madness of Johnny MacTavish trying to find a way to suck your clit and fuck you with his tongue at the same time. An impossible goal, you know, but he doesn't seem to care about logic or reason with his head buried between your thighs, mouth never leaving you once. He merely nods his head up and down, refusing to pull away.

It's divine. It's worship. It's—

He pushes two of his fingers inside of you, lapping at your taut rim to stem the sting of his sudden intrusion, and you think, for a moment, that you see Nirvana behind your eyelids. 

It's embarrassingly how quickly he brings to you the brink, slurping messily as he drills his fingers into your hole, petting against your walls in a mockery of what he'll do to you once he's had his fill. Satiated his hunger with the taste of your pussy. 

Something he can't seem to get enough of.

Your thighs draw together, crushing him between your legs. Arching into his mouth, nearly smothering him as you rut clumsily against his face, moaning at the rough scrape of his beard against your skin. You're not normally so aggressive, but he loses himself in it, eyes rolling as he grabs your hips and pulls you closer to his wanting mouth, encouraging you to use his tongue, his lips, to meet your end as you see fit. Riding his face as much as you can with your leg locked tight between his shoulder and bicep. 

And it's in between his loud grunts, his whines—almost caterwauling into your slit—where you shatter. The sound of his pleasure, the feeling of his mouth on you—it’s all too much. You break when he sucks your clit into his mouth, keening in the back of his throat as he works another finger into you. It feels good. Too good. 

Johnny works you through it. Lets you take, and take as your muscles spasm with the force of your release. Fingers digging into his shoulders, fisting the sheets. He moans along with you, eagerly lapping at your cunt until you whine, begging him to stop. You've had enough. Can't take anymore—

He only pulls away when you melt into the sheets, shuddering with the aftershocks bubbling through your body. Leaning back on his haunches once more, the hair around his mouth slick and wet. The evidence of your pleasure dripping down his chin, droplets still clinging to his beard.

He crawls over you once more, eyes boring into yours. Pits of coal. An endless black hole.

In this strange space, liminal, you lose yourself. Shed pieces of who you were before when he slots his hips between your thighs, cock heavy in his hand, and presses it to your slit. 

This is happening. He's going to fuck you. 

You wish the thought didn't make your knees fall apart a little wider for him. Make your hips flit, lifting slightly into the air. Eager. Hungry for it. For him.

It's loneliness, you think. Desperation. 

Madness is addictive. It feeds itself and infects those around it. Noxious. An all-consuming black hole that eats, and eats. It must have bitten you, too. Dug infectious teeth into your skin, severing flesh to imbed its jowls in your marrow. Clinging. Poisoning you from the inside out. 

There's no other reason for why you reach for him, hands sliding over his sweat-slicked skin as he falls into the open brackets of your arms, grunting when the head of his cock catches on your rim. He's a wall of heat. Firm muscles. Your nails dig into the thick cords of his shoulders just to feel the reluctant give of his skin. 

Nothing about this man is soft. His waist, his thighs, his chest, his arms, the hard ridge of his cock. It's all unyielding muscle. Burning. Searing into your skin when it drags against his. 

“Gonnae fuck ye, doe,” he whispers, words pitching low. Damp wood, felled timber. Rough. You shiver from the heat of it. The warning, the plea; both extremes coalescing together to make truism more potent. Weighty. “Gonnae fuck this pretty pussy, and yer gonnae beg me fer it.” 

Despite the surety in assertion, he doesn't wait for you to plead with him to split you apart, taking the initiative instead to sink the head of his cock into you. The stretch stings already, and only his glands have sunk in, a fact he grunts into your ear as he drives forward another inch. Another—

You don't think you've ever been this unmoored before. Rendered this docile. A mere domicile for him to burrow inside of; to carve a home from the sanctum of your walls wrapped tight around him. And carve he does. Splitting you apart as he grunts with the efforting of forcing his cock into you, feeding it further with blunt jerks of his hips, his hands feverish on your skin. Sweat slicked already even though he's barely halfway inside of you. 

“Feels so good,” he slurs into your ear, face pinching. Twisting up as pleasure blooms over his brow. “So fuckin’ good, doe, fuck—”

It does. Beyond the blunt pressure of him forcing his cock inside of you, the sting of the stretch, there's an intense, dizzying pleasure in the fullness you feel. In the press of him notching against something inside that makes heat bloom in your belly, turns your bones liquid. It might be the previous climax rendering you oversensitive, but the feeling of him splitting you apart is euphoric. 

It's aided by the moans he lets out as you take more and more of him, as if the sound of his pleasure is funnelled into yours. By the look on his face, eyes widened, feverish, as he darts his gaze between your face and your pussy, unable to decide if he wants to watch his cock disappear into you or watch your face, pinched up in pleasure, in flickering pain, as you take him fully. 

This sort of bliss, this pleasure, is addicting. Narrowed down to the sharp nudge of his cock grazing places inside of you that light your nerves on fire, burn through your synapses until your thoughts are muddled, mush. No coherency, no logic—just the fat length of him bludgeoning into your walls; the tap of his heavy, full sack slapping against your ass as he finally, finally, roots deep.

He must feel it, too. This strange, overwhelming pleasure loops around your lower belly, twisting itself into knots because when he pushes the last few inches inside of you, he nearly collapses on top of you, his whole body shuddering. Trembling. Presses his damp face to your cheek, matted, slick hair tickling your skin, and groans from deep within his chest at the feeling of you wrapped around him. The noise shivers through you. His pleasure is enough to make you clench down, tightening up around him. Already on the verge and all he did was slide his cock inside of you. 

A fact he seems to luxuriate in, huffing shakily into your ear as he quenches himself on the soft, fluttering pulses of your walls around him. Content to grind his hips into yours in shallow gyrations that make your eyes roll into the back of your head. The tension in your belly coiling tighter and tighter, the pleasure ameliorating the shame you'd felt before, burning it into cinders. 

As long as he keeps his cock inside of you, as long as he keeps pushing the blunt head into that spot that makes your vision whiteout, you think could cum just like this. Right now—

He doesn't. 

Johnny lifts himself off of your chest, elbow coming to rest beside your head, taking the brunt of his weight. His eyes are bright, burning. He stares down at you, and the look of sheer adoration on his face is daunting, overwhelming. It threatens to eat you alive. Devour you whole. Pure rapture. Devotion. 

You flush, face stinging with embarrassment. Prickling with unease. No one has ever stared at you like this, so hungrily, and the fact that it's him makes your head spin. Looping endlessly in circles of disbelief and fear. 

He might be omnipotent, you think, with the way his lips tug sharply downward, brow bunching together as if he can hear your thoughts, taste your disquiet in the air. 

Johnny rolls his hips back slowly, inching out of you with a hum until just the tip remains. The loss has your hands scrambling down his chest, fingers tangling in the coarse, drenched hairs at the soft incline of his belly. The other sliding around the thick breadth of his ribs, nails digging into the slick skin covering his spine. Pressing. Biting. 

More, you don't say. Please. 

The knot in his brow dissipates. Eases into something almost playful, impish. 

“Want ma cock, doe?” He whispers it waggishly, like a cloy secret, and you pretend the tease in his voice doesn't make your heart lurch in your chest. “Didnae anyone teach ye some manners? Gotta ask politely.” 

You won't. You won't. 

Your reluctance makes him sigh. The chain around his neck swinging when he moves. His hips pull back, and he reaches down with his free hand, and grabs his cock, pulling it out of you, and sliding it against your slit. The head bumps into your clit, and you nearly choke on the gasp that's ripped from your chest. The pleasure is too much, too—

He pulls away, denying you the euphoria of release. 

“No, no, please,” you babble, resolve crumbling into ash. “Please, Johnny, please—”

“That’s more like it,” he coos, and lets his cock dip back inside of your fluttering hole, rim stretched taut around him once more. The sting is lessened now, but still there as the thick glands force you open for him. “Sound so pretty when yer desperate for ma cock.” 

He leans down, catching your mouth in another sloppy kiss as he slams his cock back inside of you hard enough to bruise. To make you see stars. Cockhead bludgeoning into your cervix in a dizzying amalgamation of pleasure and pain that makes you whine, the whimper snatched up between his teeth as he burrows them into your lip with an echoing groan. 

He fucks you hard, working his cock into you at a maddening pace. Bestial, now. All animal. The tenderness from before dissolves into an choppy desperation. An eagerness to seek his own end as you fall to pieces beneath him, shaking from the force of taking him over and over again, each piston, each hard thrust driving the thoughts from your head until all you have left is sensation. An absence of everything except the way he feels above you, inside of you. 

Sweat builds up along your hairline, gathers at the base of your spine, and soaks the sheets below. You feel liquid under him. A ragdoll for him to sink his jowls into, to toss around as he likes. 

Johnny is all sensation and a cacophony of sound. 

He ruts into you clumsily, groaning in your ear. Moaning out how good you feel around him. Pretty pussy made just for him. 

“Oh, fuck, doe—” he moans, arching into the next thrust. Drool dribbles down his chin when he curves his spine, dropping his forehead onto your temple. “Feels so good. Feels like my cock is meltin’ instead ye—”

The lewd squelch of his cock pistoning into you seems to echo through the room, louder somehow than the ragged moans that spill from his mouth. 

“Been so long,” he shudders against you, rooting his cock deep. Burying himself inside of you as his cockhead bullies into your cervix. The flash of pain is whitehot, blinding, but the bloom of pleasure eats it whole before it can pollute the puddle of bliss pooling in your belly. “Been savin’ it all jus’ fer ye—”

His hand slides from your hip, burrowing between your bodies as rubs at your clit. It feels so good that it nips sharply into pain, into agony. Too much, too much—

But he doesn't relent. Fingers toying, circling your clit in time with each jarring thrust, tightening the coil inside of you until it whines from the tension, the pressure—

It snaps when he growls into your ear—cum fer me, doe; wannae feel this pussy squeezin’ ma cock—and releases in a flood, a deluge of molten heat. Back arching, toes curling. You're barely cognisant of the ache in your injured foot, the throbbing pain. It's swallowed by the surge of endorphins roaring through you, ringing in your ears. Blotting everything out except the way you pulse around the thick of him still lodged deep inside of you. 

You barely have time to come down before he starts again, forcing you to take him as he thrusts in harder than before, mindlessly seeking his own end as you gush around him, nails raking across his flesh. 

He's babbling above you, spitting words into your ear about how he's going to take care of you. All of you. Take you back to Scotland with him so you can raise your children—

It slices through the haze, ripping a hole through the fog clouding your mind. 

“No,” you whimper, devastation flooding your chest alongside the vicious pleasure still rolling around inside of you. “No, please—”

Children, he breathes like you hadn't spoken at all. Lots. Lots of them. Brothers and sisters. Two, maybe three, of each. But he's not picky, bonnie, he'll take whatever you give him. And keep fucking you over and over again until he gets what he wants. A whole family to raise. To surround himself with. Been lonely, you think he says. Needed something to keep him busy. 

You don't want this. Can't. But he doesn't stop, doesn't relent. He breathes life into the picture he paints with the soft flutter of your cunt clenching tight around him at words, once again betrayed by your own body. 

Despite the nausea that bleeds to the surface at his words, your eyes roll back into your head once more, driven mad with the thunderous pleasure that rips through you as he forces every last inch of his cock into you. 

Johnny grinds his hips against yours, moaning, loud and untethered, muscles jerking, twitching, as he cums deep inside of you. 

The aftershocks of his pleasure make him tremble, body spasming as he drives himself tight against the seal of your womb. A new heat grows inside of you as Johnny slumps against you, panting in your ear. 

“Ah���ll be so good tae ya,” he promises in a rasping growl, shoving his head into the crook of your neck. Gyves close around you as he nuzzles his mouth into your flesh, licking at the sweat that beads on your skin. 

“All mine. All fuckin’ mine—” The confessional is tainted with the sickness that leaks from the craggy hole chiselled into the side of his head. Obsessive devotion hewing ruinous dogma into the fibrils of your head. Tenderised, softened, by the blunt, unyielding touch of his hand. A slurry that this polluted notion slips inside, tainting your resolve until it's thickened into his whim. His wants. 

You sob into his chest as he wraps you up in his arms, shackled against the man who carved a place inside of you just wide enough for himself to fit. Who spat poison in the hollow crevasses, and called it absolution. Love. 

All you can do is heave through corrupted lungs as he smothers you under the weight of his madness. 

“No’ gonnae let anyone touch ye. Ah'll kill anyone who tries to tae take ye away from me, doe—”

The conviction in his tone is bound in steel. In feverish blue. 

“Ah’ll take care’a ye,” he rasps, voice thick in his throat. “Donnae worry about a thing, doe.”

“Will you let me go?”

He doesn't answer at first. Just digs his nose into your hairline, breathing in deep until the wide breadth of his chest expands across your back. Mulling it over, maybe. Coming up with an excuse for his behaviour. Something to negotiate with on reasons why you shouldn't call the police the moment he does. 

And for a moment, a startling, terrible moment, there's hope. The assurance wells on your tongue. Some unfathomable amalgamation of please and i’ll never tell. Maybe you were going to tell him he was an honest man who did something bad. That there was still good within him. All of those hideous clichès bubble up through the cracks—

But it's all dashed when his hand drops down from its perch beneath your bare breasts, sliding over your skin until it curls possessively over your lower belly. 

He breathes out and the hope inside you is snuffed under the gale of delusion, his obsession. “Why would ah do a thing like that?” He prompts, and the genuine confusion in his voice makes you shiver, as if the idea of it is so outlandish, so absurd, it negates everything he'd done to get to this point. You feel hollow. But not—

Not empty. 

As if he hears the thought thundering in the ruins of your mind, he presses a tender kiss to your temple that you think is meant to be soothing. Shushing you softly when you begin to shake. “After it took me this long to find ye, doe. Am no’ lettin’ ye go fer the world, ken. Yer mine. All mine.”

And then he closes his jowls around your throat. 

Time feels artificial here. 

You wake up several hours later, groggy and disoriented, but the sun doesn't seem like it moved from where it was perched last night at all. Fixed in place. Lost in some strange, eternal twilight zone where the sun is a warden, watching you tirelessly through the window. 

Cardboard cutout hung amongst the stars.

Your ankle aches horribly—an agonising throb. You must have turned in your sleep, jostled it. You're further away from the spot you were last night, too. Rolled over in your sleep, maybe. The burn brings tears to your eyes that you swallow down with a groan. 

As you awkwardly settle your leg in a way that hurts slightly less than it did before, you let cognisance slip back in to keep your mind off of the horrible ache that tremors through your bones. Your neck. 

Between your thighs—

It's then that you hear Johnny. 

He's whistling in the kitchen. You peer out through the crack in the door, catching the broad expanse of his naked back as he works over the stove. Flexing. Muscles bunching. He hums a tune you can't recognise as he scrapes the spatula over the cast iron pan. 

His grey sweats sit low on his hips. The divots above the hem—dimples of Apollo, you recall—are stark against the hollow ravine of his spine. You can't help but stare. Gawk. Limned in the soft light of the morning sun that spills through the open window, he looks almost ethereal. Unreal. Like something out of a magazine and not the middle of nowhere in Canada where the sun doesn't set this time of year. 

He feels surreal. A man too good to be true. All sculpted musculature that looks like it could just as well be handmade by an amalgamation of both David’s by Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. All sharp, angled lines; beautiful in their fluidity. 

It's unfair, you think suddenly. To be stuck with a man you feel nauseous thinking about but can’t seem to take your eyes off of. Some paradoxical madness. Retribution for a time in a past life where you swindled fate and got away unscathed. All of your karmic sins pile down on top of you as the events last night flicker past, drenched in seafoam. Ghosts linger in the cracks; in memories. 

The phantom weight of something slung over your waist, knotted tight between your breasts. Scorching heat glued to your spine. A heavy hand cradling your lower belly. Words whispered into your nape—

He turns, then. Catches your eye like he knew it was there the whole time. Stands there like the picture of ease, of a satiated man puttering around a small space while his sweetheart lounged in the bed, lazing the day away. 

Like this wasn’t illegal. Immoral. He treats you like a lover even though you’d only met less than a day ago—

And already his cum was drying on your inner thighs, thick and sticky. His madness pooling in your head, words uttered into your ear about this cabin he has back home, back in Scotland. He’ll take you there, he said. It’s time he came home, he thinks. His head is on straight again, and he finally feels like he can breathe without shattering into a million pieces—

(He put your hands on his head last night, palm cradling the ugly scar on his temple, and whispered, fervent and insane, ye keep ma head together, doe. Ye make me feel whole again—)

Knows a man, he told you. A good bloke who’d help him get you home, too. 

His smile is bright. Blinding.

“Mornin’, doe. Ah made breakfast.” 

[luveline]

this might be silly but i imagined the boys (marauders) playfully arguing over who gets to marry reader first and they’re just listing times they did these ridiculously romantic things to win the name of husband

“I’ve been thinking…” 

You’re focused on your keychain, but you hum to show you’re listening. Once you get to the end of this row, you can talk properly. 

Sirius sits beside you, his hands paused on either side of his own keyring. They’re technically alpha patterns made from knotted embroidery threads, but you and Sirius call them keychains. 

This is the second time he’s sat with you to make them, and it makes you so happy you could cry. Last Saturday he’d been sitting on the sofa as he usually does when you’re by the coffee table in the evenings, Remus at the other end, feet in his lap, when he touched your shoulder lightly and asked if he could try to make one with you. 

It’s definitely not an easy craft to teach, but it isn’t rocket science, either. Sirius is a quick learner, and his keychain looks very neat. 

“Would you wanna get married, someday?” he asks quietly. 

“Of course I would.” 

You put your string bobbins down. You’d answered without thinking, and the true answer is a little sad. Of course you wanna get married someday, but you’re not exactly in a conventional relationship. Marriages don’t tend to go four ways. 

“You know I wouldn’t have it in a church or anything, but we could still dress up. You could wear a white dress,” he says, looping a bobbin string under one of the anchors, knotting it, and moving on to the next. “I’d get you any dress you want.” 

“That would be nice,” you agree, leaning in to hug his side. You kiss his shoulder, lips pressed to a sleeve. 

“And then you could get divorced and marry me,” James says, backing into the room with a tray of drinks and snacks alike. He sets them down on the table behind your craft station, before rounding it, and sitting behind you to feel your shoulders. “Better yet, marry me first, and Sirius can go second.” 

“No, I’m going first,” Sirius says without worry. 

“You can’t just go first.” 

“Says who?” Sirius turns into your hugging to hug you back gently. 

“Me?” James says. “You can’t just decide that. What I want to marry you first?” 

“You haven’t asked me to get married.” 

You laugh at the ridiculousness of their conversation. There’s sincerity in it somewhere. 

They bicker about who’s doing what and where and who’s with who. You revel in the feeling of Sirius’ hand on your back moving a slow back and forth, each line of his fingers. You love his hands. 

“Babe,” James says eventually, “would you marry me first, please?” 

“Sirius asked first.” 

James groans. “Okay, but does Sirius deserve to be first?” 

“James,” you warn softly. 

“It’s fine,” Sirius says. “He’s kidding.” 

“I’m not kidding,” James says, though he is. “What has Sirius done for you to deserve you as I do? Who brings you a bouquet every Sunday?” 

Technically, the bouquet is from everyone, or so they say, but it is James who wakes up early for bread, milk, and flowers. 

“And who rearranges it? Who gives you your back rub every night?” James pulls you away from Sirius, your head dipping back against his thighs. His smile is catching. 

“Those are very nice things, Jamie, but Sirius takes good care of me too.” 

James cups your cheek. 

“I’m the one who kissed her first,” Remus says. You startle at his voice. He’d been quieter than Sirius, letting himself into the room, climbing over the arm to sit on the sofa behind Sirius. “Which was very romantic. Not sure if you remember.” 

You remember. 

“That disqualifies you from any more firsts,” Sirius says. 

“By that logic, you’re disqualified too,” James says. 

You flush and sit up properly. “I’m not marrying any of you because I’m not something to be argued over.” 

Again, you’re kidding around, but Sirius holds your arm to his side, tired enough to be affectionate. “Sorry,” he says, smiling, “I was just thinking about it.” 

You lean back against James’ legs. How lovely is that? You’re stressing over embroidery lines and he’s thinking of you at the courthouse together. 

“I’ll marry you,” Remus says, giving Sirius a nudge. “Yes?” 

“Yes please.” 

“See,” James says, “they’ll get married and we’ll get married, as I wanted.” 

“And when they’re married and you don’t get to call Remus your husband, you’ll be okay with that?” you ask. 

James frowns deeply. “Well, I hadn’t thought of it until now.” 

[chestersturniolo]

𝐛𝐞𝐟𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐰𝐞 𝐟𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐚𝐬𝐥𝐞𝐞𝐩

Chris Sturniolo x fem!reader

‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊‧₊˚based on chris saying on stream that he can never go to sleep on an argument ‧₊‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊

The argument with Chris had been brewing for days, and tonight it finally erupted. It all started when he came home late. Again. The third time this week. You’d been waiting, dinner cold on the table, frustration simmering.

“Do you even care that I’m here waiting for you?” you asked, your voice laced with hurt. “You didn’t even call, Chris”

“I had to finish filming, I’m sorry I can’t just drop everything because dinner’s ready” he mocked with a fake sincerity.

“That’s not the point-” you said, feeling your anger rising. 

“-It’s not about dinner. It’s about you not letting me know, about making me feel like I don’t matter”

Chris sighed, running a hand through his hair. 

“I didn’t think it was that big of a deal. It’s just been a crazy week. Can’t you cut me some slack?”

“Cut you some slack?-” you echoed,

“-You’re always busy, always too tired, and I’m supposed to just sit here and wait for you to make time for me? I’m tired of feeling like I’m at the bottom of your list!”

“That’s not fair-” Chris shot back, his tone sharpening. 

“-You know how important my job is. I’m doing this for us, to build a future, but you make it sound like I’m just ignoring you!”

“Well, it sure feels like it!” you replied, your voice trembling with emotion. 

Chris fell silent, the tension thick between you. Finally, unable to bear the suffocating atmosphere any longer, you stormed into his bedroom, slamming the door behind you.

You paced back and forth, trying to calm the storm of emotions inside you. Eventually, the emotional exhaustion snowballed into physical exhaustion. You got ready for bed whilst you replayed the argument over in your head.

As you crawled under the covers,the bed felt too big, too empty. You turned off the light, hoping sleep would come quickly and take you away from the mess of the evening.

As you lay in the quiet, you could still hear the faint sound of the TV from the living room where Chris had stayed. The space beside you a reminder of the widening gap between you. You squeezed your eyes shut, trying to block it all out, and slowly, sleep began to take over.

Sometime later, Chris came into his room, and carefully climbed in beside you. He moved gently, clearly trying not to wake you, but his restless tossing and turning made you stir slightly. After a few minutes, he gave up, sitting up with a heavy sigh.

Then, with a gentle touch, he brushed your cheek, his thumb warm against your skin. 

“Hey-” he whispered, his voice thick with regret as you opened your eyes, adjusting them to the darkness. 

“-I’m sorry, I didn’t want to wake you, but I can’t… I can’t go to sleep like this”

The memory of your argument came rushing back, and you felt the anger flare up again. But before you could say anything, Chris continued, his voice urgent, almost desperate.

“I know I messed up-” he said, leaning closer, his eyes searching yours in the dim light. 

“-I’ve been so caught up in work that I’ve been neglecting you, and I hate that I made you feel like you don’t matter. You do. You’re the most important thing in my life”

His words were raw, filled with a vulnerability that you rarely saw in him. He reached for your hand, holding it tightly as if afraid you might pull away.

“Please-“ he whispered, his voice cracking. 

“-I know I need to do better. I just… I can’t stand the thought of us going to bed angry. I can’t go to sleep knowing you’re upset with me ma”

You sighed, your heart heavy. The pain of the argument still lingered, but there was no denying the sincerity in his voice. Chris wasn’t the type to beg, and seeing him like this made the anger start to fall away.

“I don’t want to fight either” you finally said, your voice thick with emotion. 

“But I need you to understan-”

“I do” he said quickly, nodding. 

“I’m sorry” he whispers, brushing his thumb across your hand that is still placed in his. Before gently pulling away and laying back down beside you. 

Chris opens one of his arms in the air hesitantly, a silent invite into his embrace. With a small sigh, you scooted over, laying your head onto his chest. You let him hold you, the warmth of his body gradually soothing the last of your anger.

“i love you y/n” Chris mumbles into your hair as he places a kiss to the top of your head.

“i love you” you whisper, letting sleep take over once more. 

‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊‧₊˚ ⋅* ‧₊

A/N; hope you enjoyed lovessss

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- 𝑺𝒂𝒈𝒆 ♡

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