#they’re like a dog that wants to bite so badly

[impossible-rat-babies]

love the gameplay trailer bc the lady is like: “could you have held fast that which is dear? without sacrifice?” and my brain just jump cuts to eyrie family guy death pose at the end of EW

[aangsfrogs]

Brain go NYOOOOOOOOOM

[all-purpose-dish-soap]

28 / 1.7k / soap soulmate au, part 5

...

Soap stares at his name where it's inked across your skin. You should be his enemy. He's sitting across from you, your interrogator in this dimly lit weapons closet. You refuse to look at him. But his gaze bores into you anyway, intense on your eyes, your lips, the cuts and bruises on your face. He wants you. But he can only have you once you've given him the information Captain Price needs.

"Tell me where Alejandro is," he says. "That's all you need to do."

A muscle in your jaw twitches when he mentions Graves' name, but you bite your tongue. You won't let him shake your resolve like he did in Las Almas. You should've killed him on sight.

"What Graves is doing to Alejandro--you know it's wrong." Soap’s gaze is steady. You're so close. He wants you so badly it hurts. "He's not a good man.”

"You have no idea what kind of man he is," you say.

"I know exactly the kind of man he is," he growls. "I saw what he did to the people in Las Almas. He called them dirty cops and had them executed when they said they didn't know anything. Innocent people. In front of their families. Their children." Soap's hands curl into fists on the table between you. "He's not the kind of man who deserves your loyalty."

Your cuffs clink as your arms flex against the chair. "You wouldn't understand."

"You're right. I wouldn't." Soap's knuckles pop, his voice low and dark. All his life he's waited for you. Now Graves--fucking Graves, who betrayed Soap and his team and tried to murder them all--is somehow the one keeping you from him. "I don't understand what you see in that bastard."

You say nothing, eyes trained on the far wall.

Soap's shoulders tighten. "You're just a tool to him."

"I’m a soldier. I choose to follow orders. So do you.”

"You're following his orders. You think that makes you a soldier, being a weapon? No. Makes you a damn dog."

You say nothing.

Soap grips the table until it creaks. "You think he cares about you.”

"It doesn't matter if he does or not."

"It does so bloody matter. You’re no’ some pawn he can just throw away." God damn you. He wants to grab you with both hands and shake you. To hell with this interrogation--he's got half a mind to lock you down somewhere padded until you get it through your skull that you're not worthless. He scowls at you. "You're better than this. You have to be."

Cold irritation seeps through your mask. "Am I?" Soulmate or not, he doesn’t know you.

At the look on your face, Soap's scowl deepens. He's going to kill that bastard, and he's going to do it slowly. "What about Graves is more important to you than the innocent lives he took? Does that mean nothing to you?”

"Orders are orders."

Soap's voice drops to a dangerous pitch. "Look me in the eye and say that.”

You don’t. You tell yourself it’s because he has no power over you. He can’t tell you what to do.

Soap crosses his arms. "'S what I thought. You're bluffing."

"I'm not."

"Bullshit. Graves is nothing but Shepherd's lapdog. Gettin’ paid to commit goddamn war crimes.”

"Shut your mouth," you snap. "You have no idea what happened--"

You stumble on the next syllable and go silent, realizing suddenly that you're looking him in the eye.

Johnny's a man of impulse, and it takes all the self-control he has to keep himself in place the moment you lock eyes. The pull he feels to you right now is overwhelming. You're in reach. He leans forward. Those brilliant blue eyes of his see all the way down into your soul. They’re just the same as you remember--eerily vivid, pupils blown, with his jaw set hard.

"What happened to what, darlin'?"

You shift, skin prickling. You want to cross your arms over yourself and clap your hand over the soulmark on your neck. "You don't know what happened in Al Mazrah."

"You were ambushed."

You nod, remembering that night of the mission. You've seen your squadmates die before. It's a hazard of the job, part of being a mercenary. But that night--seeing so many Shadows gunned down before they could so much as draw their weapons--it still haunts you.

"Shepard didn't know. It wasn't like we-- it was supposed to be a simple transport mission."

"It was a black bag op."

"That's what Shadows do. We take missions people don't like. Someone has to step in where you military dogs won't."

"Where was Shepherd when it went tits up, hm?" Soap's lip curls. "No air support on an illegal op. He left you to be killed. And now he needs someone to blame. It's not gonna be him taking that bullet. It's gonna be you."

"Captain Graves can handle it."

Soap lets out a rough sigh. Your insistence on Graves is rubbing him raw. You could have died on that op two months ago. And then what? He'd have never met you, only found your name later in stone on some memorial somewhere. The thought makes his chest go cold and his blood run hot. It could still happen. If he can't tear you away from this bloody mercenary work, you'll never be his. Christ. He can't let that happen. He won't. You're not going back to the Shadow Company. He'll tear Graves into pieces before he lets that happen.

He fixates on your soulmark again. Why can't he focus on getting the information Price needs? All he can think about right now is the scab on your lip, the way your pupils dilate when you look at him. Your body wants his even as you're spitting venom. The fire in you matches his own, and he wants more.

"Graves isn't here," Soap tells you. "And I'm not takin’ chances. You’re not going back to Shepherd, and you’re sure as hell not going back to Graves. You're mine."

You pull on your cuffs, hating the way the possessive note in his voice makes your stomach flip. "You don't get to decide that."

"Neither do you.”

"Isn't a matter of choice. It's a matter of what you’re gonnae do about it."

You swallow and watch his gaze track down your throat. He's close. When did he lean in? Why aren't you pulling back?

No, you tell yourself, you’re not scared. You’re in control. You lean a millimeter closer. "You can't keep me here."

His eyes brighten, gaze so intense it warms your skin. "Careful, darlin'. You don't want to throw down that gauntlet."

"And you expect me to tell you whatever you want to know? Fuck my career, fuck my squadmates?"

"If you weren't so damn dense, I'd--" He mutters another string of curses in that thick Scottish accent, standing from his chair and pacing the tight room. "You don't understand what I'm offerin’. You don't need them. You have me an' mine."

He circles around to your side of the interrogation table and kneels next to you, his expression an open plea for you to listen. You stare down at him with your heart suddenly in your throat. You can't backpedal. You can't look away.

He searches your face. Even roughed up, even pissing him off, you're beautiful. Damn it, he's going to do something stupid if he doesn't control himself.

He keeps his voice low and even. "You were expendable to them. You're expendable to Graves. You're no' expendable to me." He reaches up to you, and you go still. His hand is hot on your skin. His grip is surely strong enough to break bone. But only his thumb drags along your lip. His eyes follow the motion. "Your loyalty should be for people who care about you. I'm on your side, ya wee shite. Just tell me how to get to Alejandro and I'll get you out of here. I'll make sure you're safe. That's all I need to know."

You stare down at him. Your heart beats in your ears, and his pulse hammers with yours. You can feel it through his thumb against the sensitive skin on your lower lip.

Johnny wants you so badly you almost give in. He thinks he's telling the truth--that he'll protect you. But he doesn't know any better. You're not who he wants you to be. You're not soft. You're not good. Why does he act like he can see something redeemable in you?

Being his soulmate doesn't guarantee you a goddamn thing. Promises don't afford you any more protection than you've already given yourself. You know that very well. People aren't reliable. Soulmarks don’t fix everything. They’re just ink.

Whatever he sees when he looks up at you makes something cold and sharp settle in his chest. His throat constricts. He's pushing, he knows he is, and it's the wrong move with you. He's never been this desperate for anyone.

"Darlin'. Don't do that. Don't shut me out." His voice wavers just like his resolve. He'd protect you to his last. You refuse to see that, and he can't make you.

You look away, pulling away from his hand. "I don't trust you."

Johnny's stomach drops, and he digs his fingers into the metal chair to stop himself from digging them into you.

You want him. He can see it in the set of your shoulders, how tight you hold yourself when he's close to you. You want him despite yourself, and you still refuse. It doesn't matter how rational a decision it should be to accept his help. There's something else happening in your head that's keeping your walls up, and he's starting to realize it's not just Graves. It can't be.

He watches you for a long moment. He doesn't want you to hurt, but he's not stupid enough to believe you'll soften up and come around with time. You're a soldier.

Finally, Soap stands. If you don’t tell him what he needs to know, you’ll remain a hostage, and won’t be able to have you. He won’t accept that.

"Fine," he says, pushing his way out the door. "We’ll do this the hard way."

...

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4 / [part 5] / part 6 / part 7 / part 8 / part 9 / part 10 / part 11 / part 12

more Soap / masterlist tag

[netherfeildren]

FABLE OF THE DOG : 3. Little Freak

Series Masterlist; Chapter: 1, Chapter: 2,

Pairing: Joel Miller x FMC

Rating: Explicit 18+

Content Warnings: Cowboy/Heiress AU; Discussions of Grief; Daddy Issues; Parental Neglect; Angst and Fluff; Older Man/Younger Woman; Jealousy; Possessive Behavior; Brat Taming; Extremely Bossy Old Man; Rough Sex; Size Difference; Spanking; DD/lg Dynamics; Dom/Sub Undertones; Forced Orgasm; Dirty Talk (like really forreal); Small Boobie Rep; Biting; Over Stimulation;

A/N: really sticking my finger in the father wound and wiggling it around in this one :))))))

Word Count: 10.3K

Read on AO3

3. Little Freak

You pull your sticky fingers from the damp bed of your underwear, the not enough little orgasm you’d been able to rub out still pulsing hot and cold through your cunt. 

Horrible man—you’ve never wanted anyone or anything as badly as you want him to need you. And no, not a wanting sort of thing, not a wanting sort of desire—that’s not what you’d demand from him. It’s specific, this thing: it’s that you want him to have no choice in the matter, you want him to be forced, to see no other recourse but you because that’s just how necessary you feel to him. 

You want there to be no thought, no compunction in him—only you. 

Even more, because lies are worth nothing here in your own mind in your cold bed—

—You want him to love you. 

The way your father never did. The way no man ever has, not really. 

Face buried in the dark for a moment, you groan softly before sliding belly first off the silk bedding onto your knees, pushing yourself up off the floor unsteadily. You toe your boots off and then step tiptoe on the end of each sock to pull them from your feet. It’d not been a lie—you’re not drunk, limiting yourself to only one tonight, and no liquor, because you knew you needed to be able to focus on the taste of his tongue when you inevitably got your hooks in him, hoping, knowing he’d take your bait and follow, but now, it’s a wholly different sort of buzz zinging through you. 

All him. All man. All Joel.

He’d been flavored of smoked whiskey and mint, a hint of tobacco, and you wish you could’ve been more faithful in your pursuit of enjoying the chewing of the leaves he always has, you’d tried for years but couldn’t bear the texture, the green gnashed between your teeth, earthen and organic. It’s not for you, your tastes veering to something hotter and sweeter. But you’ve always wanted to be just like him anyway, and every endeavor at a connection, no matter how small, had always seemed like a valiant one. 

Stupid birthdays. Disgusting leaves of mint. Dead fathers and daughters and all the different ways we hurt each other. 

Stumbling coltish and uncoordinated, newly birthed down the staircase, you push your way out the back door. He’ll have gone to bed now, you know they’re going up the mountain early tomorrow morning to check on one of the herds, but you’re desperate for one more second of him, being spit out of the house of your dead parents, hunting for the last hint of his presence riding on the fresh air off the Tetons and all this land that’s all yours now. 

You veer left then right, a zigzagging dance across the green lawn until you’re far enough away from the house it’s like you can pretend to ignore the ghosts you’re readying to exorcize. One knee hits the ground hard and stinging, limbs loose and strengthless, you feel the stab of a little rock against the curve of round bone beneath easily broken skin, catching yourself on a palm, another too hard scrape and then you’re rolling over into the grass, settling on your back to look up at the stars. 

There are so many, an infinite number of lights winking like watchful eyes back at you, and you wonder at the sort of childhood that lends itself to laying in the grass like this beside a parent that loves you and wants you and carves space in their life for a child they'd forced into the world. It should be some sort of crime, you think, immediate execution sort of barbarity, to have a child and not love it the way it demands. 

Back of your hands open at your sides, palms to the watching sky, you close your eyes and imagine what it’d be like to have the hand of a father holding it, one that would want you—not a mother because what is she in reality to you but an imagination figure you can’t even truly conjure up? That much of a stranger is what she is—such an alien thing you can’t even bother to dream her. 

Drawing your knees up, you press your bare heels into the earth and the wet placket of your panties is ice cold and sticking uncomfortably now, breeze against it. You shouldn't be thinking about this shit, but you think you might cry anyway, sucking in too fast breaths, forcing them out in attemptedly slow little puffs through your nose. A wave of sudden grief, then a plateau, the nauseating up and down of it all. You should be thinking about him, about your victory tonight, about making him so angry he can’t help himself, about what’ll come next—his skin. But that’s the thing about him, Joel, isn’t it? Always has been—the incongruous, make-no-sense feelings he’s always pulled out of you since you’d first set eyes on him, fourteen years old and tender and so alone you didn’t even know there was another way to be but abandoned. 

A laugh then—huffing and sardonic and again, incongruous, because now you really are crying. Tears leaking back, hot and fat to pool in your ears and salt the earth beneath you—unloading your grief into the grass as if God were beside you. Nothing will grow here again because of you if you’re not careful, and that’s the next worry—

If he never needs you the way you’re demanding of him, you won’t be able to stay here. 

You won't be able to live here and love him and not have him, and you could force him, perhaps, in your own ways. But you’ve done so much of that your whole life—forcing unloving men to look at you and take you into their arms when they’d never really wanted to give you the thing you’d always wanted most. 

The tender truth: it would be so much better if Joel decided to need you because he wants to, because he can’t fathom another way than just that. 

And you don’t think you’ll ever be able to live with anything else besides such. 

Another forced out laugh again—just to feel the feeling of it, go through the motion, mountain air a roundabout gust in your lungs, then to your left:  “What’re you laughing at, weirdo?”

Ellie, long and loping and beautiful, come to your rescue. She throws herself down onto the ground beside you and doesn’t even have to ask a thing about it when she places her rough hand in your soft one. 

Working girl, mover of mountains, changer of lives. 

Ellie has always known how to know you, and it has always been an incredible comfort. 

The two of you lay there for a few quiet moments. Friendship as an entity has always been a strange thing to you who have never understood love in a non-transactional way. But the thing that Ellie has always given you, it has always been an incredibly straightforward sort of understanding, simple—that of one abandoned child to another, perhaps. 

“Are you drunk?”

“Why’s everyone always fucking asking me that?” Said with another laugh but of the real sort this time, despite the bite in your voice. 

“You’re a hazard. What can I say?”

Undeniable. “Oh, shut up.” You dig your nails into the back of her hand, trying to scratch her but probably ruining your manicure instead, she squeezes your knuckles in sideways, hurting you way more than you could manage her. A yelp, and you say, “You know what I’m excited for?”  

“What’s that?”

“Skijoring.”

“Fuck no, dude. I almost died last time.”

You snicker, “Yeah, that was the fun part for me.”

Elbow to the ribs, and, “Asshole,” she laughs. And then you’re quiet again together, still gripped by the hands, and it’s the sort of comfortable only two girls who’ve been together since they were truly girls can be. 

“You see Cassiopeia?” She points her finger way north. 

“Do you think I should stay?” You see it, and easily, and you know if you were somewhere not here, it wouldn’t be so simply found. Maybe that’s a good thing.

“Yes.”

“I don’t know if I can.”

“Because of Joel.” It isn’t a question. You’ve never said it with words to her, but she’s always known. 

You hum instead of answering, can’t say it out loud anyway just yet. “So you finally asked her.” Dina, she knows what you mean.

And Ellie hums now in turn too. The both of you are so fucked up. Can’t say a thing out loud. 

“And?” 

“It’s fine.”

“Just fine?”

“Good.”

“Just good?”

Ellie groans loud and long, baying goat, and you tell her so, which gets another knock to the ribs. “Turn around and don’t look at me so I can tell you.”

You roll over towards the mountains and feel her face the house where she doesn’t see ghosts like you do. 

“But you’re not allowed to say anything—just say okay. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I think—well, you know…,” she gruffs, voice dipping low and dropping off before she can say the words out loud again also. Everything’s a secret code here, even the stuff that shouldn’t be.

“You think?”

“You’re such a fucker. I know.”

You hum again but the good and happy sort, pressing your lips together to keep the misty eyed smile at bay. “Okay,” you say back just as low and just as gruff. 

“S’why I think you should stay,” she adds. “If I can find happy here, so can you.”

“I’ve never been able to before.”

“But you’re different now.”

“Am I?”

“Yeah—can see it, you know. And this place is different now too—will be different.” 

“I was afraid to come back for such a long time. It seemed like the worst thing in the world.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, before she says: “You’re not supposed to be afraid of your father.” A very obvious thing—or at least it should be. 

You feel her turn to look at the back of your neck, and you peer over your shoulder at her and when your eyes meet, she looks so sad, like she’s so sorry for you but without the pity, and you do understand what it is she’s saying despite never having had that fearless experience. 

“Aren’t you?” A shrug of your shoulder and a helpless laugh but also maybe with real humor accompanying it. Because yes, you’re not supposed to be. You always were anyway. It’s funny in an impossible to understand way. 

A beat and then, “Can I say something fucked up?”

“Yeah.”

“He isn’t here for you to be afraid of anymore.”

Funniest of all, you’re the most sad about this. And what you don’t say to her, perhaps for shame or that child’s feeling of having done something wrong but not necessarily understanding what that wrong is—sometimes it’s inevitable, missing the monster. 

“Maybe you needed him to die.” Yeah, fucked up. You’d already thought the same thing and were chock full of guilt for it. “Maybe it was like—like I don’t know. It was never going to be the way it should have between you, but now you can remember him, fuck, I don’t know—different. Not that you wanted him to die, but now the reality of him isn’t here for you to see, so you can just remember it all however you like or not.”

“So I should lie to myself?”

“Why not? There are worse things you could do. There are worse things you do do.”

You snort. “Is this what your method is?”

“Yeah. Like—like sometimes, when I’m so happy I can’t believe it’s me feeling it because she makes me that happy, Dina,” she says her name with love, “I pretend nothing from before was ever the way it was, and it’s only here and now and me and Dina and the ranch and there was no shitty, abandoning father and no dead mom and no nothing and only Joel is my dad and it’s all always been okay.”

Joel. 

At the center of everyone’s happy dream, why is it always him? 

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’ll try it.” She reaches behind her back then, pawing at your hip until you give her your hand again, and you were wrong. She’s changed too. She can say things now. She’s always had those too perceptive eyes and that too big heart, and she’s changed now in a way that makes her not afraid to let it out and use these things anymore. 

You tell this changed Ellie now: “You know that like— that like… I don’t know how to say it. When a person’s life seems like it should be perfect, and you have everything. Everything should be good, right—but it’s just not. Your parents should be kind, they should be loving. They should be attentive and give a shit what happens to you, and it probably seems that way to the whole rest of the world except for the people that have to witness the humiliation behind closed doors, but it’s really just not, and then they probably look at me and wonder how my life could be anything but rose colored, and it all just seems a little silly and empty. Doesn’t it?”

“Nah—don’t know. My life was always shit before I came here and found Joel and Dina and all of them and you. And I'd seen enough to recognize what you were and how it was. Nothing ever looked rose colored to me—just looked like more shit.” You laugh again out loud now and for real, squeezing more tears out over your hot cheeks when she joins you in the sad hilarity as well. 

When her voice is finally steady from the belly laughs again, she says, “It’s a grief pyramid, we’re all just going around hurting each other in the name of our ghosts and call it an excuse, an offering to their memory and act like it’s okay. But it’s fucked up. That’s why I decided to stop. I stopped pushing her away, I told her—well, you know. I told her.”

“Say it, loser.” You bump your butt into hers. 

“Not to you—leave me alone.”

Say it, say it, say it, you sing. 

“I love her, fuck off.” And a little clog of emotion sticks wetly in your throat.

That’s the real question, honestly: How do you make someone love you? How do you make yourself into someone people can love?

“It’s a grief pyramid,” she repeats. “You have to choose to stop adding to it.” And she’s quiet again for a long time, and you can’t fathom how it is one stops building onto something they’d been born into. You think on it so long the feel of her palm clutching yours starts losing itself to sleep in the grass and the breeze comes off the mountains like a blanket over the two girls who’d become women before them until she says again, “Anyway, that’s usually the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid.”

-

“Joel?”

“Yeah?”

“Whatcha doin’?”

“Nothin’.”

“Nope. You’re definitely doing something.” He angles the phone away from her prying eyes, trying to shield his shame with the palm of his hand. 

“Mind your own damn business, kid.”

“Is that an Instagram account?” Ellie howls like a banshee, Tommy coming up behind him to reach over his shoulder to try and rip the phone out of his hand. He holds it out of his reach. 

It’s just that he couldn’t help himself. He’d heard the boys all talking about it on the ride back down after their long day of work—your Instagram page—as if he knew what the fuck that was. He’d had to search it up on the internet when he’d gotten a moment alone in the bunk, cracking open a beer, muscles exhausted from the hard ride and having to haul a heifer out of a bramble she’d gotten herself caught in, he’d realized it was a thing young people put photographs and such on, a social media thing. But when he’d gone to search your name, it’d told him he’d needed to make an account of his own. Growling in frustration, he’d slowly made his way through the process, too big fingers punching at the too tiny keys of the stupid phone you’d forced on him. 

“Can you shut up and just show me how to work this thing. And stop your goddamn howling—Dina’s gonna think she’s dating a hyena not a girl.” She slides into the seat next to him, taking the phone from his grip to finish setting up the account and type in your name, a deck of pictures loading up for him to hunt through like a vandal. Photographs of you in all sorts of different places, draped in fine clothes and jewels and your fucking perfect ass right there for everyone to see. 

Oh my God.

“How many people can see this shit?” He asks Ellie, angling the phone back towards her. 

“You’re so nosey, man,” she chastises. “Thirty-seven thousand followers.” And a long, impressed whistle from Tommy who he’s going to punch in the face after he’s done with this. 

He swallows hard. “What’s that mean?”

“That thirty-seven thousand people are following her and looking at her pictures, Joel,” his brother says. “Man, how fuckin’ old are you?”

“Yeah, you’re not that old, Joel. Come on.”

“Go away now. I’m busy,” he tells the both of them, going back to doom scrolling through your pictures. One’s of you in barely any clothes at all, an itty bitty orange bikini, hands on your ass and sand where his tongue should be.

Joel feels insane again. 

“Pervert.”

“Joel… I don’t mean to alarm you, but I think there’s steam comin’ out of your ears, man.”

“Fuck off.”

Blessedly, they leave him to suffer in peace after a while, and thank Christ for that because eventually, the ex-boyfriend shows up in the scroll of pictures too. There for everyone to see in posts dated several weeks back—even one of the two of you kissing, you on his lap, fuck that. Good looking, shiny-boy sort. Joel’s left eye twitches at the sight of the sort of man he has never been, could never be for you, someone of your caliber. 

The memory of your cunt grinding against him last night flashes through his mind and his cock throbs once and hungry. He stretches his long legs out in front of him, adjusting in the suddenly too tight seat of his jeans. 

A clusterfuck is what it is—this sudden melding of the memory of the girl-child you used to be, the one that up until only recently lived in his mind, good and golden, and the woman you are now. With both figures meeting together with all the characteristics he’d always admired in you, your kind heart, your honesty, your generosity. You’ve turned out to be an exceptional woman, and it’s difficult to let the distant perception from before meet the lust he feels for you now and grapple with it without feeling sick to his stomach about it all.

It’s all an inevitability though, anyway. He knows this just from the rewind memory play of last night, the taste of your mouth and the little sounds you'd made for him, because of him, the way your hips had rolled over his lap desperately seeking. 

You’re ending up on his cock one way or another—inevitable. 

He’s never claimed to be a good and honorable man—never played the part of one either. He’s not about to start now. 

Clicking on the picture of your sun bronzed ass in the tiny bikini again, he imagines himself biting and eating it, shifting his legs restlessly, taking another long pull of his beer. Tapping twice on the image, he tries to zoom in to the apex of your thighs—he’s going to hell, he’s so fucked up, doesn’t matter—when a little heart appears in the center of the image. He clicks it again and the heart appears once more, refusing to zoom into what he wants to see up close. Fucking piece of shit phone and fucking Instagram—frustrated and hard and pissed off at the fact he’s yet to see you all day, he locks the phone, slamming it face down on the kitchen table, and downs the rest of the can. 

If he doesn’t get a hold of himself soon he’s going to burst, gut all twisted up into a hot knot of coal. Sick with jealousy and anger and lust, aggressive, the taste of your sweetness ringing in his ears and the sound of your moans on his tongue—his head is not on straight and he better get it fixed quick or all this pent up frustration is going to come out with teeth to take a chunk of flesh out of you. 

Groaning loudly, he lets his head fall back, thumbs digging into the sockets of his eyes until he sees stars and not the sight of your slick swollen mouth made that way by himself. He wonders if you slept well last night, if you thought of him, if you’d made yourself come the way he’d ran home to the little foreman’s cabin Kelly had given him years ago, to do himself. Jumping in the shower to jack his leaking cock to the image of what it would’ve been like if he’d been brave enough to pull that flimsy little tease of a thong to the side, let his cock out and force it inside of you, make you take it until you were crying and coming so hard you’d never think to even look at another man again, much less kiss him. 

He should’ve hit that fucker harder. He should’ve kissed you longer. 

He needs to force you to take all of those goddamn half naked pictures down. No one should get to look at you like that except for him, and he doesn’t give a fuck how insane he sounds. 

Outside, he can hear the cowboys hooting and hollering at something, egging each other on louder and louder, the scuffle of them shoving each other and horsing around. He sighs once and long, too tired to deal with their shit right now. All he needs is an evening of peace to get his head on straight and relax and will his boner down for a few hours. He’s acting like a goddamn randy teenager, walking around hard and aching half the day. 

Heaving himself out of the chair, back hurts, he grabs another beer before he’s pushing the bunk door open to the sight of half the team huddled together and peering around the corner of the bunk towards the house. 

“The hell’s got y’all clucking like a bunch of hens?” He asks, coming around them to stop dead in his tracks when he lays eyes on what it is that’s got them all worked up. 

That same ass he’d just been trying to zoom in on, right there in the flesh for the whole ranch to ogle at. Stretched out on one of the sun loungers from the deck, dragged out into the center of the lawn with a little table set up next to you. You’d even gotten someone to scrounge up a huge umbrella, a misting fan spinning lazily, spitting a damp sheen of water every few minutes, a drink and a speaker playing some girly song, whole goddamn set up for all of these fuckers to stand here and take an eyeful of your perfect ass. 

Joel tries to take deep breaths, counting back from ten in his head—fails. He’s going to be calm and cool and collected—not. He isn’t going to lose his temper—sure. 

Fuck that. 

He’s going to spank your ass so hard you can’t sit for a week.

“If you all don’t find something to do in the next thirty seconds,” he growls at them all through clenched teeth, “I swear I’ll have you slingin’ shit for a month.” The can in his grip pops loudly between his fingers. 

They all take one peek at the look on his face and scatter like chicken shit until it’s only Ellie left smirking beside him.

“Take this,” he shoves the can at her and starts towards you. 

“Bro—” He ignores her. Hey! She calls after him, voice demanding now, stopping him in his tracks before he can go get exactly what he’s been denying himself from the moment you kissed him two nights ago. 

Giving him that look she gets when she needs to remind him she knows exactly who he is and that he can’t ever hide it from her, she chews on her cheek for a second before she says, and he doesn’t mistake it, it’s a warning: “She’s a real peach. You know that. Pretty and soft and sweet, but easily hurt. Needs gentle handling, even when she wants to pretend otherwise.”

It pisses him off. Bad. “You think I don’t fuckin’ know that? I understand her—” thumb to chest. Because he did—does. Because he thinks that he really always has. It’s undeniable that he has what you have, what Ellie has. Even what Oswald Kelly himself had had and what he’d seen in Joel when he’d decided to save the life of a no good man in a no good spot with a no good future in front of him—that sadness, that lost doggedness about you all that makes you so like one another, even despite your immeasurable differences.  

The two of them look at each other for another long moment, and Ellie knows, Ellie always understands. With a roll of her eyes she spins on her heel, muttering to herself, slugging back Joel’s discarded beer.

Slowly, he rounds back towards you, afraid as if he were looking down the barrel of a gun, just as dramatic, as well. Objectively, he knows you’re doing this on purpose, to piss him off and rile him up and get a blow out reaction out of him. He tries to remind himself of it as he marches towards you, and if he were smarter or less inclined to take your bait, he’d take a beat to finish that count to ten reversal in his head and calm the fuck down before he gets to you—but honestly, he just doesn’t feel like it. 

All he sees instead is the baby pink barely there string bikini you’ve got on, the slope of your back gleaming in the sun, slicked in something shiny, the damp from the mister, the lush curve of your ass and the shine of your hair resting face down on your folded arms. 

You’re all sunkissed everywhere, and he’d really rather just give you what you want already. 

“Get up,” he growls down at you. 

One eye winks open, peering up at him before you press up on your elbows to take in the sight of him scowling down at you, and he can’t help it when his eyes flit down to the sight of your breasts cupped precariously in the tiny bikini, skin all sun flushed red against the soft baby pink fabric. You look like you’re made of sugar and sweet fruit and like you’ve come here specifically to ruin him and his whole life and all his self control. 

Hmm? You smile up at him wide and teasing. Oh, he’s feeding right into your shit, and you piss him off so badly. 

He’s never been this hard in his entire life, he’s even made dizzy with it. 

The little wisps of hair at your temples are sweat soaked and curling, looking silky soft. A thousand little details about you and your body—the white of your smile and the flushed heat of your cheeks, sun burnished bridge of your nose starting to freckle—that he can’t help but notice. 

Get. Up, he grits through clenched teeth. No one in the whole world deserves to see you like this, looking so beautiful, especially not him. Shading your eyes with the palm of your hand, you scrunch your nose up at him, and he’s got half a mind to bark at you to not do that when he’s around or he’s really gonna lose it. Your smile beams brighter. 

“What’s wrong, Joel? Havin’ a rough day?”

“I swear to Christ, if you don’t get your ass up and in the house right this minute, I’m going to put you over my knee right here in front of your whole ranch to witness, little girl.”

You smile up at him again and a muscle at the corner of his jaw flutters madly, he’s about to crack a fucking molar. “Hmm, I don’t think so.” And you flop back down again so that the soft of your ass jiggles slightly, arching your back just a little so that he’s growling once, right before he’s gripping you by the elbow and pulling you upwards against his chest and dragging you all bare and slippery limbed to your feet. You smell like coconuts and sweet sweat and saliva pools heavy beneath his tongue. 

“If you wanna act like a brat, I’m gonna treat you like one. You get me?” He yanks you towards the house screeching like a banshee, let go of me, you fucking psycho, you howl. A too little fist swings towards his face, and he catches it in his palm, squeezing tight and feeling your thumb tucked inside your fist. 

“Stop that—you’re gonna hurt yourself.” More squawking and howling, skinny wrist slipping from his grip to take another swing at him. “Don’t even know how to throw a goddamn punch—Jesus fucking Christ. Don’t tuck your thumb.” He hauls you up higher against himself, getting a better grip around your waist so he can carry you bodily up the steps of the deck. 

You jam your heels into his shins, and he huffs and puffs, trying to keep his hold on you. I’m gonna kick your ass, you screech again, scratching and pinching at his forearms. 

Joel is too old and too goodman tired for this. 

“No, you’re not. And if you think I’m gonna let the whole goddamn ranch and all the boys stare at your bare ass all day, you’ve got another thing comin’ for you.”

“Well, I’ve gotta show it to someone, don’t I?” You sass back, trying to elbow him in the throat while you’re at it. Blood boiling, catching you by the small joint, he pulls your arm bent behind your back, other forearm banding against your stomach so that his hand is splayed at your hip, feeling the satin soft skin, slippery in your suncream. 

And sure, he might be too old or too tired for this, but his cock is still hard as anything at the feel of you all against him like this. 

Pushing the door open with his hip, he shoves you inside. The late afternoon sun paints the cool interior in shades of gold and beaming white; everything is beautiful and pristine as always, and yet tinged with the red of his temper and lust. His temples beat in tune with his too fast, pumping heart. 

“Where’s Dina?” He’s still got you caught in his grip. He does not plan to let go. 

“Let me go, you mother ffff—” He gives you one hard shake, hearing your teeth click and rattle. Little doll caught in his grip. He can do anything to you—and you won’t be able to stop him. 

“Where is she?” He asks again, and something in his voice must snap you alert because you settle for a brief second, a little shiver skipping down the length of your spine that he follows to your full ass. He tugs you back, barely moving and slow, just that little bit further into himself so that the lush curve presses against the hard length of his cock—and there it is, the little knowing gasp, finally understanding what it is you’ve gotten yourself into.

-

“She—” Your belly is suddenly so hot and tight, heartbeat starting up behind your navel. Suddenly knowing what it is this is about to be, and yet now finally confronted with the reality of it for the first time, you can’t even begin to imagine what it’ll be like. “She—I don’t know. She went into town, I— I think,” you stutter, brain short-circuiting, desperate to feel that hardness again. “Waiting for Ellie—they’ve got plans there tonight.” His entire hand is wrapped around your forearm pressed against the small of your back, long, thick fingers overlapping against each other, and you roll up on your tiptoes, trying to arch your back further into him. 

He grunts once, exasperated, and then shoves you forward again, rough enough you’re stumbling over your own two feet, full on aggressive panting bull at your back. 

That’s good, he says so low you barely catch it before he’s pushing you up against the wall by the front door, cheek smushed against the silk printed wallpaper. 

Your mother decorated this room years ago, melding the masculine taste of your father and her love for European decor. The walls, wrapped in hand painted English wallpaper on the top half, and paneled at the bottom with a mahogany so fine it gleams an amber golden glow when the afternoon sun shines in through the windows just so. 

Everything beautiful; still, even after all this time. 

He holds you there for a long moment, his breathing quick and shallow, bellows of hot air at the nape of your neck, disturbing the escaped hair from your claw clip curling there. 

“Joel?” You ask once, voice wavering just a little bit because he suddenly feels so large and imposing behind you that something like trepidation beats behind the soft of your kneecaps. You know he worked all day, and his big body is a steaming blaze of heat, waves rolling off of him to burn the naked length of your back and limbs. 

He pulls your arm trapped between his forearm and your stomach to the small of your back to join the other, holding you there in a lock pinned against the wall, reaching up slowly to let your hair down, long and swinging. You listen to the clatter of your clip against the hardwood floor, and then he’s circling the side of your neck, the tiny beating pulse held in the cup of his palm so that it feels as if it’s reverberating back into your head, a staccato rhythm, and echoing all through your body. A chiming bell, ringing and ringing and ringing, telling you that it’s time now. His hand smooths down the slope of your throat to your shoulder, and you listen to the rumbling half humming moan he lets out at the feel of your sweat sticky skin, then down the flat wing of your scapula, thumb nail scraping against the edge of your jutting bone for the way he’s got your arms trapped behind you. 

You let out a high pitched whine, almost a scream, another puff of sound in the assimilation of his name, pleading now, rolling up onto your tiptoes again to push your ass back against the hard of his cock. Everything is so, so sensitive. 

Quit, he snaps once and mean. Ordering. In a tone that says he’s in charge, and finally. 

It’s such a relief. 

You whine again, higher, needier, like you’ve never felt before, and there’s a nauseating thrum of electrified butterflies in your tummy, sticky sweet and cloying for attention. Joel, please, again and the wings beat faster. You’re sure he’ll enjoy the sound of your begging, it’s just something you know. Tiptoes straining higher so that the soles of your feet ache, he smooths that work roughened palm down the slope of your spine, thumb against your vertebrae, feeling the round little notches of bone beneath sensitive skin until he’s reached the twin dimples at the low of your back right above your ass, and presses there and hard—mean—so it hurts. Keening loudly, you crush your cheek harder, harder against your mother’s wallpaper until the bone aches, until there’ll surely be an indent of your shape left in the wall, and his thumb digs even harder anyway, gripping you tight enough to bruise. 

This is how it’ll be—surprising, but also not. In all your years of imagining, you still don’t know what it is you expected.

“You’re carved so fine,” whispered against your skin and gooseflesh spreads like wildfire, nipples going tight and aching. His nose skims the slope of your nape, smelling you. “S’like you’re made of sugar. Is that what you’ll taste like too?” And his words are slurred, drunk-like and you feel the same way also, legs on the verge of giving out.

You press your hips back again, desperate for any sort of pressure, and he jostles you once, hard enough you bite your tongue. Quit moving, he snaps, shoving his knee between your legs and spreading you wide and immobile, thigh hooked over his own so that the toes of that leg barely skim the ground and now you’re precariously balanced on one foot, held up and pinned entirely by him. 

 Caughtcha, he murmurs.

You couldn’t move even if you wanted to. 

The palm at the low of your back splays wide, his long fingers reaching from side to side and pressing hard against your skin and then all of a sudden he’s gone, and only for a second, before he’s back and slapping you hard and painfully stinging on the ass. A downward swipe of his thick fingers so that it really fucking hurts, and then the palm is back at the small of your waist, hooked thigh over his leg, unable to move, unable to do anything except take it. 

He presses your belly into the wall, and the pressure is so intense and so deep—his breathing is so rough behind you. You know he worked the mountain all day, he should be exhausted, but the strength he’s trapping you with belies the possibility. 

His hand goes away from your back again, and he’s spanking you once more, and you can’t tell if it’s harder or not this time, if it hurts worse than the previous, but the fire pain of it snaps all the way down from your thigh to your calve, pooling there in a knot of painful ache. An animal baying noise warbles in your throat, he tuts once, a cooing click of his tongue and cups your ass right at the rose of pain he’s left, kneading the skin gently, palpating the hurt like he’s looking for the physical imprint of it beneath your skin. 

“Yeah, baby? Like that?” You sing the little animal song for him again. “S’what you needed, right?” His voice now is not the Joel-voice you’ve always known, but it is the one you’ve always dreamed of. The kneading fingers slide whisper soft down the back of your thigh, up again, down again, callused skin scraping. On the up again, his thumb catches at the edge of your bathing suit wedged between the cleft of your ass.

And lest he thinks he’s bested you, you say, “Yes, that’s what I needed,” and he laughs a rough laugh that makes him sound like he’s been gutted. 

He squeezes the thick of your ass between his thumb and forefinger, an almost pinch and then smoothes his thumb beneath the pink edge along the curve, precariously close to danger. The sound of his name loses meaning, you’re praying it in a litany almost, over and over, begging. Hush now, he gentles, more in a sort of voice you recognize while your heart beats so hard against the wall it must surely sound like someone’s knocking on the front door for entry, like it must surely send echoes all through the ghost-house. 

His smoothing thumb continues its journey until it’s between your thighs, pulling the wet lycra wide away from your skin so that he can tuck the rest of his fingers flat against your cunt, and now he’s there. 

One of you says the word fuck another lets out a whimpering sort of noise—you’re not sure which is who, it’s all only a cunt-throbbing need you know he’s feeling leak and pulse against his hand. 

“You’re so wet for me,” he murmurs all reverence like. Joel—touching your cunt and sounding like he can’t believe it. His hand slides back along the curve of your sex, and you really are so wet the sound of it is slick and lewd, his fingertips at your entrance, a gentle probing and then forward again, a circling not touch around your clit, like he’s learning for himself this new little place that belongs to him now. Your mouth falls open on a spit-full moan, your eyes closed because you don’t even have strength now to keep them open and watchful. You’re so wet for me, he says again and again like he can’t believe it all either. 

He drags his finger flats against you once more and then another time and then taps twice with all four of them, two little almost slaps to your clit that make a sticky wet splashing sound. Good girl, and you don’t know which part of you he’s talking to. You’re practically leaking onto the floor, trying to widen your hips, arch your ass back further and present your cunt to him for fucking. And then his fingers side to side in a swiping motion and fast. 

Oh God. Oh God. Inside, inside, you need him inside. He needs to go inside. 

“Please, pleeease, Joel. Oh, please.” Delirious.

“Please?” His fingers move fast and your vision goes entirely away. “Please what? Please what? You, please.” He switches front and backwards again, and then two fingers draw a little ghost circle at your entrance. You, please, he says again. His hand flips over, palm facing downwards, and he starts to slowly, slowly press a single tip of one inside. “Please behave. Please don’t— don’t—fuck— please gimme a second to breathe, to think, to catch up. God, fucking tight little cunt. I’ll never fit in here, baby.” 

Your vision whites, then blacks, then goes blinding bright and colorless—zero frequency. Up to the first knuckle, and he wiggles the tip inside, making you cry and squirm, pulls out and then two fingers are pressing inside and downwards. “We’re gonna have to take it so slow in this little cunt.” Shit—shit.

“Oh my God, yes.” 

Your hips shiver and shake as he penetrates you, his forehead tucked against your shoulder so he can look down at what he’s doing, and drool slides along your mother’s wallpaper from the corner of your mouth as he pushes his fingers in and out of you so slowly, the slick slide, the pressure against your front wall so heavy, and spread so wide like this but held so immobile—it all makes you feel like you’ll wet yourself with such little control over your body. A few slides in and out again, “Good girl, just a little more,” before he’s wedging a third into the mix, trying to put it inside of you as well. A little more? The stretch is too much, burning, and you wail and cry, arching again but this time to get away instead of steal more. 

“Okay, okay. It’s alright,” he soothes. Hush. “It’s okay.” He pulls his fingers entirely out and covers the slick mess of your mound with his entire palm possessively. Rubbing soothingly at your wet, his fingers slide over the satiny smooth skin of your lips. 

“You’re all bare,” he whispers, shocked.

You swallow hard once, shoulders and neck starting to ache. “I— I got lasered.”

“Lasers?” Voice confused. 

“Yeah.” You swallow again, can’t catch your breath. “Yes.”

“Gotta see.”

He pulls you from the wall, shuffling you like gambling cards in his hands, that’s what this is, a gamble, so that you’re facing him as he walks you backwards, bikini bottoms askew and cunt bare to your parents living room; your dead father’s best man about to fuck it raw. 

Pressing up on your tiptoes at the same time that you’re tugging him low by the collar and the slightly too long hair that curls over it to press an open mouthed kiss to his lips with eyes kept open. You need to see his face, his reaction, that even though he’s all rough, he’s still Joel and he’ll still take care of you now. 

One strong forearm bands around your back, pressing you up high and close to his chest, fingers tangling in the bikini string at your back so that it pulls tight and bites into your skin, the other reaching around the back of your thighs to take a squeezing handful of you ass as he lifts you clean off the ground, lumbering slowly towards the couch while the two of you stare at each other with something that smells suspiciously of wonder. 

On the high ground now, you stare down at him, held as you are and kiss him again, for real this time, with tongue, an eating of his mouth. Trying to taste him as deep as you can go, digging your manicured fingernails into the rough whiskered planes of his cheeks until he grunts roughly.

Showing him that you can hurt him too. 

His knees hit the edge of the couch, one palm going to the back to hold himself steady as he sets you down, following your path to fold over you nose to nose. Watching each other for a blink, predator, predator, lashes tangling and then his mouth is sliding wetly over your burning cheekbone, drawn out groan like dying. Down to the hinge of your jaw where he sucks sharp once and his tongue flutters down the column of your throat, tasting your pulse, his palms everywhere at the same time too. Over your shoulders and down your goosefleshed arms, cinching at the nip of your waist to slide around your hips and to your ass, pulling you forward and open when he goes to his knees on the floor at the edge of the sofa between your spread thighs, with you draped diagonally across the cool leather that sticks to your sweaty, coconut flavored skin. 

One palm slides down your chest, dragging over your breast, the other catching at your nipple with this thumb, nail scraping and pulling the wet fabric along with him, baring you to the first glance of his eyes. A sound that’s a little like a whimper precedes his latching mouth, sucking hard and with teeth so you’re arching and crying and when your head rolls to the side, eyes bleary and barely seeing, he’s got your small breast in his mouth, jaw hinged wide and hungry. His teeth scrape, one wide palm sliding over your thigh to the back, pushing your knee up high and open to your shoulder, lips skim over your belly, smell so fucking good, sharp edge over your hip bone and the lave of his tongue, taste so fucking good.

“I’m gonna eat your cunt.” Bikini askew, one little tit bared to the cold AC, nipples hard enough to hurt, he pinches it once and mean and stretches the soaking wet center gusset of your bottoms wider.

He looks and looks and grins and everything inside of you pulses. 

Boyish smirk and a cocky glance up at you, oh, pretty, “Perfect little princess pussy, huh? I see now.” He sticks his thumb into his mouth, pulls it out with a pop to rub it spit slick against your clit. Yeah, yeah, like that, and you can’t help the whining cry. 

Pushing your other thigh up high, the grin turns to something a little more menacing before he bends to your cunt, whole mouth covering you there like he’d swallowed your breast. His thumbs dig painfully into the backs of your thighs like they’d dug in your back, leaving little spots of hurt all over your body is what he’s doing, spreading you wide open.  

Every touch is possessive, full of ownership. 

“What are you doing to me?” He groans as he eats your cunt, doing exactly as he said he would, flat of his tongue licking all over you, dipping inside. Purse of his lips then and he’s sucking hard and pulsing in quick successions, and there’s your first one—little gush of slick and your belly so tight it hurts, you need something inside of you so bad—your first orgasm forced from you and onto his tongue, swallowed down into his stomach. He groans like an animal—doubles his efforts, tongue spearing inside, pulling away to press two fingers in—fuck, fuck, and you grab hold of your own thigh to keep yourself open for him, knees trembling beside your ribs. 

The hand not inside slides across you, smearing slick over your belly, it’s everywhere, and presses down as he crooks those two fingers forward. His hair’s all fucked up, eyes glazed a maniacle shade of hazel that makes him more intimidating than you’ve ever seen him and also hotter than you could’ve ever dreamed, that boy’s smile again. 

His mustache is soaked in you. “Little pussy’s so small ‘nd wet, baby.” He wiggles his fingers, pets against the blindingly sensitive place inside of you. “Feel that?” Fingers twisting—almost too much, the stretch burns already and just like this. 

“Please, put it in,” you beg stupidly, a tear leaks and then another, not at all smart of self preserving. 

He clicks his tongue, and you can’t tell if it’s soothing or condescending or both, your eyes screwing shut at what he’s doing to you, trying to paw at his shoulders and pull him towards you at the same time. “Can’t—too small.”

No, no— His palm at your belly presses down, fingers petting forward, again, again, head bent once more to suck on your clit, licking it roughly if a tongue can be rough because it’s heavy and strong and intentional—I can take it. There’s your next one, obeying the come here order of his fingers. Mid-come and he’s forcing that painful third one from before inside, and now it’s split open and sloshing wetly—your cunt—hiccupping into another left over shaky orgasm, fucking hurts a little bit. More tears and his soft chuckle—you’re really in it now. 

When he slurps at your leaking again, fingers leaving you to gape empty and wanting, your hips shiver, trying to shake him away and rock against him at the same time. He says something you can’t make out, can’t even open your eyes, you just need a second, you swear, and then the clink of his belt, the shuffle of clothes, and he’s pulled his shirt over his head—you’ve enough mind left to open your eyes for this. 

He’s so strong, built for fucking and working and heaving. You knew this already, you hadn’t needed to see him without clothes to know. 

And all yours now, too. 

Your fingertips paw greedy at his chest, muscular, the thickly corded arms and shoulders. One hand wraps around the slim of your ankle, manacling you while he undoes his fly, your heart skips with the split of the zipper’s teeth and pulls his cock out, letting it fall heavy on your stomach—a threatening, aggressive thing. It drags against your cunt, so big it doesn’t stand up straight and jutting like the others you’ve been used to, but bobs low and hanging.

Reaching forward you flit the tips of your fingers over the wide head—barely there butterfly touch—and your hand looks comically small next to the thing as you pet at the dark head swelling out of the thick skin around it, soft and burning hot—he growls like a wolf at your touch.

 “I’ve never— I’ve never… with one like…”

He pulls your hand forward, wrapping it tightly around the thick length with his fist over yours. “Nah, baby. You’ve never had one like this. It’s alright—I’ll show you how to take it.” 

You’ve half a mind to roll your eyes at him, but he distracts you with the soft touch at the split indentation in your knee from your romp in the grass last night. “What happened here, little thing?” His words and his touch are so soft, eyes warm and caring, as if he weren’t threatening at all, as if that thing that’s about to split you in half and make you cry hasn’t started to slick itself back and forth between your legs, parting the lips of your cunt, sticky sound on every pass with his fist wrapped around himself—too many things happening to you all at once by his hand. 

“A rock hiding in the grass last night.” You start to roll your hips minutely against him, presenting your similarly torn palm for his appraisal, no, no, my poor baby, he kisses the little hurt while the fat head swipes over your clit, pressing against your hole—a little gasp and you circle his wrist at your knee, anchoring yourself. 

He frowns. “Last night when?”

“After you left me.” Pouting back. 

Cooing once and low, “You shouldn’t go out alone at night, anything could happen,” pressing again at the mouth of your cunt. Fuck, now— 

“Wasn’t alone—”

The head notches and stays, “Without me then— Deep breath now, baby.” He grunts on the first push inside, and your back arches tight as a bowstring, hand splaying wide at the center of his belly and his long fingers wrap around your breast tight, holding you in place, deep breath, he says again. 

“Oh God. Oh God. Oh my God.”

He pitches his hips forward once, just a little, just a small shove, and you tense, sharp whine hiccuping through you. “Oh, it’s too big,” pressing harder at his belly as he edges deeper again, an inch and then another, literally splitting your cunt open for himself, thumb swiping slow and gentle over your clit, forcing little shudders of pleasure out of you amidst the pain. 

“See, told ya.” It’s slow, slow until he makes it fit, watching himself sink inside of you the entire time, until you’re rooted on his cock, breath coming is quick, sucking pants, puffs out through your nose, body flushing hot and then even hotter. He folds over you, groaning loud and long, deep grinds and small shoves, and then it’s so much, too much until there’s no room left inside of you at all, that dull ache pain of his tip pressing against your cervix. 

You’re going to be so sore tomorrow, it hurts, it hurts, but he plays with that place anyways, covering you with his body to press his face against your breasts, mouthing wet and hot at your nipples, biting hard to distract you from the pain inside. Your fingers twist in his hair, hot and damp at the roots, sweaty musk smell of a hard day's work, masculine, making you wetter for him. “It’s alright… it’s alright. You can take it. You’re such a good girl.” And then a fuck, and he’s mumbling your name, how good you are again, how well you’re taking your fucking. 

“This what you wanted, right? To get caught on my cock?” The palm cupping your ass tips you up and forwards, forcing him inside just that little bit more. Your knees are at your shoulders, folded entirely under him, and the tip of his cock is still there where it hurts the most while he pants and sweats on top of you. A cramp of heat moves like lightning down your back and something goes loose in your cunt, your womb contracting once, accepting its fate as you start to come around him, milking him deep inside of you. You start to cry for real now too, fingernails dragging against his naked back looking for blood—sobbing, actually, not just crying. 

He bites your breast hard, grinds further not letting the orgasm stop, “God—I’m so fuckin’ deep. No one’s ever been this deep, right? Tell me, baby,” he begs, sitting back and dragging you boneless, still coming, into his lap, little girl splayed wide over his knees on the floor. You sink further down onto his cock, and he kisses your hot cheeks, letting your cunt drip down him. His belt digs bruisingly into the back of your thighs and it all hurts—he really is so deep now, head tucked firmly at your cervix, and he feels like he’s getting thicker, harder, like he just needs to be sunk deep like this, as deep as he can get so that all your cunt needs to do is work him until it milks the come right out of him. 

Your head lolls back on your neck, supported at the edge of the sofa. “No more—” You don’t know if you mean it, but it is just on the verge of too much now. You’re so sensitive. 

“Yes more.” He starts to lift his hips again, pulling back and shoving, not a lot, but enough that it’s like a little punch inside of you each time. “As much as I say.”

Whining, “No—I can’t.” You roll your hips against him though, the both of you moving, straining against each other, his wide hands around your waist shifting you up and down like a doll on his cock. Your eyes finally open again, and the sunlight spears in through the windows in buttery blinding shafts, sparkling dust motes dancing above as he fucks you. The sound is all so wet, everything from his lower belly to the open front of his jeans is soaked. “I don’t like it anymore,” you lie. 

“I don’t care,” and he gives you the first really rough thrust, not a pounding but with enough strength behind it that you get that heat cramp again, feel like you’re going to wet yourself again, there’s so much pressure in your belly. 

You’re going to come again. You are coming again. It feels like you should say thank you. 

He laughs, little cock sleeve, and you can’t understand how it’s so intense when the fucking is so slow—so good anyways—who cares about anything. His name slips through your lips without them moving, and he’s laughing again, a little mean and you tell him so, but still tender, still endeared by you. 

You push his face away weakly, a mumbled, “Nasty old man.”

Nuh uh, he hums, taking both of your wrists in his grip and pressing them back to the leather edge on either side of your head, forcing you into an arch so that he can latch his teeth at your throat and suck. The rolling of his hips pick up speed, just that little bit, the heat coming off him boiling up to steaming and his sweat drips onto your skin and disappears inside of you—everywhere you’ve got him inside of you. 

“Birth control?” All broken up with pants and your jugular between his teeth. 

Flexing fingers, hands going away to numbness, he’s got you held so tightly, not being so careful of his strength anymore, his cock drags and it’s so wet and sensitive and swollen inside of you, it feels like he barely fits even more than it did before, like there’s definitely no more space inside of you for him at all.. “Yeah—ye—ah, ahh,” can’t get your voice to come out right with your clit grinding against his pelvic bone like that. “Implant right here.” You turn your face towards your left arm, tipping your nose the hidden little bump right beneath your skin. He clicks his tongue, kissing it softly.

“Poor baby. That’s good. That’s real good, baby. Just be good and lemme come in you now. It’s okay.” He spreads his thighs wider, pushing up with his knees into you now. Oh fuck— “But you gotta give me one more. I want it—it’s mine.” And the way he’s got you arched, the spot he hits inside is more intense than the others. He grunts rougher now, biting your throat so hard you’ll be left bruised all over and on the inside too. One palm lets go of your wrist to grip your bottom, long fingers slotting on either side of his impaling cock, pulling you to him so tightly the orgasm is squeezed out of you forcibly and hurts all the worse for it. You’re limp and boneless now, and he starts to pump his come into you in thick spurts, belly all suffused with heat and your name a groan in his throat.

His fingers, parted around his splitting cock rub at the slippery skin of your labia, back and forth to your asshole, holding and cupping the place he’s claimed, and he comes so long, hunched over and rutting into you, filling and filling until the wet squelch is even louder and you can feel the thick come being forced out of your stuffed full cunt. 

You want to say his name, trying to move your lips, but your tongue rolls uselessly inside your mouth, all you are is a shivering cunt, a muscle spasming and spasming around him. He nuzzles at your throat, finally unlatching his teeth, licking away the hurt, pressing a soft kiss to the sore spot. You can feel him playing in the leaking wet now, fingering at your puffy cunt, well fucked and filled. 

You want to tell him you didn’t think that the bikini was going to make this happen, pull this out of him. 

At least not like this. You don’t think you could’ve ever imagined it’d be like this. 

His mouth, hot on your jaw once more before he finally picks up his head to look at you, and his eyes make you want to cry, all that manic heat is gone now, replaced by some softly smoldering ember. You don’t think anyone in all the world has eyes the color of hazel he’s got. Something that should belong to some fiercely guarded precious stone, they glow, amber opal like, burnished in the setting sun’s golden glow.

“You okay?” His voice is very soft, and only for you.

You nod, chin tipping to your sternum, face flushed with so much unbearably pleased heat you’re unable to find your own. 

Tilting his head to get at your mouth, he kisses you long and soft and open mouthed, licking your tongue, tasting you completely. And when he pulls back he has that same look you feel on your own face—that same unbearable pleasure. Shocked wonder sprinkled into it.

Look at what we’ve done and together and how good it is—

A smile and then a laugh from both of you, giggling like school children into each other’s mouths, and you’ve always thought he has some strange effect of appearing all man one second and then smiling and boyish for the flash of a single moment the next. And you don’t think you understand how someone who’s been through so much can still laugh the way he does. You smooth your finger over the arch of his eyebrow, thumbing at the smile lines at the corners of his eyes. Gorgeously strong man, and you suppose, looking at the wider picture, his life here, Ellie and the boys and a whole full life, you understand it, just a little bit—all the ranch’d given him. He has so much here—centered by the land as its heart. 

You’ve always wanted to be just like him anyway, and finally, voice found—the feel of his heartbeat inside of you—it’s like finding a dream, “I’m okay,” you tell him. 

Netherfeildren's Masterlist

Updates Blog

[ghost-proofbaby]

Hi Ghost! Mega congrats on 3k!! 🥳can i get a filthy martini with eddie munson? Maybe with some sneaking around fun? Thankyou!!

thank you so much!! ngl, i'm very proud of this one. i definitely got carried away, but i swear the smut is there, somewhere amongst the 3k+ words!!! this is really just one long love letter to eddie munson. hope i did your idea justice! also got heavily inspired by taylor swift's song "cruel summer", but what's new?

come party with me!

summertime and stardust (eddie munson x fem!reader)

warnings: smut, p in v, raw dog heathen prevails (aka unprotected sex). also a lot of references to mythology. my bad. i think i got too much prose all over my smut. oops.

Hawkins was always boring in the summer, and maybe that’s how the two of you ended up in this predicament. It was a sweltering wasteland of quarries that had started drying up long before July even arrived, and twenty four hour diners that were occupied with waitresses that made it very clear that they were sick of seeing yours and Eddie’s faces before even a week of freedom. Half of the usual hangout spots the two of you had considered hidden gems were quickly overrun by the middle-schoolers and freshmen that now had nothing but time on their hands (Eddie had taken the loss of the Arcade badly). So it was no surprise that you two ended up here, at the shore of Lover’s Lake, side by side on a blanket that Eddie had kept in the back of his van. 

“Which one is that one?” you ask, lifting a finger to trace out a constellation winking down at the two of you. 

“Orion,” Eddie immediately answers, hardly having to squint to make out the stars as you were, “Want to hear the story behind that one?”

“Is that even a question?” 

This is how the two of you had spent the last hour. On your backs, gazing at the stars, exchanging stories and theories that did not belong to either of you. Tales of Greek Gods and Goddesses, smartass remarks and make-believe when one of you couldn’t identify the constellation. There’s nothing else but you, Eddie, and the cicadas this far out of town. A buzz of relief and tranquility to bask in. Every so often, you could make out the lake water lapping at the shore not far from where both your feet rest, Eddie’s stretching past the blanket. 

It was nice. Every night you had spent out here had been very nice.

You turn on your side to listen to Eddie ramble about Orion, somehow both eloquent but still unfairly funny in his side comments of his opinion on the tale. He makes it very clear that he finds Orion to be deserving of losing his sight - “Seriously, fuck that dude!” - and you can only watch on, entranced by the boy and his starry eyes. 

“I think the version where Artemis murked his ass is pretty good, but I also like the idea behind Gaia sending a Scorpion to kill him, because then they’re opposing constellations and sh- Are you even listening to me?” Eddie pauses when you bring a hand up to his chest, fingertips dancing over the damp cotton of his t-shirt. 

You can’t hide the small smile tilting your lips as you nod, biting back giggles, “Oh, absolutely.” 

Eddie rolls his eyes, arms crooked up to rest behind his head, biceps straining against the worn sleeves of his t-shirt. You resist the urge to just bury yourself into him, curl against his side and press, press, press until the two of you conjoin, never to separate again. 

“You’re such a fucking liar,” he lowly chuckles, eyes looking back up to the sky as your fingers begin to trace patterns higher, now skimming his barely-exposed collarbones. 

This is how it usually goes. He’s watching the sky, you’re watching him. Waiting for the right moment. Waiting for the change. 

Everyone in town knew that the two of you are friends; it’s not a secret. You’d met in school, partnered for a chemistry lab, and the rest was history. Everyone knew that you were the first person Eddie showed every new Corroded Coffin song to, and everyone knew Eddie was the last person you spoke to at the end of every day. And surely, they had to know to some extent, that you both reserved your summer nights for each other. 

The change is what they didn’t know. 

Steve and Robin would tease you two when you’d come into Family Video, a new thriller or horror movie always in hand at the checkout. Dustin would make gagging noises when Eddie would dramatically bid you farewell before Hellfire Club would commence, making endless jokes about his wife returning from war, how lonesome he would be now as you walked through the door and out of his sights for the next several hours. Even Mike, even Max, even Joyce, had made off-handed comments about your attachment to each other. 

But they were all always joking. They never saw any purchase in their words, their relentless teasing never serious because they couldn’t fathom a world where those jokes were actually correct. 

They could never fathom the nights you and Eddie would end up cuddling each other while studying, pressed together too tightly to leave space for friendly speculation. They could never fathom the way Eddie would drag you into the darkest corners of the arcade, his hands tight on your hips and your breath brushing his cheek as he nuzzled his way against your neck, teeth and lips alike nipping at you in desperation until you caved and gave him a chaste kiss. They could never fathom the way Eddie had been holding you to him by the end of these nights spent by the lake, pressing his body into yours and reveling in every whimper that was only his to hear. 

No, they couldn’t fathom that half of the story. They knew you two were close, but they didn’t know just how intertwined your lifelines had become with the boy lying beside you. And that was fine, you didn’t care for them to know about those sacred moments laden with secrecy. All you really cared about was that the boy before you was all your summer nights and all your starry skies, brimming with clandestine glances and whispers of worship in moments alone. That was enough for you. Here, in your bubble of privacy by the lake sans persistent cicadas and gentle waves, he was yours. 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Eddie murmurs, bringing a hand up to yours that continues to explore his body innocently, intertwining your fingers with his before resting them over his heart. 

It was drumming in his chest – you could feel each beat perfectly, breaking through the Iron Maiden logo and against your skin. After a few moments, your own racing heart synced with his, a quiet rhythm coursing through your veins. You hope he could feel it, too. 

“Just thinking about how it’s just us out here,” you whisper back, voice low and careful not to break this moment. All of the paths, all of the dead-end streets you had both endured, just for moments like this, “How it’s always just us.” 

You mean more than the fact that you never invite anyone else out on your endeavors, but Eddie takes it that way anyway, snorting. 

“You wanna start inviting the guys out here?” he jokes through more laughter, making you attempt to break your hand free from his in order to smack at his chest. He doesn’t let you, though, only tightening his fingers’ grip on yours, “Think that Gareth would like the show? Or maybe Jeff?”

“Stop,” you whine, starting to fight him with your whole body now, still trying to get your hand free. You nearly roll on top of him, your giggles now joining his, “That’s not what I meant and you know it.” 

He doesn’t reply as the two of you continue to wrestle. At some point, he takes his free hand and begins to tickle you, making your giggles turn into awful screeches, echoing in the warm, stale air around the two of you. You twist and twist and twist, trying to get away from his merciless grip. You’re no longer holding hands, him now utilizing both to attack your sides before moving toward your armpits.

“Don’t!” you gasp out, realizing what he was about to do. He’s on his side now, you flat on your back as he begins to hover over you, “Edward Munson, don’t you dare!” 

But he does dare. And even as you’re slapping at his shoulders, even when he overexaggerated how much your knee knocking against his thigh hurt, even when the weight of him presses you down into the blanket and threatens to bury you into the soft dirty of the small-town beach, you know it in your heart – there is no where else you’d rather be in this moment. 

The compromising position that results from the ridiculous tickling and wrestling is welcome, Eddie’s body heavy between your legs as his torso drapes over yours. Your face-to-face with him, now looking in those dazzling brown eyes for constellations rather than the sky above. 

His grin from the entire interaction has begun to ache, but it doesn’t falter as he bumps his nose to yours gently, “I’m sorry. I get it, I know what you mean. It’s always been just us,” he pauses before scrunching up his face, rearing up to continue to tease you before he playfully mocks, “You and me against the world, baby.”

You smack at his chest with fruition this time, making a soft oomph fall from his lips that pass over yours, “I was just trying to be sentimental, you dick.” 

The grin finally falls away, but the corners of his eyes stay crinkled, “I know.” 

When his lips finally meet yours, it’s like a breath of fresh spring air. You’re no longer in Hawkins’ muggy summer weather, instantly transported somewhere far away where the sun is just warm enough for comfort, where the breeze is just soft enough to wrap around your shoulders like a favorite blanket, where every strawberry is the sweetest and nothing will ever hurt. 

The world can be cruel, both in heat waves and hurting souls, but he never is. He’s a sanctuary – he’s your sanctuary. 

His sickly sweet kisses continue, taking your breath away in a willing way, leaving both your lips shades of summer blooms and spring flowers. His tongue is a welcome prodding, almost as if tending to your garden as he tries to get the two of you even closer. It’s not possible, but it doesn’t stop either of you; chests crush together as foreheads clash, and you yearn for a world where you could just curl up beneath each other’s skin, clamber your way into his chest and nestle right beside his pounding heart.

Only Artemis knows that he’s already made residency in yours, decorating your ribs and lungs with his flowers of adoration. 

Between desperate breaths and needy hands, hips beginning to roll and curse the clothing you two have yet to get rid of, you silently wonder where the two of you will end up in this lifetime. You hope it’s amongst the stars. You hope your constellation can find his across the night sky. 

 “Baby,” he begs. You don’t know what he’s begging for – for closeness, for your legs to fall further open and welcome him home, for you to swallow him whole with all the love pounding just beneath the surface of you – so you can only kiss him back with more urgency. 

The urgency follows through both of your movements. Urgency is what removes his shirt, your hands shaking as his chest is exposed to you in the moonlight. Urgency is what unbuttons your shorts, prickles of thorns when his fingertips make contact with your nude hip. Urgency is the slip of his hand into your panties, fingers curling and swirling in every right pattern to have you preening against him. 

“Off,” you plead with him once he has you down to just your underwear and him just his boxers. Your palms rack down desperately over the waistband before trailing down to his bulge, fevered movements earning more purpose as you press down on him and elicit a moan. 

He recovers his composure, only to shake his head down at you, curls ticking your cheeks, “Ever heard of a thing called patience, sweetheart?” 

“Fuck patience,” you immediately argue, pulling yourself back from his lips fully, eyes meeting and lips slick with each other’s spit, “We have the entire summer to be patient, Eddie. Just… Just fuck me. Please.” 

You awakened something in him with those words, you saw away whatever restraint he was holding onto so tightly. These nights always ended the same way, but they never felt the same. 

Familiarity waits in the shadows as each graze of his skin against yours ignites something new in you. New flowers, new petals, new budding growths that scream that this can’t last for just the summer. Whatever this is, as he removes your panties and his boxers, is not just a coming and going on the seasons. It’s not just a constellation only to be seen in the quiet of the night by two lovesick fools sneaking off to observe it. The heat of the summer that frizzes both your hair and his repeats it, the cooler breeze that rolls off the lake behind you guys encourages it. It may have taken the summer to tend to it, but this is only the beginning of it. Not the end – never the end.

And he fucks you like he knows it, too. He can hear the whispers of it all, telling him to pull you closer, telling him to take his time as he pushes into you and feels your walls stretch around him. It isn’t quite patience, it isn’t quite cruelty. It’s just you, and it’s just him. 

“Fuck,” he moans out once he’s fully sheathed inside you, cock pulsing as your wetness tightens on him. Really, it’s a shame that no deity will ever experience the devotion you feel pouring off of him as his mouth falls open for you, as his head rolls back and his eyes flutter close. He’s devoted to you – he’s yours just as you’re his, “Always so wet for me, baby. Always so good.” 

He finds a familiar rhythm to have you both gasping and groaning, and it still feels brand new. The way you feel him deep in your stomach, the way your thighs quiver and his abdomen tightens. It is all always new and it is all always euphoric. 

If you lift your eyes to find the stars above you almost winking at you, you can feel that he’s not fucking you as you’d requested; he’s making love to you. He is confessing his past sins and he is professing that he’d spend the rest of his days here, inside you, against you, with you. 

The roll of his hips don’t stay slow for long, though. You both know the love is there, and you both know what the two of you need. Eventually, soft confessions and loud professions become slapping of skin on skin, teeth knocking as you try to keep your lips on his. You swallow every moan and he grabs every mewl. You can feel his hands on your waist, your hips, your thighs. He is everywhere all at once, and it still isn’t enough. 

It’s not enough until his movements stutter, until his voice has grown hoarse from calling out your name for only the two of you to hear. Your nails rake down his back at some point, and you know that come tomorrow night, beside the lake, you’ll be tracing fading red lines that spell out a clear message: he belongs to me because he chose me. 

Your walls flutter around him and he knows without you saying a single word other than ramblings of his name that you’re close.

“Cum for me,” he’s begging again, lifting above you and looking down with wide, wet eyes, “Fuck- I- Please cum for me, baby. Need you to cum. Please.” 

You whine out in response, head tilting back into the grass around the edges of the blanket, consumed by him. Your ears ring as your vision blacks, the last image you see being his face contorted in pleasure, and you can’t decipher whether it’s the lake again that you hear or simply your own waves meeting his shore. 

The echoes of his voice surround you. 

“Just like that, sweetheart.”

“Doing so good for me.”

“Always such a good girl.” 

When his own high has its hold on him, his head is falling to your shoulder, his nose buried into your sweet spot behind your ear as you listen to every grunt and moan. He holds you painfully close, like he’s scared that maybe this is the end. You ponder bruises in the shapes of roses forming on your hips as he buries deep in you and he paints your walls with warmth, with devotion, with something unspoken only between the two of you. 

He collapses on top of you in the afterglow. Savors the moment, lets his lips pucker against your salty skin slick with sweat no longer just from summer. His own hair is matted at the knape of his neck, his cheeks, his forehead. 

You can’t help the laughter that bubbles from your chest. It’s overflowing, mingling with the still crying cicadas. He lifts his head and glances up at you, smiling shyly. 

“What?” 

You continue to laugh, unable to answer him, as he pulls out and cleans you up with his t-shirt. If you weren’t so delirious with unbridled delight, you’d scorn him. 

He doesn’t bother with redressing as he rolls to his original side of the blanket, laying on his back and wrapping his arms around you to pull you into him, “What’s so damn funny, my beautiful girl?” 

You think Artemis, maybe even Orion, would smile down at the sight of the two of you. Perhaps Gaia is sending her well wishes to the love-stricken look you two exchange in the form of a breeze that doesn’t bring more heat, only relief, only sanctuary. 

“We are not inviting Gareth or Jeff out here, ever,” you finally explain breathlessly, “This place is for just us, Munson.” 

He joins you in your lingering giggles, his chest shaking with them more than he vocalizes them as your cheek finds his heart and presses into his cheek. 

Whatever this is, label or not, is good. And it is only the beginning, never the end. Whether the others will ever know or not, the two of you always will, and that’s all that matters for the time being. 

“Yeah, yeah,” he chuckles, holding you just a little bit tighter, “Always just us, you heathen.” 

He brings a finger to your chin, tilting your face up. When he kisses you, it tastes like summertime and stardust, just as it should.

[skyphloxx]

ok so um. here is a scenario ive had in the drafts for literally over a month and forgot to post. maybe with a second part idk?

i've been thinking way too damn much about clegan and johns dog coded ass and his feelings around body markings. like, hickeys and bites and bruises etc. bear with me this post got really long lmfao.

fuckin. ok. so in a scenario where john and gale are fucking on the side pretty early on after their arrival at thorpe abbots.

everyone knows bucky is a slut, right? bucky can show up with hickeys and bites and red marks and nobody will question it. he might get jeers or crooked grins, they’ll laugh and say he must’ve slept with every girl on base and half the women in london by now, but it’s expected.

buck, though? everyone knows buck’s got a girl. and maybe he wouldn’t be the first guy to say as much and then fold after months of being away from home. but everybody who knows him knows that buck cleven isn’t like that. and anyway, it would be a little odd considering how consistently he turns down any woman who makes a pass.

you see where i'm going here right.

gale can bite the fuck out of john and leave him with bruises purpling from his neck all the way down to his thighs. when they’re alone together it’s the only time he gets to loosen that iron grip he has on himself, be anything less than carefully composed and controlled. outside gale is the fearless leader, who will sometimes joke and rib but has no vices, no faults. with john he is a hungry, wanting thing, all hands and mouth and teeth.

bucky loves it at first. being desired so much kinda drives him wild, knowing that gale wants him so bad, that there’s so much heat simmering under that cool surface. but there’s also something about the act of leaving marks on him that feels like gale’s staking a claim. that bucky allowing himself to be bitten is showing allegiance, or acquiescence, or maybe ownership. something of gale is left there, written across his skin, even if nobody else knows it. the marks say that gale can do what he wants with john’s body, that john is his. he’s painted his name across john’s neck and chest.

bucky doesn’t object to this feeling. like, at all. on its own, that part is amazing. the problem is he can’t do it back to gale. buck is so paranoid about being found out, and the communal living of the barracks adds extra complications. and john understands his fears, of course he does, he knows damn well what happens to men who get blue tickets, and he’ll respect anything that’ll help buck feel safer about what they’ve been doing. he’s pretty sure he’d do anything to keep buck coming back, he needs him that badly.

he fucking hates that he has to be so careful. he wants nothing more than to give it right back to buck, to bite the same kind of lurid purple bruises across his skin. he thinks all too often of how buck would react, his shiver at the scrape of john's teeth on sensitive skin and the low breathy noises he'd make. hates that he can't have that. but mostly he hates how he can't stake any claim over gale he way he feels that gale has over him. if buck can do what he wants with john's body, if his bites mean that john is his, then the inverse must also be true: bucky can't do the same, and gale is not his. he has no claim to stake.

which makes sense, really. as far as claims go, someone's already beat him to gale. that's the whole reason the no-markings rule was established.*

it ends up serving as a little reminder to bucky: that the arrangement he and gale have worked out to keep each other sane during all this? it's temporary. when the war ends buck will be going back to build a home and share a bed with someone, and that someone won't be john. he can't forget that however much gale seems to want him in the moment, he's committed elsewhere. john is a way for him to distract himself from everything else going on around them. he thinks sometimes gale does it as much to distract john as himself. taking pity on him or something. he knows buck still loves marge more than anything. he uses her letters like a lifeline, sniffs her perfume off the paper like it might send him back to her if he works hard enough at it.

someone with a better sense of self-preservation than bucky might try to break it off, disengage, try to soften the blow when it inevitably comes, but.

the marks also remind him that he is gale's. has been. is. will be. for as long as gale will have him. bucky needs him in a way that he doesn't bother to deny to himself anymore. his chest feels heavy with it when they’re together. he knows they're on borrowed time, but that just means john's going to borrow as much of it as he can. avoiding leaving bruises or not using his teeth is nothing, really, he would do so much less (or so much more) if gale asked him, any number of humiliating, desperate things to keep gale wanting to touch him, fuck him. it's fucking pathetic, how much he needs that. john's own stupid hurt feelings are nothing, compared to how much he'd endure for it.

so of course he never brings this whole dilemma up to buck as something that bothers him. he would not dare risk throwing a wrench in their arrangement, which is perfectly functional as it is. they've made it this far via mostly unspoken agreements, mutual willingness to not talk about it more than they need to. john will not even entertain the possibility of breaking that or scaring gale off or somehow ruining what they have. he is already so well versed at suffering in silence, and really this trade off isn't bad. he used to fucking dream of this, the taste of gale's mouth or the feel of their skin pressed together. he can stand being reminded it's temporary. he can stand knowing he's pathetic.

(bucky is a lying liar to himself. he is full of resentment and frustration. he will pretend he's not full of resentment about this for as long as it's physically possible to. gale knows something is up with him but won't say anything too specific about it for the same reason john won't - they don't talk about it if they can avoid it. that's the whole point of unspoken agreements.)

*bucky has not considered that gale would be similarly paranoid even if he was not openly in a relationship and loyal to it (loyal in heavy air quotes lmfao) if not even worse, just because gale cleven is a high-strung freak underneath all the calm collected shit.

[the-algid]

DOG/WOLF JOHN ANALYSIS!!!!

I’ve been going crazy for this idea. I knew I had to wait until part 41 “The Windmill” came out before I could post this (I am a patron). But now I can!!

First off John is narratively a wolf, but from my knowledge he is behavior wise more doglike. I am not an animal or dog or wolf behaviorist, but that would be sick.

Analysis, and some screenshots of the transcript below :3

So for narratively a wolf: he's one of the first wolves. He was enthralled by the campfire, he wandered closer, he found a human and a human found him. And through necessity he was softened, and tamed. He is no longer the viscous, cruel, arrogant wild thing he was, but a loyal, devoted, sometimes kind, curious thing. He isn't a sweet obedient pup and he won’t, he's in the process of being tamed. He's becoming a domestic wolf.

Now dog behavior: He acts alot like a dog that hasn’t been thoroughly trained yet. Acting out when pushed into a corner, being desperate for attention. He behaves exactly like a dog that doesn’t understand the world. He’s pampered aggressive lap dog, never learned no to bite. Now Arthur is showing him the consequences, he’s teaching him how to behave.

My friend made a good point on fear aggression (I would at then but they don't have Tumblr). Some dogs react really badly when scared, biting and barking. This seems the exact reason he used Faroe against Arthur when he brought Emily up. He wa scared of the consequences so he bit back, and made it worse. He fell back on his violent ways because he doesn’t know anything different.

He’d do anything for his keeper (calling Arthur his owner is weird) make a deal with the devil to come back to him. He’d draw him to safety by his teeth, even if that meant dragging Arthur by the neck. He could never see him loose himself, or die. He’d even give up the luxurious life he used to live to be by his side, and keep him safe.

He latches to ideas and will not let go until satisfied, like a particularly stubborn dog. Even if hi assumptions are childish, especially if they’re childish. He sees a movie advertisement like a dog sees a squirrel. At the same time he’s quick to jump to killing, he sees a threat and bites first ask questions later, ho many times has he seen a threat and immediately demands Arthur kill it?

Like alot of dogs I know he only wants Arthur, he’s slow to trust, and feels jealous easily. Like a dog using their muzzle to get you to pet them, especially after petting another dog. (this is targeted) He doesn’t like Lily, or the bright bug like creature in the caves, he only appreciates Lily after he found kinship. He only trusted Noel after he was able to be known.

In some ways in season 4, John is akin to a dog with owners who don’t understand dog behavior. He has no voice no matter how loud he barks, only getting a reaction when he gets really loud or physical. Arthur doesn’t understand his needs, because they don’t have the means to communicate (a place where they won’t look insane talking to each other)

Just like a child being new to the world, he’s a dog abandoned on the streets after living in pent houses. He’s gonna be clueless and misguided.

Now some specific moments that helped me form this theory/metaphor/symbolization: there's more, but I either can't remember them or they're overarching stuff that can't be simplified with one screenshot

[princelylove]

i am slowly getting more and more annoyed with mr zeppeli himself i ate my fingers as i read your response to my ask AJAJHSUSH. thank you so much your highness i am burning my whole house rn.

actually, which yanderes do you think would be the most ANNOYING. like, not violent or anything but just plain annoying. the kind of people that make you wanna tear your hair out or commit a slow and painful murder.

(inspired heavily by narancia because i have a feeling he would be the most annoying little shit to deal with)

-🌸 anon

What an adorable thing you are. Don’t bite too hard, it’ll hinder your ability to compliment me. 

Oh, God. Most annoying to me, personally? Not in any order in particular, I feel as if this one would change depending on my mood:

Bruno hovers too much, and he tends to both infantilize and put a lot of responsibility on his darling. He expects his darling to parent Narancia but won’t let them handle a knife by themself. I’m doing a character study on him right now, so that’s all I’ll say, but just know that he is God’s punishment for whatever you did in a past life to deserve him.

Narancia is annoying- he’s a young guy who never got taught how to deep clean, spends his free time on his pull up bar, expects you to cook for him since he’s literally never been tasked with it, whines when you try to get up and go to the bathroom in the middle of your six hours minimum long cuddling session, doesn’t know how to properly take care of an entire human being so just throws junk food at you and hopes you don’t starve, the list goes on. He loves you, he really does, he just doesn’t know what he’s doing. For someone as prissy as myself, I would die the first day. He doesn’t understand why I put those rollers in my hair- he just watched me straighten it, doesn’t that cancel out??? That’s stupid, oh, and another thing, what’s the point of owning five different versions of the same color of nail polish? It’s all red! Just have one, that isn’t crazy expensive! On top of Narancia being the worst roommate ever- he’s very irritable, and doesn’t really have a problem pulling a knife on you to get what he wants. He’s not as quick to snap as people think, but that doesn’t mean he won’t. Show signs of liking something more than him and he’ll maul it. 

It’s hard to set Cioccolata and Secco away from each other, they’re basically inseparable, but Cioccolata is capable of using logic, and Secco is not. If you’re on the ground in pain, obviously you’re going to have a hard time answering the little puppy’s questions. Secco doesn’t understand why you won’t play with him- he’s shoving his toy right in front of you, are you blind?? Play! With! Him! Throw it, play tug of war, SOMETHING, COME ON. There’s an interesting dynamic depending on who exactly you’re intended for- Cioccolata, Secco, or both. Let’s just talk about Secco alone, since Cioccolata isn’t annoying, he’s just a bit too affectionate sometimes. Secco’s forgetful, rude, jumps to conclusions, and you don’t even know what he looks like since he’s always wearing that bitch suit-esque thing. He nudges you to throw his toy- he probably thinks of you as human rather than another dog, and doesn’t understand why you aren’t behaving like Cioccolata does. If you were Cioccolata’s darling alone, or a shared darling, he’d probably think of you as another dog. But he was here first, so he’s got dibs on the good dog bed, AND cioccolata’s lap. As if you’d want that. Secco begs and begs and begs for you to give him as much attention as you possibly can- and somehow, you’re never doing it right. It’s like talking to a child who has surpassed the ‘Why?’ stage and has moved on to greater conquests- annoying you so badly that you ask Cioccolata if it’s fine to have a sip of his ‘not for dogs’ drink. Or two. Or three. Or the entire bottle. 

Rohan doesn’t ever shut the fuck up. He quite literally always has something to say, despite wanting to “observe.” He read an article this morning, let’s go visit the place it mentioned even though it’s a three hour train ride and supposed to rain for the rest of the week. He always wants to go explore- even when he promised that you could both stay home today and do something you want to do. It doesn’t make sense to Rohan- why wouldn’t you want to go see what the world has to offer? Probably because this is the fourth temple he’s wanted to visit this week and you don’t feel like going up two hundred stairs. (If his darling cannot walk, he makes sure it’s accessible beforehand. You’re not getting out of coming with him.) Rohan’s big on healthy living, and he feels a sense of superiority for eating right, and working out very consistently. He wants his darling to be perfectly well as well- how can he push you to your limits if you’re not at your best? You’d probably sleep better if he stopped talking for three hours past his initial ‘goodnight.’ 

Hazamada… is… he’s certainly a character! The literal only reason why he isn’t forcing himself upon his darling is because he’s too much of a coward- and that’s not my interpretation, that’s canon. His hobbies include bullying kittens and small animals, not showering, collecting manga, stalking idols, and tennis! Isn’t that nice, he does sports, he’s only a basement dweller half of the time. It isn’t even somewhat attractive when he tries to get it on with his darling, he’s like a dog humping your leg. He’s the type to call you a stupid bitch because you politely suggested he should wear deodorant before he hits on you. He’s canonically an exhibitionist- imagine sitting in class and looking over to check the clock and he’s just staring back at you while adjusting his pants. I’d switch schools. 

[estrellami-1]

Okay my love I’m sending you a sad and pathetic prompt and then a cutesy fluff prompt (I thought about just sending you the cute one, I feel like all I’m doing these last few days is feeling awful and not being very productive or fun to be around and I think I was just wallowing when I wrote that comment so absolutely feel free disregard this one if you want) this is the sad one, I was thinking more hurt/comfort vibes:

This is just basically self insert except it’s not me I’m inserting it’s my situation lol, one of their relatives passes away (not Wayne) and on top of that they have to find homes for their loved ones pets that they loved the most of anything in the world when everyone is just telling them to euthanize or that everywhere is full and they’re four states and 16 hours away from the pets so it’s not like they can go pick them up easily if at all, which causes them to get sick/throw up a ton from the sadness and anxiety about the situation - enter the other who takes care of them to make sure they don’t worry themselves to death (if anyone wants to come take care of me and maybe just give me about 3000 hugs a day we could make this a live action roleplay situation lol🥺)

(Sorry this is just me complaining pretty much, the other prompt will be cuter)

Oh my love, you’re allowed to feel bad and wallow. I’m so sorry this happened/is happening!! I can’t give you any real hugs but I’ll give you ALL the virtual hugs I can ❤️

When the World Ends - Part 1

Steve’s voice is trembling when he finally makes the call to Eddie. “Hey,” he manages, letting out a pathetic, airy laugh at how badly his voice shakes on that one word. “Um. Can. Can you come over?”

Eddie’s amazing, so he says, “I’ll be there in ten,” and he is. As soon as Steve opens the door, he murmurs, “What’s wrong?”

Steve bites his lip, invites Eddie in. “Y’know how I never mention my parents?” Eddie hums. “But I always leave in the spring for a couple weeks?”

Eddie nods. “Your grandparents, right?”

Steve nods. Bites his lip again, looks up at the ceiling, trying not to cry. “Um.” He sniffs. “My grandpa passed today.”

“Oh, Stevie,” Eddie murmurs, reaching for him until Steve shakes his head sharply. “What can I do?”

Steve huffs. “What can anyone do?” He wipes his face and begins to pace. “My grandma’s too old to stay on her own now, let alone with all the animals they’ve got, and of course it’s not like her own son would help, not when he could be in Cabo instead, finding new ways to cheat on my mom with his secretary or assistant or her secretary or who the fuck knows. And I want to help but I can’t leave Hawkins, not when everyone else is still here, and there’s still a chance, but it feels so selfish not to go when she needs me-”

“Steve,” Eddie interrupts softly, hands up between them. “Take a breath, man, it’ll be okay. I know you love your grandparents but this isn’t all on you, okay?”

Steve slumps back into the couch like a puppet whose strings have been cut. Says, barely above a whisper, “I’ve got animals out there.”

Eddie hums softly. “What did you say?”

“Animals. Pets. I can’t have them here so my grandparents have ‘em. I’ve got a dog and chickens and a horse and what ‘m I gonna do with them?”

“We’ll figure it out,” Eddie promises him.

Steve groans and stands up again, beginning to pace again. “They’re four states away, Eddie! I don’t have a horse trailer, I dunno anyone in Hawkins who has chickens so I dunno if that’s even allowed, and I can’t bring my dog here!” He runs a hand through his hair, grimacing. “I guess the horse could go back to the neighbor, but they gave her to me for a reason, and I dunno what’s gonna happen to the chickens, and imma have to give the dog away, too, and get my grandma somewhere she can be taken care of, and fuck, there’s still the house-” he chokes on an inhale and a sob, standing still for a moment before he dashes through the house.

Eddie watches, wide-eyed, and follows when the sound of retching reaches his ears. “Oh, Stevie,” he murmurs, dropping to his knees beside him, hand hovering over his back. “Can I touch you? Rub your back?” Between gasping breaths, Steve nods, so Eddie puts a gentle hand on his back, rubbing up and down. “You’re gonna be okay,” he murmurs. “I know how scary this all seems right now, but you’re the strongest person I know, ‘sides Wayne, and you’ve got people who care about you and who’re gonna be here for you very step of the way, okay?”

The puppeteer cuts the strings once again, and Steve sags sideways into Eddie, trying to regulate his breathing, still quietly choking on his sobs. “Want me to call Birdie?” Eddie asks quietly, moving his hand to wrap his arm around Steve’s shoulders.

Steve shakes his head. Says, between breaths, “She’d panic.”

Eddie hums. “And you wanna be okay for her when she panics.” Steve nods. “Okay, I get that. I’m glad you called me.”

Steve sniffles. Eddie hands him some toilet paper. Says, after he’s blown his nose, “Feels like the world’s ending.”

Eddie thrown back into a memory from months ago. “If the world ends again, you know where I am,” he’d said. He hadn’t been sure, at the time, if Steve would call him. But they stayed friends, to the point where Steve calling him wasn’t quite the rarity it used to be, and Eddie doesn’t think he’s ever felt so honored.

“And you called me,” he murmurs, back in the present day, knees sore from the bathroom tile. He knows they’re going to pop like an old man’s when he stands. He decides not to worry about that right now.

Steve nods. “Knew you’d come.”

“And I did,” Eddie nods. Rubs his hand up and down Steve’s arm. “How’re you feeling?”

Steve sniffs again. “Like shit.”

Eddie lets out a soft chuckle. “I probably should’ve guessed. Ready to get up? Or wanna stay here for a minute?”

“Wanna stay here forever,” he says, but shifts to get up.

He stumbles a little when he stands, hissing. Eddie steadies him. “Legs’re asleep.”

“That’s okay, Stevie, I’ve gotcha. Come rinse your mouth out, m’kay? We’re going back to bed. I’m gonna make a few calls, okay?”

Steve won’t look at him in the mirror. “Gonna leave?”

“Not unless you want me to,” Eddie swears. Steve meets his eyes for a brief second. Shakes his head. “Then I’ll stay until you get sick of me.”

Steve manages a shaky smile. “Not possible.”

Eddie sighs contentedly. “Rinse your mouth out,” he gently reminds him. “Let’s get you up to bed.”

When Steve’s in bed, Eddie turns to leave, then turns back just as quickly when Steve grabs his hand. “You’re not leaving?”

Eddie squeezes his hand. “Not leaving. Just gonna make a quick call.”

“Okay,” Steve whispers, but his breathing picks up again, and Eddie changes his mind.

He bullies his way under the covers next to Steve, pulling him in until his face is tucked into Eddie’s neck and Eddie can rub his back. The call can wait until Steve’s asleep, so he can get back before Steve wakes up.

Steve’s world is ending. That’s every bit as important as the world itself ending. So Eddie resigns himself to stand guard over Steve’s dreams, keeping them happy as best he can.

I hope y’all liked this! The fic tag is the name (“#whentheworldends”) and my writing tag is “#starambles”. Remember I’m NOT doing a taglist for these, so subscribe to either to see where this goes next! Send me an ask with the next thing you want to happen in this fic!

[eunchancorner]

Revenged and Rescued (Part 10)

EXACTLY. THREE. PAGES.

-

“Psst, Henry! Wake up!”

Henry heard the familiar voice before he felt the hand gently shaking him awake, groaning as he shoved his face further into his pillow. 

“Noooo…” he whined, trying to ignore his tentmate’s wake-up call and go back to sleep. This was the first actually restful sleep he’d had in a long time, and he wanted to savor it. Unfortunately, Charles had other plans.

“C’mon, Henry, you’ve got stuff to do today! Get upppp!” the pilot urged, grabbing Henry’s arm and attempting to pull him out of bed, only succeeding in falling on his ass, earning a chuckle from Henry.

“Metal’s heavy, isn’t it?…” he murmured with a sleepy smirk, before snuggling back into the thin blanket.

“Jerk…” he heard the pilot mumble before standing, walking around the cot and humming in thought.

For a short while, Henry thought he’d given up and was going to let him sleep. He let his guard down, completely relaxing into the cot as he felt himself drifting off again.

Oh, what a fool he was.

Suddenly, he felt four fingers pressing into four of the sensors on the side of his chestplate, pulling a squeal and laughter from his throat faster than he could stop it, grabbing at Charles’s hand and trying to squirm away.

“Wahahait! Chaharles, plehehehease!! Ihit tihihihickles!! Nohohoho!” Henry laughed as he tried to get away, pushing at Charles’s arm with one hand and pulling at the cot frame with the other. “I’m uhuhup! Ihi’m awahahahake!!”

“You sure? You’re positive you’re gonna get up? And you won’t go back to sleep as soon as I go grab you some breakfast?” he heard the teasy coo above him, and he couldn’t help but cover his face. Why was this teasing so much worse than Konrad’s?

He nodded wordlessly, and just like that, it was over. He panted, getting out the last of his giggles, slowly sitting up as Charles left the tent. Part of him wanted to lay back down, just to see what he’d do, but he conceded to the fact that he did, in fact, have important stuff to do today.

Maybe another day…

After a change of clothes and a cereal cup Charles got from the mess hall, he stepped out of the tent with a content sigh, ready to start the day. He began to walk with Charles, trusting him to know where to go.

“Ready for acclimation with Phlex?”

Oh shit, that’s what we’re doing today.

Henry stopped in his tracks, Charles getting a few feet away before he realized and stopped too.

“C’mon, Henry, he’ll be out soon so we have to get ready!” he called enthusiastically, before realizing something was wrong. “You ok?”

“... You guys are sure Phlex is human, right?”

“Ah… well… no, not- not really. Some of us think he’s some kind of failed experiment? We’re not even sure how he was able to get enlisted! But I mean, it’s been useful on a lot of occasions. And he doesn’t normally hurt the rest of us… badly. Plus, I mean, you could probably use that metal arm of yours to protect yourself if worst comes to worst.”

“It’s still gonna hurt if he bites it or something!”

“Oh, biting’s gonna be a given with Phlex, might as well accept that now. But hey, maybe biting metal will discourage him? Oh, but uh, I’d brace yourself. His teeth are… they’re really worryingly sharp…? And large… Part of the reason we think he’s some kind of failed experiment. Think of like, one of those chain chomp things.”

Ah. Well that’s just wonderful.

“Hm… think maybe he’s enlisted because Galeforce adopted him or something and he just… kinda started fighting? Like those stories about stray dogs that soldiers adopt? Except… he might be human? Big maybe, but maybe?” Henry speculated, getting Charles to genuinely think for a second.

“That… that could be it. We’ll have to ask the general. But first, acclimation. C’mon, you’re not getting out of it,” the pilot announced, marching back over to Henry and grabbing his arm, attempting, unsuccessfully, to pull him along. A solid 5 seconds of pulling later, and he was back on his ass, groaning. This time, he simply laid on his back in the dirt, his arms over his eyes as he groaned, and Henry couldn’t help himself.

“Hey, Charles…”

“Don’t…”

“Metal’s heavy, isn’t it?”

Charles groaned loudly before getting up, punching Henry lightly in his real arm.

“One of these days I’ll be strong enough to drag you around! Just you wait!” he threatened, although it was obvious how little malice was behind it.

“Yeah, we’ll see about that,” Henry chuckled as he began walking. “I’m going, don’t worry.”

As the two approached, Henry felt the anxiety of the whole situation rising again, only worsened by the sight of the feral soldier, who Mac was currently keeping faced away from Henry, likely for safety reasons.

The others kept quiet as he approached, though it was evident that they were also a little nervous about how this might go, given Henry’s previous affiliations and Phlex’s apparent Toppat hatred. They stood in a circle, and Henry made his way to the middle, taking a deep breath. He gave Mac a nod, and the soldier slowly turned his feral boyfriend around to face him.

Instantly, Phlex tensed up, taking a wide, battle-like stance, like an animal with raised hackles as he slowly approached Henry, quite literally snarling all the while. That snarl gave Henry a full view of huge, sharp teeth, ones that absolutely could not have been human.

As soon as he was a few feet away, Henry put up his arms in a defensive manner, fully expecting to be bitten and hoping he’d go for the shinier one at the very least. What he didn't expect, however, was an almost confused sound escaping Phlex’s throat and a curious head tilt.

Suddenly, the soldier grabbed his cybernetic arm, seeming to examine it closely, squinting at it, before releasing it and motioning for Henry to follow, stomping off in a seemingly random direction.

Henry stood in shock for a moment; just long enough for Phlex to turn around and grunt impatiently, motioning again, before Henry complied. Behind him, he heard the others pipe up.

“Should we follow them or something…?” one of the twins asked, though Henry couldn’t differentiate based on the voice.

“No, something tells me Phlex has a good reason for this…” Eel responded, admittedly a bit anxiously.

The two walked in silence for a while, before Phlex stopped at the bottom of a tree, staring up into the branches. Henry followed his gaze, his eyes catching something bright yellow that was caught on one of the lower branches. Phlex pointed up at the item, then pointed at Henry.

“You need me to get that down?” he asked, and the soldier nodded before staring back up at it.

“Alright, let’s see if I still have that grappling hook…” he pondered, moving right underneath the object and focusing on his cybernetic hand.

Nothing.

“No, shit, ok, does this thing still extend, then…?” he raised his hand above his head, and almost instantly, it shot up and latched onto the branch, earning a startled growl from Phlex and a quiet “Yes!” from Henry.

It brought Henry up until he was hanging from the branch, close enough to grab it with his other hand and pull himself awkwardly onto it, before leaning over the yellow item to see how it was stuck.

The item in question was a tough-looking rubber duck on a black string, the string being caught on a small protrusion on the branch. Henry carefully untied it, holding it up as he finished. It seemed to be some kind of necklace, and squeezing the rubber duck (admittedly pretty hard) made it squeak, which urged Phlex to let out a sound that sounded weirdly like a bark.

Henry came down in a similar manner to which he went up, clutching the necklace in his free hand. As soon as he was safely back on the ground, he handed it off to Phlex.

“This is what you wanted, right?” he asked, the feral soldier nodding quickly as he took it, biting onto the duck and shaking it violently, squeaking it all the while. After a few seconds he calmed down, pulling the string around his neck and leading Henry back to the rest of Squad C.

“Hey, you’re back!” Charles greeted as the two returned, his gaze falling on Phlex’s necklace. “And you found Phlex’s chew necklace, too! We’ve been looking for that thing for weeks, we thought he lost it on the field or something. Where was it?”

“It was in a tree, actually,” Henry explained, looking at Phlex. “I guess he’d found it before and was waiting for someone he knew had a better chance of getting it.” The feral soldier nodded, peacefully chewing on the head of the rubber duck as he walked over to Mac’s side and rested his head on his shoulder.

“I’ve never seen him so calm before, I guess he really needed something to bite, huh?” he remarked, patting his boyfriend’s head and earning a quiet, content-sounding grumble. Mac also mumbled something that Henry couldn’t make out, but judging by the blush it sparked on both his and Phlex’s face, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

“Welp, looks like Phlex had his own idea for how this was going to go. I’m honestly just glad it went smoothly!” Charles remarked, “Usually he ends up biting someone or something.”

“I’m surprised that getting back his necklace was all it took for him to trust Henry,” Quentin pointed out. “He’s more easily bought than I thought…”

“Yeah, great, cool, now, Henry, wasn’t there something you said you wanted to show us yesterday?” Madd urged, and Henry rolled his eyes with a chuckle as the twins gasped.

“Henry’s gonna show us something?” Calvin asked.

“Is it something cool?” Konrad added.

“Yeah, yeah, go find the others who wanted to see it, ok? I’m not sure they actually let me keep it, but we can try,” Henry said, and like a bullet, Madd was off to find Anthony, Turtle and Frog.

God, I hope they let me keep the minigun…

[thewhumpcaretaker]

✦ 𝐖𝐢𝐜𝐤 𝐖𝐞𝐞𝐤 𝐈𝐕: 𝐂𝐚𝐦𝐩𝐟𝐢𝐫𝐞 ✦

Sources: One | Two | Three

Event Host: @wickblr

Summary: After faking his death at the duel, John has gone into hiding deep in the desert to preserve his peace. Sofia Al-Azwar begs him to come back to the everyday world...and confesses her love. This is my first time writing John x Sofia! I hope it seems like them...

CW: Kissing, and that's about it. It's just angst and fluff.

The air is perfectly still, and dry with oncoming winter. But here, it’s always dry. It’s the richness of burning wood that truly makes the moment feel like autumn.

Night is making its way down in a blue-black gradient, the lowering of a ceiling rather than a sky. There’s nothing but sand for so many miles. And everything has already happened. What future is there? The space feels eternal. An epilogue.

“John. How long will you wander alone out here?” Sofia’s fingers weave deeper into his hair. His head is in her lap, both of them staring into the campfire, and she’s just…petting him. He needs touch so badly, after some seven hundred lonely nights. It’s been two years now, since he faked his death. And Sofia is the only one who knows where he is.

He doesn’t answer for so long that she thinks he’s fallen asleep. Then, “Long as I live.”

In front of her crossed legs, Dog whimpers and licks John’s forehead. Then he moves off to curl up with Lerna and Orthus, the three of them forming a cozy, tangled pile on the other side of the flames.

Sofia shakes her head, even though John’s not looking at her. “You fought so hard to survive. Why don’t you fight the same way to get back to a normal life?”

“It’ll all just happen again. I’m tired, Sofia.” He sounds that way. His voice is even rougher than usual.

“Dog’s tired. He’s tired of getting sand in his paws every time we visit you. Come back to the hotel with me.” She knows it’s futile. They’ve had the conversation dozens of times. But every time, she says it anyway.

“Give it up.”

“You know I’m too stubborn for that. It’s how I survived: being too stubborn to give up on myself. You deserve the same persistence. Hell, you were so persistent for…well, for Helen’s sake.” What did she almost say there? For the sake of his friends? For her sake? She knows that’s not why. Sofia frowns deeply. “She wouldn’t want to see you living like this. It’s no way to honor her memory.”

That strikes a nerve. His voice has a little more edge to it this time. “She wanted me free. Out here I’m free.”

He’s pissing her off by this point. Her hand stops moving over his hair for a second. Let him feel the weight of what he’s doing. “You’re alone, John. I'm surprised you haven't lost your mind out here. This is solitary confinement. It's torture. Stop it.”

His answer is the same as ever. “Yeah. I’ll think about it.” As if he already knows his answer. But unconsciously, he curls closer against her body, hugging her knees.

The silence reigns again. Sofia leans down over his body, embracing his whole torso to give him as much contact as possible in the little time they have before she’s back in the world of struggling against the High Table, of day-to-day life. He should be there too. Anything, anything to reach him… “People love you. Living people.” It’s a second before she realizes what she’s said.

But he knows. Of course he knows. “…I love you too.” John shifts onto his back, where he can reach up and hold her in kind and god, it almost breaks her. She feels like she’s holding his body back from a motionless river, the waterless, unforgiving current of the dunes. A stagnation, instead of motion, but he could sink and drown in it just the same as water. She won’t let that happen to him. Let his life be a life, not just a haunted survival. Please…

His breath against her lips is proof that his head is still above the waves. And then they’re breathing into each other, biting at each other’s lips, stubble and teeth and refusal to let go, his hand tangled in her hair now too. They get primal so quickly, they understand each other’s vicious energy and bring it out of one another. Fists on each other’s backs, pulling each other closer. Sofia topples over, and now they’re laying side by side. She pulls his head back for a second by the hair, staring fiercely into his eyes. “It’s too dusty for sex out here. Come home with me and we’ll fuck on a nice plush rug in front of the fire.”

He just laughs, and kisses her again. Goddammit. Well. At least that wasn’t a no. Sofia settles against him, staring up at the stars and allowing herself the recklessness of hope.

Night has fallen entirely. The sun is dead beyond the black horizon. But a light still glows: the flicker of her campfire. It will come to him in a cycle of months instead of days, but it will always come back. There’s still light at the end of the world.

[dark-elf-writes]

What do the 1-A kids think about the rehabilitation class?

I would say they’re all for the most part (with a few notable exceptions *coughbakugoucough*) somewhere between friendly and terrified at first.

Like they know there’s a new class that’s different than any previous year. They’ve heard the rumors that this class is a former group of vigilantes and or villains depending on who was spreading them. Even seeing the group in their uniforms that don’t look like any of the other UA uniforms there’s definitely a dangerous air around them

But the girls who met Chrome in the locker room before the quirk assessment test know that she shy but kind. But then Gokudera, who had been snapping and snarling at Bakugou the entire time before class and generally looked like he wanted to stab someone (he is frankly dying for a cigarette at this point but Nezu made it clear to all of them that smoking on school grounds would end badly) pulled out a pair of glasses and a note book to nerd out about quirks with Izuku. But then Takeashi laughs as he asks Tsuna if he could out fly engine and Tsuna gets so excited to find out that he half buries himself in the ground because he forgot to brake.

Hibari and Mukuro… most of the school are terrified of them. But Kouda knows just how much Hibird loves Hibari and the amount of care h gives to the little bird. But Momo sees Mukuro appear with a smile full of threat when Mineta isn’t taking no for an answer and Chrome is starting to look a bit vacant eyed and scared like she’s remembering something, scaring the boy off.

Most of them settle with treating them like one would an unfamiliar dog, with kindness but forever aware that they could bite should they be given a reason.

[esmerelda-and-alouette]

here are a bunch of different headcanons for each of the firsts and then some extra people because i feel like it and i want to post more 😌:

what’s something surprising that sephiroth does that others may not expect?: sephiroth can get embarrassed very easily. he can actually be quite insecure. however, he can hide it really well behind his cold and numb expressions and voice. plus, he’s too embarrassed to even admit that he’s embarrassed about something. one time, in an interview, he spaced out for a second and accidentally “admitted” to the entire country that he does professional photo shoots with his hair. i mean, he does anyways. not professionally, but still. everyone laughed it off, including him, but afterward he spent an hour or two just going uugghhHHHHH into his pillow.

what is genesis’s bad habit?: genesis picks at his nails a lot. whether it’s biting, picking the skin off around his cuticles, or ripping the excess nail off, he does it very often and it grosses angeal and tseng out. genesis has been doing it ever since he was a child though. at first he started doing it because he’s a very obvious perfectionist and he wanted his hands to look perfect, but now it’s just sort of a nervous reflex. you wouldn’t expect it because he’s so clean and neat, but it’s a very big reason that he has to wear gloves. he’s very insecure about his habit and how his hands look so he wears the gloves (also because they’re warm and he thinks they look badass), but he can’t stop.

what is enough to bring angeal to tears?: bittersweet endings, especially related to family. holy shit, angeal sobbed when he watched Coco for the first time and miguel sang to mama coco and she was forgetting her dad. that got him D E E P in the feels. it doesn’t get him as badly as bittersweet family endings, but also animals. animals dying or sacrificing themselves gets him bad too. he had a dog growing up, but because they were too poor at the time, he had to give the dog up. ever since then, animals have always got him.

does zack swear?: the short answer is yes, zack does indeed swear. he wasn’t allowed to at home because his mother and father didn’t want him to and would wash his mouth out with hot sauce if he ever cursed, so he was a little hesitant to cuss when he entered SOLDIER. one time, he bumped his arm on the edge of a chair during infantry and he said, get this, “aw shit” (whatttt???), and got so nervous when he realized what he did, but literally nobody around him cared lol. in fact, some of his buddies in infantry actually cheered when he did because they were so proud of him for letting the word “shit” come out of his mouth because he refused to say a curse word. now he swears, but not super often. it’s more just habit that he doesn’t, but he’s not afraid to swear now. except when he’s around genesis, of all people. genesis doesn’t like zack swearing and will hit him with a book if he does (not loveless though, it’s too precious to hit zack). the best part about it is that genesis swears too, he just trolls zack.

what is something small that aerith enjoys?: painting! aerith loves to paint. think of rapunzel from Tangled and you get the idea. every single wall of her room is covered ceiling to floor with paint, and she wants to paint the ceiling but it makes her a little dizzy to look up on a ladder for that long. she collects little rocks from the creek right by her house and paints them. she has a little collection and keeps them in a special chest, which she also painted lol. not only does she love to make art on surfaces like wood and stone, but she also paints clothes. she’ll sketch out a pattern on pieces of cloth and then paint on it with fabric paint so her mother can sew it into clothes, blankets, pillowcases, etc. it’s an effective pastime for her.

what is cloud’s morning schedule?: to put it simply, he doesn’t have one. but, if he does, the only constant is copious amounts of coffee. It really just depends on the day for cloud. sometimes he’s up at 6 in the morning. sometimes it’s 2 pm. whatever time he wakes up though, it wasn’t enough sleep. as you’d assume, he is very grumpy whenever he does end up waking up, and he brews at least 2 or 3 cups of coffee each time. and downs all of it. each. time. which may not sound very impressive to you, because i’m sure you may consume extensive amounts of caffeine, until you realize that that is cloud’s starting amount. he has roughly 2 1/2 cups about every 3 hours. and goes to bed at 12 am. so we’re talking roughly 13 cups of coffee per day. I have zero idea how he’s still alive. he just shrugged and said “how else am i supposed to stay awake?”. this man istg.

[sourstars]

yearning man; the cruelest condition | kuroo tetsuro.

giving hallmark with this one; soulmates who don't grow old until meeting?? sob. wrote in the same haze i did when i wrote midoriya’s. soulmate kuroo at his hopeless! if you find any mistakes please let me know!

He has learned, contrary to the belief of many, that he rather abhors the allure of red, but adores the particular shades of blue that morph from the original; ultramarine, cobalt, electric, sky, baby, periwinkle (which he believes should be considered more of a purple and probably is)—but his favorite for the last seventy years has been robin-egg blue.

He belives that in the time of looking for ‘the one’, he has discovered instead what makes life bearable. He likes his coffee black but with two sugars, sometimes three if he’s feeling risky, tea with sometimes too much honey, four pillows in bed so he has two to cuddle. He likes dogs, not as well as cats but has a certain endearment for his neighbor’s cocker spaniel, who seems to enjoy laying across his feet in protest whenever he visits, refusing to let him leave. He likes the routine of visiting the shops that open and close; the bookstore that burnt down and was rebuilt in defiance, the bar with the bartender who tells him really good jokes, the fabric store that trades gossip as well as wares. A maximalist to his core, but in seventy years, at least things would be there if someone wanted a list; what have you found, if not the other half of your soul?

(Not enough.)

(“I feel I could eat endlessly and still be starving.” He says, and Kenma waits for the punchline. “Because I feel what would nourish me is what has not found me.”

“I suggest you start writing poetry. You would be a hit with goths.” But his best friend would know him in every variation; he is a painting stripped of cover, in every medium. “You’re talking about your soulmate again.”

“Yes. There’s no comparison. None.”

“Giving up already?” Kenma smiles at that, laughs hard enough that his eyes squint and says; “And here I thought you’d strip the world to bone.”)

In truth, it is not for the lack of trying. He has spent every penny of his fortune and created another just to look into every face, buy every ticket, spend every hour creating a map of where you could be—he has been to every continent, every state, he’s sure nearly every city but another may always rise out a former’s grave. For a year he gave up searching, but a year turned into two and two into five and then Kenma sent him a picture of a stranger, who walked with a grace so familiar to him that he imagined he had lost control of his jaw.

And he imagines it must’ve been a fluke—that some things aren’t tethered to others the way people entertain, but then Hinata sends a photo, and then the Miyas, and the Tanakas, even the Haibas after. Everywhere he’s went, everywhere he’s not, you are there, dressed in his heartstrings. Perhaps this is his eternal punishment; knowing you want something so badly and never being close enough to grasp it.

(It is so strange, he thinks one night, to feel like the compass needle without direction. North, he knows, but the star is missing and he has been painting directions on kites, tacking fliers to all of the telescopes, hoping it will see.)

“It’s a little creepy to take pictures of strangers without them knowing. I’m pretty sure it’s also illegal.” Kuroo pinches a strawberry between his fingers, biting into it to the stem, letting sweetness coat his tongue. The longer he chews, he can feel the bitterness that will dry the throat. “I still think it’s just a coincidence. It won’t be just anyone, I’m sure I’ll know it when I see them.”

“Say it again and maybe you’ll convince yourself this time.” He can practically hear Tsukishima’s eye roll. “They’re definitely looking for someone. Hinata said they came into the bookshop just after you did and took a walk around the store but didn’t buy anything. I think you just have a broken radar,"

Kuroo’s mouth twists. “Are you sure it’s not just a shoplifter? Or just a coincidence? Hinata wouldn’t be able to see a criminal if they stood in front of him wearing handcuffs.” He pauses, mulling over his thoughts, listening to the thunder of rain outside of his window. “…That makes me sound like a dick—but the point is that I find it a little hard to believe it all comes together now.”

“You are a dick, but consider the idea the universe isn’t a total idiot. I’ve been trying to avoid my ‘other half’ for a month now and every time I think I’ve done it—wham! There they are, staring me in the face,"

“You ever hear about magnets?”

“Stop.”

“That’s literally what it is. You hate each other and can’t stop finding ways to eat each other’s faces? Magn—”

“Tetsuro. Kuroo. You need to go outside—you need to go outside right now. I’m looking out of my window, I think I just saw—”

“Please don’t tell me—”

“—them. Turning the corner of Third. They’re holding… two coffee cups?” Tsukishima falls quieter then, voice tough as steel. “My advice; stop being a coward. If it’s wrong, it’s wrong but at least you’d know. Life goes on. Go.”

He has the best and worst of friends. “Fuck. I hate you. Getting my shoes.”

(It has taken so much to get here. He hopes in the mail room of destinies, he is a package only slightly dinged, hopes he is something someone is expecting and still excited for.)

He’s forgotten his umbrella and his hair sticks flat to his head when he arrives, inky blackness falling in front of his eyes, but his feet continue to slam against cement, his phone bounces in his pocket, his heart skitters across his ribs. The drizzle turns to downpour, downpour to drizzle. It seems even Mother Nature has a heart unwilling to live so softly.

Each step, Kuroo thinks; life is like a box of chocolates; something is always missing and every version of the map leads you opposite of where you want to go. He thinks; regardless of anyone’s age, they will never know anything, or everything. They will always be surprised.

When he sees you in person, he almost trips; like a child that learns to walk, he has misplaced the knowledge. The air escapes his lungs, the words he’d muttered under his breath have forgotten his name; he believes now, his senses have moved out and are backed up on the rent.

You catch his eye when he turns the corner, waving with one to-go cup, and time begins again. “Hello.”

Kuroo stares into your face, mouth parted, raindrops sliding past his eyes, down his cheeks. He is speechless—this is what love must be, to be both lighthouse and ship wanting to dock and never knowing when you’ll find a harbor.

He thinks; he is too old to have lovesickness such as this. He thinks; he is too young to know the type of wanting that craters into his soul like this. He thinks; that is okay, he has the rest of his life to love and hate figuring it out. He is right.

“It’s too late now,” he says. He wrings his hands in front of him, feels the need to tap his shoe. “I fell in love with you the moment I saw you.”

You smile and he swears he hears music. “About time, second place.” He believes if the word sublime had a name, it would be yours. You are paradise sent, a catastrophically perfect being. A hurricane where he is perpetually in the eye. “I’ve been looking for you.”

(It cannot possibly be this easy.)

Kuroo hears the sidewalk traffic as people walk around you both, feels the cutting breeze, the firmness of the earth. It helps him breathe and yet scares him so. Life has a way of being unbearably real. “So I hear. You like blue?”

“Only this kind.”

“Interesting.” He doesn’t miss a beat. “I think I was made for you,” He feels he might hiccup up his heart. “I think we shared a star, once.”

Electricity, sunlight, supernovas, comets—none as bright as the sight of your half-lidded, knowing eyes, the unrestrained curl of your lips. He thinks that if he were to knit your hands, your thumb would brush the beauty marks on the side of his finger, over his knuckles, your wrists would kiss, the spaces of his body would fit yours.

It is quite impossible, he would’ve said, but he is a believer, now, of all things unblemished, all things unexplainable. He feels you could brush his soul with the pad of your finger and it would bring him to his knees.

(But maybe it is.)

The cups are placed into his hands, the smell of peppermint and vanilla, wafting. Your fingertips are hot, palms warm as they are softly pressed into his cheeks. You’re a breaths-width away, voice is twisted into song, and he bets the world has fallen from his feet.

“Finally.”

(He is hopelessly, endlessly, terribly devoured by the loveliness. It has been a vacation where he has painstakingly, wonderfully arrived home. He has never been this peaceful. Here’s the north star, he thinks, I was looking for it, and it was looking for me.

He will never love another color like this one again.)

reblogs are preferred and appreciated!

[huntingingoodwill]

sick boy headcanons part ii

masterlist

send requests for my 1.3k sleepover!

my other sick boy hcs :)

- simon, simon, simon… where should i begin!

- he loves buying you flowers! he’ll show up at your front door, whipping a slightly wilted, plastic wrapped bouquet from behind his back with his toothiest grin.

- there are often times he’s hanging out with mark and just stops in the middle of the street and is like “wait. i gotta go buy them flowers, im seeing them tonight.” and drags him into the nearest supermarket

- mark just flipping through random magazines begging him to hurry up while simon chooses the best bouquet. yeah it’s cheap but he wants the best for you! he chooses the freshest looking one every time, bringing them to you on the tube, biting the stems between his teeth as he fumbles for his card

- okay so sometimes money is tight. sometimes simon can’t really afford to blow his extra cash on store bought flowers. that’s fine! but he refuses to let you go without. he will literally drag mark to the fields to pick wildflowers for you, well, whenever he’s not shoplifting them, yelling at rents whenever he whines about it being too much trouble. he definitely steals flowers from your neighbour’s shrubs on the way to your house, showing up with a loose bouquet brimming with wildflowers, a huge smile, and a grumpy mark

- simon does not tolerate anybody treating you badly. he’ll retaliate, totally, and 100% gets an attitude, shoving and threats included, but his favourite method of solving these problems is of course: is to sic begbie on them like your guard dog

- someone spills a drink on you? your boss refuses to give you your promised pay? someone hits on you in a gross, disrespectful way? (knowing him, he probably gets mad at whoever hits on you even if it’s in the most respectful way possible) he’s all up in begbie’s ear whispering “did you see that guy? he’s totally staring at you. like, what’s his problem?” getting begbie to get super mad at them because he thinks they’re disrespecting him when it’s really all simon’s orchestration. this devolves into a fight of course, that simon watches with rapt amusement while holding his arm over your eyes to shield you from all the bloodshed

- simon is a movie stan. a buff.

- he loves bringing you to arthouse and theatres that play his favourite old movies :))

- his favourite era for film is the 60s. paul newman, alain delon, and of course, his celebrity crush: sean connery. they’re just all so suave, so cool, they’re all he wants to be!! you go to one movie with him and the next week he’s dressing like them and talking with that same quick cadence. you make fun of him for it endlessly but you’re lowkey into it

- youll sit next to him in matinees with your head on his shoulder and he can’t help but whisper little facts about the film to you every once in a while

- he probably brings a nerdy little notebook too to write details in

- mark tags along to a lot of the movie dates too i don’t make the rules

- and you and simon always bum off his popcorn which pisses him off but what’s he gonna do!

- besides going to the cinema, you two have movie nights every once in a while, watching whatever film is on tv or whatever he managed to rent that week at home together, legs kicked up on each other’s laps, eating takeaway

- he wouldn’t miss these movie nights for anything!! his friends will ask him out but he just goes “nah. cant. we’re watching goldfinger tonight.” or sometimes he’ll be out at the pub with the whole gang, and jump up suddenly, remembering he’s gotta go because taxi driver’s on at 9 and you’re waiting at home for him with food

- also because he’s a bond fanboy he takes you to every new movie!! though of course he’ll spend a good chunk of time on the bus ride home complaining about how no one can beat good ol’ connery

- also long, late night train and bus rides with him :( he always lets you fall asleep on his shoulder, and death glares at anyone who tries to sit next to you just in case it disturbs you

- he hardly wants to wake you up when you reach your stop, but watches as you rub your bleary eyes when he does. he thinks it’s cute :(

- late night walks with him, too!

- be it just simply from the train station home, or when you two can’t sleep and just need to take a late night walk. it’s just the two of you, and you spend your time just walking, the only sounds in the street being you talking

[theinvisiblemuseum]

if you feel like it, pls rant about sirius and remus' tattoos. your new art has me in a chokehold and i so badly want to hear your thoughts.

I HAVE BEEN WAITING FOR THE RIGHT OPPORTUNITYYYY hehehe

to preface, a lot of the tats mean nothing, i just thought they were fun, and they don’t necessarily correlate w the previous tattoo ted talks i’ve given but here we go:

sirius:

spooky star thingy - fun looking HAHA

fucked up cat - sent a pic of it to regulus and said “this is u” regulus unamused 

rjl, rab - self explanatory (there’s also a jfp but it’s under remus’ hand)

squiggly - for fun

star - duh

a bunch of marthe’s @darqque wolfstar tattoos bc they’re amazing how could i not

skeleton - who doesn’t like a good skeleton?

twinkly twinkles - fill up that arm boy

tic tac toe - he played w the tattoo artist and lost rip

killer queen - it just makes sense idc

leo constellation - reggie boii

spiral - uzumaki slay

lion - leo or gryffindor take ur pick

flower - i like drawing flowers like that

moon phases & stars on the hands - i’ve alwaysss drawn these on sirius and i love them i won’t stop

moon & paw on neck - cmon now

hint of his canon tattoos bc they’re sexy

remus:

skeleton on thigh - van gogh baby! one of my favorite paintings of all time, cry about it

magritte painting - i also love magritte cry about it

matisse painting - ditto above

dog biting its tail - sirius is a loser, the tattoo

star on his hand - starmannnnn

i in roman numerals - he’s 1/4 (sirius has iii) bc moony is first padfoot is third get it get it

lily flower - hmm i wonder

dots - kinda look like moons but they’re not. idk looked cool

sb - obv