#this was meant to be about sawyer and his history but the concept is giving me a bit of trouble

[rotworld]

Fitting the Collar

that weird guy from the club wants to go for a walk in the woods in werewolf territory. a continuation of sheep's clothing and savior.

->sawyer/reader/corbin. explicit; contains noncon, coercion, implied stalking, feral behavior, typical werewolf-pack human power imbalance, outdoor sex, thighfucking, knotting (doesn't actually happen but discussed in detail)

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WOLVES IN THESE WOODS screams the vandalized trail kiosk. These words are scrawled over a map of the mountain, each big red letter spray painted in so many thick, messy layers that they drip like blood. This eyesore greets you at the edge of the parking lot where gravel turns to dirt and sunlight strains through the leaves. It’s not news, to you or to anyone who’s lived near the mountains for any amount of time. Dogwalkers and families on bikes barely spare the sign a glance as they set off, because of course there are werewolves. They shop at the hardware store and sell produce at the farmer’s market. Once a year, they come to Eastridge City Hall to negotiate another year of peaceful cohabitation and give the local news something to catastrophize about.

And yet, the graffiti gives you pause. It’s probably just some mischief but it looks so dire, clashing with the rustic charm of the wooden kiosk and the tranquil beauty of the forest all around it. You tell yourself there’s nothing to worry about. You’ve seen werewolves before. But the fearful part of your brain that makes you flinch and look around nervously every time a twig snaps reminds you that this is different. You’ve seen them in town, in public, at gas stations and second-hand stores, one time at a coffee shop. You’re on their turf now. You glance back at your car, parked in the shade, and think about backing out. Texting an apology and an excuse, some last minute emergency that you can’t neglect.

“Hey, you made it!” You don’t see him coming because you’re watching the parking lot, not the trail. An arm slings around your shoulder, dragging you into a sideways hug. You’re startled and off-balance, too stunned to do anything about a relative stranger nuzzling his face into the crook of your neck with an uncomfortably deep inhale until it’s already over. He pulls away with one last stroke of his thumb against your cheek, and then he shoves his hands in his pockets and stands at a distance like it never happened. “I’m glad you came,” Corbin says. He looks like he’s been hiking without you, prickly seeds stuck to his jacket and mud caked to his boots. Those vicious markings littering his neck are on full display with his hair pulled back. You try not to look at them but your gaze is repeatedly drawn back down. Some of them look fresh, still puffy and irritated. “It wasn’t too hard to find, right?”

“No, it was fine,” you say, wondering for the hundredth time how he talked you into this. 

“Great! You’re gonna love this trail. It’s super easy, don’t worry. And we can go slow…” Something over your shoulder catches his eye and his brows furrow, his mouth pressing into a tight frown. “Well, that’s annoying. And covering up the map like that! Packless—” He cuts himself off abruptly, glancing at you with a sheepish smile like he said something you might find offensive. Strangest of all, he goes out of his way to take a picture of it, standing back with his phone raised so he can get the whole sign in frame. “Some people, right? Anyway, let’s get moving.” 

You remember the conversation that led to this outing. Idle chatter in a mall food court, held hostage out of polite obligation because he’d bought you lunch even when you insisted he didn’t have to. You smiled nervously while he went on and on about how nice the weather had been lately, how perfect it was for long walks in the woods and how all the best trails were in the next town over. You should’ve seen the invitation coming but instead you were thinking that it was weird, right, that this random guy had suddenly become such a big part of your life, weird that you kept running into each other when he didn’t even leave in Eastridge. 

You were relieved when he stopped showing up at Club Mountainview to tip you obscene amounts of money for serving him appetizers and occasionally refilling his water between drunk, demanding customers, but then he started showing up everywhere else. Not all the time, though. Not so often or so conspicuously that you could confidently call it stalking. Sometimes he comes into your favorite coffee shop just as you’re leaving and he doesn’t even wave. Sometimes he disappears for weeks at a time without explanation. But when you do talk, when he smiles at you and pulls you into his shamelessly intimate affection, rubbing his face in your hair or humming in contentment against your neck, something in you responds with embarrassing eagerness. Maybe you’ve just been too busy lately, starved for interaction. You can’t shake the feeling that he can see right through you. You never say much, but he seems to know you better than you know yourself.

“I appreciate you coming all this way. It doesn’t seem like you get a lot of time off,” Corbin says. The trail is wide enough that you can walk side by side with some room between you, but he sticks close. Your sleeves brush sometimes.

“I’m glad I did,” you tell him. “You weren’t kidding, it’s really nice out here.” 

His eyes light up, smile widening as though you complimented him instead. “It is, isn’t it?” 

The trail is a gentle winding path into the mountains full of birdsong and warm breeze. You see speckles of moss and wildflowers, a sea of swaying greenery that seems to go on forever. Corbin stops halfway across a bridge straddling a river and you clasp the railing beside him, watching the water stream white-capped over the rocks below. You linger for a while, enjoying the sound of the rapids and the occasional glimpse of a fish darting downstream. You catch him staring in the corner of your eye. He smiles, unashamed, and scoots closer. His shoulder rests against yours.

“This is wolf territory,” he says. His tone is strange and hard for you to identify. It’s not sad, exactly, but it’s stern. Solemn. Like he’s telling you something profound. “Do you know much about the pack that lives here?” 

He’s watching your expression carefully and trying to pretend he isn’t. The scrutiny makes you uncomfortable. You push back from the railing and he follows with a small frown but begins walking again, giving you more distance than he did before. “Not really,” you say, shrugging. “I don’t know much about werewolves in general.” 

It’s an odd question, you think, and it’s odder still when he hums in acknowledgement and drops the subject. You keep walking, keenly aware of his presence beside you. You’ve wondered for a while now if Corbin might be a werewolf. You’re sure he was with some when you first met. It wasn’t just that they were a little intense and eccentric. You felt cornered when they looked at you, a spark of fight-or-flight igniting in your chest. It was instinct. You sensed something wild and powerful, and you braced yourself to run if it bared its teeth.

“What’s on your mind?” he asks. The way he looks at you, the sly smile on his lips, makes it seem like he already knows.

You don’t want to ask. That would be rude, right? And what difference does it make? Werewolves haven’t been going around hunting and eating people for centuries, no matter what the tabloids say. “Just thinking,” you say. 

“Mhm? About what?” 

“Just…stuff.” Now he’s staring and not being subtle about it at all. You keep expecting him to trip but he keeps his eyes on you the whole time instead of on the path ahead without any trouble. Like he’s walked this trail a thousand times, you think. Like it’s second nature. “What do you do?” you ask, desperate for something else to talk about. 

“Like, for work?” His gaze wanders away for a moment and he tilts his head, his expression becoming amused and wistful. For such a simple question, he takes a long time considering his answer. “I guess it’s kind of like a human resources job.” He grins. You feel like there’s a joke you’re not getting. “Not the stuffy office kind. I work out here, actually.” 

“Out here?” you echo. “Like with the Parks and Rec service?” 

“With parts of it, yeah.” The path splits, a fork meandering into thicker brush and foliage. You’re not sure if it’s a proper trail or just a common footpath worn into the grass. It’s narrower, rougher and more uneven, carpeted in fallen leaves as though few people have been through to disturb them. There’s a tree right where the smaller path breaks off, a symbol carved into the bark. You don’t know what it is; a mishmash of jagged lines intersect with squiggling curves, gouged into the wood with something sharp. Corbin insists on going this way despite your reservations. “It’s part of the trail, I promise,” he assures you, his hand resting on your lower back with just the slightest pressure, urging you to keep moving. “Unless you’re tired and wanna go back?”

You wouldn’t mind seeing more of the trail, but you stare down the path with apprehension. You see it curves gently upwards as it goes, slowly ascending further into the mountains. “We could head back,” you say, but Corbin doesn’t let go. He keeps pushing, offering a reassuring smile.

“Can I show you one more thing?” he asks. “Just a little further. Then we can go.” Just like that time at the mall, you plan on refusing. The words are on the tip of your tongue but you can’t seem to get them out. There’s something about Corbin—not any particular thing he says or does, just the way he is. He stands close to you. He looks you in the eye. His hand rises from your back and slides up and down your arm instead, a soothing gesture that you find yourself embarrassingly reactive to, and then he takes your hand in his. “You’re afraid of wolves, aren’t you?” 

You shake your head, not trusting your voice to stay steady if you answer. He just smiles. 

“It’s alright, I get it. They seem kind of scary, right? A lot stronger and faster than us. But y’know, they’re actually pretty gentle. I’ve been living and working with one of the local packs for a while now. They take good care of me.” 

“You live with them?” you ask, disbelieving. 

Corbin laughs. He takes your hand in both of his, rubbing his thumbs into your skin. “I want to show you something,” he says softly. “Please? I promise, you’re safe with me.” He does it again somehow; quells your worries and draws you closer, talking you into something you didn’t want to do. He keeps holding your hand when he starts walking, looking over his shoulder periodically to smile and tell you it’s not far now. You pass a fallen log with squirrels shuffling around inside, a wooden guardrail at the edge of a ravine, a hill dotted with wildflowers. The birds are louder here, the sunlight even softer where it manages to trickle through the trees. Corbin slows his pace when you almost trip and fall, the toe of your shoe catching on a tree root snaking across the path. He’s looking for something. He keeps talking, telling you the scientific names of everything you can see, but his gaze scans the forest as you walk. 

He must find it, because suddenly he stops and drags you to a halt beside him. You’re quickly ushered off the trail, dragged into a crouch beside Corbin behind a mossy boulder. He doesn’t respond to your nervous stammering except to press his finger to your lips with a mischievous smile. Then he points, over the boulder and up ahead. You don’t see anything. Corbin exhales sharply in amusement at your pinched, confused expression. He gets closer, an arm draped over your shoulders to pull you in as much as he can. He smells like these woods; earth and grass stains, sharply evergreen. His body heat warms your side. He points again. 

This time, you see it but only because it moves. There’s something out there. A blur. A shape. Brown, black and gray, drifting in the spaces between the trees. With a sudden surge of breathless panic, you realize those are wolves. Not one but several, moving with nearly silent, predatory grace. Their tails flick as they trot briskly through the dappled shade. You can tell they’re enormous, even from here, bigger than any dog you’ve ever seen. The one in the lead has thick, coal black fur, and it stops suddenly with a quiet bark. The others spread out in a semi-circle, ears pricked and attentive. 

Corbin squeezes your shoulder as if to remind you he’s there. He leans in, whispering into your ear. “Shepherds. They’re on patrol.” 

You’re not sure if you’re watching a meeting, an argument, or something else altogether. The wolf in charge chuffs and paws at the dirt, the others watching, tilting their heads. They seem to reach some kind of understanding because all but the leader start moving again. That one lingers, watching them leave. It sits in a sunbeam, its dark fur looking silky in the light. Then it lurches forward with a strained whimper like it’s going to be sick, foamy saliva dribbling from its open maw. You watch in speechless horror as the wolf’s fur starts to bulge and shiver like something is moving under its skin. Corbin’s grip on you tightens just as you tense, ready to run.

“It’s alright,” he whispers. “He’s just shifting. He has trouble with it sometimes.” 

You don’t want to watch this but you’re afraid to look away. The wolf curls around itself with limbs that are all wrong, too long and bending strangely. Its paws stretch and lengthen. Its snout shrinks. It groans and the sound is wet and throaty, its fur receding in patches that expose the shift of sinew in sudden, cracking snaps that hurt to hear. You see skin, slick and shining with sweat. You see fingers tipped with thick, black claws. The sound of bones popping in and out of sockets finally fades and you hear soft panting. The wolf is halfway to man. It goes no further. Still breathing heavily, he sits up and runs a hand through long, messy bangs the same dark color as the stubborn patches of fur still clinging to his limbs and back. He climbs to his feet and—

he’s naked. Completely head to toe naked, soft cock and heavy balls dangling between his legs. You think, for the second time, that you shouldn’t be seeing this, but Corbin still doesn’t let you get up. You find him watching you, studying your expression intently. Has he been doing that the whole time? 

“Corbin.” The werewolf’s voice is low, rough and growling. He’s looking right at the two of you like the boulder’s not even there. Corbin laughs. He lets you stand up when he does, but he keeps you trapped against his side. His hand slides from your shoulder to your waist. 

“Beta,” Corbin greets. He lifts his head and tilts it to the side, exposing his throat. The werewolf makes a sound in his throat, something like a dismissive grunt. “This is Sawyer,” he tells you, nodding to the wolf. “He’s not a shepherd anymore, but sometimes he goes with them—”

“Who is this?” Sawyer asks. He approaches slowly, almost cautiously, pointed ears twitching. 

Corbin tries to push you forward but you dig your heels in. “My friend—”

“Shouldn’t be here.” Sawyer’s eyes are like a wolf’s—no sclera, only inky black and golden-brown. You’re afraid to even breathe when his wide-eyed animalistic stare pins you in place. “You’re lucky I found you first, before this became a problem. No one’s thinking clearly this time of year.”

“My friend,” Corbin insists. “The one I told you about, from the club in Eastridge.” Sawyer’s gaze leaves you momentarily, meeting Corbin’s eyes instead. Corbin’s practically vibrating with excitement. His fingers tap a quick rhythm into your side. 

“Ah,” Sawyer says. He looks at you again, still frowning and pensive. “Should I go?” you ask nervously. 

“No.” Your heart skips a beat when Sawyer and Corbin answer in unison, the word pronounced as a firm growl. Corbin laughs. Sawyer doesn’t, shifting uncomfortably. His tail sways in a slow, uncertain wag. “No,” he repeats quietly. “I’m sorry if I scared you. I’m…cautious with outsiders.” 

You never expected to hear a werewolf sound so anxious and awkward. “It’s okay. I get it, I’m in your home.” 

“My home is open to you.” He looks off into the distance. It’s hard to deny that he’s handsome. He has unusual features, everything sharpened and wolf-like but still recognizably human. He’s taller than both you and Corbin, lithe and muscular, the story of a long, difficult life told across the many scars carved into his skin. His limbs are long, unnaturally so, like something didn’t settle where it was supposed to while he was shifting. 

“They’re a little nervous around werewolves,” Corbin chuckles, making your face fill with embarrassed heat. 

“I just haven’t met very many,” you insist. Sawyer glances at you and you still can’t tell if he’s angry or not. You break eye contact and hear him take a deep breath, letting it out slowly. 

“You can look at me, if you’d like,” he offers. He tilts his head, a gesture that strikes you as very dog-like and endearing. “I prefer doing search and rescue in wolfskin, but some people are afraid of dogs. So I approach slowly. I lay down and let them get a good look at me first. It tends to help.” You try to insist that it’s not a problem, you’re not afraid of dogs, but Sawyer just shakes his head. “Come look. It doesn’t bother me. I know I’m a little strange compared to the others.” 

Corbin nudges you gently. You resist the first time, more weakly the second. The third soft push sends you a few steps forward. Sawyer doesn’t move, letting you come to him. You’re still nervous but Corbin encourages you with a nod and a grin. “He doesn’t bite. Not unless you’re really good, or really bad.” 

“Corbin,” Sawyer says, his tone almost scolding. He’s still not smiling, but maybe that’s just how he is. He looks calm, at least, no longer terse or frustrated. His posture is loose and open, arms at his sides and gaze casually wandering the woods, but his tail is moving faster now. Wagging, like a happy dog. It’s hard not to find him cute. The closer you get, the more details emerge. He has freckles on his shoulders. A habit of leaning, resting all of his weight on one leg or the other. Old scars, mostly on his chest and upper body, a few bald patches in the fur on his arms in jagged stripes. When you’re close enough to touch him, you notice he has scars on his face, too, mostly hidden by his unkempt hair. “You’re from Eastridge,” he says. It doesn’t sound like a question, but you nod. “Corbin says you work at a…nightclub.” He says “nightclub” like it’s a city in a foreign country, some place he’s heard of but never seen. 

“Yeah, in the restaurant. I wait tables, nothing fancy.”

“Hm. Sounds unpleasant. Thankless.”

Thankless. Didn’t Corbin use the exact same word when you first met? “It can be sometimes,” you admit.

Sawyer looks at Corbin again. You get the feeling that they’re communicating somehow, sharing an understanding you’re not privy to. “Do you mind if I…greet you?” Sawyer asks. There’s a rasp to his voice that wasn’t there before, some emotion he’s trying to mask. “The traditional way.” 

“Uh, I guess that’s fine?” You’ve barely finished speaking when he steps forward. Two long strides and he has you, his thumb on your chin tilting your head to the side. He has to bend slightly to bury his face in the side of your neck. He takes long, audible sniffs and rubs his face into your skin, one cheek and then the other. Your hands are on his shoulders but you don’t push him away because this is familiar, you realize. Corbin does this to you all the time. It’s a little more intense with Sawyer because he wants you as close as possible, right up against him so it’s impossible to ignore the twitching heat of his cock nestled against your abdomen. 

Sawyer makes a low, rumbling sound, something between a growl and a purr. “Mm. Hello,” he drawls. He sounds happy, almost intoxicated. He nuzzles into you again with a relieved sigh. “Sorry, again. Hard to tell at a distance. You smell trustworthy.” 

It’s such a strange thing to say that you can’t help but laugh. “What does that smell like?” you ask, nervous. Trying to pull away doesn’t get you anywhere. Sawyer’s arms are a vice around you and it’s a struggle just to turn far enough to look back at Corbin for help.

“Like me, basically,” Corbin says. He almost sounds smug. 

“Like him,” Sawyer agrees. He cups your face in his large, clawed hands and “greets” you again, cheek to cheek, forehead to forehead. Your heart flutters when he noses along your jaw and under your chin, maneuvering you as he likes. He speaks in a low, steady murmur while he explains. “Some emotions come through, if they’re strong enough. Some intentions. What isn’t there also matters. No wolf blood. No gunpowder. No chemical accelerant. I can tell the difference, you know. Whether you were just filling up your car or if you’ve been…up to something. Especially out here.”

“Gunpowder?” you repeat, startled. “Accelerant? Wh—why—?”

“Hunters.” Corbin is closer than you remember him being. He stands right behind you, rubbing your shoulders. Trying to move away from Sawyer presses you against Corbin instead and he chuckles like you did something cute, nuzzling the back of your head. “The regular kind’s bad enough,” he mutters. “But the worst ones are infiltrators, acting like they want—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Sawyer says sharply. You feel Corbin stiffen behind you. He bows his head meekly, kissing your shoulder. Sawyer takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. He rubs his cheek against yours one more time and then he pulls back far enough to look you in the eye. “It doesn’t matter,” he repeats, his tone softening. “It was nice to meet you. I should…” He trails off. You watch the muscles in his throat tense and bob when he swallows. His gaze lowers to your lips, your neck, your chest. His cock twitches again. You feel it stiffening, filling with blood. 

“How do they smell?” Corbin asks. His hands slide down to your hips, fingers kneading their way into the waistband of your pants. 

Sawyer grips the back of your neck with sudden firmness. He makes that rumbling sound again in response to your frightened stammering, hushing you softly before he inhales against your throat. “Afraid,” he murmurs. “But not just afraid.” He rocks his hips, grinding his hot, hardening cock against your clothes. There’s not enough room to struggle. Trying to wiggle out from between them just makes them both close in harder, chest to chest with Sawyer while Corbin drapes himself against your back. 

“You’re okay,” Corbin coos, his gentle tone completely at odds with how roughly he grabs your wrists and yanks them behind your back. “Shhhh, no, you’re okay. He’s not gonna hurt you.” 

Sawyer tilts your head back and makes you look at him. Fight or flight fails you. You freeze in terror. Those haunting black and gold eyes don’t belong to a man but an animal, hungry and about to pounce. “Please let me go,” you beg him, your voice quivering. “Please, please don’t—” His hand wraps around your throat. He doesn’t squeeze. He doesn’t have to. The threat is there, his callused palm resting on your windpipe. Why didn’t you scream earlier? Why aren’t you screaming now? You can hear your own thudding pulse in your temples. “It’s okay,” Corbin whispers. “It’s all okay. You’re safe, and you’re so special and so loved. Do you want him?” You stammer out a refusal, pleas, scared sounds. Corbin chuckles and noses against your ear. “You can be honest. It’s okay if you do. Wolves want us, and we want them. That’s just how it is.”

Sawyer’s trying to undress you. He tugs at your pants but he stops when you make a shrill sound of panic and start to twist and fight. He seizes the back of your neck again, harder this time, and you go completely still when his teeth scrape the tender flesh of your throat. 

Corbin takes over for him. He holds both of your wrists in one hand, the other gradually exposing your hips to the cool air. “You’re being so good. That’s it. Deep breaths. He’s not mad at you. He wants you so much.” He’s hard, you realize. Fully hard and throbbing in his pants. Corbin’s breath hitches and he moans softly into your ear, getting off on all of this. “He’s gonna use your thighs,” Corbin whispers, low and excited. He gets your pants down just far enough to expose your sex and the swell of your ass, keeping your legs trapped. “Just your thighs. Don’t be scared. He’s gonna let you feel his knot.”

Sawyer growls. He grabs you by the hips and you feel his cock poking your inner thigh. He drags you into his movements, long, slow thrusts against your sex that make you whine. He’s still growing, still getting harder every time he pushes against you. His fat, flared tip narrows to a point, a pearl of precum beading right on top. He changes his angle to smear it into your skin, rubbing his tip back and forth against your sex until you’re both a sticky mess. His hands slip behind you, between your bare backside and Corbin’s clothed erection, groping your ass and kneading the cheeks apart. He gets your thighs open just enough to slip his cock between them, nestled right under your sex. You feel every inch of him when he moves back and forth. His shaft is long and thick, bulging along the bottom. 

You can’t remember when you started holding onto him, when Corbin let your wrists go, but Sawyer growls, “Good,” in a gravelly rumble that sends heat rushing between your legs. The praise startles you, makes your heart race faster. “So good, giving in like this. Your instincts know what to do.” He moves faster, harder. You hear your bodies together, skin to skin, the slap of his balls against your thighs every time your hips meet as if he’s really fucking you, as if you’ve taken him all the way to the base. Your sex throbs. Sawyer pants and grunts and ruts like an animal, needy like he’s been waiting for this all his life. You’re lightheaded with a heady mix of fear, shame and desire. He mouths at your pulse, hungrily lapping at your neck like he can taste how much you want him. 

“God, you’re a natural,” Corbin whispers. He’s still touching you, still humping your ass while Sawyer fucks your thighs. When did he get his pants off? You can feel the metal of his open zipper warming on the back of your legs, his cock sandwiched between your cheeks. “That’s it. Don’t think so much, just feel. Move with him. Just like that, sweetheart. You’re right where you’re supposed to be.”

You feel delirious, dizzy and burning. You’re really doing it, grinding back on a stranger, a werewolf, in the middle of the woods. It feels good to let go. To not worry or think or even decide what happens next, letting him guide you, letting Corbin tell you how perfect you are for it. You arch your back, pushing yourself into Sawyer’s steady thrusts and Corbin’s frantic grinding, hearing them both groan appreciatively. There’s something swollen at the base of Sawyer’s cock, an engorged, sensitive bulge that he loves to shove between your thighs and grind back and forth, shaking his hips so you feel just how big it is, hot and pulsing under your sex. 

“Squeeze your thighs together,” Sawyer says. His voice is low and broken, more growl than human speech. You do what he asks without hesitation. It feels good to trap his knot right under your sex and feel it throb against you. It feels even better when he hisses “yes, fuck, yes!” and ruts mindlessly, short jackhammering thrusts into the tight warmth of your thighs. “Good, so good. Sweet bunny,” he moans. He buries his face in your neck again, alternating between deep breaths and sloppy kisses with his sharp teeth threatening to break the skin. He says more but you can’t understand him with it all slurred and muffled, sounding like another language entirely.

“Fuck!” Corbin wraps his arms around you when he cums, clutching your waist. He presses against you everywhere he can reach, his chest to your back, his cheek against your shoulder, humping like a rabbit in heat. He babbles and whimpers as his thrusts go from fast and hard to long and trembling, cum splattering your hips and ass and dampening your shirt. “You’re so good, so sweet, want you again, wanna see you on alpha’s knot…” He’s determined to take you over the edge with him, groping and grabbing at you even while he’s still trembling and catching his breath. He nuzzles into your neck on the opposite side from Sawyer, kissing and licking, nipping the lobe of your ear. “You want that? You wanna get stretched on a werewolf knot? There’s nothing else like it. You’d be so fucking full. And our beta’s so big, he’d get nice and deep. You’d be stuffed…” He rubs your stomach. “All the way up to here,” he whispers.

Sawyer swivels his hips again, grinds his knot against your sex one more time, and that’s all it takes. You’re grateful when he surges forward and crushes your lips together, swallowing the embarrassingly loud sounds you make as you buck your hips and ride out your orgasm. You cling to him like you’re drowning, arms around his neck and moaning helplessly into his mouth. His claws dig into your ass and you wonder what this would feel like if those hard, grinding thrusts were inside of you instead, if his length was dragging on your inner walls and his tip was hammering your sweet spot, his knot popping into place. The heat and the friction build to maddening overstimulation and you’re whimpering, begging wordlessly for mercy. His tongue strokes yours and you’re drooling, slack-jawed and fucked senseless from nothing but this frantic, animalistic humping and Corbin’s voice in your ear. 

“You’re so cute,” he purrs. “It’s like you already know how to submit. Not so scared now, are you? No, you’re perfect. You’d take a knot so well. Fuck, I knew I was right about you.”

You don’t know when Sawyer cums. You don’t know much of anything but heat and sensation, pleasant friction and painful chafing, Sawyer’s tongue and teeth and claws. Eventually, his knot shrinks. His cock slips out from between your legs and you’re lowered gently to the forest floor, held between two spent, sweaty bodies. You feel sticky and disgusting. Someone strokes your hair and someone squeezes your hip and you aren’t sure who’s doing what, just that they’re there with you.

“Really wish you’d warned me first.” You can feel the vibration of Sawyer’s voice against your skin, a deep rumble. 

“If I did that, you’d just run and hide,” Corbin says quietly. One of them kisses the top of your head. “You and Linden have that in common.”

“Watch yourself, hrefn.” The words are playful. They shift around you. You hear a kiss exchanged, a soft sigh. “Are we bringing them up now?” 

“No. Gonna do it properly, next time. This was just a test. I had to make sure.” 

“Next time?” Sawyer asks, concerned. “I’m not the human expert, but…” 

“Well, I am. So trust me.” Corbin reacts immediately when you start squirming, trying to sit up. He helps you, steadying your shoulders. “Hey,” he coos. “Welcome back. Feeling alright?” 

You don’t say anything. The reality of what you just did—of what just happened to you—creeps in slowly. He tricked you. Pressured you into this. Kept pushing even when you didn’t want to, even when you were terrified. You tug your pants back on, wincing at all the cum sticking to your skin. Sawyer tries to touch your shoulder and you flinch, leaning away from him. His fingers twitch like he thinks of grabbing you, forcing you to show him your neck again, but he never does. He lowers his hand slowly and you let out a shaky breath. You only let Corbin pull you to your feet because your legs are shaking too badly to stand up alone. 

“Let’s get you back to your car,” he says sweetly. Like he didn’t just lure you into the woods to trap you between him and a werewolf. “I’ll be back in a bit, just gonna walk them down the trail.” 

“Mhm.” You don’t look at Sawyer but you feel him staring. His gaze burns into your back when you stumble away, clinging reluctantly to Corbin. You look back just once to make sure he doesn’t follow you. The trail is empty. There’s only trees and bushes and fallen leaves. Somehow, you still feel like you’re being watched all the way to the parking lot. 

“It was so nice to see you—”

You slam the door in Corbin’s face. He just smiles, stepping back as you hurriedly shove your keys in the ignition. You need to get out of here. Need a shower, need the safety of your home, need to throw a few things in a bag and find somewhere else to stay for a while. Corbin is still standing there at the start of the trail when you start driving. He waves at your rearview mirror and then he walks away. Not into the parking lot, but back up the trail. Into the woods and up the mountain. When he’s gone, all that’s left is the trail kiosk standing sentinel, casting its shadow across the trail.

WOLVES IN THESE WOODS, it says.

[forgenotes-archived]

part two of my meta meltdown begins NOW!

part one can be found here! 

last time, i talked about ronnie’s canon interactions with her parents, and how that points to a childhood of neglect. NOW, i’m gonna extrapolate on that data and fill out her experiences growing up; how her parents’ ideals imprinted on her, and how they essentially doomed her to never have an easy time being in a non-toxic relationship. 

tw for child abuse through neglect under the cut ! be safe .

THE PARENTS .

henry sawyer owns a telecommunications company; he didn’t start as a ceo, and in all reality, shouldn’t have ever become the chief executive officer. he quietly climbed the ladder by stepping on his colleagues, not making a huge scene of anything until he was close to being next in line for the job, when the sitting ceo was planning on retiring. henry couldn’t fathom the thought of defeat; he physically couldn’t think of not becoming the most powerful singular man in the company. 

he then decided that blackmail was the best way to tie up his opponents; he wasn’t even third in line to be considered, but he was close enough that if he could get the other candidates out of the way, he would be promoted. the knew enough around the office to know who was having an affair, who was insider trading, who was double crossing who. a couple of carefully placed emails, and fragile egos crumbled and resigned; citing “pressures of the changing industry” as the reasoning. thus, henry sawyer was promoted, and has remained the ceo ever since (now fifteen years of service, specifically due to his quiet manipulation of the board above him). 

barbara sawyer was the assistant to a big city architect; half secretary, half errand girl, always there to cater to his every need (yes, every need), before she retired. however, she had her own fair share of malicious takedowns, perhaps even more brutal than henry’s, because her adversaries often hadn’t done anything wrong to weaponize against them. 

a young graduate threatened barbara’s position; barbara couldn’t let that happen. during the day, while the office was cleared out for a meeting, she’d slipped important plans for a highly expensive project into the bag of the woman who had threatened her position. later during the day, there was a search- the plans were found, and the poor, innocent, framed woman was fired on the spot. 

henry and barbara sawyer grew up in circumstances as upper-society children to always expect the best- of the world, and of themselves. this perspective translated into how they’d raised their daughter as well; veronica was expected to excel even further than they had. 

THE CHILD .

as a child, veronica mostly absorbed the attributes of her parents from afar; they were so often working, leaving her with a babysitter that would change often, that she rarely had any time to spend with them specifically. but being a child, she wanted to be like her parents- and as she grew older, recognizing that she was being ignored, she realized she had a fork in the road. either she could act out to get their attention (bad is better than nothing), or she could try to be just like them so they would finally like her enough to spend free time with her. 

she decided to take the second route, mostly because she’d heard the fights that henry and barbara would have after coming home from work cocktail parties (one of them would be making eyes at a younger victim) and she definitely didn’t want to be on the receiving end of those shouting matches. veronica was lucky that she was born with a natural aptitude to excel in her studies, but even constantly being at the top of her class in every subject in every year didn’t seem to rouse them to pay much attention to her. 

once barbara retired, though, the dynamic shifted slightly- she began asking about veronica’s school more often, about her friends, and veronica believed she had finally grabbed the attention of her mother. however, she soon discovered that the questions were hollow; as barbara never absorbed any of the information she was told (a particularly perturbed ronnie once told her mother that she’d clawed out the principal’s eyes and the police were after her, granting nothing more than a “that’s nice, dear, now finish your homework”). the elation started to collapse, suffocating her, and turning her to grow into cynicism. 

in grade 6, she was analyzed and determined to be gifted by an exceptional margin- an iq of 162. of course, she didn’t know what this meant, but she hoped it was a high enough number to impress her parents- and briefly, it did. but the councillors who had administered the test suggested that they move her up to high school immediately, skipping two grades, maybe a third; it would be essentially useless to keep her in seventh and eighth grades, since she already firmly grasped concepts above the ones taught in those years. 

her parents became... uncomfortable with the idea. they said it was because they were worried about her socializing with people her own age, but even young veronica knew there was a secondary reason. a few years later, she would learn that they didn’t want to put in the effort to help her through such a huge change- “she’s fine working on her own like this, and it’ll be easy for her. if we move her up, she’s going to need a lot more help. are you prepared to take time off work to deal with all that? i didn’t think so, henry.” 

CONCLUSION .

with a history of her interactions established, veronica’s unhealthy traits absorbed by the little interaction she’s had with her parents can be summed up to:

1. an obsession with success, climbing the ladder, being the best at whatever it is she’s told to do. that success is the only thing that gives her value as a person; she believes her worth to be a collection of her talents and achievements, not her own personality and character. this causes her to get easily used for said credits, and removes her ability to create a sense of self. 

2. a lack of ability to show affection. due to not having contact with her parents in any deep, meaningful way (if at all), she did not learn at a young age how to care or be cared for in a healthy way that did not rely on her worth, as mentioned above. veronica is closed off, guarded, and cold at the exterior; she isn’t cruel, but she doesn’t know how to express emotions in a safe manner. 

3. a suspicion of anybody who can do either of the above, be it care for her in any manner, or befriend her without wanting something from her. 

these three inherited traits compound on top of her own, leaving her to become much more cynical and bitter as she grows older- and the worst decision she ever made in terms of solidifying these negative traits was ditching betty finn to befriend the heathers, but that will be in part three, god help me, i don’t know if ANY of this made any sense!! 

[hallsp]

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

That was old Samuel Clemens, the redoubtable Mark Twain, concluding his humorous book about a trip through Europe to the Holy Land in the year of our Lord 1867. The Innocents Abroad was his second book and helped to make his name before he put pen to paper with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain made the journey by sea at the ripe old age of 32.

I’ve decided to take a similar trip at the same age, going by land through southern Europe to Greece, then on to Israel and Palestine, to Turkey and Iran, and ending up in the Lebanon.

The mystery that attends every journey is how the traveller got to his starting point.

My reasons for setting out on this journey are manifold, but my primary motivation is an abiding interest in the Middle East. This troubled region, often placed at the centre of the world in medieval mappae mundi, is the birthplace of the world’s three monotheistic faiths, and has been at the centre of human activity since humankind first ventured out of Africa.

Today is no different. News from the area dominates all others. The Islamic world is in a state of fitna, a classical Arabic term that might best be rendered as strife or distress; of that there can be no doubt. Al-Qa’eda’s stated goal of bringing their war to the West has succeeded. It has become a meaningless cliché to say that the world changed on 9/11, but the world is obviously markedly different. Historians of the future will surely talk of the time pre- and post-9/11. This was the first large-scale attack on the West, propaganda of the deed on an extraordinary scale, but this was not the first incident of its kind. This problem has been festering for some time. Now the situation is escalating and deteriorating before our eyes, first with the war on terror, then the Arab Spring and civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, and now the normalisation of global terrorism. The consequences of all of this will only be known in the years and decades to come.

“To understand a man,” Napoleon is supposed to have said, “you must know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” Well, Napoleon was twenty in 1789, l’année sans pareille. I turned twenty in 2005: a post-9/11 world, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still in full swing. My burgeoning atheism, a result of my studies in the physical sciences, meant that I was beginning to look more critically at the consequences of religious faith, particularly its more extreme forms.

In 2013, I spent some time learning Arabic in Cairo, Egypt. I chose Cairo as it’s the unofficial capital of the Arab world. After all, one in four Arabs are Egyptian. It’s also the headquarters of the Arab League. The Al-Azhar Mosque, dedicated in 972, is one of the oldest seats of learning in the world, and, without doubt, the foremost theological centre of (Sunni) Islam.

That’s not all. The Egyptian music and film industries are gigantic. As a result, their colloquial dialect of Arabic is the most widely understood. Plus, Egypt has all of that amazing history, all the way back to the Pharaohs of the Early Dynastic Period. Then there’s politics. Egypt may not have started the Arab Spring, but it was certainly centre-stage.

I was there in January and February, after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, about six months after the election of Mohammad Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood, persecuted for decades, finally had their grip on power. A couple of months later, of course, Morsi would be overthrown by large-scale protests and the inevitable intervention of the army, in the person of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Egypt remains very much politically divided: Islamist versus Secular, Rural versus Urban, Rich versus Poor. Egypt, though, is the Arab world in microcosm. This same dynamic is happening everywhere from Tunisia to Iraq.

Now, on this trip, I’m consciously following the refugee trail in the opposite direction, making my way over land from Europe to the Middle East, from Ireland through England, France, and southern Europe, through the Balkans, that forgotten part of Europe most recently affected by inter-religious and ethnic conflict, and on towards Greece, and the Middle East proper.

I have one question on my mind: what is the root cause of all this conflict?

Obviously I have certain ideas about the causes, but I’d like to put them to the test, and to talk with people on the ground.

I have a number of other interests, not unrelated to the above. Firstly, having grown up in Ireland, I’m interested in partition, and irredentism around the world. I’m also fascinated by the connection, real or imagined, between a people and a land. Then there’s the question of identity: ethnic, cultural, religious, and everything in between.

My own philosophy, for what it’s worth, is humanistic. I don’t believe in a chosen people, anecclesia, or an ummah. Every human being on the Earth is my brother and sister, absent any distinction.

I don’t particularly like the term freethinker, but the first person to be referred to as such was an obscure Irishman by the name of John Toland. He was giving a lecture once, at the turn of the eighteenth century, and someone in the audience asked him for his credo, a statement of his beliefs. “The sun is my father,” he replied, “the earth is my mother, the world is my country, and all men are my family.” I regularly toast to John Toland, and I’m in absolutely no need of any excuse to drink.

I also occasionally drink to the memory of Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Burani, whose underlying concept was that all cultures are distant relatives of one another because they are all human constructs. This is manifestly true.

All things considered, I am now convinced that religion does great harm, because it is fundamentally sectarian, but much more importantly: I think that religion is based on falsehood, and I care deeply about the truth.

In the first instance, religion divides humanity into separate, mutually exclusive, groups. The process of “othering” can then proceed at pace.

Extremist Jews, viewing Judaism as supreme, support the expansion of the Jewish State, and the settlement of the West Bank; while Fundamentalist Christians, viewing Christianity as supreme, support these Jews in the hope of hurrying the End Times, and attempt to impose their own twisted morality onto the rest of secular society; while Radical Muslims, viewing Islam as supreme, wish to return to the Age of the Caliphate.

My own philosophy couldn’t be more dissimilar: viewing Reason as supreme, I’d like to reshape this world for Everybody.