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gretavanmoon · 14 days ago

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an omnipresent force • ch 5

Chapter 5 - DARK ABDUCTION

Jake x female reader

Words: 12K

A/N: Semi-AU// Set six years in the future, the world has decided to cast humankind aside, starting with the poisonous entities that are destroying her the most.

*So sorry it took me a damned month to write this LOL I love you all

Warnings: Dystopian Horror, Cursing, Suspense, Feelings of Fear and Uncertainty, An Apocalyptic World, Violence (& mention of firearms), Mentions of Smoking, Kidnapping, Blood, Death & Dying, Lying, Attacks, Deceit, Panic, Mental Anguish. Smut: Kissing, Heavy Pining, Heavy Touching, Mentions of Sex

JAKE

“Wait, you two kissed?” Sam places his hand harshly on my shoulder as his tired eyes delve deeply into mine. I see the tiniest hint of a smirk poking at his mouth, and I immediately regret my decision to let the admission of what happened last night slip. I’m struck silent for a second as I bite my own tongue for telling my brother what happened on the wall by the koi pond, but he perseveres. “Answer me, asshole! Tell me what happened!” His hand shakes at my shoulder as I glance around to be sure we’re away from the rest of the group, but I feel Danny’s presence suddenly hovering at my back.

“Wait, what happened?” he says with a monotone grunt, sitting down beside Sam and I with a plate full of canned something. “Who kissed somebody?”

Jesus Christ.

We’d all awoken from the restlessness of sorry excuses for sleep nearly an hour ago, buried up under old, musty quilts and blankets from the home Odin had us hiding out in. I fell asleep with Y/N’s hand in mine as we laid head to head on the dusty cushions, trying our best to calm our minds enough to sleep. We knew we needed it, hell, even if we didn’t fall into unconsciousness, just resting our bodies enough to relax was helpful enough. My mind had raced all night long with half-asleep dreams of Josh… of my parents and my family, all my dark daily thoughts even darker then under the cover of nighttime and complete silence.

But her warm hand in mine gave me some type of solace, though she is still yet unfamiliar and more or less a stranger to me, that kiss on the wall felt like more than just two humans begging for physical touch after so many months without it. Deep down I knew that my body was acting more powerfully than my mind, taking whatever it could get just to feel something again, but after sitting with the memory of the feeling of her lips on mine all night long, I started to think it felt like something different.

Luckily Y/N had taken off to the woods to do her business, giving me a second of reprieve to sort my thoughts out while Odin and the brothers made some type of breakfast over the fire in the backyard. Sparrow was still deep in sleep, resting peacefully in the bedroom across the hall from us.

“Jake kissed Y/N!” Sam belts to Danny in a loud whisper, earning him a swift slap of the back of my hand across his stomach. “Ow, fuck! What, you didn’t want him to know or something?”

“No, I don’t care that he knows, it’s just… not a big deal–”

“Not a big deal? Jake, this is like the first episode of a soap opera, man!” Danny exclaims with a toothy smile. “Need some romantic drama in my life, tell us what happened,” Danny orders as the two of them sit beside me with expressions of extreme interest. For a split second, it feels like we’re 16 again, telling each other stories about girls and hookups and how we managed to sneak out after midnight without getting caught.

“No drama to it, Daniel,” I begin to reluctantly explain, running my hand over my mustache. “Just… kinda happened, I dunno.” I stare back at the both of them, all three of us haggard, dirty, unshaven and feral… looking outwardly worse for wear than we ever have in our lives. I make a mental note to re-think what Y/N even sees in me, right now.

Their eyes are trained on me, their jaws hanging slack as they wait with bated breath for the dirty details. It feels private, but also…eh, they’re going to learn about it eventually, I guess. I’ll keep a little bit to myself, but feeding into them will make for some unexpected entertainment.

“Just happened…” Sam repeats. “I mean was it, good?” he asks, swallowing down his excitement. You’d never guess that we’re thirty-something year old men having this discussion right now.

I feel my chest bloom with the memory of it, remembering everything about how she felt pressed against me, how she tasted, how she sounded when I let my hands wander…

“Uh, yeah. Yeah, it was… really good,” I can feel my cheeks blushing. “We just…” I throw my hands into the air and try to down play it all, but they know me too well. The bite of my lips between my teeth is doing all it can to keep me from relinquishing every detail to them, simply so I can relive it, myself.

“Fuckin’ come on, Jake. I didn’t realize you guys were that close…” Danny tries to urge me.

“We’re not, I mean, we were locked up in the same pod, she was a damned fan, for fuck’s sake,” I breathe, checking our surroundings again as I whisper. “She saved me, back at the sink hole…” I recount to them. “Got me out of there. They’d just hit me over the head when I was trying to save her Paps, I was passing out. I wouldn’t have made it out if she didn’t–”

I watch them adjust themselves as they listen, huffing through deep breaths of imagining what my negative memory might be going through.

“I mean of course I’m… ya know. It’s been some time since I’ve—,” I try and explain without saying, earning understanding nods from them. “But things got a little…handsy, I guess.”

“Oooo!” Sam squeals, rubbing his hands together. “You lucky motherfucker! What else happened? Did you do it?”

“God, no, Sam, we didn’t do it, you fuckin’ idiot,” I bite back as Danny laughs loudly.

“What?” he howls. “I’m trying to live vicariously here!”

“Nah man, she’s like… really nice. It was really uhm, not just physical, I guess. We talked and stuff. She feels like…” I raise my hands and squeeze the air as I realize I’m having a hard time explaining to them exactly what I feel. Of course my body is feigning for more human touch, any type of connection I can get my hands on. I’m ashamed of the thoughts that plagued me on the couch last night, but I remind myself that it’s normal. And, after hearing what she had to say about a little touchin’ and squeezin’...

“She feels good. I don’t know how else to explain it. Just, really good. All the way around.”

“So there’s mutual attraction?” Sam asks, nearly begging for more detail.

I fight back another smirk. “Oh yeah. M’sure of that.”

“I saw her looking at you last night,” Danny adds quietly as he pulls food into his mouth. “She got those googly eyes.”

“Of course she did, Daniel, do you not remember being on stage? It hasn’t been that fucking long ago…” Sam bickers.

“No,” Danny laughs, “not that kind of eyes. She was looking at you. Like, really looking. With concern and empathy…while we were listening to Sparrow talk.”

All I can do is nod, remembering that I’ve caught her looking at me like that, too. A few times now. And each time it sends a surge of some type of emotion that I don’t have time to think about right now straight through my body like an electric shock. It’s funny, I’ve had my fair share of what you’d call crushes in my lifetime, some evolving into serious, years-long relationships and some fizzling out before I even had a chance to think twice about them.

But never have I felt like I didn’t want to eat the food in front of me when I’m nearly starving, simply for the fact that the emanating peace I’ve felt in my chest and stomach for the past few days takes up enough space that I don’t need sustenance. Because she fills me. She’s making my heart race for a reason that I don’t yet understand, and I’m teetering on the edge of feeling guilty about it, as my heart should be racing with worry and concern for my family, instead.

“Well,” Sam breaks the silence, “I hope that things stay moving forward for you, brother. Nothing like a little romance during the fucking apocalypse.”

Just then I hear her giggle from the back side of the house, causing my head to dart that way as I long to hear it again. I toss the pebbles that I had mindlessly picked up back into the murky koi pond and stand with Sam and Daniel, and we begin to make our way back to the fire to see what the day will hold.

I catch her eyes as soon as I round the corner of the house, bright and rested as I assume she got better sleep than I did. Her face immediately turns the prettiest shade of pink before she shyly breaks her gaze, tossing a few pieces of hair behind her ear. That familiar knot pulls at my stomach, making me forget how to breathe for a second as I watch the too-bright sun bounce off her features. The day is already beginning to feel strange as the wind begins to shift from the warmth of the night into the freezing cold of the day.

“Where is Odin?” Danny asks the brothers as they work to prepare a makeshift meal.

“Went to sit with Sparrow until she wakes up,” Robbie answers as he stirs whatever is in the pot that hangs above the fire. “Want some?” He holds the wooden spoon out to me as I realize it’s some kind of oatmeal, and I immediately feel my stomach churn with hunger. Maybe I do need real sustenance, after all. I nod, grabbing two bowls from the stack and letting Robbie fill them for Y/N and I.

I pass the bowl off to her as we both take our seats on a rock by the fire. “Awfully kind of you to think of me, Jacob,” she says sweetly, taking the hot bowl from my hand.

You’re the only thing that’s been on my mind since last night, if we’re being honest…

“Sharing is caring,” I blurt, making her giggle again.

“Do we have a plan? Are we making moves soon?” Danny asks, turning the bleak cheeriness of the morning straight into business. We always leave it to him to keep things on track. And honestly, if it weren’t for him naturally doing that at every single turn, it’s hard to tell where we would be today.

“As soon as Sparrow wakes up, and we see that she’s ready to share again, we will define a more detailed plan,” Josiah explains. “For now, Odin wants you all fed and for us to gather necessary supplies from the house. I found some backpacks and camping gear in the upstairs closet, we can fill them with whatever we need.”

I tilt the bowl up and let the soupy oatmeal fall into my mouth, and as it burns my lips and tongue I feel nothing but gratitude for it. My mouth waters and my stomach churns again as it thanks me, my mind suddenly feeling a bit of clarity as the food hits my stomach.

“We also need to hydrate. All of us,” Robbie adds. “I think these people were preppers before we even knew the world was ending… I found a ton of canteens and potable water in the basement this morning. Firestarters, water filters, hot hands, oil lamps… take whatever you want but make sure it doesn’t weigh you down. There’s also still a ton of clothing in the closets. Grab whatever you can.”

“We also need to remember that we’re being hunted,” Josiah says grimly from behind him. His eyes seem dark in the sunlight, a stark contrast to his brother’s cheery disposition. “Hunted by the ones who Robbie and I ‘work’ for.”

“Worked,” Robbie corrects him, glaring behind him to meet eyes with his brother. My gut suddenly falls as a worrisome thought flows through my head, one that hopes to the heavens above that these men aren’t actually luring us somewhere. I know Y/N, Sam, and Danny have the same thought, but it’s quickly extinguished as Josiah explains his demeanor.

“Right, worked. Sorry. I’m just…” Josiah works his hands over his face and licks his lips, letting out a large breath of air as he shakes his nerves away. It hadn’t dawned on me that these two men have put everything out on the line for this, for us. To help save us, keep us protected. They are just humans like we are, just a couple of guys who agreed to fight the good fight. Of course they’re feeling just as overwhelmed.

“We haven’t forgotten that, Josiah. And I don’t think you know how much we appreciate you both for coming out here and helping defend our asses,” Sam says through full mouths of his oatmeal. The other three of us agree and nod.

“We’re not gonna let these motherfuckers win,” Robbie growls. “They mistreated us for far too long. Lied to us, and we played their games, but we caught them up. Now we know how they operate. We’ll be damned if we let them take anything more from us.”

“Your family, are we searching for them, too?” Y/N asks from beside me.

Robbie and Josiah share a sullen glance before their eyes land back on her. “No, we lost them all to the rash. Dad was able to stay with us for a while, but. It got him in the end,” Robbie says, tossing a few pieces of broken sticks into the flames.

“Neither one of us have even shown any symptoms. Then we got picked up by these scary fuckers, they agreed to give us shelter and a lavish life in safety from what has happened to the world. Not sure why we agreed, we felt desperate at the time, I guess,” Josiah adds. “They said they would make it worth our while to come and work for them, and before we knew it we were in too deep. But we did learn nearly everything there was to know about how their world intersects with ours, and then we learned about you guys being found. Made all the musical ties ourselves, realized all the lyrics, knew that you’d be in grave danger, and we were right.”

“I still can’t believe you two were fans, too,” Danny breathes. “Feels strange.”

“Yeah man, big time. Used to play you guys all the time while we were overseas, bugged the shit out of everyone until they all started singing along. Took some time, but we converted them,” Josiah went on.

“Wait, overseas?” I implore.

Robbie clears his throat. “Yeah, we were both in the military. I was Air Force, Joe was Marines. We were both stationed separately when Starcatcher came out, but I remember we got on some shitty Zoom call and talked about it for like an hour. We were hyped.”

“Oh yeah!” Josiah yelps. “That was killer, I remember that. Fuck I played that shit over and over, got the whole squad turned on to you guys. Playin’ fuckin Highway Tune on jukeboxes in random bars in Germany… ah, what wild times.”

I feel a genuine smile warm through me as I realize that our music really did tie bonds between people, and they found comfort in it even while they were living in what most likely was their own versions of hell. Even now, months after we realized that our dreams had come to a quick and forced ending, it feels good to hear the stories of days past, when it truly did mean something to someone. At least we all will always have that. “So that’s why they hired you guys… you had experience in this shit…”

They both nod. “Yeah, somewhat. We ended up coming back home around the same time, I got an MP job, and Joe stayed with Special Forces for a while. Got out and got some civilian jobs or whatever, then the world ended,” Robbie says with a twist of his neck.

I gulp down the strange sadness that has washed over me, and I feel Y/N’s side press a little harder onto mine.

“Bet that was tough…” I mutter.

“Yeah, ya know. We didn’t hate our lives, but it wasn’t sunshine and rainbows. The thrill of the job is what we got addicted to, but it felt like a prison most days,” Josiah goes on. “Now we deserted our posts as work hounds for those motherfuckers, guess we’re a couple of renegades, now.”

Danny’s eyes shoot open as he glances to them, then to me, realizing yet another connection that hadn’t even dawned on any of us, yet. Son of a bitch, Josh…how in the fuck did you do this?

I shake my head in disbelief, feeling Y/N exhale hard as she makes the connection, too. It’s quiet for a minute or so as a heaviness falls over us.

“Till Valhalla?” I finally ask, unsure of how else to propose it.

Josiah purses his lips, offering me a stern look. “Or is it Alas, Babylon?”

I huff through my nose, breathing a quiet “fuck” as I place my bowl down onto the rocky ground, running my hands over my face. They’ve realized it, too. As the minutes tick, things become more and more unreal. Or more real, depending on how you look at it. I’m awestruck at how our words are still coming to life at every turn, realizing now that these two brothers are our Barbarians.

“Well, thank you, guys… for all of it. Really,” Sam says with a little conviction as we all add in our words of agreement.

“Ah, no need for that. But it’s appreciated,” Josiah says as he stands up and elbows his brother. “We’re just out here still doing what we do best, huh?”

Just as the conversation starts to lighten a little, we hear the back sliding glass door open as Odin gently bounds through, giving us looks of intrigue as his one orange eye glistens in the sun. Behind him in hand, is Sparrow.

“Good morning, everyone. I trust you all got some rest,” his voice is low and graveled as he uses caution to lead a tired Sparrow outside into the cool wind.

“Got enough, I suppose,” I say, standing to greet them. “How are you, Sparrow?”

Her aura seems to shift as she moves, the air around her almost glittering in a dusty haze. “Well, Jacob, thank you.” It’s like the breeze warms as she speaks, blowing across us with a new wave of positivity and calmness. She emotes some kind of invisible tranquility, almost immediately filling me with a new gumption to keep going, keep fighting. I can hardly fathom the emotion, but I feel a warm buzz of stamina begin pulsing through my veins. She makes me feel like I’m…alive.

Odin leads her over to take a seat on a bench as she hobbles across the gravel with her hand clutched protectively over her sword.

“Is she…limping?” I hear Y/N whisper quietly in my ear, again furthering that the visions of her in Josh’s dreams were spot on.

I nod slowly as she begins to relax onto the seat, stretching her back and raising her arms high above her head. “My friends, my sincerest apologies for bestowing that news upon you with such haste last night, but I thought it prevalent to our situation, and urgency became paramount. And then, my slumber afterward is always overpowering, and again I am sorry. I simply can never fight through it…”

I feel Y/N rise from her seat beside me as she wraps a blanket around herself, making her way over to sit beside Sparrow. “It’s alright, you don’t need to be sorry. I think we are all grateful that you’re here, and willing to help us, right guys?”

“Right, absolutely,” we all viciously agree. At this point, I’m chomping at the bit for her to continue, to feed us more information that I know she is holding inside her. But I’ve learned that patience is key.

We all gather in around her like children being read a Christmas story, anxiously waiting to hear what new news she has to offer. I’m nervous, and I’m a little scared to know, but I also can’t bring myself to think about anything else at the moment. The newfound urge to keep going is amplified the closer I get to Sparrow, but I also could absolutely collapse with worry for my brother.

“Alright, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news…”

Y/N

I feel the overwhelming urge to reach out and grab Sparrow’s hand, but I resist, not knowing whether or not that will comfort her at all. I’m not sure where my want to comfort her has come from, but I can’t seem to step away from it.

The guys and I sit and wait for her news, and I’m positive none of us have taken a breath since the last word left her lips. My nerves are swirling but I suppress them, knowing that Jake, Sam, and Danny are a thousand times more anxious than I am. Paps would want me to stay strong.

“The good news is that your brother is alive. And he is safe, in some sense of the word,” she sings, her accent flowing through a hundred millenia, but all of us are somehow able to understand it. “My friends, as I’m sure you all have probably assumed by now, Joshua has been found and captured by those who rule the Tower. His mind is still his own, but you must understand, once one crosses into the other world and begins inserting oneself with the beliefs of those who inhabit there, it takes a great deal of power to begin to reverse it. The words that flowed from me last night were indeed words spoken by your brother, himself, to the people there whom he will one day rule over.”

“Wait, rule over? What does that mean?” I interrupt, my body tensing.

“Jacob, your brother is a Seer. Even in his adolescent dreams and nightmares, he was witnessing and experiencing a plethora of occurrences that were happening in real time, in the past and in the future, in our world. You know this, now. You wrote about it, about it all. Once our people learned that Joshua possessed this gift through learning of your music, they made it their mission to try and take him for their own. To rule over them as the true one that they could believe in, the one who stands, and watches over,” Sparrow says. My chest caves and my breath hitches as it all begins to come to life again. All of our lyrics, all of our stories…

She goes on, “Of course they wanted him, they just had no idea that a mere human would be the one to possess the power to see time. Time and events being prophesied by a human man in an enemy world is… unfathomable, for them. The end of your world just happened to be the perfect time for them to act upon their plans, as our worlds cannot live while the other is struggling to stay alive. Two sides of the same coin, spinning rapidly on its axis until it begins to slow and falter. But this time, oh, this time, things are different.”

“So they wanted Josh… to be their Seer, to be the one who can warn them of what’s to come, what will work in their favor, and what will not…” Sam drones, choking back tears.

“Correct, Samuel. Odin, have you told them of what they are doing to their elderly? With their memories?” Sparrow asks.

Odin shakes his head. “Yes, I have.”

“Your immune elders are being used for their experiments. They are trying to wipe their memories, wipe anything and everything they have ever known to soon bring them over into their own world, and convert them to follow the Seer. A whole new population that will know nothing but following him.”

“Blind faith…” Danny murmurs from beside me, his elbow pressing into my back. “It’s their fate.”

“That’s right Daniel,” Sparrow agrees, emanating another glow of positivity around us. “Blind in the sense that they will have no recollection of how they got there, or why they feel compelled to follow this omniscient. It’s the perfect storm.”

“You said that the hooded guards are all omniscient, why can’t they use one of them? Why does it have to be Josh?” I press, remembering what Odin had said.

“I said they are all nearly omniscient. Your brother, in their eyes, is completely so,” Odin reiterates.

I huff out an air of disappointment for news that I partially already knew, but hearing it all said out loud has crushed me. Why? Why?

“Josh didn’t know what we were writing about was real, though! They can’t take him and claim his mind like that, they can’t take away his free will!” I yell, feeling my heartrate taking off.

“They can, Jacob, and they have already begun the process. You heard his words last night, and I know you know they were not his own. They’ve begun to manipulate his thoughts into believing that all he claims is truth, which partially, it is. They are deeming him as a new leader, a sovereign entity of whom will lead the people to their destiny.”

“Destiny? What destiny?” Danny asks.

“If their trials are successful, and they are able to completely wipe the memories of every immune human left on earth, they will take them all as their own and the Earth will have no choice but to relinquish all its power unto them,” Sparrow barks, and I can tell that the words sting a bit as they leave her mouth.

“But I thought our worlds can’t exist without one another,” Y/N blurts, her hand now gripping hard onto mine.

“They can’t, my love, without inhabitants who are strong and thriving.” Sparrow stands and approaches us, her warmth bellowing toward us as she raises her hand to brush across all of our faces. “That’s why they are hunting you. You are worth everything to them. If they can erase the memories of your elders, then they will be sure they can erase the memories of the stronger, younger immunes. Wipe your Mother Earth of her inhabitants, and watch as she completely crumbles. Once they convert you all, then their world will have more than enough power to exist on it’s own, without needing the support of Earth to survive.”

She comes in closer, her aura dripping with what feels like forced happiness. “You see, they want to fully extinguish the human race from the face of the Earth. They want you as their own. Their plan is to take you all, and Joshua is their sole key to the abductions.”

Abductions.

Suddenly, I can’t breathe.

I can’t blink, I can’t swallow… I can’t even feel the rocks that I know are poking through the thinning soles of my boots.

Jake’s hand slips from my own as I feel him slowly turn to me, and to Sam and Danny, all of their faces void of any real emotion at all, other than complete terror.

“This isn’t fair…” I whisper, and I’m not sure any sound came from me, at all. It feels like my chest is made of stone, the small breaths I’m pulling in unable to expand my lungs. Josh…

“What do we do?” Jake asks us, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down as his pupils shrink to pinpoints. His face has dropped to a stark white, and I can feel the terrified energy radiating from him. His eyes dart from his brothers to me, looking to all of us for answers that we simply don’t have. “What do we do?” Tears begin welling in his eyes and the rims of them turn a bright red. I can see his hands visibly shaking.

“We search. Today. We leave, now,” Odin harks, standing from Sparrow’s side as he throws his bow and arrow over his shoulder. “Into the house, pack your bags, take only all that is necessary and nothing more. Pack water, warm clothing. Josiah, Robbie, the same for you. Make sure you lock all of the doors and windows, we will return to this place eventually.”

“Where are we going? What’s the plan?” Danny asks as everyone begins to shuffle.

“First we find your families. Get them to safety. Then we find your brother and cross him back over. That will be the hard part,” he says, punching through all of us to go and begin packing his horse. Danny, Sam, and the others jump into action and begin rushing into the house to pack their things.

I notice that Jake is frozen where he stands, the news that Sparrow has just shared still coursing through him. I fear he is in shock, feeling the effects of learning the truth about his twin fully and completely. Truly, I’m not sure what to even say to him right now, but then I look to Sparrow and she gives me a tight grin, and I immediately feel another wave of comfort and courage wash over us.

“Jake, I know you’re scared right now, and I know this is a lot to process, but. We’re going to find him, he’s going to be okay,” I reason, taking his cheeks into my hands to try to get him to look at me.

“How do you know that, Y/N? What if we can’t get to him, and he’s already too far gone? What if he– what if he never comes back?” I never thought I would see him cry, I never thought I would have to be the one comforting him when he did… But here I find myself…

“You wanna know how I know that, Jake? Blind faith.”

“What–what do you mean? That’s…”

My hands release his cheeks and fall to catch his still trembling hands, cold and clammy in the blowing air. “How do we ever know anything is going to work for certain, Jake? We don’t, we just have to persevere. Josh wouldn’t stop looking for you, and he’d never give up on you. None of you would give up on each other. Right? All these years, all you’ve done is trusted each other, because it’s all that you had. You seized every opportunity, together. And look where it got you. You can’t stop now. You can’t think thoughts like that now, Jake. We don’t have time for them. Every single one of you is stronger than you know, and I’ll be damned if I sit here and watch you crumble because of a little fear. You’ve overcome so much, Jake, in your lives and in your careers, because of your blind faith.”

“Kill fear,” he whispers.

I watch as his pupils grow a bit, and his muscles relax. I wipe the tears that are beginning to freeze onto his face, catching in his lengthening beard and mustache. “Yeah, fuck fear,” I smile.

He nods, turning his head to press a sweet kiss onto my palm. “Okay, yeah. You’re right. We’re gonna find him, he’s gonna be alright, the son of a bitch.” I smile as he picks himself up, gripping my hands that are still cupping his cheeks and placing more kisses onto my palms and fingers. “Thank you…”

I push myself onto him, wrapping my arms around his neck as he finally takes his first full breath in a few minutes. “Don’t thank me, Jake. You don’t know how many times you and your brothers have comforted me when I thought there was nothing else left for me in this world. You and your music were always there.”

I hear him laugh, his chest shaking a little against mine as I realized the words I’d just said. “I didn’t mean to say that, it just came out,” I laugh along with him as he pulls away a little, holding my elbows in his hands.

“Hell, maybe he dreamed about you and me too, then,” he mutters, sending my heart straight into glittering explosions. What did I do to deserve spending this time with him? The person that pulled me from the depths so many times… and now we’ve found ourselves here…

“Maybe he did…” I reply shyly, feeling his thumbs grazing across my arms.

“Hey, love birds! Come on, we’ve got bags to pack!” We hear Sam yelling from the upstairs balcony of the house, and if it weren’t for the immediate action we jumped into, I would have had time to process the fact that Sam just used the word love.

JAKE

Only all that is necessary…

You always think about what you would grab and take with you if your house was burning down, but when it actually came down to it, you always knew you’d be able to gather resources again. Meals from a neighbor, supplies from the store, fuel from a gas station…

But when it comes down, truly, to only what is necessary… I think I’ve drawn a blank.

The empty backpack sits open in my hands as I kneel in the closet of the stranger’s house, my eyes scanning over the clothing that once kept this person warm. Sweaters that his wife had gifted him, socks with holes he had worn in, boots still covered in mud and debris from the hike he didn’t know was going to be his last...

I swallow hard as my eyes scan even further into the bottom of the closet, shelves full of old memorabilia, high-school basketball trophies, photo albums, old vinyl records… these were part of someone’s life. And I am taking it, because I need to survive.

“I can’t do this…” I mutter, shaking my head of the sudden overwhelming feeling of impeding into someone’s personal space, though their earthly body is long gone from this home.

“You have to,” I hear from the doorway, looking up to see Robbie looking back at me. “Promise you, this guy wouldn’t care.”

I huff through my nose. “How would you know, did you know him?”

“No, but I feel like if he knew that it’s the actual end of the earth, the seasons are blending, your family was kidnapped by inhabitants of another world, and you’re running around with mythical creatures while you’re being hunted and used for your mind, I’m pretty positive he wouldn’t care if you stole a pair of socks or two,” Robbie says sarcastically as he gnaws on a long piece of red candy. “Twizzler?”

I laugh again, opening the drawer that houses the underwear and socks. “Yeah, actually, thanks. They aren’t stale?”

“Fuck yeah, they are. But it don’t bother me. Just keeps my hands and mouth busy, ya know?”

I stuff two pairs of woolen socks into a zippered part of the bag before removing my boots and slipping a fresh pair on. “You used to smoke, didn’t you?” I ask.

“How’d you know?”

“Just a guess,” I reply, reaching far back into the closet to grab a pair of the man’s old hiking boots, happy with finding we were almost the exact same size. “I would have gotten you a pack or five if I’d have known… Right before you found us, we were in an old convenience store chock full of them. That’s where Y/N and I found Sam and Danny.”

Robbie grunts a laugh as he pulls another rogue Twizzler from his pocket, handing it off to me. “Sounds like we might have to make a pitstop.”

It does sound intriguing… A cigarette would be fucking glorious, right about now. “Might could make that happen…”

“So Y/N… you didn’t know her before?” he asks, piquing my interest.

I shake my head. “No, just in the pods. She used to listen to us a lot, like you and Josiah did, so I guess she knew me, kinda… Why?”

I see him shrug from the corner of my eye. “Just wonderin’. Ya’ll seem pretty close.”

I shrug back, pulling a hoodie off a metal hanger. “Guess you could say that.” I pop the Twizzler into my mouth and bite off the end, zipping the overfull bag closed and tossing it over my shoulder. “Kinda feel like she’s mine to protect.”

He tosses me the last candy in his pocket as I stand and face him, watching his jaw work as he chews. “Raid the bathroom, too,” he suggests. “Soap would be nice.”

—-

“Got everything you need?” I ask Y/N as everyone gathers out back again. We’re all in a slow-motion hurry, now, as the morning is slowly drifting into noon.

“Uh, yeah, think so,” she says, zipping the oversized pullover she’d found up around her chin, and pulling a toboggan down over her ears. “It’s so hard to think about it being so hot at night, and there’s ice blowing through the air, now…”

“I know, everything is so backwards,” I agree, leaning down to re-tie my boots.

As I stand back up, she pulls me to the side, causing me to stumble a little bit into her. “Come here…” she whispers, her hand gripped hard in my jacket.

“Yeah, whoa, yeah?” I laugh as she catches my fall and takes me in her embrace.

“I found something else, while I was searching the house,” she whispers, her eyes trained on my face.

“Oh?” I ask. “What’d you find?”

She reaches into her pocket, pulling out a brand new razor and a tiny bottle of travel shaving cream. My face falls and I feel my lips flatten into a sarcastic look. “What, you got a problem with this more rugged side of me, or somethin’?” I rake my fingernails through my beard, scratching hard at it.

She glances around and sees that everyone else is taken up by their own tasks before she wraps her hands in my jacket, pulling me forward into her and around the corner of the house. We stumble back underneath the second-floor porch, hiding in the shadows and away from the wind a bit. She grips me again, pulling me into her as she speaks.

“No. I love it. Really suits you,” she murmurs, her eyes traveling quickly from my eyes to my mouth. I watch as her breath turns to steam as she exhales, heavy and hot even in the blistering cold. It’s strange to say, but I almost feel like she beckons me without even saying a word.

And fuck, she is so…

“Know what else I love about it? You feel more mature to me like this, I’ve always been one to prefer facial hair.”

“So I’m guessing you hated it when I used to shave my mustache off for shows, then?” I implore with a teasing tone, leaning in and letting my nose drift over hers playfully. “I couldn’t even grow a beard until I turned 31…”

“Yeah, used to get real fuckin’ mad about it,” she smiles, lurching her hips into mine. “We all used to place bets on if you’d show up with or without one. I lost most of the time, because you always shaved the damned thing off. But I guess it’s also cool that I’m the only one who’s ever seen you like this…”

I growl a laugh, gritting my teeth and feeling the need to be near her again. I feel flushed, even in the cold blowing air, but being near her makes me forget about every bad thing that’s surrounding us. I let my cold hands snake up under her coat, searching like hell to find her bare skin. Finally I find her stomach, attaching my cold palms to it and her hips. “Yeah, actually, I guess you’re right. Just you…”

“Fuck…” she breathes, her body shivering from my touch. “Just me?”

“Just you…” I repeat, taking her bottom lip between my teeth. God, she makes me want to lay her the fuck down, right here in this freezing cold grass. My mind begins spinning with want again as I feel her body weight pressing itself into me, my hands beginning to freely do what they please underneath her layers of shirts, just as they had last night. “What’s the razor for, then? If you like it so well?”

Her hand comes up and grips the base of my neck, squeezing hard as I allow my hands to finally grip at her tits. She lets out a pitiful sound as her head falls back a little, spurring me on to keep exploring. I can feel her nipples hardening in my fingers, and I’m fighting with everything in me to stop myself from getting too excited, but the more her chest heaves, the harder it gets to concentrate. Her lips are ghosting across mine, and I feel her warm breath landing on my tongue. I need to taste her again.

“Just giving you the option to shave, if you wanted to,” she breathes, her eyes fluttering open and closed. “If not, you can pass it off to Danny.”

Her hand comes around and grips at my jaw, forcing me to thrust my hips into her again. I feel warm all over, almost as if the wind isn’t cutting us in two. There’s no way she can’t tell I’m impossibly hard now, and if the circumstances were different…

“If you like it, I love it,” I breathe into her as our bodies begin lurching and craning onto each other, my hands still massaging at her breasts. God, what I’d give to see her…

“Kiss me, Jake,” she mumbles into my mouth, our lips already almost touching, anyway. My mouth finally overtakes hers, my tongue unable to fight any longer as it begins exploring without any warning. She reacts the same way, pressing her chest more harshly into my hands, practically begging me to feel her even more. We stay this way for a minute or so, just like we did by the koi pond, our bodies pressing and moving as I forcefully back her up against the cold block wall of the house.

She pushes me away a little, but catches her fingertips in the waistband of my pants, giving her a split second’s access to slip her hand inside. God fucking damnit.

I take it as it comes as I feel her frozen hand work its way into my boxers, wasting no time in taking me fully in her hand. “Jesus Christ, baby…” I all but moan as I feel my head tilt back on its own. I reach for the wall behind her to steady myself as she squeezes me, her palm soft and gentle but using a little bit of force to show me what she wants. I come in close again, kissing her like my life fully depends on it. “Mmhmm…” I moan against her, my lips vibrating onto hers.

“Call me baby again,” she whispers when we disconnect for a second to breathe.

“Baby, baby, baby…” I say quietly, rolling my hips into her hand. “I’ll call you anything you fuckin’ want…”

She whimpers quietly into my mouth again as she pulls at my hair, knotted and ratty at the base of my neck. I’m reminded again of the thought of what she actually sees in me right now, dirty and gritted and unclean, but then again, she probably thinks of herself all the same. Her hair is tangled, her features are tired and a little sunburnt, yet I see her as the most beautiful thing I’ve encountered in ages. All of the things that society deemed as making a person desirable have flown out the window. Because truly, none of it fucking matters.

Her hand grips around me again as my fingernails dig into the cinderblock, pulsing and throbbing as she takes her time with her show of intimacy. The essence of her is satiating all my senses… her taste, her scent, her touch…

Then it hits me- this is the rawest I’ve ever felt in my life.

Attraction comes in all shapes and sizes, and when you stumble upon it, it can either knock you down or confuse you even further. I’ve always been positive in what I want; I know exactly what attracts me and keeps my attention. And I’ve prided myself on that. Coming of age also determines and filters out what you do and do not want in life, and in a lover. And I know that my vision is blurred right now with this overwhelming need to fornicate, but shit, if she isn’t turning all of my past ideals about myself and what I want on their fucking tops.

She’s different… she’s headstrong and brave, smarter than I could ever even think about being. She’s bold, and she’s unashamed. She acts as though she comes from a time that she didn’t have any business being in. She’s fucking beautiful, taking my breath away with every stolen glance. Yet she’s reserved in all the ways that I am… thinking before she speaks, studying people before she trusts them. I can tell all of this about her, and I’ve committed it all to memory, and I’ve only known her for less than a few weeks.

Raw, unbridled and desperate, the wind biting at our cheeks as the wetness of our kiss coats our lips and faces, her hand gripping over me still, without any shyness about her aura, at all. Her preference of privacy stunning me as she shows me that she wants me just as badly as I want her. Not because of who she knew me as for the majority of our lives, but who she sees me as right now, untamed and ravenous for one another. And I am fucking enamored.

My hand leaves her breast and travels to grip her ass, covered in layers of pants and coveralls, but I don’t care. I hike her leg up across my hip, letting our bodies become closer as the cold wind whips through the bright green trees. I glance around every few seconds so that I’m positive we’re still alone, though at this point my mind is so fogged with desire that I truly couldn’t care less if we were caught. Her body is warm and inviting, and I let my fingers grip into the muscle between her ass and thigh, squeezing and kneading the skin there as her body rolls into mine again.

“Would it be too forward of me to say that I fucking want you?” I blurt out with a forced whisper, my mouth overtaking my mind for just a second.

She laughs a little as we separate, her pupils blown as she shakes her head quickly from side to side. “No. It wouldn’t be too forward at all,” she says, squeezing me harder than she has, yet. “I’m the one with my hand on your cock, stupid.”

Fuck fuck fuck. Shit, get it together. My body shudders as I let out a quiet grunt of aggravation, completely blown with desire as my fist pounds into the wall that’s holding us up.

I swear if we weren’t fucking leaving in two goddamned minutes…

“I swear to god, baby, I do…” I growl again, making her grip on me move at a quicker pace.

Just then we’re surprised by loud conversation near the fire pit, a rustle of everyone gathering up again breaking us from our intertwinement. She removes her hand from my pants and I adjust myself, rolling my eyes at our interruption as my teeth grit with annoyance. We both look at one another with the tiniest bit of shame on our faces, pink and wet with the after-effects of the session. I nod to the side as I silently tell her we’d better go.

“Wait, Jake,” she whispers, pulling me back by the hand a little. “That’s not what I really wanted to give you.” Her closed fist stuffs into my jacket pocket and drops something inside it, and I watch her coyly turn and walk away with the sweetest smirk on her lips.

Puzzled, I reach into the pocket and feel the familiar feeling of a small plastic package in my hand. A condom. I can’t help the cheesy smile that crosses my face even if I wanted to. I pull it out to inspect it, looking first and foremost for an expiration date.

I glance back at her, purely entertained by her bold action. “2034,” she answers the question I didn’t even have to ask. “Actually found a whole box. We’ve got all kinds of time.” She shoots me a wink as she tops back into the gravel pit, going to join the others without me so as not to raise too much suspicion.

Truly, if she thinks we’re waiting that long, she can go ahead and keep lying to herself. She has no idea what she’s doing to me, and it’s only worsening as the hours tick. For a mere five minutes, my carnal needs completely overshadowed the fact that we’re about to go on a mission that could cost us our lives, and the fact that my brother is currently being fucking brainwashed by entities that belong to another realm completely. I punish myself, but only for a second, as I know for a fact he would go on some big tirade about how humans need sex to thrive and survive in life. He wouldn’t fault me for it at all. In fact, he’d probably celebrate it with me.

—

“Everyone gather, here is what we’re going to do,” Odin presents himself with a commanding tone, looking each of us in the eye as he speaks. We all take our places near the extinguished fire pit, backpacks and supplies in hand as we all listen intently. I try my best to calm my nerves and take in every detail of his directions, knowing that things could change at the drop of a hat.

“Josiah and Robbie have reason to believe that your families have been taken to another set of pods just south of here, where no sinkholes have been reported as of yet. These pods are a bit smaller, locked down just as the ones you were in, but if they are going to be anywhere nearby, we assume that it is there,” he explains. “We will travel as a unit, sleep in shifts, and take cover as much as possible under the hindrance of the treelines. The brothers will scout, but we’ve decided it best to arm you, as well.”

Shit. I’ve fired a gun maybe twice, three times in my life? But when it comes to life or death…

The brothers bring us firearms that they’d found inside the home, passing them off to Danny and I. I throw it across my back and hope to the heavens above that muscle memory would kick in, had I need to actually use it.

“I don’t believe that you will actually need these, as I will be with you always and our most dangerous threat are the hooded guards, of whom I can put to sleep with an arrow,” Odin goes on. “And I’m sorry, we can’t risk the sound of gunshot giving away our location. The smoke from this fire was already too much.”

We all bid a silent goodbye to the house that gave us the shelter we needed, and took off on foot from the coverage of the yard and nearby woodline, watching and waiting for the next threat to come our way.

Y/N

Was I too forward? Did I say too much? Did I move too fast… was the condom overkill?

A million and a half questions are rolling through my mind as we all traverse the heavy trails, making our way south to the other set of pods. We know it will be about a day’s travel, but luckily, with the guidance of Odin and the newfound spirit Sparrow had instilled in each of us, we know the journey will be fruitful. Treacherous, and probably a bit dramatic, but fruitful. Now that we have a better idea of where our families are, and likely Paps, I have a bit more pep in my step to get to him. And to Josh.

Of course it wasn’t overkill, he reacted exactly how I expected him to. He even said he wanted me. Hello? Me?? I don’t even know what is happening between Jake and I, it’s difficult to even fathom. Just months ago he was an image on my phone screen or a video on my stupid tikok feed, but now. Now…

I find myself wanting to text my friends again. Say, ‘You are never going to fucking believe this. Like, you’re really not…’, and they really wouldn’t. It’d be too good to be true. It’d take convincing, it’d take proof, it’d take receipts. I can hear them all squealing through voice memos, sending long strings of mismatched letters that don’t form words, immediate facetimes so they could watch me explain myself to their faces. Listen to every detail that we had all envisioned at one point or another in our lives.

But it’d never happen. I don’t even know if they’re all alive.

“Watcha thinkin’ about?” I hear Sam’s voice suddenly startle me from watching my feet walk across the ground.

“Oh, ah, nothing. Just…my friends,” I say to him, giving him a sullen smile as I pull my jacket closer around me. “I was thinking about what they’d say if I could tell them that I ended up meeting up with you guys. If they’d believe me.”

“Hm,” he laughs. “You think they would?”

“It’d take some convincing, but, I think they’d know I wouldn’t make something like that up,” I grin, pulling a few pieces of tree limbs away from my path.

“Crazy that we all ended up here,” he says. “Crazy how we all found each other.”

“I know,” I breathe, glancing to Jake ten or so steps ahead of me. “I never even thought I’d even get to have a conversation with any of you, let alone–”

“Sneak off with one under a porch?” he cuts me off.

I– oh fuck.

“Sam, what– what are you talking about,” I stutter, my face falling into a deep dark shade of red. Oh my god, if he saw us…

He lets out his classic guttural ha-ha laugh as a particularly harsh wind rips through us. His loud laugh causes Jake and Danny to whip around and look at us, and I shoot them and Sam a deathly glare. But I know that Jake probably notices the worry on my face.

“I’m not gonna rat you out, don’t worry,” he goes on. “I didn’t see anything… just… watched you sneak off. That’s all. The rest wasn’t my business.”

“The rest?” I squeak, trying to stay quiet. “Sam!”

He’s gritting his teeth together in a huge, shit-eating smile, hissing annoying little laughs as he pulls sticks free from our way. I feel like I could trip him and watch him eat dirt right now, the little twit. Jake keeps turning around and glancing at us; he knows his brother is digging himself a cute little hole to jump into if he isn’t careful.

“What the fuck do you think happened?” I press, kind of wanting to hear what he has to say.

“Hey, I said it’s none of my business,” he goes on, puffing his cheeks up with air as he avoids laughing again. “My brother’s love life isn’t any concern of mine.”

Will you please quit using that word, Samuel…

“God, can you just, not? Please?” I bark in a quiet tone, completely enjoying this back and forth with him. “I already feel weird enough…”

“Why?” he asks way too quickly.

“Because,” I bite. I toss my hands up, trying to get him to understand. “I was, ya know… A fan, and stuff, and now it’s like..”

“Oh whatever,” he interrupts me. “Hey Y/N, the goddamn world is ending and all our loved ones got killed by a flesh-eating rash. Yours did, ours did. There’s no such thing as levels of hierarchy anymore, if that’s the way you’re looking at it. We’re just fucking humans, ya know? We’re all just out here trying to survive this shit. Please don’t think like that…” he says a little confrontationally. “We could run into freaking Taylor Swift right now, and she’d still be trudging along in this damned frozen jungle just as we are.”

I giggle at his comparison, as corny as it is, feeling just a little more at ease. “You’re right, you’re right. Just. Strange, I guess.”

He shrugs. “It is strange, Y/N. Nothing about anything that has happened in the past year is anything close to normal. But… maybe you were meant to run into him in the pods. Maybe it was meant to be this way, who knows?”

I nod, glancing again up to Odin and Sparrow on the horse to make sure they haven’t noticed any threats.

“You guys are cute together, too,” he adds.

I roll my eyes. “Ugh, Sam, don’t make me gag. I will shove you down onto this thorn bush.”

“I’m serious,” he laughs. “I don’t mean to poke fun at you. I’m just saying, maybe this is a really, really good thing, Y/N. He seems… I dunno. Excited. Even while worrying about Josh. It’s like you come around and he’s instantly relaxed. I think you have more of an effect on him than you realize.”

“HOLD!” Odin suddenly says from the front of the group, holding his fist high in the air as everyone freezes where we stand. My heart begins pattering as he slowly hops down from his horse, leading Sparrow to do the same. I watch as he pulls his bow from his back and loads it, Sparrow doing the same as she pulls her sword from it’s sheath at her side.

“Fuck, what’s happening, what’s going on?” I whisper to Sam as he instantly grabs onto my shoulder, quietly leading us nearer to the front with Danny and Jake.

The brothers bring up the rear and have their weapons drawn and ready. I don’t hear anything, and I don’t see anything, but I do feel Jake’s hand land forcefully on my hip as we gather in a protective circle.

“Do not fire your weapon unless we say so, got it?” Robbie says to Jake and Danny as he passes, and I feel my heart drop. They both nod in understanding. The brothers exchange a few hand signals as they quickly dash off the trail beside us, keeping eyes with Odin as they scout around.

“What did they hear?” Jake asks us, and we all shrug as our eyes stay trained on our surroundings. The wind has settled a bit, but the sun is bright and hot as it shines through the leaves of the trees. There’s bits of ice on the tall grasses beside us, and I feel myself become disoriented with the way the weather is working, again.

I feel my heart pounding in my ears as my eyes scatter around the thick woods, Jake’s hand clutching mine protectively, now. I hear cracks in the trees, I hear steps that don’t sound like steps. High up, and down low. Sparrow backs up toward us, her dusty light following her as the wind floats her long hair into the air.

A fast glance from Odin tells her something I cannot read, and he quickly hops back onto his horse, kicking his leg into its side as it takes off just off the pathway. They’ve disappeared and we’re still left clueless, the brothers back from their scout and closed in, just as confused as we are.

“What was that?” I ask Sparrow quietly, my hot breath floating like smoke across the air.

“More guards, they aren’t very close, but we can sense when they’re near,” she replies. “Their tactics to find us are becoming more clever, as they are now being told that you’re missing from the pods. And that Josiah and Robbie have turned on them.”

“They can come and fuckin’ get us, if they want us,” Robbie snarls as he readjusts his weapon. “Pardon my language, Ma’am.”

I watch Sparrow smirk, giving him a look that says she is the last one he should worry about offending.

“Come, let’s continue on,” she says as she draws her sword and keeps it protectively at her side as we keep going. “Odin will alert me if anything is close.”

It feels like my feet don’t want to move without me actively telling them to, now. The fear that’s beginning to settle in my bones has grown tenfold after that scare, and without me being able to see Odin. He has become a wall of peace and protection for us in the past few days, and it feels strange not having him in my line of sight.

But still yet, Jake’s hand clutches mine, and to me, that feels more safe than anything else in our crumbling world.

We walk along for another silent twenty minutes or so, clumped together and anxious along what used to be an old worn-in path used by hikers and bikers, now very much overgrown and succumbing to the wild again. Thorns catch on my clothing, and rocks and dirt scatter as I step, but we keep along, our eyes watchful and patrolling as we head south. I wish to god Odin would reappear.

As we walk in the quiet, my mind drifts to Paps and what he might be doing right now, what they might be doing to him. Watching him be ripped away from me might be one of the most aggravating and terrifying things I’ve ever had to witness, and even though I know he is the strongest man I know, deep down I know that he hides his fears.

If they really have taken him as a pawn for their testing, will he still have his memory? Will he remember me at all?

I feel a shudder as the frigid air envelops me and bites at the tip of my nose, making me feel like I’m frozen to the core. This cold feels different, especially with the sun shining so brightly. It doesn’t feel like it used to, it almost seems as though the debilitating feeling of fear is sewn into it, nefariously making the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. My body doesn’t shake with the chill anymore, but it shakes with the unending fear of not knowing what the next second of my life will hold. What the earth will be doing. If we will be alive tomorrow or not. And the most terrifying thought of it all, is that there is nothing we can do to change it.

The wicked shiver chills me down to my soul…only time will tell.

I miss Paps so badly, and I want nothing more than to get to him. The possibility of their family being in the same pod as Paps is likely, which makes me feel a little bit better, but what are we going to do when we get there? Ambush the place? Sneak in a back door while we try not to get caught?

Surely Odin and Sparrow have thought it through, and I’m sure that the brothers have some sort of plan as to how to infiltrate the building. Or maybe, we’re just flying along with no plan at all. Because truly, none of us know the reality of what we're walking into.

Sam and Danny trail behind me, steadfast and courageous, truly grown into the men that I always envisioned they might have. I know they are just as worried as Jake is of what state of mind we will find Josh in, but I think they are holding it together for him. They don’t want to speak- yet- and bring such a horrific reality to life. If Josh is too far gone, and his mind is not his own anymore, will we have to leave him behind for the safety of ourselves?

I can’t even fathom that thought, right now. There is no way that will be our new reality. Starting a new life without Josh is just…

The sun has begun to slip behind the trees, and I know that the heat will return soon and we will all be sweating in the night air instead of freezing. I’m ready to feel a little relief from this new shiver that’s taken up shop in the deepest tissues of my body. In the back of my mind, I hope that Sparrow’s ability to make us all feel more at ease doesn’t take away from her energy source; she doesn’t know how badly we all need her.

Just as my mind feels as though it’s completely shoved full of too many unanswered thoughts, heavy cloud coverage moves in over the sun and begins casting strange shadows across the thick woods around us, and suddenly, my wicked shiver turns from a physical feeling into a subconscious gut suspicion of uneasiness.

The wind hasn’t blown in minutes, now.

I slow my steps, glancing around through the trees as darkness begins to shower us, faster and faster. Odin isn’t back yet, and the air feels as if it is standing still and creeping in around us. Something isn’t right.

Suddenly I get the urge to pause and listen, stopping myself in my tracks as Sam bumps into me from behind. “Whoa, what’s–”

“Shh,” I hold my hand up to him, watching as Jake has noticed I’ve stopped, too.

“You’re right, child, something feels wrong,” Sparrow says quietly from in front of Jake. Her hand grips her sword more tightly as she cranes her neck all over, looking up and around and through the woods. My chest tightens as I feel as though I’m preparing myself for something, something that has intention to hurt me. Hurt all of us. The feeling that I had when Paps and I had driven the truck into town and were stopped by those creatures has come back full force. Like a dark black cloud is hanging over me, and there is no way I am ever going to wash the feeling of dread from my psyche.

Within seconds, the sunlight is almost completely gone. Jake’s hand takes mine again as we all press together in a terrified huddle, the brothers at the edges with their weapons drawn. “What is this? What’s happening?” Jake relents. I feel myself beginning to panic, my head darting side to side erratically as I begin to hear unfamiliar sounds coming from the forest. Not birds, not animals… there is no wind to rustle the trees, and there is no way of seeing what is now surely closing in on us. But I can feel it.

“Stay close, everyone, it seems as though we’re surrounded…” Sparrow says a little more loudly now. Her voice is panicked for the first time since we’ve met her. “Odin, Odin, where are you?” she says to herself, drawing her weapon higher.

It’s dark, now. Pitch black. The world feels more hollow than it ever has. My skin feels like it could fall from my body as my depraved mindset becomes more and more dreadful. I know that whatever is surrounding us in the shadows is draining every ounce of happiness from my body, and try as I might, I can’t form one positive or uplifting thought.

“Don’t let it consume you, my loves, don’t let it…” I hear Sparrow's voice as a loud hum begins to eat away at my ear drums, deafening me to almost totality. I grip onto Jake’s hand as we all crowd in together, writhing under the feeling of being so suddenly enclosed and debilitated. I can’t even see what’s around us. Not even Sparrow’s overwhelming power of comfort can match whatever it is they are putting onto us.

“We should run!” I hear Danny suggest, the drone of the hum making him sound like he is a million miles away. “Let’s go!!”

I feel him pull away from us as I begin to become disoriented, weakening as the seconds tick. “Jake.. I–” I can hardly form any words as I feel like all my energy is depleting. His hand is still latched tightly onto mine, and I begin to see spurts of light through the darkness of my vision, blurry and bright as my eyelids get heavy.

“Y/N, no!” I hear his voice in my ear, the sweetest sound I have ever heard. “We’ve got to run, we’ve got to go!” Suddenly I feel as though every emotion has been ripped away from my body.

Where is my gumption? Nothing matters, we’re all going to die, anyway.

“Sweet Y/N, run!” Sparrow urges me, too, as I feel Jake begin to pull me along just as I had pulled him through the building as it crumbled into the sinkhole around us back at the pod.

I can’t move, just leave me here.

I feel my knees hit the dirt at the same time that I feel many sets of unwelcome hands all over me, burning through my thick coats and jackets as they touch me. The hum grows louder and louder, and my blood grows thicker and thicker. Just leave me…

I’m being pulled two ways- one way with the burning hands and one way toward the man whom I have come to adore so intensely, but I could somehow care less who ends up with me. I don’t even mind one way or the other. My endurance is gone.

Jake squeezes my hands in the darkness, pulling me with everything in him as I feel Sam and Danny join him in his attempts. “Don’t let go of me, Y/N! Do you hear me!” he screams, his voice so worried and terrified. Why are you so scared, Jake? Why do you care about me? “Don’t let her go, Danny! Don’t let her slip!”

“She’s ours, now, you all belong to us…” I hear the crippling voice of the hooded guard say from behind me. I recognize the sing-song voice from their first attempts at taking us, like sirens luring us into the deepest depths of the night. “There’s nothing you can do, your world is a star defying time… you must come with us…”

Everything is blurry, nothing has shape. The burning hands are gripping at all points of my body, now, as I feel like I’m being ripped in two. I hear Sparrow’s shrieks in the distance, and I feel Jake’s grip on my hands begin to weaken.

“Sam, Sam, get up! Let’s go! I– I can’t hold you both–”

His hands feel like my only anchors to the earth, sure and grounding, but I can’t find the strength to even try and hold on to them. He’s slipping from me, and it’s then that I realize he’s being pulled by them, too.

We’re being taken. And there’s nothing we can do to stop it.

“Y/N, baby, please!” I hear his honeyed voice again, still so perfect even when he’s terrified. Don’t be so scared, Jake… you shouldn’t even be worried about me. I mean nothing to you.

“Let GO of me!!” he yells, but it’s no use. He’s ten paces away from me now as I realize that our hands have finally separated, and the burning hands are still holding me. His screaming voice is nothing but a howl in the distance. “Y/N!!!”

My body feels limp and lifeless as the burning hands hold me upright, pulling my body across bushes and grasses and limbs, my legs and feet falling behind me. But I don’t even care. Why don’t I care? Death is probably soon, anyway. Nothing matters.

The eyes of the creatures taking me are burning a bright red, the drone of the hum still prevalent in my ears.

Again I hear his voice calling out for me across the hillside, bouncing off the treetrunks and cutting through the warming air as the sound of it warms my soul and kills it at the same time. I want him, I need him… he’s the only thing that’s kept my head above water… But our magnets have somehow lost their polarity. I dig down deep and plead with myself, and whoever in the heavens above will listen to forsake me this one time, and bring me out on the other side of this. I have to help them, I have to find Paps…

Jake…Please… Don’t let them keep me…

Tags: @gretavangroupie @britney-gvf @sacredstarcatcher @wetkleenex-gvf @farfromthehomelands @takenbythemadness @writingcold @builtbybrokenbells @ohgodthefeeling-gvf @fleet-of-fiction @milkgemini @gvfpal @ageofcj@dancingcarbon @highway-tuna @stardustjake @jakekiszkapunchmeintheface @gvfmarge @gracev0609 @myleftsock @literal-dead-leaf @peaceloveunitygvf @ageofbajabule @slut4lando @jordie-gvf @sadiechar @tinydancer40 @rosabellagvf @capnjaket @lyndz2names @thetroublegetssoloud71 @gretavanomens @spark-my-nature @josh-iamyour-mama @anythingforjtk @alwaysonthemend @danieljlmwagner @klarxtr @fortunatelytinybasement @demonrat444 @gretavansara @watchingover-hypegirl @hippievanfleet @digitalnomadz @raviolilegs @lipstickitty @hippievanfleet @klarxtr @strange-whorizons @do-it-jakey-baby @myownparadise96 @gvf-luna @starshine-wagner @cassiesgreta @joopsandjangs @whimsiliz @kiszkas-canvas @whimsiliz @joopsandjangs @broken0mens @scoreofinfantryvines @whereiskeara @do-it-jakey-baby @miravanfleet @heckingfrick@kiszka-canvas @whimsiliz @joopsandjangs @broken0mens @scoreofinfantryvines @whereiskeara @do-it-jakey-baby @miravanfleet @heckingfrick @jenniferkiszka @jjwasneverhere @gvfmarge @pineapple-photographer @vanfleeter @gretnavannfleet @pineapple-photographer @joshylanefleet @becinabubblegvf @ageofmach1ne

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sommerregenjuniluft · 1 year ago

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@jegulus-microfic december 6 - obstacle - 2773 words (dont look at me like that)

cw: explicit sex, voyeurism ft. rosekiller, bit of degradation and slapping (as a treat)

((also shoutouts to everyone that voted on my poll but @casstration and @kaaaaaaarf hath spoken and so i went with option 1 lols, emjoy))

also posted on ao3

The winter cabin that they booked is by no means small, but it does only have two bedrooms. Which the four couples of them had to divide somehow.

It was somehow decided that Pandora and Lily get to have the one bedroom in the back by the balcony harboring the whirl pool. Regulus isn’t very aware of how or why that happened but he doesn’t question it.

Then it was dicing it out between Remus and his brother, Evan and Barty and James and Regulus for the upstairs bedroom.

Regulus is pretty sure Sirius rigged that.

And after Sirius has tugged Remus and their bags towards the stairs, chirping happily, it was between the four of them to make out the living room sleeping arrangements.

It’s a large room with a few random shelves as dividers rather than doors. There’s the big ten person couch in front of the TV and a king sized mattress shoved onto a wooden raising beneath the wide window next to the bookshelves, creating a cozy reading nook.

Regulus had simply pointed James to put their stuff by the window and that was that.

It’s their first night now, after a half day of skiing and snowboarding through the snow or sweating in the sauna or tasting themselves (Remus) through the entire resorts hot chocolate menus.

James and him are cuddled up in their many sheets and blankets, the waning moon spilling dim light over them.

Regulus is pleasantly heavy boned and drowsy but James is on a mission. Tugging Regulus’ leg over his hip, trying to get him closer, always closer, always so clingy and trying to deepen the kisses Regulus is purposely keeping close mouthed for now.

James growls a little, abandoning Regulus’ mouth to find a path down where he’s met with less resistance.

When there’s a teasing stroke of tongue Regulus grumbles, tries not to let it on with his voice that James’ plan is working, “Behave yourself.”

“I dunno what you could possibly mean by that,” James murmurs heatedly into the sensitive skin of Regulus’ neck as he grinds their hips together. And just like that Regulus whole fucking body is trembling. It’s bordering on ridiculous.

Regulus huffs, “I mean that sleeping in the same room as Evan and Barty could pose somewhat of an obstacle, don’t you think?”

“No, not an obstacle,” James responds, nipping at Regulus’ ear lobe, “Rather an opportunity.”

And the second Regulus mouth parts around a moan James’ palm is there, muffling the noise. Which, insightful, thank you, but also it has absolutely no business being that hot but it definitely is and therefore results in Regulus hips bucking even wilder, a whine ripping from his throat.

James chuckles low and when Regulus blinks his eyes up at him there’s a dangerous smirk on his boyfriend’s annoyingly handsome face. Regulus wants to sit on it.

He tuts, coos a little at Regulus in the precise moment that he runs his fingers over the front of Regulus briefs.

Regulus nearly chokes trying to keep the noises down.

James leans down, admonishing, voice patronizing in his ear, “You gotta be quiet for me though, love. Can you be a good boy and do that for me?”

Regulus pants, pelvis tilting up to chase his boyfriend’s retreating hand.

James tuts again and makes a dissatisfied noise at the lack of answer.

A small frustrated sound slips through Regulus’ teeth and he moves to punch James but this one simply intercepts the fist and thumps it down on the pillow over Regulus’ head and in one swift motion settles on top and between Regulus spread legs.

The thick line of him pressing against where Regulus is undoubtedly pulsing and wet under his boxers.

“C��mon, baby, don’t you wanna be good for me?” James whispers against Regulus’ jaw.

There’s currently no thought inside Regulus’ skull anymore, just a whole bunch of blank and static noise. All that matters is getting his mouth back on James’ and this one’s hands back on his body.

So Regulus nods fervently, the Yeah so delicate it barely carries over the small space that’s left between them. Trying so hard to be good and quiet but also knowing James wants vocal confirmation.

There’s a hint of teeth along his skin, James smiling, and then wet lips closing around a patch of skin on Regulus’ neck, sucking.

“Hah, mngh–” Regulus’ fingers find their way around James’ wrist, short nails digging in.

“That’s it, love,” James says, soothes the mark with his tongue and then– starts slowly and very fucking deliberately rolling his hips.

Regulus head tips back with the way his eyes roll up into his head.

Upsetting James’ hand over his mouth for a moment and letting the sounds go unfiltered.

“Shh,” James makes, smirking tauntingly, “Regs, baby, I thought you promised me to stay quiet?”

Regulus gasps, hiccups a little in his haste to reply while staying as quiet as possible and also coming down from the dizzying arousal coursing through his belly and making his head feel cotton-filled.

“Sorry,” Regulus squeaks and James gives cheek a tender kiss in acceptance of the apology before continuing.

Something creaks on the other side of the wide room.

The thought loses importance rapidly though when James’ other hand makes its way under Regulus’ sleep shirt to roll a nipple around as he continues rocking into Regulus.

“Please– please, Jamie,” is all he can manage.

A few more excruciating moments go by in which James plays with him and Regulus suffers and grunts and pants through the onslaught of feeling so fucking good but having to stay quiet about it until the older boy shows mercy.

There’s a wet patch on both their briefs now that Regulus is pretty sure isn’t fully to his credit.

Especially with the wild glint in James’ dark eyes as he roughly pulls Regulus’ briefs off before he discards his own underwear messily, all the while tugging Regulus’ loose limbed and out of breath body closer by his thighs.

The sheets are fuzzy and soft beneath and then there’s a pillow stuffed under Regulus’ ass, and then another one.

His legs exposed to the cool air, eliciting shivers, and spread apart wider by broad palms, smoothing up and down the sensitive skin there on the inside of his thighs and admiring. And Regulus swears there’s something in James’ gaze, something unnatural because it feels just as teasing as a gentle stroke of fingertips up and down where coarse dark hair turns to slick, glistening skin.

So visceral, turning Regulus on even more and making him arch with a silent cry parting his lips, eyes locked onto James’ flushed features and the mess of his hair.

God, he’s so gorgeous Regulus is going to die.

James chuckles, maybe Regulus said it out loud, who knows, and then this insane nutter of a human being leans down over Regulus, making him shudder with the returning body heat of him.

He brings their bodies in close, not flush together but touching, and Regulus whines brokenly when James’ shaft slides through the slick between Regulus’ legs.

And that’s before he rasps, right into fucking ear, low and incriminatingly sexy, “Die a little death for me, love.”

It’s all a bit hazy from thereon out.

There’s the palm returning to press over Regulus’ mouth when he fails to keep the noises to a minimum again.

There’s James’ thighs warm under Regulus’ and his slick mouth closing over his nipples, lips brushing over the scars there.

Regulus doesn’t know how much time goes by, not a lot he guesses, but he comes to again when his own whine rings clearer in his own ears.

High-pitched and needy because James is teasingly slapping his large cock down over and over where Regulus needs him most. Guiding the leaking tip up and down the slit of him and pushing in only so far just before he fully breaches him.

It’s maddening and rude and Regulus wants to insult him, spit venom but all that comes out is babbling and begging. No shame whatsoever.

“P-please, James, please I’m ah–” arching into the slap, watching cross eyed at the strings of cum and spit connecting them. Regulus ruts his head into the pillow helplessly, shaking it, and squirming, whimpering pathetically.

“Fuck, baby, fuck– fuck, c’mere. No, look at me,” James growls and Regulus eyes flutter open as his hips twitch. “You’re perfect. An angel, you hear me?”

Regulus hums and it comes out sweet. Pliant and agreeing, and James curses again.

There’s another sound in the background Regulus thinks but then James asks, “You ready for me, love?”

Regulus moans, abdominal muscles jumping and nodding quickly as James adjusts, crawling even closer.

He checks the pillows under Regulus, and then guides his cock forward.

There’s the silky wet of the tip again, warm and smooth. A small push, the almost-breach and then the head slips in entirely and Regulus gasps.

One smooth, slow, long thrust until James is panting above Regulus, completely sheathed inside.

James groans brokenly, dips down to place a quick kiss to Regulus’ sternum, “Fuck, love, you feel so good around me.”

Regulus whines in agreement, hips bucking where they’re flush with James’. “Please,” it’s barely a breath.

James pulls back and then rolls his hips forward again, an experimental little thing, not hard by any means but Regulus feels it.

The moan slips out on its own, loud and reverberating off the walls and Regulus whimpers when he feels a hand around his throat.

Squeezing lightly and Regulus hiccups again, makes a garbled sound when James gives a first real thrust.

His boyfriend tuts, leans down on one elbow and forces Regulus to look at him.

There’s a small part in Regulus that despite knowing James would never really deny him pleasure when playing is afraid of his boyfriend pulling out and stopping after keeping him so under- and overstimulated for so long. As punishment, which is a whole other box of exciting but not what Regulus wants– what he needs right now.

James frowns at him, while he keeps thrusting, Regulus clenching around the girth of him. There’s barely a husk in James’ voice when he murmurs, “That’s not how one’s being quiet, baby.”

Regulus gulps, hiccups and apologizes again, voice high.

James shakes his head in faux disappointment. It’s so startlingly sexy to have James switch between the praise and degradation, it has Regulus’ head reeling.

“Well, it’s a little too late for that now, is it?” James says accusingly, raising his eyebrows at him and then gives a particular hard thrust.

Regulus gives a squeaking gasp, throwing his head back.

But James pulls him back down by the jaw, fingertips digging into the bone and staring into his eyes as he pounds into Regulus’ tight, wet heat.

Regulus groans choppily before James nuzzles their noses together and says, “I think we’re being found out.”

Before Regulus’ brain is capable of processing the information James tips his head to the side, gaze drifting further into the living room.

He startles a little when once the blur fades he finds two pairs of eyes looking back at him unwaveringly.

Evan is on his back, neck bent and head hanging halfway off the cushions, bleached locks dangling, at an angle that simply must hurt, one hand fisting the plush armrest and the other in Barty’s short hair where he’s mouthing relentlessly at Evan’s hard and exposed cock, taking him down his throat every so often. Regulus doesn’t see it directly but the way Barty’s body is moving under the thick duvet leaves Regulus thinking he must be rutting his own aching length into the cushions below.

It’s only now that Regulus realizes him and James aren’t the only source of noises.

Barty’s throaty moans vibrate around Evan’s cock mixing with Evan’s soft pants and little cries whenever Barty seems to do something expertly with his mouth.

“James,” Regulus moans, not quite able to tear his eyes away from his two best friends yet.

“Yeah, baby?” he grunts, sliding impossibly further in on the next push of hips, making Regulus’ head snap back around at him.

“I love you,” Regulus breathes reverently.

James dives down into a searing kiss in response, tongue and teeth and spit sticking to Regulus’ chin when they pull apart for air.

James keeps fucking into him, making Regulus’ steadily climb higher and then locks him right in place with his eyes as Evan and Barty’s noises grow louder and lewder in the background.

James’ voice is dark when he demands, “Who do you belong to?”

It punches out of Regulus without missing a beat, “You.”

James’ shudders above him, hips stuttering and Regulus moans at the sensation. “Yeah, that’s right,” James pants, kissing Regulus’ shoulder. “All mine.”

And then he pulls out and flips Regulus. His cheek squished into the sheets and staring right back at Barty blowing Evan again.

“So generous of me to let them watch, aren’t I, love?” rasped low in his ear as James slips back in from behind, his warm body blanketing Regulus.

Several shivers whack through his body and then there’s something small and vibrating shoved between Regulus’ front and the pillows.

James presses his clit right into it, hands on his ass cheeks and grinding, fucking him deeper into the bed.

Regulus stutters through a loud whine, eyebrows scrunching and hips uncoordinatedly rutting back on James’ cock and down into the vibrator.

“Aw, precious baby– fucked stupid already?” James taunts and helps Regulus resume to a proper rhythm again, picking right up from where his climax started coiling deep in Regulus’ stomach.

“Just let me take care of you, love,” a smack on Regulus’ ass and he moans helplessly into the open room. Sees Evan’s hips buck in response and Barty take him further in his mouth with a desperate noise.

It’s all so hot and dizzying. Regulus feels so on display it makes him both want to squirm under the close scrutiny but also bloom under the attention and stay still for them. All of them. Let them look their fill. Regulus feels splayed out from the desire you regard the muse with as you paint them to the canvas.

It’s a frighteningly fast climb and with every rut and push and tug Regulus is driven closer, his legs trembling uncontrollably where they’re bracketing James’ from the double stimulation and in the end all it takes is James’ mouth biting and sucking on his lips, Evan’s stuttering moans and the sight of Barty’s eyes rolling back that has Regulus climaxing.

A loud, surprised noise and then he’s clenching down on James’ fat cock, pulsating and it doesn’t take another five seconds before James is following after him, spilling and jerking pleasantly inside where Regulus is still quivering with the shocks of his orgasm.

Meanwhile across the room he hears Evan curse and make a truly obscene noise which in turn makes Barty groan and pant, the rustling of blankets doing nothing to drown out the sounds.

When Regulus blinks his eyes open to James’ gazing at him carefully a smile pulls onto his lips.

James blows out a relieved little breath. “Was that okay?”

“Yeah, baby, it was better than I could have imagined,” Regulus answers truthfully, grabbing blindly for James’ hand and giving a small peck on a random knuckle before he tapers into a bit of a giggle.

His body is pleasantly sluggish and tingly. James’ tilts his hand back and kisses the tip of every finger in response.

He’s still inside of Regulus, slowly growing smaller.

James takes onto kissing at Regulus’ nape, warm body still pressed close and it’s almost enough for Regulus to drift off until—

“Oi, Potter! Why don’t you two beauts come over here and snuggle? Couch’s big ‘nuf for the four of us.” Barty’s smirk is audible in his voice and Regulus hears Evan muffle his snicker.

Regulus makes a small sound and snuggles deeper into the soft sheets, way too comfortable to be moved.

James understands that as the decline that it is and snarks back, “In your fucking dreams, Crouch!”

“Hey, hey now!” Barty retorts, because he can never leave it at good enough, “That’s not how you treat a man you’ve just had very voyeuristic sex in front of!”

“Rosier, beat some sense into your boyfriend, will you?”

“Ha, jokes on you! I’m into that shit, same as dear Reggie as it seems by the way, it’ll only turn into a round tw– Ouch! Baby, that hurt. I—”

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val-made-a-mistake · 2 years ago

Text

❝FIREWHISKEY.❞

(not my gif)

summary: liquid courage - that's firewhiskey. a drink you and george can both overindulge in, sometimes, but it always seems to bring you closer together.

warnings: fluff central, alcohol (obviously), underage drinking, hangovers, mentions of vomiting, just a disclaimer, it’s been several years since i last picked up the harry potter series, you can probably guess the reason why, so i SINCERELY doubt everything will perfectly follow the timeline. my friend asked me to write something for the twins for her birthday and gave me her blessing to post, please know i’m trying my best lol. this is set loosely during the summer where the weasleys and friends attend the world cup. (google confused me on the twins’ ages so they’re seventeen, not sixteen.)

word count: 1k

tag list: @mizu-soup

a/n: happy birthday fred and george! psst...when i first posted the sneak peek of this fic, i said i had written SCENES for george, not just this singular one you'll (hopefully) read after the "read more" line. i'm planning to post these scenes as a little ficlet series eventually and develop george and reader's relationship more (firewhiskey is the main theme in all of them, as you can probably guess) but my life is a total dumpster fire at the moment, so who knows how fast that'll happen. please enjoy for now :) i love you

//////

Up on the highest floor of the Burrow, the window was a thin, uncurtained rectangle stretching up to the roof, and early in the morning, if, say, you’d gotten so drunk on Firewhiskey the night before you’d blacked out and subsequently forgotten to hoist Ginny’s old mattress up against the wall to cover it, the sunrise nearly blinded you and every other occupant of the room come 7 AM.

Not the most pleasant awakening one could have in the early morning.

“Merlin,” Fred moaned, wincing at the stream of sunlight and shoving his face into the pillow. “Ron, get the bloody mattress.”

“Why does it have to be me?” Ron cried, bounding up from the misshapen heap of blankets on the floor.

“You’re closest, you moron!” George snapped back. “Dunno about Fred, but my head’s pounding, Y/N woke up with her head in the bucket…”

“I’m awake, George,” you bit out from the opposite side of the room, absentmindedly grabbing onto the rim of the bucket in case you were to throw up again: your mouth tasted like something had died and rotted in your throat, and your voice sounded rough and gravelly from the dehydration. “Fuck, that’s the last time I’m drinking Firewhiskey…”

“You lot okay?” Harry whispered from opposite Ron on the floor. You didn’t think anything of it at the time, but he was clutching his forehead, gently rubbing his scar. Regardless of what it may have meant, you felt pity for him: you, Fred, and George might have just turned seventeen, and had drank Firewhiskey plenty before you’d legally been able to, but Harry was fourteen, much too young for a hangover. God, he’d only wanted a sip, why’d you let it go this far?

“We’re alive, I think,” Fred groaned as Ron got up to block the window; his voice was still muffled from his head in the pillow. “Mum will have everything in the pantry for a Rejuvenation Potion, right?”

“Reckon we can nick the cauldron from Percy’s room?” you put in tiredly, rolling over onto your back to stare at him.

George snorted and rolled his eyes. “Oh, no, Y/N, that’s gonna be impossible.”

You’d opened your mouth to hit him with a snarky remark of your own, but too late: in a blink of an eye, George had vanished.

Before you could even roll your eyes at how abruptly he disappeared— and how clever he obviously thought he was as you’d failed your Apparition Test three times in a row and still couldn’t legally do it — he’d Apparated back into the room with a small rusty cauldron in his hands.

“Percy’s in the kitchen,” he told the room, his grin as smug as ever. “Go down and distract him for me, will you? Look alive, you lot.”

The sunlight no longer a threat to his wellbeing, Fred rose from the squashed, broken mess of a couch, rubbing his eyes. “I’ll see what Mum’s making for breakfast.”

He Disapparated, but not fast enough for you not to spot his identical grin. You had to glare at the wall. They loved teasing you, and no matter how much you may have loved them, you’d never hear the end of it.

There was an awkward silence as everyone seemed unwilling to move.

“Ron, get out,” George said, looking over at the misshapen heap of blankets that bore a wincing Ron.

“Fuck you,” he shot back immediately, and George grinned.

“You better not let Mum hear that sass. Harry, I love you mate, I don’t want to sound like I’m kicking you out, but can you leave me and Y/N alone for a moment? Potion’s gonna take, like, fifteen minutes to brew.”

“No problem,” Harry groaned, reaching for his glasses as he climbed to his feet. “Ron, c’mon.”

Much slower than either of the twins, Ron got up, wobbled to the door with his best friend’s aid, and with the loud CREAK of the door opening, they were gone. George was already taking the ingredients he’d gathered out of the cauldron: you saw several packets of herbs, tiny vials of juices, and a large stirring spoon.

Working deftly, he pointed his wand at the pan underneath the cauldron. “Incendio.”

A fire ignited immediately.

“Do you think you’re gonna vomit again?” he asked you as he ripped a packet of herbs open and dumped them into the cauldron. His voice was so gentle you almost didn’t register he was talking to.

You probably weren’t going to, so you finally let go of the bucket. “I don’t think so.”

“Last time she’s drinking Firewhiskey, she says,” he mocked you, wiggling his shoulders sarcastically. “That’s what you say literally ever morning after, you know.”

Slightly above him on the only bed of the room, you pinned him with the most searing death glare you could manage.

George grinned at you - his real grin, completely free of sarcasm or smugness. “Hang in there, love.”

A small silence fell as you watched him.

“I think if you had any ounce of ambition, you’d be a Healer at St Mungos,” you told him absentmindedly.

“St Mungos!” he gasped, his eyes jumping up to yours as he uncorked a small vial of a mysterious reddish juice. “How dare you, Y/N! You want to set me up with Snape for a few more years?”

You laughed, even though it upset your stomach, which was already growling incessantly. “No, I - I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Jesus, I need some of Molly’s scrambled eggs.”

“Go on without me,” he told you, eyeing a measurement of an equally mysterious brown powder that your Muggleborn background likened to hot cocoa mix. “Tell Mum I’m sleeping and am not to be disturbed. And tell Ron if he rats us out about what happens last night, he’ll wish he was never born.”

“I don’t think he will,” you said tiredly, rising. “But I’ll tell them nonetheless. I love you.”

“I love you too,” he responded. “Stay alive for me.”

You smiled gently; your head was still pounding, and now that you were on your feet, your whole world was spinning. “I’ll try.”

#george weasley #george weasley x reader #george weasley x y/n #george weasley x you #harry potter #hp #hp fandom #hp fic #hp fanfiction #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter fandom #fred weasley #james phelps #oliver phelps #ron weasley #ginny weasley

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bigoltrashpile · 1 year ago

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A Beautiful Dream

Hey there!! I'm back with yet another commission, once again by the wonderful @tkspersonaldump! This is a Butch and Noir fic, no spice this time, lol, just two skeletons being creepy. I hope you enjoy! And thanks again for commissioning!

Thunder rumbled faintly outside, rain slammed against the windows, and the wind howled. It was perfect weather for a movie night. Which was exactly why you were curled up against Butch on the couch, laughing along to the shitty movie Sans had picked.

The rest of the skeletons kept shooting Butch jealous glances, clearly mad that he was the one you had chosen to practically lay on top of. As the night continued, and the storm only grew louder, your laughs became softer, and your yawns happened more often.

Finally, the movie ended, and the rest of the skeletons got up, beginning to clean up the snacks and blankets they had gotten out. Or, half of them helped clean up. The others were too busy “supervising.”

“BUTCH, GET YOUR LAZY ASS OFF THE COUCH SO I CAN CLEAN ALL YOUR CRUMBS,” Noir ordered. He folded his arms and stomped his foot.

“sorry bro, too busy being the best mattress ever,” Butch winked. “ain’t that right, sweetheart?” No response. “sweetheart?” Butch glanced down at your face, and tried not to squeal. You were asleep! You had fallen asleep against him! Your eyes were shut, mouth parted just a bit. You looked so, so peaceful.

Now, all the others were much more jealous. “i would’ve been a better mattress,” Hound huffed.

“I Call Dibs For Next Time,” Papyrus called quickly.

“sorry, can’t help that i’m their favorite,” Butch smirked. “guess i’ll take ‘em up to my room, cause they picked me to sleep on. wouldn’t wanna disappoint ‘em.”

With some angry growls and whispered threats (all quiet, so as not to wake you up), Butch picked you up bridal style. You were so tiny and light, it was like you were made to fit perfectly in his arms.

As Butch walked up to his room, you began to stir. “‘S the movie over?” you mumbled sleepily.

“yup, ya fell asleep. don’t worry, ya can crash in my room.”

“It’s okay, I can go home.” You tried to wiggle out of his arms, but Butch was too strong.

“no can do, doll. it’s rainin’ cats and dogs out there, ya’d catch something. or the wind would blow ya away. i dunno, humans are so squishy and fragile.”

You pouted. “I can go home, I’m not a napkin!” Just as you spoke, lightning flashed, inseparable from the deafening crash of thunder. “...Okay, maybe I’ll stay for the night.” Good. Butch didn’t know what he would do if you tried to leave. “Do you have a shirt I could borrow?”

Butch’s soul fluttered. “y-yeah, of course!” Fuck, the thought of you wearing his clothes made his lower half a bit warm. Nope, nope, focus. Can’t get horny right now, then you definitely wouldn’t want to stay. As soon as Butch got to his room, he set you on the bed before going to his closet.

Digging frantically, he managed to find a clean shirt. It wasn’t nice or anything, but it was comfortable, and didn’t have any mustard stains, so that was a win in his book. Plus, it would smell like you soon enough, and that was a huge win.

He tossed it to you. You tried to catch it, but it just smacked you in the face with a soft fwump. “Thanks,” you muttered from behind the fabric.

Just as Butch turned to leave, he let out a strained yelp. You were taking your shirt off! Right there, in front of him!

Oh fuck, oh fuck, you were so hot. Your soft human belly looked so nice to squish, your hips had plenty of cushion that he wanted nothing more than to dig his fingers into, and your chest…shit there was no way he was getting out of this without a boner.

Before he could get too good of a look, you had swapped your shirt for Butch’s. You looked amazing in it, but Butch just wanted to rip it back off. No, no, he had to hold back. Self control, Sans.

“Welp, I’m going back to bed,” you yawned. “Are you sure it’s okay if I sleep here?”

“......yeah, yeah, you fell asleep with me downstairs, might as well continue our lil cuddle session,” he winked. He hopped into bed, throwing off his shirt as he did. He didn’t miss the way your eyes widened as you examined his ribs. A smirk grew across Butch’s face, but he didn’t say anything.

“g’night, doll,” Butch said. To his delight, you snuggled right up next to him. Fuck, you were so warm.

“Good night,” you smiled. You must have been very tired, because just a few minutes later, your breathing evened out, and you were once again asleep.

Butch smiled. You were practically laying on top of him once again, using him like a big pillow. He felt his eyes blip into hearts, and didn’t bother to force them back.

Knock knock knock. Fuck, leave it to the others to interrupt the best moment of his life. He was about to tell the culprit to fuck off, but the door swung open.

It was Noir. “Are They Asleep?” his brother asked.

Butch nodded. “yup. passed right out. they must be real tired.” The shirt had ridden up your midriff, and Butch was gently tracing his phalanges up and down your side as he spoke. “i dunno how much longer i can share ‘em with the rest of those dumbasses.”

Noir groaned. “Me Too. It’s Painful To Watch Them Try To Flirt, It’s Pathetic.”

“i know, they’re so desperate.” He glanced back down at your peaceful face. “guess we are too.”

Noir sighed. “I Can’t Stop Thinking About Them. They’re So Perfect. I Just…I Want To Have Them All To Ourselves.”

“what if we just took ‘em then?”

“What? Like…Away From Here?”

Butch nodded. “we could get a lil place in the country. real far away, the others would never find us. no phones so they can’t call for help.” A dreamy smile crept onto his face. “just imagine it. wouldn’t have to share, we’d have all their attention. they’d be so dependant on us that they’d never leave.”

Noir let out a wistful sigh. “That’s A Beautiful Dream…But It’s Just A Dream. We Can’t Leave. We Have Too Many Duties Here.”

“i know, i know, just…” Subconsciously, Butch dug his phalanges into your hip. You let out a whine in your sleep, and he quickly let go. “just wanna pretend it could happen.”

Noir gently pushed some hair out of your face. “I Do Too.”

The two brothers sat in silence. Outside, the storm raged on. As it did, the two of them could only fantasize about a life together. With just the three of you.

#my garbage #writing #sans x reader #papyrus x reader #butch #noir #mafiafell #undertale #undertale imagines #yandere

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fuckin-sick-bih · 1 year ago

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Tattoos and Tissues pt 3!

Fandom: Stranger Things Summary: No Upside Down. Tattoo Artist and Florist AU. Eddie goes to Steve's place to take care of his florist boyfriend who has fallen ill. CW: Mess, inducing, stuffy talk, illness, mentions of erections and adult themes/kink, Steve has the kink and Eddie likes indulging Word Count: 4.3k Author Note: I did it! I finished it! I finished a fic! Holy fuck! No one ever let me do this again... I am absolutely going to do this to myself again no questions, I just suck at pacing myself lmao. Honestly, the first draft was WAY more Adult lol But also I don't want this to be the end of this AU. I just don't wanna do another 3-part fic, I wanna do little mini fics or drabbles if ideas happen tbh. Regardless, enjoy. I am aware not all things resolve, but hey that's why it can be something cute and small and on-going, right? Eddie - bold Steve - Italics MINORS DNI

whats your address?

What? Why?

because i come baring gifts, Harrington. address, please, so i can figure out where the hell im going im so lost

413 Building D Maple Glen Apartments just off Terrace Street. I’ll buzz you in, just come up to the fourth floor, and I’ll be poking my head out.

When Eddie showed up at Building D of Maple Glen Apartments and saw he had four flights of stairs to climb, he decided he was going to strangle Steve instead of nurse him back to health. He adjusted the bags of goodies for Steve in his hands and began the climb up to the fourth floor. The top floor, of course.

As he reached the top and exited the stairwell, he spotted Steve poking his head into the hallway as promised. Sure, Eddie was panting, but Steve looked wrecked. There were dark circles under his eyes, his nose was bright cherry red at the tip and rims, and the rest of his face was pale.

“Jesus H. Christ, you weren’t kidding… You really are sick, huh?” Eddie said in a soft, somewhat concerned tone as he approached Steve.

The other’s pale cheeks seemed to flush up a dark shade of red at Eddie’s words. “What id the world are you doi’g here, Eddie?” Steve asked in a congested and raspy voice that made Eddie wince in sympathy for his throat.

Instantly, Eddie went digging in his bags for the bag of cough drops. “Please suck on one of those, Harrington. Talking sounds like it hurts. And they’ve got menthol-y stuff in ‘em. It’ll help your nose, c’mon lemme in.” He shoulders his way into Steve’s apartment before the other can stop him.

“Eddie!” Steve rasped out before turning away from the other to cough harshly into his arm. “You dod’t wadt to be id here, you’ll get s-siiih… IXXGH’T! Sick.” There had been just enough time for Steve’s hand to shoot up and pinch his nose to stifle what sounded like a powerful and still just barely restrained sneeze. It made Eddie wince to think how it must have hurt his ears.

There was a scoff from the curly-haired tattoo artist, who was already unpacking his bag of goodies on the nearby countertop. At the same time, Steve shut the door, not protesting anymore. “Bless you and puhhh-lease. I don’t get sick, Steve. Munson Constitution. Allergies? Yes. Sick? No. I can’t even remember the last time I was sick. Wait-” He frowned as he tried to dig up the memory. “I think it was like 8th grade? And I had the flu? I dunno; Uncle Wayne came home to me curled up asleep in the empty tub with a fever. He couldn’t find me for like twenty minutes.”

There was a mildly concerned but still somewhat fond smile on Steve’s face. “You’re a bess, Budsod.” He sniffled thickly and grabbed a tissue from the box beside the couch where it looked like Steve had taken up residence. A nest of blankets, a pillow from his bed, crumpled tissues surrounding the nest, and a few empty water bottles. “But seriously, you should go. Robid high-tailed it out of here to Dadcy’s the seco’d she heard I was sick.”

“All the more reason for me to stay!” Eddie chirped, stepping back to show Steve the menagerie of sick supplies he’d brought. “Not that you need a babysitter, and if you seriously wanna be left alone to your misery, I get it, but…” He side-stepped a little closer to bump their shoulders together. “I never liked being alone while sick.” He admits softly.

The little bump made Steve’s lips twitch, and Eddie counted it as a win. Then Steve moved forward to have a look at the supplies. “Jesus, you didd’t have to get b’me all this…”

Eddie pats Steve on the back as he moved with him, eyes scanning over the cold/flu meds, a couple cans of chicken noodle soup, some bottles of Gatorade, the cough drops he’d mentioned earlier, and even- “Those fucking dissolvable shower disks are evil, Harrington. That’s your treat if you’re a good boy and take your meds, deal?” He said with a smirk growing on his face now.

A sputtering noise from Steve turned into a coughing fit almost right away, bad enough that Eddie was rubbing his back through the end of it. “W-What the hell does that bead?” He choked out, eyes wide. “If they’re evil thed, why did you bri’g theb?”

A laugh escaped Eddie, who was now taking Steve’s hands to guide him back to the couch, settling the sick man down to wrap him back up in blankets. “Because they work and because you will probably love it.” He said playfully and hesitated momentarily, trying not to overthink it before pressing his lips to Steve’s forehead. “Not warm.” He whispered softly.

Steve let out an almost shuddering-sounding sigh like he was just happy to be touched. To be taken care of for once. They’d only started getting to know each other but had been texting a bit. With all those teens he babysat, Eddie could believe it. Between work, babysitting, and probably taking care of things at the apartment with his roommate… when did Steve get time to care for himself? No wonder he got sick, Eddie thought.

“What do you say to some daytime cold meds, a cough drop, some Gatorade, and I’ll heat you up a can of soup in a bit?” Eddie asked Steve softly, running his fingers delicately through the other man’s messy bedhead. It was as if Steve was a cat, utterly leaning into the touch despite how sick he must feel with how he looked.

There was a nod from Steve, so Eddie took that to mean go ahead with his plan. “Kinda glad to see you keep work at work.” He admits to Steve in a casually playful way while grabbing Steve a Gatorade and some pills. “Would’ve sucked if we were both sneezing our heads off- bless you, by the way.”

As Eddie spoke, Steve’s face had been going slowly slacker, and his eyes were unfocused in a classic pre-sneeze hang-up. “Ixx’TSH! IXGh’t! Oh god… I’b dot godda be able to stifle those buch lo’ger…” Steve mutters with a much soupier-sounding sniffle than Eddie expected for some pretty well-stifled sneezes.

Nevertheless, Eddie pulled his bandana from his back pocket and swatted Steve with it before offering it out to him. “Here. Stop stifling then, jackass. Didn’t see me stifling for you, hm?” He pointed out, handed over the meds and drink, and gestured to the cough drops. “Try one. It’ll feel good on your throat and help your congestion.”

Steve caught the bandana and gave Eddie an appreciative smile for the soft fabric against his nose. “Ugh, fide if it gets you to shut up.” He teased, punctuated by a weak cough after downing the meds. Then he grabs a menthol lozenge. After popping it into his mouth, Steve’s eyebrows raise. “I was expecti’g that to taste worse… cad defiditely still taste the bedthol…” He admits with a slight sniffle.

“Sorry… what were you sayi’g earlier?” Steve asked with another little sniffle as he settled on the couch, pressing the bandana to his nose some more. There’s the slightest flush that wasn’t there a little bit ago. Eddie would’ve remembered if it had been there or not. It’s too cute, barely spreading over his cheekbones and nose tip.

Eddie was knocked out of his daydreaming by remembering he had to answer Steve. “Huh? Oh- thanking you for your lack of plants. That’s all.” He jokes and shakes his head. “It’s stupid, don’t worry about it. I’m just glad to get a break from being the sneezy one.” He teased.

A quiet, albeit raspy, chuckle escapes Steve while he sucks on the lozenge. “Ab I givi’g you a rud for you b-buhh…bodey yet? Or do I deed to snff let byself sdeeze bore for that?” With all the stopping to sniffle and how his nose seemed to be tickling, Eddie got the idea the menthol in the lozenge was working on Steve’s sinuses.

“Well, I think you’re doomed to sneeze more soon either way, big boy.” Eddie teased as he watched the other man’s expression fall again into that pre-sneeze desperation.

Still, Steve seemed to want to deny himself release. “D-D’noh idea… w-whhaahat you bead, Eds-” His breath was beginning to hitch dangerously now, coming closer and closer to its inevitable crescendo.

Eddie took Steve’s hands, “Don’t stifle, Steve… just sneeze. It’s okay.” He urged the other, getting the feeling it was far more than just a matter of Steve not wanting to spread germs. Like he was still embarrassed and shy.

“Oh, okaaehh-! AeISHHue! HeiiISHhuh! Ngh- Ugh… Oh fuck. Still tickles.” Steve admits, scrunching and wriggling his nose in all sorts of ways Eddie found altogether too damn endearing.

Eddie rolled his eyes and dropped down onto the couch with Steve. “Come here, sniffles.” And he can plainly see that has an effect on Steve from where he sits now. Steve’s breath catches, and there’s the slightest tent to the front of his Hawkins High Swim Team gray sweatpants. Whoever designed those pants for the swim team, Eddie could kiss them. “Oh, you like that?” He purred.

A shaky sort of breath left Steve, but Eddie wasn’t quite sure if it was from being teased or still needing to sneeze. Though Steve moved a bit closer, his eyes were watering a little now with the irritation that wouldn’t budge. “O-oh god, cobe o-ohhhih-!” Even with as desperate of a hitch as it sounded, Steve still faltered into sniffles and groaned.

The curly-haired man looked at Steve with an exceptionally soft pout, one of distinct sympathy. “You want some help with that? Seriously, that looks like torture.” He tilted his head when Steve sniffled, and his eyes widened at Eddie’s offer.

“I’b sorry, what’d you just ask, b’me?” Steve asked, like he wasn’t sure if he was hearing correctly. He was still rubbing his nose against the cuff of his hoodie; Eddie wasn’t sure if he was encouraging or fighting off the tickle anymore.

Eddie raised a brow at Steve in confusion, “Do you need help with that stuck sneeze? You’re starting to look more miserable than me peak allergy season, Stevie.” He teased, watching as the other continued staring at him like a deer in headlights until it clicked for Eddie, and he had his lightbulb moment. “Wait! Does that turn you on?” He asked, sounding utterly delighted to have figured out how to get Steve going to the point where he was nearly speechless.

Instantly, Steve was sputtering, and it caused a few coughs to escape him. “Oh by god, you cad’t just say thi’gs like that to b’me, Eds…” He complained, leaning back against the couch to tip his head back while rubbing at his nose some more. “Fuck… ugh, bay- maehh… hehih-!” And once again, Eddie watched him wind up, only for nothing to happen.

“Sooo…?” Eddie prompted and gave a vague wave of his hand as if gesturing Steve to continue.

It was truly remarkable how red Steve’s face could flush, Eddie thought as he watched the lighter brunette make the internal debate. “Fide. Jesus, we practically flirt all the tibe adyway.” He reached forward to snatch a tissue, twisting the corner into a point.

Eddie’s brows furrowed as he watched in utter confusion while Steve strangled the tissue. “Okay, I gotta ask… what the fuck are you doing?”

“I’b- ihhih… ugh, I’b baki’g sobethi’g for you to i’duce b’me.” He explained before handing the tissue, now twisted to a neatly pointed tip, over to Eddie. “Probably wod’t get bore thad ode use out of it because I’b all coldish, but iihh-! it should do the trick.”

After accepting the new tool, Eddie turned to face Steve more as he started to get the idea. “Ohh, I think I get it. Okay. Never actually thought to use a tissue like this, honestly.” He admits before smirking a little. This was Steve’s kink, and well… he wanted to perform for him a little. Make it fun for him.

He trails the very tip of the twisted-up tissue end over the tip of Steve’s red nose and watches as his nostrils flare in response to even just that. “Jesus, someone’s sensitive.” It was just a stray comment. Sometimes, Eddie couldn’t keep his mouth shut, but judging by how Steve’s hips suddenly squirmed, he really enjoyed it.

A grin split across Eddie’s face, and he suddenly moved to straddle Steve’s lap, “Think I need a better position for this, don’t you, sweetheart?” he asked teasingly and winked at his boyfriend, who was now bright red as he looked up at him. Eddie eased down to sit more in Steve’s lap, which caused the other man to groan softly.

“Sure, E-Eddie…” Steve stuttered out, but this time, it clearly had nothing to do with his sensitive nostrils that Eddie was already getting back to teasing. “You cad go i-ihhh idside…”

That made the darker-haired man raise his brows in mild surprise, but he nodded, gently slipping the tip of the tissue into Steve’s nose. He gently twirled the tissue curiously, which had Steve instantly gasping beneath him, and Eddie’s dick twitched at just how powerful he felt for a brief moment.

The twirl seemed to do the trick because Steve’s nostrils flared out, and his eyes fluttered closed with another desperate, hitching breath. Eddie’s hand shot back with the tissue still clutched between his fingers, the twisted tip now all damp and limp despite its short adventure.

“Ihh… IXXTISHHUE!! HEIIISHUE! Uh… Hupt’IISHHuh… ugh oh by god…” Steve groaned out after the sneezes. The first two burst forth with a sudden intensity Eddie hadn’t been expecting at all. The lighter-haired brunette hastily grabbed a tissue to press to his face, cleaning himself up while a blush spread across his neck and cheeks. “Fuck that’s so e’barassi’g.” He whispered, but Eddie could feel Steve’s erection pressing firmly against him.

The ease with which Eddie could get Steve so hard he was pressing up against him like that even while he was under the weather was borderline intoxicating. It didn’t matter that Steve had snapped right forward to sneeze, the spray misting briefly against Eddie’s forearm and stomach.

“Bless you, hey… it’s alright. You’re sick; gotta get that gunk outta you. Maybe a shower with one of those disks would be a good idea, actually… clear out some of that congestion, huh?” He offered and grabbed Steve another tissue to replace the one he’d just about soaked through by now.

Little, congested snuffles were coming from Steve constantly as Eddie sat back in his lap to let him tend to his leaking nose. “Baybe…” Steve relented a little, still seeming shy, and wiped away the tears at the edges of his eyes from sneezing. His sinuses were so utterly full it was hard not to tear up with every sneeze. “What uh… what exactly do they eved do? Dever really tried theb before.”

At that, Eddie perked up and grinned at Steve before moving out of his lap. “Oh, you’re gonna love this- c’mon, sniffles. Let’s get you in the nice warm shower with one of those disks then.” He slid backward off of Steve’s lap carefully. He offered his hands to pull him up, ensuring Steve was steady on his feet before grabbing one of said shower disks and being led to the bathroom.

The bathroom was admittedly a little small for two people. Eddie wasn’t sure how Steve and his roommate managed it, but he went about getting the disk out of the packaging. Of course, the moment the menthol scent hit him, his eyes watered, and his nose prickled, making him pause to rub roughly at it with his hand.

A sudden hand on his arm made him pause, blinking over at Steve, who was looking at him with a concerned expression. “I cad oped it?” He offers softly, but Eddie takes a moment to look at him. Steve looks exhausted and sick, sure, but his pupils are wide and lust-blown. That hard-on from the couch is still half-present and painfully evident in those gray sweatpants, too.

“I got it, sweethhheart.” Eddie assures, wiggling the disk as his own breath tries to hitch, and he lets it for once. In fact, Eddie sniffs slightly, which only irritates his sensitive nose more, so his nostrils twitch and flare. “Told you… you’ll l-love.. thhhh… hEXZT’Shiew! Whew! Okay. You’ll love these.” And without another moment to waste, Eddie sets the little disk in the shower for Steve with a wink. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Finally, Eddie sees Steve’s unfiltered reaction to one of his sneezes, similar to in the library. It was as if the poor man had completely bluescreened briefly before rebooting. Pupils wide and lust blown as he stared at Eddie, who still rubbed his nose. “Uh… yeah, so just… shower like dorbal?” he asked with another soupy sniffle and began to pull off his shirt, already starting to shiver.

Suddenly, Eddie’s throat felt dry as Steve began undressing with him in the bathroom, and he nodded. “Yep. That’s the idea. It’ll dissolve, and the scent will help clear out your sinuses. Want me to go sit on the couch and wait?”

With his pants still on, Steve was reaching forward to crank the water as hot as it would go, still sniffling. “Uhm… ki’da… ki’da dizzy actually? Could you baybe like… keep close? Id case I deed you?” There was a quiet plea in Steve’s voice, the request coming out awkward and stunted like he wasn’t used to asking for help.

Something in it tugged on Eddie’s shriveled heart, and he looked up at Steve with a soft expression. “Yeah, Stevie. I can stay. I’ll turn around so you can strip and get in, deal? Deal.” He agreed, tucking himself into the corner by the sink to stare at the wall. There was a good deal of shuffling behind him before he heard the shower curtain and the spray of water finally being interrupted.

The menthol scent from the shower disk was already making Eddie’s nose twitch and tingle, so he closed the toilet seat lid, going to sit down on it. “Remember what I said earlier? We’re trying to get that gunk out of you, man. Trust me when I say I’m not gonna judge you or anything. Seriously, I’m sure you’ll get to see me peak allergy s-seeh-season, and you’ll get it.”

His idle chatter as Steve showered made the man give a quiet grunt. “You sure?” Steve’s voice was tired, nervous, and still congested, but it already sounded a little better than before.

“P-Positiihh-“ But just as Eddie had been about to respond, his breath hitched dangerously, and his hand flung up to cover his mouth and nose. “IXT’SHiew! Ugh, positive! Sorry, sensitive nose.” Eddie admitted with a little sniffle and scrunched his nose up to try and dispel that tingling sort of itch. It wasn’t like his usual allergic itch, just maddening enough to make his sinuses wonder what was in the air to react to. “Hit’SHZiew! Snf! Motherfucker. It’s supposed to make you sneeze, not me!”

A laugh escaped Steve, turning into some productive-sounding coughs that had Eddie grimacing in sympathy. “Give m’be a m’bidute, dod’t worry.” He assured, sniffling a little as the shower disk worked its magic while he went through his usual shower routine.

It was barely a minute later when the bathroom had gone oddly quiet. “Heh… Gonna- HEIKTshuh! HI’TShue! Eh… ET’SHHue! HN’kt!” The last one sounded strange, and Eddie blinked a few times, wondering what in the hell Steve had done to make it sound like that.

“You good, man?” Eddie checked in softly, almost tempted to peek over the shower curtain just to make sure he wasn’t going to pass out or anything.

A shaky breath left Steve, and Eddie saw one of his hands come up to grab the shower curtain rod for support. “Uh-huh… snff! Yeah, just-” Another little groan came from the lighter brunette, and Eddie felt worry fluttering in his ribcage like a frightened bird. “Dizzy… m’okay. Rad out of breath od that last sdeeze…”

Something like a little cough slipped out of Steve, and Eddie stood to put a hand on top of Steve’s that had a white knuckle grip on the shower curtain rod. “Maybe it’s time to rinse off and get out, yeah? I’ll get your towel and look away so you can hop out.” He encouraged, already moving, to grab the fluffy maroon towel and hold it open.

Only a few moments later, Steve sounded like he’d rinsed off, but then there was a soft catch of breath just above the spray before- “HeXT’SHHuh! EXT’SHHUE! Hihh… IXT’SHHuh IT’SHH! Oh by god…” If anything, Steve’s tone sounded exasperated, but the sneezes had sounded productive. “You were right. About the shower disk.” He groaned, and Eddie could hear the shower spray being disrupted again, making him smile a little before the water shut off.

“You’re kind of adorable when you’re sick, y’know that?” Eddie said as he shut his eyes, turning his face as he held out the towel for Steve. “I mean- you’re adorable in general, don’t get me wrong! But like… I dunno, man. I know you can take care of yourself, but I just wanna make sure you’re looked after.”

There was another brief pause, and the continued silence as he felt Steve press into the towel had Eddie’s anxiety spiking. He wrapped the towel around the other’s shoulders and gave him a squeeze there. As the silence dragged on, Eddie felt a need to fill it, “Sorry, is that weird? I don’t wanna like- infantilize you or anything. I just… I wanna drag you to bed, wrap you in blankets, get you whatever you need until you feel better, y’know?”

“Would you lay with me?” Steve asked suddenly, voice right in front of him, and it shocked Eddie so much that his eyes snapped open.

In front of him stood Steve. Hair dripping wet still, the towel now around his waist, and droplets of water running down his sinfully pretty chest. A more perverse part of Eddie had the intrusive thought of licking the water off him. Steve still had dark circles under his eyes, but those eyes were bright and pleading. “Of course I will, Stevie. We can get comfy and lay together as long as you want.”

Visibly, Steve’s shoulders relaxed, and he nodded with an almost pleading expression, pulling at his brows and lips. “Yes, please? That sounds- snf! fantastic.” He lifted a towel corner to dab at his sensitive, red nostrils with a bit of a wince. “Ugh, ow.”

With a little purse of his lips, Eddie made a sympathetic noise. “Nose all raw?” he asked, reaching out to open the bathroom door so Steve could lead the way to his bedroom. “I didn’t think to get any Vaseline; sorry, sweetheart.”

“S’okay. This always happens when I get si-ihh…. Ihih-!” Halfway down the short hallway, Steve paused with one hand on the wall as his breath began to hitch and his eyes fluttered. “Oh no come o-ohhhhh-!” Eddie watched as Steve’s hand hovered in front of his face, expression utterly helpless and slack before suddenly exploding. “IX’TSH! HiISHHue! Snf! Ugh- sorry.”

A little chuckle came from Eddie, who just shook his head, “I am the last one you have to go apologizing to for sneezing.” He assured Steve and put a hand on his lower back as he followed him.

It didn’t take long for Steve to be dressed in some boxers and a sweatshirt since he was cold after his shower. Without even thinking about it, Eddie began pulling off his shirt and sat down on the bed to take off his shoes. The sudden sensation of fingers against his back made Eddie jump a little, and his head whipped around to find Steve tracing the dice tattoos along his spine.

“Like what you see, Harrington?” Eddie asked in amusement as he finally kicked off his shoes to lie down beside Steve. He wiggled out of his dark pants, which got tossed to the floor as well, leaving him in boxers. Most of his upper half was covered in tattoos at this point.

Some kind of sleepy slight hum came out of Steve, slightly congested again but not enough to hamper his speech yet. “They’re pretty. Your tattoos. Did you do them yourself?” He asked curiously, and his hand now strayed curiously over the large moth just below Eddie’s sternum.

Eddie adjusted himself to get the blankets wrapped around them both, making sure Steve was tucked in properly before tossing the blankets over his legs. “Some smaller ones, yeah. Because I’m an idiot. Don’t tattoo yourself, Stevie. I mean it.” There’s amusement and a warning, but he leans to press his lips to Steve’s forehead again. Both checking his temperature and enjoying the simple intimacy. “Chrissy did a lot of them. Gareth, one or two, actually.”

This time, the hum from Steve was more distant, and when Eddie looked, he saw the other man was nearly asleep, tucked against him. “Get some rest, sleeping beauty. You need it. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

Taking a deep, slow breath, Steve let out a long and decidedly sleepy sigh through his mouth. His nose was still a little too congested for such things. “Promise? You won’t leave?”

Something physically hurt inside Eddie to think once upon a time; Steve might’ve been in a similar spot, vulnerable and left completely alone when he didn’t want to be. “I’ll be here. I promise.” Eddie moved his hand to find one of Steve’s, interlocking their pinkies so he could squeeze the other man’s tight before bringing it up to kiss his knuckles. “I’m here, Steve.”

The reassurance was all he needed. Steve was out like a light, soft little congested snores sounding against Eddie’s shoulder as they cuddled beneath the blankets in the cozy queen-sized bed. And really… Eddie couldn’t think of anywhere else he’d rather be.

#ed/die mu/nson #st/eve ha/rrington #st/eddie #st/ranger th/ings #snzblr #snz #snzfic #bex's snz writing #snzfucker #tattoos and tissues #tw mess #tw inducing

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not-a-space-alien · 8 months ago

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K&J x MMSS 4: Valen & Jim Part 11

Part eleven of the fourth crossover with @whumpsday!

Bam!!! Back to back!! Once again again an XL chapter because I couldn't find a good place for a chapter break. lol... You can clearly tell these were written as RPs 😅 Hope you enjoy!

K&J masterlist

MMSS masterlist

K&J x MMSS crossover masterlist

To be added to the taglist, contact @whumpsday

Warnings: Aftermath of torture

In this chapter:

youtube

***

The next day, Jim comes down when Liz is set to arrive soon. He feels a lot safer in the daytime, making breakfast for himself. Valen follows behind.

The bookshelf is undisturbed. Jim says, "Liz is gonna be working on the basement, installing silver stuff on the door. Kane can come up here? I can't move that bookshelf."

"Sure, that sounds fine. Just so you know, I had Kane demonstrate yesterday how strong he is as of now, and he could barely lift twenty pounds. The bookshelf was far in excess. Maybe that will put you at ease. I'll probably have to go to vampire territory tonight to pick up more blood, but I won't leave until Liz has made things secure so that you feel safe with me out of the house."

He walks over to the bookshelf and lifts it bodily, books and all, effortlessly and sets it where it belongs. He unlocks the door and cracks it open. "Kane, are you awake?"

Kane pokes his head out from the blanket cocoon he's encased himself in. "Yes, sir. I mean- yes." It's the best night of sleep he's had in a very long time. Already, he looks a lot better, the burns on his face having healed significantly. "Am I... needed?" They said they wouldn't hurt him, he tries to remind himself, but it's hard to internalize.

"Jim wants you to come upstairs. His sister is coming over today and will need to be in the basement. Shall I help you come up?"

His sister must be Liz. The hunter. Great, just great. There's no way he's going to escape that encounter unscathed. At least he has blood now, so he'll heal fast, but he's still dreading it.

"I, I can handle it." Kane wraps one of the blankets around himself, shuffling up the stairs to meet Valen. "Is it okay if I take it with me?"

"Of course." Valen watches Kane come upstairs, then has him sit down on the couch, then pokes his head into the kitchen. "Jim, dear, Kane is in the living room. Come out when you're ready. What would you like us to do until Liz gets here?"

Jim comes out with a plate of peanut butter banana toast. "Uh, I dunno. She shouldn't be long. Hey, K-Kane." Jim isn't supposed to use his name. He's supposed to use Master. He hates that his voice wavers. "How'd you sleep."

Kane eyes him fearfully. "Very well. Thank you." Kane is trying to be as polite as possible, extremely tense. "And yourself?"

"Good. Hey, relax. Still not gonna hurtcha." Jim reminds him.

"Yes. Thank you." Kane barely calms. The hunter is almost here.

"I figure I'll go out and buy some stuff for him at some point today, before you go for blood. Clothes and stuff." Jim tells Valen. "That okay?"

"Sure, that's a lovely idea. And while you're out of the house, maybe Kane can help me with my research project, since we're out of real blood. I finally have a second test subject." He winks at Kane.

Kane's face falls even deeper into fear. "What?" he squeaks, clutching the blanket tighter around himself. "What- research project?"

"Oh dear," Valen says with a laugh. "I just realized how that might have sounded if you don't know anything about it. I'm working on trying to develop artificial blood. So far I've been the only one around to drink it. You can help me taste test it. You needn't worry; the worst that will happen is we sit around drinking shots, and one of them happens to taste bad. Obviously you don't have to if it makes you nervous."

Kane relaxes. That's the worst that can happen, and the best that can happen is he gets more blood. "Yes, I would love to. That sounds, that sounds wonderful. Thank you for including me."

"Aw, I wanna do fake blood shots." Jim whines. "Stupid toxic mushrooms."

There's a knock at the door, and Kane jolts like it's a gunshot, whimpering.

"She's not gonna hurt you." Jim assures him. "Liz's just gonna make the basement secure and get you some restraints that don't hurt. That's all."

Restraints that don't hurt sound good. Kane nods, sinking further into the couch as Jim answers the door.

Liz is wearing her hunting gear and a stormy expression, carrying a bag of vampire restraints in one hand and a bunch of silver under the other. She glares at Kane with burning hatred.

Kane shoots Valen a desperate, pleading look.

Valen comes over and stands next to Kane, reaching down and putting a comforting hand on his back. "Liz, it's so good to see you. Kane, this is Liz, Jim's sister. She and I have been good friends for years. Liz, there's something Kane would like to say to you." Valen leans down and whispers very, very quietly into Kane's ear, such that only vampire hearing would let him hear, no eavesdropping. "Apologize to her, and try to make it sound like you're not doing it just because you're afraid of her." There's no way it's going to mollify even a fraction of Liz's anger at Kane, but Valen thinks that addressing the elephant in the room up-front might ease some of the tension that he's sure is going to happen. And maybe, just maybe, if Kane is polite and deferential and sincere right off the bat, it will help Liz see that he's different.

Kane focuses on the grounding hand on his back. Valen has been safe, so far, and unbelievably kind. At the very least, he's a vampire too, and the least threatening of his new wardens. He hesitates a moment before timidly speaking up. "I'm s-sorry, ma'am. What I did to Jim was- was cruel, and I'm glad he's safe now."

Jim's eyebrows raise at the apology. Kane's said I'm sorry many times already, but this feels different somehow. It feels weird.

"I know that it was cruel." Liz snaps. Kane cringes back, expecting a blow that doesn't come.

"Liz, he's already really scared." Jim says. "Please?"

She sighs, putting the silver down and approaching with the bag. "Arms out."

Kane extends his shaking arms. Liz fastens padded cuffs onto his wrists, and similar with his ankles. "Don't touch the keys, they're silver." she tells Valen, her tone much softer with him.

She tosses the bag to Jim, containing the keys to the cuffs and one other mysterious item. Jim peers inside, then closes the bag again with a frown.

"Thank you, Liz," Valen says. "I know you have every right to be upset with Kane, he's just simply trying to demonstrate he knows what he did was wrong and behaves differently now. He has been a perfect gentleman so far, nothing like how he used to be. It's very kind of you to come over to help Jim and not hurt Kane." It's a thank you, but also a warning to back off, a reminder of how they'd said it would go. "Let me know if there's anything I can do to help with the basement."

"I get it, okay? That is what I came over to do." Liz rubs her temples. She gives Jim a quick hug before grabbing the silver. "Thanks, Valen. For everything. But... I think you're the last person who could help with this." She does offer him a lukewarm smile before going to work on the door.

Valen wilts as soon as Liz turns her back, desperately hoping he hadn't made a huge mistake and made things worse. "Of course," he says vaguely.

Kane relaxes a little once she's out of eyeshot. "Thank you." he murmurs.

Jim fishes the keys out of the bag, stuffs them in his pocket, and throws the bag and its remaining contents in the trash.

Valen comes over and gingerly picks it from the trash. "Hold on, Jim, dear, it sounds like there's still something in there."

"It's trash." Jim insists, taking it out of Valen's hands and putting it back in the garbage. "I'm gonna put the keys upstairs and head out to shop while you and Kane do shots or whatever. Unless you want me to stick around?"

Valen stares at Jim, then averts his eyes. "I thought it might be good for you to stay here while Liz is here also, but I think I can handle it if you'd rather not be here."

"Yeah, you're right, it can wait. 'S why I asked." Jim takes Valen's hand, threading his fingers through Valen's. "And seriously, just forget about the bag. It's nothing we'd ever use."

"Jim..." Valen says. Surely Jim must know that Valen is going to open the bag to see what it is as soon as he gets an opportunity when Jim isn't around?

"It's a muzzle." Jim mumbles. "Like I said. Trash. Prolly just came with the cuffs from whoever Liz got them from, which was why she didn't try to put it on. I'm not putting that shit on him." As afraid as he is of Kane's bite, the memory of Valen in a muzzle still haunts him.

"I don't mind wearing a muzzle if, if it doesn't hurt." Kane says. "I'll be good. Won't resist."

But Valen's skin crawls at the thought of a muzzle. He understands Jim's instinctual reaction to it. He tries to hide the look on his face. Objectively, a muzzle is not such a bad thing, if it won't hurt. He nods, trying not to look shaken. "All right. If you don't think you'll need it, we can get rid of it. Kane says he wouldn't even mind, I assume it's padded. I don't think Kane will try to bite you anyway. I just want you to feel safe."

"I don't want it in our house." Jim cups Valen's face, running his thumb over Valen’s cheek. Soft skin that was locked behind a muzzle for three days during horrible trauma. "I'd feel safer with it gone."

Kane modestly averts his eyes.

Valen nods. "I-I would also feel safer with it gone. Thank you."

Valen takes Jim's hand and goes over to Liz, examining what she's doing curiously. "So, Liz, what all are you planning to do while you're here?"

Liz has already replaced the door's hinges with silver, and is now installing a flat silver grating over it. "Just silverin' up this door. Obviously don't touch any of this, or wear gloves if you gotta. Assume that touching any metal within a foot of the door isn't fun. Gonna put a deadbolt on the outside next. All that should definitely be able to hold him. But both of you keep in mind it'll also hold anyone, human or vampire, so don't get stuck down there."

"Good to know." Jim says quietly. The idea of a prison inside his home makes him feel hollow. It reminds him uncomfortably of the human quarters back at Kane's.

Valen, by contrast, seems fine with this. "Thank you, Liz." He walks over and sits on the couch next to Kane. "How are you doing?" he says quietly.

Jim talks with Liz for a bit, their conversation consisting of Jim chewing her out a bit for bringing a muzzle, Liz confirming what Jim thought about it just coming with the set, Jim asking where she got those anyway, and Liz saying she knows a hunter who did a hostage exchange once.

"I'm okay. Good." Kane confirms. "The cuffs don't hurt. I'm fed. I'm healing. You p-protected me from the hunter. Thank you. I'm... I'm actually okay." He's still scared, his fate uncertain, but he knows his life has at least had a major step up.

"Good," Valen says, patting his knee.

"Um, can I ask... what did people say about me? After I was assumed dead, as I'm sure I was?"

"Um, unfortunately I don't really know. I pretty much isolated myself from any other vampires a long time ago. I moved out here to be with Jim not long after the last time we saw each other, and I don't keep in touch with my family."

"Oh. I see." That would have been years before Kane was captured, then. He hadn't even heard about Valen running off to human territory. It's scary how someone could just...disappear, and no one cares. He wonders if anyone cared when he did.

Suddenly, he smiles wryly. "He was still in your apartment, wasn't he. When I came by. I'm just realizing that."

Valen smiles, half-embarrassed, half amused. "Yes, he was cowering at the bottom of my bedroom closet. I've never been a good liar, so I was terrified you'd see through it. At the time I was nervous I wouldn't be able to fight you off if you didn't believe me and decided to shove your way in and look around."

The implications aren't lost on Kane. If Valen hadn't done what he did, Kane never would have gone through this horrible mess. But it's an incidental consequence, not a purposeful one. He didn't even get captured until five years later.

And he really did plan on crushing Jim's ankles if he found him. And Jim doesn't deserve that.

"I'm glad you got him out. Thank you." Kane says.

"The poor thing was on the brink of death out in the wild," Valen says sadly. "I couldn't just leave him there." He wrings his hands. "I'm glad you think this way, now, I was afraid when we came to get you that you'd--you'd be even angrier, and more violent."

Kane imagines, for a moment, a world in which he'd found Jim's corpse out there in the woods. He'd still have gone for a second human, probably in the same timeframe, and still been captured by the hunters. Except this time, there would be no Jim to save him and take him away. It would be forever. Neither one of them would have a happy ending. He's more thankful than ever for Valen.

"I've been subject to the other side. I couldn't possibly go on with my stupid fucking- s-sorry. I don't mean to be impolite." he says nervously, hoping that doesn't count. Just be polite, and you'll be fine. "With my views."

Valen smiles and pats his hand. "You're all right. Still, I'm very glad, it's making this all a lot easier. I think in the long run this might be better for Jim's healing, too. To stop thinking of you as some bogeyman that could swoop in to take him at any time."

Jim comes on over, only catching the last bit. "Yeah, not so much of a bogeyman now. So, shots? I can grab some cranberry juice and play along."

Kane perks up. He's going to get more blood, even if it's 'artificial'. He's never heard of anything like it, but he very much likes blood.

"Jim, dear, are you sure you don't want to wait until Liz leaves?" He hesitates, then more quietly: "And are you sure you want to see Kane feeding?"

"It's not like- it's just the mushroom stuff, out of a cup, right? No, like, biting anything?" Jim clarifies. "If I chicken out, I'll just slink off. We can wait if you wanna, though, and you can do it while I'm out. Doesn't matter."

"Yes. Okay, that sounds good. I do think we should wait until Liz is gone, though." No sense doing anything risky if they didn't need to, and having Kane do anything other than the absolute bare minimum to get through interacting with Liz is definitely risky

Kane is glad for the stalling. Drinking blood is bad behavior, and he doesn't want to do it in front of the huntress, even if it's not real blood and he has permission.

Jim puts the TV on for a bit. It's about 40 minutes until Liz is done. "Alright, that should do it." she announces. "If we really wanna test it, Valen can put some gloves on and give it a good knocking, but I get that might be uncomfortable and I'm confident it'll hold."

"I'm certainly willing to do that, but I'm confident in your work, Liz. Jim, up to you."

"If... you're really sure it's okay, could we maybe test it?" Jim asks sheepishly, embarrassed of his fear. "Just to make sure."

Kane wants to insist that he won't try to escape, but that could be taken as him wanting to leave the basement less-secured, and he doesn't want to imply anything like that, especially in front of the hunter.

"Of course! It'll be a fun activity."

Valen dons his protective gear, the things he uses to go out during the day, to be absolutely certain he won't touch any of the silver. He then has them lock him in the basement and bodily slams the door multiple times, demonstrating that even a full frontal assault with a running start from a healthy vampire is not enough to break it down.

Kane watches with wide eyes, listening to the pap-pap-pap-BOOM of Valen running into the door. He wasn't planning to escape anyway, he's behaving, and it's been good here so far, but the demonstration of just how trapped and helpless he is makes him feel small. He looks down at his feet, trembling a bit.

Jim unlocks the door. "Thanks, Vale. Think that about covers it."

Valen had, truthfully, enjoyed the activity just as he'd said. It'd been ages since he'd had any reason to unleash his full strength. He is panting a little when he comes out. "You're quite welcome." He catches sight of Kane. "I'm sure this is far in excess of what's actually necessary, considering Kane isn't going to try anything like what I just did, but I'm happy it will make you feel more secure."

Valen looks so hot, panting when he takes his mask off. Jim would eagerly comment on it if the other company in the room weren't his sister and Kane. "Yeah. Super secure."

"I'll leave you guys to it, then. You know I'm always a phone call away." Liz gives Jim a hug, and Valen a hug, and goes to leave. Before she does, she hesitates at the door before stomping over to Kane.

"Hurt my brother ever again and you are done." she snarls. "Are we understood?"

"Yes, ma'am." Kane says, cowering away from her.

"Thank you, Liz," Valen says dryly. "Drive safely." Jim is similarly displeased with Liz's choice, even if he's glad for the protectiveness.

Valen watches Liz depart, and then turns to Kane. "You did very well, thank you for staying calm."

"C-calm." Kane agrees shakily. He's relieved he's done well, at least.

Valen grins at Jim. "Drinks now, then?"

"Hell yes. I'm getting my c-berry." Jim heads into the kitchen.

"One moment, Jim, I have a great idea that will make this fun for you as well!"

Valen runs into the kitchen and mixes some shots of various kinds of alcohol, with red food dye, in with Jim's cranberry juice shots. He also makes Jim look away to keep it secret and adds a few prank shots, like straight pickle juice, vinegar, dredges of food leftovers that he's seen the human dump down the drain to discard, anything that's safe to ingest but strong in taste and can be passably disguised as cranberry juice. He also adds one shot that's the formula for artificial blood without the parts that would hurt Jim--he imagines it will just taste really salty, but he knows Jim will be delighted to taste a safe version of it.

He then pours little sample cups of his various concoctions, paired so that he and Kane will always be drinking the same one. He's had years to work on it at this point, and while it's certainly not real blood, not even as good as the imported stuff, it's much more tolerable than it had been in the early stages. He's currently working on trying to replicate the specific tastes of various blood types. He is getting closer to being ready to do something with it, although he's still not quite sure what his plan of attack for actually launching it will be, now that he's burned his bridges with the country's biggest distributor of blood.

Valen comes out with the shots, all labeled with some scribbles only decipherable to himself. "Okay, Kane, we're testing which of these taste best, which of them are stinkers, and as a bonus let's label each as to what blood type they taste most like."

"Haha, oh man. This is great." Jim laughs. "This is so cute. I'm so freakin' excited."

Kane eyes the not-blood curiously. It doesn't smell like blood, but it looks like blood. He hopes it sits in his stomach and sates hunger like blood. "Okay! This is... I've never seen anything like this."

Jim grabs the human-safe artificial blood first, the only one visually distinguishable from his cranberry shots. Kane grabs the shot opposite the one Valen grabs.

"Cheers!" Jim exclaims.

Valen clinks his glass against Jim's, then Kane's, then tosses the shot back.

All three of them make faces like they'd just tasted something bad. The first cup of artificial blood was definitely a bad one.

"Um," Valen says, smacking his lips. "Hm, I'm marking this one down as a no.”

It definitely tastes bad, but it really is blood, almost. Kane licks the remnants from the inside of the shot. "It's okay. I don't hate it." he decides. How could he hate something that would sate hunger? Just yesterday, he would have licked this off the floor and been grateful.

"I'll write it down that a starving man finds it tolerable."

"Ugh." is Jim's only comment on his own drink.

Valen grabs the next shot glass and downs it. He licks his lips. "Mmm. Oh, this one is pretty good. I'd say it's AB positive.”

Kane agrees. "AB positive, yes. This is good." But maybe his standards are low, like Valen said.

Jim gets pickle juice, his face scrunching up again. "Pickle."

The next one, Jim gets a nice cranberry vodka shot. "Now this is a shot. Finally." he says with a smile.

"B negative. Really good." Kane says immediately after drinking his.

The smile drops off Jim's face and he looks away. After seeing Jim's reaction, Kane's mood similarly seems to drop as he shrinks back.

"Ah," Valen says. B negative is, in fact, Jim's blood type. He discreetly makes a few notes in the ensuing awkward silence. "Shall we take a break, then?"

"S-sorry." Kane says quietly.

"Nah, s'all good. You were doing exactly what Valen asked you to do." Jim takes another shot. "Bleh. Pickles." He motions for Valen and Kane to continue.

Valen wordlessly slides his notebook and pencil over to Kane, so he can directly write down what blood type he thinks they are, so as to avoid a repeat of what just happened.

The next blood shot is a whole lot of nothing. It doesn't taste bad, but it doesn't taste good either

They go through all of them like this. Jim is pretty giggly by the end, the B negative shot forgotten. Kane looks at him strangely.

"He never let me driiink." Jim complains to Valen. "Said it'd taste bad, in my blood. Boo. No fun."

Kane's experiences with humans and alcohol have been very different up until now, due to selection bias: the only hunters who would bother visiting him drunk were the ones who wanted something to hurt. He's never seen a reaction like this before.

"Oh, Jim," Valen says, giggling and giving him a smooch. "You're so cute when you're drunk. You can have all the fun you want now. Oh!" Valen goes red. "I-I forgot that you were supposed to drive to the store after this!”

"Well that's not happening. Don't wanna go to the stupid store anyway. Wanna stay here with you." Jim nuzzles into Valen's shoulder. "We got clothes here. It can wait a day. C'you wait a day, Kane?"

"Yes. I, I can wait. Thank you for going at all." Kane agrees.

"See? All fine." Jim says happily.

Valen decides to also put off leaving the house to go get blood until Jim is sober, imagining it wouldn't go well for Jim to be drunk alone with Kane, or to wake up alone with Kane in the house. They have the artificial stuff to tide them over, which is in fact the whole point of making it.

After they're done drinking, Valen insists that Jim "makes" Kane watch Jim's favorite movie. After it seems like Jim's had enough of being conscious on this mortal coil, Valen takes him upstairs and puts him to bed, then comes down to put Kane in the basement.

He apologetically asks him to go downstairs, and asks if he'd like anything to keep himself entertained.

"...Music?" Kane asks. "If, if it's convenient. I don't need anything. Thank you for the blood."

"Of course!"

Valen comes down with a radio, as well as some notebooks and pencils, which Kane didn't ask for, but Valen suggests to him to keep a journal, as Valen has found it good for his mental health. He also brings down books and extra pillows and blankets, adding them to the outrageously large pile of blankets already on Kane's bed, because he thinks it's just so dreadfully cold down here.

"I'll see about getting us some real blood soon," Valen says on his way up the stairs. "Sleep well."

"Thank you. So much, for everything. You too." Kane says with a small smile. For the first time in a very long time, he's actually hopeful about the future.

Valen locks the door, then goes upstairs to the very drunk and sleepy Jim, barricading the bedroom door once again and crawling up beside Jim. "How are you, my dear Jim?"

"Good. Sleepy. M'not even scared." Jim proclaims proudly. "Valen. Guess what. I love you sooooo much."

Valen's face splits in a smile so big it hurts his face. "Awww. Well guess what. I love you more!"

Jim breaks into a gigantic smile. "Yaaaaaay." He buries his face in Valen.

Valen strokes the nape of Jim's neck as they both fall asleep.

***

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