#why is the snow mountain so fucking hard

[neon-danger]

Have you read the Scream Your Heart Out series on live journal by quirky_anecdote? If not it’s so good

I haven’t read a lot of the stuff in live journal cuz I can’t figure out how to navigate it

[metalandmagi]

Romance Anime Starter List

I don’t know about you guys, but I’m sick and tired of seeing “Top ___ Best Anime of All Time” lists that are nothing but shounen. So, with "My Happy Marriage" getting a little attention from the anime community, I wanted to put together a list of some romance anime that I consider good “starters” for the genre. Because if I were just now becoming an anime fan, I’d think all there was to offer was shounen action series.

And by “starters” I mean basic stuff that’s not too…out there, and actually involves the characters getting together instead of just harems or using romance as a side plot (sorry Ouran High School Host Club and My Next Life as a Villainess). 

So if you’re new to anime and want stuff that’s not just guys beating the shit out of each other (which is also fun, don’t get me wrong), here are some basics.

Taisho Maiden Fairy Tale- When the pessimistic Tamahiko Shima loses all function in his right arm, his family sends him away to live in the mountains with the cheerful, hard working Yuzuki Tachibana…who was purchased by the Shima family to pay off her family’s debts and basically act as a caretaker/future bride for Tamahiko so they’d never have to deal with him again. It’s a more cheerful version of My Happy Marriage (without the supernatural stuff), except in this one, the guy is the one who has massive self-esteem issues and an abusive family. There are still very serious themes, but ultimately it’s not meant to make you cry every episode. I swear it’s so good, but nobody watched it!

Horimiya- A slice of life in which pretty and popular high school queen bee Hori, finds out her quiet, unassuming classmate Miyamura is hiding piercings and tattoos that could get him expelled. The two gradually find out more about each other and get together in the most realistic way I’ve seen depicted in an anime. It’s also fucking hysterical and genuinely emotional.

Recovery of an MMO Junkie- Another slice of life that focuses on two adults who meet in an MMO game without realizing they also know each other in real life. I don’t want to say much more than that. It’s adorable, and the main character is so relatable it hurts.

Love with Yamada-kun at Level 999- Speaking of MMOs, this is a newer series about Akane Kinoshita, a college first year who’s reeling from a bad break up. In an attempt to get back at her ex, she winds up meeting Akito Yamada, a popular gamer who happens to be in her guild in the MMO they both play at an IRL meetup. The two go from acquaintances to something more as they keep running into each other. Even more relatable main characters and just wholesome relationships all around.

Snow White With The Red Hair- A fantasy in which an apothecary named Shirayuki (meaning, you guessed it, “snow white”) runs away from her home in order to escape becoming the concubine of her town’s prince. While fleeing, she is rescued by Zen, the prince of a neighboring country, and she ends up becoming an herbalist to repay him. It's super cute with some genuinely swoon worthy moments and a couple that just works so well together. I have a habit of comparing this to Akatsuki no Yona, even though the two aren’t really that alike. This is more romance driven while Akatsuki no Yona is more of a serious historical fantasy with romance elements (Yona manga is amazing, but the anime barely scratches the surface, so that’s why I didn’t include it).

Sasaki to Miyano- When the shy, easily flustered Miyano meets Sasaki, a cool “delinquent” upperclassmen, the two end up bonding over manga…specifically BL manga. That’s right, Miyano is a fudanshi, but due to his small stature and somewhat feminine appearance, he’s constantly trying to convince others that he’s not interested in having his own love story where he’d be reduced to a stereotypical doe-eyed uke. But as Sasaki and Miyano spend more time together, they realize that what they have is more than friendship, and they have to come to terms with their own perception of gay relationships. This is my favorite romance of all time. It’s a slow burn, but boy is it worth it. Their relationship is so natural and realistic, just like Horimiya. Just two people hanging out and bonding over things the way people do in real life!

Given: The story of some boys in a band with trauma. Enough said. It's great. Go watch it.

Bloom Into You- Yuu Koito is a high school girl who’s been waiting her whole life for her own perfect romance to start…but when she receives a confession, she realizes she doesn’t know how to respond when she’s just not into the guy. And then she gets another confession…this time from the cool student council president Touko Nanami, who basically jumpstarts her lesbian awakening. Very cute story about how we perceive the concept of love vs actually feeling it. Also has a canonically aro/ace side character, so that’s a win for me. Another show like this is Adachi to Shimamura (but I honestly don’t remember much about it. It just didn’t stick with me as much).

Ore Monogatari- Takeo Gouda is a tall, bulky high school first year with a sensitive heart of gold. He wants nothing more than to find his own true love, but most girls are intimidated by his enormous stature, and they end up falling for his conventionally attractive friend instead. That is, until he meets the tiny, adorable Rinko Yamato. He falls in love instantly, but he’s sure she’s interested in his best friend like everyone else, so he vows to help get them together, even though his heart is breaking. Peak himbo behavior. Pure of heart, dumb of ass.

Yuri on Ice- Yes it’s the gay figure skating anime everyone knows. And yes it’s a fucking romance, okay? I will die on this hill. The romance between Viktor and Yuri is just as important as the plot!

Kaguya-sama Love Is War- Two insanely smart high school students both have a crush on the other, but since they’re…you know…high schoolers, neither of them wants to admit it first. So they come up with increasingly convoluted plans to get the other to confess first. This will go down as one of the best of all time. It’s a hilarious yet poignant modern classic.

Fruits Basket- I’ve talked about it before and I’ll talk about it again. A romance “comedy” that slowly morphs into a drama about a girl named Tohru who finds herself living with the mysterious Sohma family after her mother dies. Little does she know, the Sohmas are the victims of a  (somewhat silly, but ultimately tragic) curse that she must fight to break. Even though I’m more into it for the family drama, the romance is still top tier and plays an important role in the story. This is my second favorite anime of all time, and it’s a classic for a reason. If anyone hasn’t watched it yet, GO WATCH IT! IT WILL RIP YOU TO SHREDS!

And now for some honorable mentions that didn't quite fit into the regular list:

Ride Your Wave- A movie about a surfer who falls in love with a firefighter……and I’m not going to say any more than that. Go into it blind. If you like stuff like Your Name, this is a good one to watch.

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun- A comedy about a high school girl who finds out the upperclassman she has a crush on is actually a shoujo manga artist, and no matter how she tries to confess to him, he just never gets it.

The Ice Guy and His Cool Female Colleague- A slow burn slice of life that focuses on a guy with ice powers who has a crush on his coworker. That’s it. That’s the show. When I say slow, I mean SLOW. It’s perfectly cute and fluffy, but my god does it take forever to get anywhere with these two.

Skip to Loafer- A high strung, small town girl decides to go to high school in Tokyo, where she meets a variety of classmates, including the laid back Sousuke Shima. The unlikely pair become friends, and soon enough, she starts to feel something more than friendship. The only reason I didn’t include it in the main list is because they don’t get together by the end of the first season, but it’s still really cute (also canonically trans character for the win!?)

So that’s my starter list. And no, I didn’t include Toradora, even though it’s a classic. I know it’s blasphemous, but I like it more as a comedy than a romance. It kinda lost me with the ending. But anyway, maybe someone will find something they like. Or maybe you'll just want to roast me and my picks 😅

[mrslankyman]

Failed Mission

Montague (fortnite) x (fem) reader

-> smut / unsafe sex

-> gun use

->idk shit about guns

->Montague forgot his tripod stand. Maybe your ass would work better

->2k words

(request)

Too bad working for the Society meant going on missions with the most annoying man ever. 

Montague. 

His french accent: annoying 

His outfit: ugly

The way he nitpicks everything: infuriating 

He never wanted to listen to You. He never got the right things on the list for the mission. Always forgetting something. Last time he forgot the sticky bombs. Wonder what he will forget this time. It was just a steak out mission. 

There was a rumor that The Under Ground would be attacking Lavish Lair today. That’s how you found yourself on top of one of the snowy mountains that surrounded the mansion. Montague right next to you. His supplies are back in the Jeep. The two of you were just watching below. Trying to see if anything suspicious or off was going on. 

You both just sat in the snow. You mentally hated it. Back at your mansion there was no snow. You lived closer to Ritzy Rivera. So coldness wasn’t something you cared for. Montague on the other hand? He must be as cold as his heart. 

“Wait.. I see something.. I think it’s that Hope girl Valeria talked about.” He got up spraying snow all over. Some of it landed on you, letting out an annoyed groan when you got up. He walked over with his Sniper Rifle. 

Here we go. 

He loaded it and held up the gun. Until he noticed one thing. 

He had the wrong scope. So aiming to hold it up wasn’t going to happen. He shook too much.

Mistake number two.

He didn’t even bring the tripod.

“What now? Did you forget something again?” Your voice was laced with annoyance already. 

“Yes, in fact I did. I have the wrong scope.” He looked over at you as he spoke. Eyeing you up and down in thought. 

“So? Get the tripod and aim the best you can.” You rolled your eyes as if it was obvious. 

“I didn’t bring it.” His voice was lower now. Almost menacing. He was obviously annoyed at you too but he had an idea.

“So what now? I only have my AR that isn’t going to do shit from up here.” You practically yelled at him. He did this too often. 

“I’ll tell you what we're gonna do. Get on your knees.” He demanded pointing near the edge of the cliff. “What the hell, why?” You questioned glaring at him. 

“Just do it, trust me.” He kept pointing at the spot. He was far too strong to deny. He could just shoot you right now if he wanted too. So you listened and groaned as you let your knees sink into the cold snow. You mentally thought of ways to get him back. Maybe on another mission you could dump cold water on him or-

You were cut out of your thoughts when he shoved you down to the ground completely with his foot. Your face shoved into the snow and your arms slid down.

Your back end was arched up, ass in the air. You spit out snow as you lifted up your head. Using your hand to wipe off the snow. “What the fuck is your idea?” You looked back at him as he got on one knee. Laying the barrel of the sniper on your ass.

“Put your head down or i’ll blow it off.” He warned and watched you slowly lower your head.

“Hurry up.” You groaned. What the fuck kind of idea is this. 

Montague on the other hand was having a hard time aiming right. One reason; you were moving too much.

Another?

He was staring at your ass. The position he got you in so easily. You both always got annoyed at each other and got into fights. Yet you both always chose to do missions together despite the hatred. With hatred comes tension. Sometimes the tension feels a little too sexual. 

His eyes wandered from the target below to you to the target.

Once he finally focused in he got a good aim. His hand on the trigger ready to blow this Underground agent's head off you moved.

“Fuck!” He yelled pointing the gun's muzzle at your head. “Stop fucking moving.” He growled as he watched you freeze. You knew his dumb ass would never pull the trigger. But it did scare you slightly. 

“My bad i’m in the freezing fucking snow with an idiot using my ass as a tripod for his fucking gun!” You yelled not even looking at him. Keeping your face forward as you felt the gun move from your head. It was replaced by his hands gripping your hair. He pulled you back to his chest. He dropped his sniper and leaned into your ear. 

“Stop talking back.” His accent slurred most of his words when his voice was this low with anger. His other hand laid on your thigh.

“What are you gonna do if I don’t? Shoot me?” You smirked as him tugging on your hair didn’t make you scared. It makes your mind wander to other things. He was also losing his focus on the mission. His eyes looked down at you, how your lips slightly parted and you looked up at him fully. His hand tangled in your hair. 

“No, I might do something else though.” He warned his eyes were half lidded now. The feeling of you pressed to his chest made him feel things he tried to ignore when around you. Now he was letting those feelings go freely. 

“What is something else, Montague?” Your voice closed in a whisper as you got to his name. If only you knew how that drove him crazy. He could feel himself hardening. Dick straining against his dress pants. 

“You really wanna do this?” His question was almost a whisper as he leaned his head down closer. His stubble looked so much better up closer. His blue and brown eyes looking into yours. The scar made him look menacing despite the blush on his cheeks. 

His frosted tipped hair moved with the motion of the icy wind. 

“Maybe I do.” Your hand moved on top of his hand that was laying on your thigh still. That gave him the answer he needed.

He closed the gap between you two and let his lips engulf yours. All the feelings of anger, annoyance, and sexual tension went into the kiss. All the times you two argued and got into each other's faces now came to a close. Any time you two argue after this it is surely going to end the same way this mission is going to end. 

His hand moved yours off his as he slid it further down to the inside of your thigh. His hand in your hair pulling your head back further. He didn’t really like his angle of kissing. He wanted to grab your face and shove his tongue into your mouth. 

Despite that desire he kept you in this position. 

You pulled away from him and gasped slightly. He went to lean back in wanting, no needing more of you. He wanted your lips back on his. He actually wanted them all over his body. 

“It’s too cold for this.” You sighed, you could feel his hard dick against your ass. Or was it his belt? Either way it was extremely hard. 

“Why not?” He practically begged. His voice was still low but it had a desperate array to it. He wanted you now. He didn’t wanna wait. 

“Let’s go to the Jeep.. come on. Je veux te baiser.” He cooed in your ear his french accent even more prominent as he spoke in his native tongue. “What does that mean?” You asked, laughing slightly.

He got closer to ear his hot breath tickling your neck. 

“I want to fuck you.” His voice was so low and husky you could feel yourself throbbing. 

“Then take me to the Jeep.” You whispered back and without a second thought he had lifted you up and was trudging through the snow to the Jeep. You littered his neck with wet sloppy kisses before he laid you down in the back seat. You scooted to the other seat as he crawled in. He leaned up to the passenger seat and grabbed the lever. Shoving it all the way to the front to give himself more room. 

He loomed over you and smirked. “I want you on my lap now.” He growled and sat back in the seat. You crawled up to sit on his lap. He spread his legs out a little more. His diamond belt buckle really added to his outfit. 

You leaned closer and kissed him. His medallion hitting your chest as you got closer. He kissed back. His plump lips moved with yours in such a needy fashion. He wanted you so badly. He wanted to fuck you so hard you’d forget about any other man who ever pleased you. 

He pushed you back and took a breath. You took this pause to unbuckle his belt. Undoing his dress pants and just pulling out his dick from his boxers. You didn’t bother pulling his pants down. You just pushed the flaps of his pants to the side and his belt. He helped you slide off your pants quickly and underwear. He stared at you before leaning his head back against the headrest of the seat. 

He grabbed your hips and lifted you over his perked up dick. “You ready?” He asked as he slid one hand down to line himself up with your entrance. 

You nodded and slid down on him. You bit your lip holding back your moan. Montague on the other hand? He let his moan echo in the car. He didn’t hold back on the noises. He hadn’t fucked someone in so long. 

He was too busy keeping the Society in order. He loved how your pussy tightened around his dick. This feeling was better than any successful heist he had ever been on. Money made him have a happy feeling but this pussy made him want to live. 

He wanted to wake up every day knowing he could fuck you when ever you wanted. 

He wanted to please you instead of annoy you. 

He made a mental note to forget the tripod again.

“Montague..” You let his name slip out of your mouth in a high pitch moan. He grunted and slurred out random words or phrases in french. You didn’t understand them but you assumed they were good. 

He held you still by the hips and slammed his dick up in you. Letting his hips go up and down ramming his dick into you. You both let out moans of pleasure. He slid one of his gloved hands down and used his thumb to make slow circle motions around your clit. 

“Fuck.. I’m gonna cum..” You squealed as you felt yourself coming undone with each thrush of his dick. He groaned in agreement and grabbed your face with his free hand. Slamming his lips to yours in a passionate kiss. He moaned as he felt you cum on his dick. His motions became sloppy and he moved in and out at different paces. You watched his face scrunch up in pleasure and a low “oh fuck” came out of him before he pulled out and came on his vest. 

Good thing he had 500 others.

He looked you in the eyes as you both calmed down from your highs.

“Oscar can defend himself.” He chuckled and pulled you back to him.

[rosesbxrry]

Cabin fever

Pairing: Boyfriend! Sunghoon X Girlfriend! Fem! Reader

Genre: Smut🔞(Minors DNI), established relationship! AU, 

Warnings: Hard and mean Dom! Sunghoon, unprotected sex (wrap it up before you tap it), cream pie, temperature play, cabin sex, fellatio (blowjob), throat fucking, ass spanking, slut shaming, degradation, Sunghoon calls you doll so much, reverse cowgirl, lots of teasing in his end, slight orgasm denial, slight nipple play. Hopefully I didn’t miss out anything else.

Summary: All you wanted was to escape the frigid December and spend more time with your boyfriend, Sunghoon, as the Christmas holiday urged you to do something together only to end up in a Ski Resort— courtesy of his idea. Still, at least the cabin you will be staying in was worth it, but Sunghoon had other plans during your trip. 

"Don't lie to me and say you never thought of us fucking while we're here."

A Holiday Special: ➜ Sunghoon

| ➜ Heeseung | ➜ Jay | ➜ Jake |

Main masterlist

Word count: 4,087 words

a/n: I can’t believe this would be the last one for the holiday special 😱 it has been a month of non-stop writing and I’m proud of myself for finishing this eventhough I’m way past the holiday mood already 🤡 Anyways, thank you to everyone who stuck around until the end 🫶

It had to be said that— Winter is a very perplexing season, and you weren't for nor against the juncture that foreshadows spring. 

When you woke up the following day after a heavy snowfall, your world was stripped of its life. Snow covered the color of nature into a temporary slumber, depriving your surroundings of any signs of existence, minus the people living there. 

Shoveling the driveway and sidewalk was equally annoying as driving on the slippery, damp road. Doing something as simple as throwing the trash out was a hassle as you had to ensure you were dressed appropriately to avoid getting frostbite and wearing layers of clothing just to be outside for five minutes. 

The last straw was when you woke up in the middle of the night, itching to use the toilet, only to scream loudly at how cold the seat was. You didn't own one of those fancy Japanese toilet warmers, so you had to persevere with only what you had. 

The only saving grace to the coldest season was Christmas, the holiday you enjoyed the most in every aspect possible. It was the time of the month when you got to spend some time with your family and loved ones, which was why you were excited to celebrate the occasion with Sunghoon. 

As per tradition, both of you took turns taking responsibility for setting up a game plan for your Christmas dates. Whether it be a fancy candlelit dinner or a stay-at-home watching movies kind of vibe— it didn't really matter as long as you could spend some quality time together as a couple. 

You didn't expect him to book something outside the area, which you didn't mind since it's been so long since you've been to a vacation spot for a date. The problem lies when you find out that the place your boyfriend, who knew that the cold was the bane of your existence, had graciously reserved was a Ski Resort. 

Which alludes that skiing was in the itinerary or even the only entertainment there is within the vicinity. Heck, since when did he even ski in the first place? 

The place was situated on the outskirts of town, surrounded by the outdoor wilderness but more so pine timbers and mountains that seemed as frigid as the cold December. You were worried about altitude sickness at how high up the resort was, but that wasn't the case after sliding through the pistes and utilizing the ski lift multiple times. 

Although, you could get down to the log cabin where you would lodge for the rest of the trip.

It was the epitome of a picturesque accommodation, fitted for the cozy and warm vibes it provided as you lay on the woolly sofa after spending half of the day outside skiing in the snow. 

"I'm so tired." You drawled, stretching your legs and resting your head on the back of the sofa. 

Your face was numb with all the cold wind blowing on your facial skin, wanting nothing more than to stuff yourself on a pile of blankets. Still, you enjoyed the activity more than you anticipated. 

"What happened to Miss this is stupid, I don't even know how to ski and her complaints?" Sunghoon snorted in amusement, feeling the cushion deep as he sat beside you. The high points of his pale face were also flushed from the cold. 

You kick his shin with your foot lightly. "Hush, Sunghoon. That's all in the past now. We need to start living in the future."

Your shameless allude caused him to grin knowingly, and you tried to salvage your remaining dignity to prevent stroking the already big ego that he was right about the trip. 

"Can you add more wood to the fire? It's seriously getting a bit cold here." You ask, wrapping your arms around yourself for warmth. 

The words you said were to distract and send him away from the subject matter, but now that you were conscious of the drop in temperature, chills went down your spine. 

It was getting cold in the cabin, evident by how your fingers were getting tingles as you held them close to your mouth. The masonry heater that warms up the place had probably started to die out since the morning you left to go skiing. 

That was the drawback of experiencing a multipurpose rental cabin; the one-layer log walls were also built to be used in the summer, which is why the insulation was pretty much crap. 

It didn't help that you were surrounded by a secluded forest, so if you and Sunghoon didn't keep the heater well ignited throughout the day, there was a high chance that both of you would end up freezing to death in this weather. 

"Come here, let me help warm up your hands." Sunghoon said, reaching out to take your left hand in his. 

You didn't think much, guessing that he'll put your hand in the pocket of his winter jacket. So, you instinctively relax your arm and let him guide it near his body— only for him to place it right on his crotch.

"What the— Sunghoon!" You yelled, obviously not amused by his sudden inappropriate behavior as you tried to pull your hands away from his growing bulge. 

He proved to be much more substantial; his grip on your hand didn't falter at your pathetic attempts to free yourself were to no avail. Sunghoon laughed at your annoyed expression, watching you struggle as he adjusted his hands that intertwined with yours to let you grope more of his size. 

"I'm literally freezing to my bones and the only thing you could do is to succumb to your own horny ass?" You protest through gritted teeth. 

Sunghoon shrugged his shoulders. "I told you I'll help you warm up your hand…..never said how though." 

You gave him an unbelievable stare, rolling your eyes while obviously used to his obnoxious antics of railing you up. 

"I'm being serious here." You reminded him, not swayed by his little charade. 

He snorted, giving you one dark look between his bangs. You yelped in surprise when he yanked your hand towards him, causing your upper arm and shoulder to fall flush on his lap. Some of your weight had transferred to your palm as you tried to keep the leverage to stare up at him. 

This action made you realize how hard he was under your hand. 

"I'm being serious too." He whispered an octave lower as he smirked down at you with a hungry glint that made you swallow. 

"Don't lie to me and say you never thought of us fucking while we're here." He raised an eyebrow, watching your cheeks flush as his words hit a home run. 

You can't pretend that it never crossed your mind that this trip would be the perfect setting for a bad plot line of a porno. There was an outdoor jacuzzi and even a fireplace in your shared bedroom— all the proper setup ensues the wild fantasy swimming in your mind, or maybe you were just as horny as he was. 

You grunted in defeat, and he watched you with a smug smile when you began to pull on the front of his pants. 

"Not a word, Park." You grumbled. 

He licks his lower lips, stopping himself from grinning wider as he helps you tug his pants to his thighs and free his hard cock from the confinements of his briefs.

Sunghoon let out a hiss when you began pumping his length; the delicious contact of your cold hands against the hot skin of his head and the underside of his veins got him winching in pleasure at the sensation. 

"I knew you'd come around," He said as you adjusted to lay your chin on his lap, body outstretched on the sofa on your chest and stomach, hands never ceased to jerk him slowly. "My dick is just that good, huh?" 

"You know, you're so much hotter with your mouth shut closed." You said, his words getting on your nerves. 

Sunghoon crackled at your annoyed expression. "While you—" 

He grabs a bunch of your hair behind your head, tugging forward until your face is inches away from his stiff erection. His other hand rested on your ass cheeks, kneading the ample flesh roughly until you whined at the sensation.

"—look so much hotter with your mouth open, full of my cock." 

You caved in to the directing action of his grip on your hair, opening your mouth as he guided you to shove his length past your lips. 

Sunghoon was not only ridiculously long, but his thick girth stretched the corner of your lips beyond its capacity. He was throbbing against the inside of your mouth as you slowly inhaled most of his size; the remaining length left was occupied for you to jerk him off. 

"My girl just wanted something to suck on, huh?" He said, shivering at the juxtaposition sensation of your hot mouth engulfing his cock as opposed to the cold temperature of the surrounding. 

When you withdraw with only his head around your lips, you dart your tongue at his swollen slit, precum dribbling out to coat your taste bud before encasing the majority of his length again in a suckling motion. 

The cold chills you felt before had dissipated, your body warming up as you relentlessly bobbed your head up and down his length more crudely by the second. 

His groans hitched when you ran your warm tongue over the large vein on his length, hollowing your cheeks to suction him back and forth so filthily that he didn't even need to move his hips to thrust into your throat— you were already doing it yourself, and he can't help but found the sight to be pure ecstasy. 

"Such a whore for my cock." He breathed out, watching you through half-lidded eyes. "Could never get enough watching you slut your mouth out for me." 

You would love to look up and gauge his reaction, but it proved to be complicated. 

Every time his swollen tip would press on the soft palate of your mouth and poke at the back of your throat, your eyes squeezed shut as all you could do was suck harder around his cock. 

It drives you crazy at how solid and big he was, filling the cavern of your mouth to the brim and forcing you to breathe through your nostrils at the lack of space. 

Your hands wrap around the base of his cock with whatever you weren't able to fit, feeling yourself rutting on the sofa at the sensation of your aching clit pooled with your own juices. 

Sloppy noises filled the air as you quickened your pace, humming around his cock as waves of vibrations sent signals for him to let out a few low groans.

It didn't help that the movement of your chin was digging into his tight balls. 

"Fuck, that's it." He encouraged you, toes curling as his pending release was on edge. He pulled your hair tighter, melting at how eager you were to fuck your throat with his dick. "Take me deeper, doll." 

You spurred into action, loosening the tension by unhinging your jaw and swallowing him until his cock pressed on your throat incessantly. With tears stinging your eyes, you remain stagnant in your position, diving deep down until you feel like choking. 

The sensation of your hot, gummy throat on his erect head for such a prolonged duration made him lose it— Sunghoon eyes flew to the ceiling, and his head lolled to the side as he released with a loud curse. 

He defiled your opening with ropes of his musky cum. You gulped down his hot seed rapturously and pumped his length to milk out every last drop of him. 

"Fuck, you're unreal." He slurred, leaning on the back of the sofa to watch you with blown-out eyes, thighs feeling sore with the weight of your shoulders on his lap. 

The beautiful sight of you smacking your lips around his length winded him in delight. Despite the drool and white mess dripping down your chin, you lick his cum nice and clean for him to witness. 

"Messy girl, you're drooling everywhere." He cooed, putting a palm on the crown of your head. 

Your jaw was sore from sucking him off, but you opted to swirl his tip around the roof of your mouth like he was fine wine. His taste was so addictive that you couldn't help but play with him for a little longer. 

"What can I say," You mumbled with his cock still in your mouth, looking up at him with a seductive stare. "I'm a slut for your cock, aren't I?"

Letting his head poke the inside of your cheek, you made sure he saw the prominent bulge that formed on your face. 

Sunghoon inhales a deep breath. 

You knew you unleashed the beast within; his eyes turned dark and cold as he roughly held your jaw to yank your mouth away, feeling his nails dig into the skin. You almost moan pathetically at the way he swallowed hard, anticipation sending waves of enticing pleasure to your clit because you knew—

He was gonna ruin you to hell. 

"Enough." His voice tightened, his command being the epitome of dominance. His thick eyebrows furrowed, expression morphed into raw hunger. You rubbed your thighs together, excitement coursing through your veins when he pulled on the waistband of your trousers. 

"That smart mouth of yours needs to stop being fucking greedy." He asserts, manhandling your body until you are straddling on either side of his thighs, giving him a good view of your back as you face away from him. 

The cold air of the frigid cabin made you shudder as your trousers were long thrown on the floor, leaving you vulnerable with your lace panties. Sunghoon pulled the soaked middle to the side, the bundled material wedged between the crack of your ass. 

You sigh when the chilly air hits your exposed and damp folds. 

"I want your pussy to do all the fucking this time" Sunghoon squeezed a handful of the soft flesh, massaging it teasingly until it bulged between his deft fingers, enough to make you whimper in agony.

"So prepare yourself and ride me real good." He urged, hands moving to your sides. 

Still suspended in mid-air above his lap, adrenaline bristled your body as you reached back to grip his cock, positioning his tip against your tender entrance while he lowered you down by your love handles. 

Everything shifts into an upward spiral, feeling him stretch your walls deliciously as you sink down on his hard cock. 

"Ahh—haaahh— fuck." You gasp for air, chest rising and falling erratically as you take him inch by inch until you bottom out and are fully seated on his lap. 

"So fucking deep….." 

You feel winded by the sheer volume of his cock  even though you've had him a million times before. Still, your position allowed him to reach the deepest part of your crevice, already clamping around his length before he could even move. 

Sunghoon seemed delighted with your reaction, leaning forward until his hot breath fanned the nape of your neck and toned chest flushed to your back. 

"You love it when I go deep into you, don't you?" he hummed, licking the outer shell of your ear before nibbling at the wet spot. "Love it when I split your pussy with my big cock, right, doll?" 

"I love it….fuck…I love it so much….." Your voice was slurred with drunkness, head spinning with vertigo overwhelming your consciousness at his words when you finally felt the desperation to move— grinding down on your hips to slowly test the waters.  

After enduring the initial adjustment, you finally move in and out of him, and my god, did you erupt out the most euphoric moan at the sensation of his length dragging against your hot walls. 

"Look at you go, bouncing on my cock like a slut you are." His defiling praises only fueled the knot burning in your stomach, your juices leaking around him as it lubricated the movement of your drop and fall. 

In the moment of delirious high, you didn't realize that he pulled the last article of clothing to keep you away from the biting temperature. It only registered in your mind when he roughly peeled your bra off, exposing your upper body to the cold air of the bleak cabin. 

You were sure the heater had died off at this point, basking your figure in the arctic air.

Sunghoon cupped your bouncing breast from behind; his large cold hands engulfed the pair with a tight grasp. Goosebumps flares on your skin by the coldness, and it gets worse when he kneads the flesh in a circular motion, index fingers flicking your erect nipples back and forth. 

"Wait— stop!" You begged, but the male continued playing with your breast and hardened nipple, ignoring your request with a coy smirk. 

"Why? Don't you like it when I play with your nipples like this?" You could feel the teasing grin plastered on his face at the back of your neck. You buck your hips when he pinches your tits, pulling them away slightly in a torturous manner. 

"Fuck, its too cold, Sunghoon." 

The throbbing pleasure came in waves, from your stuffed pussy to your sensitive breast, and it only intensified at how icy his fingers were.

"Cold? Then if I do this—" 

Nothing in the universe could prepare you for the sensation of his cold finger on your clit, and you almost lurch forward from his lap if he hadn't held you down with a strong arm around your waist. 

The temperature change was too much for your swollen clit to handle, and strings of broken moans escaped your lips that you almost choked on your saliva. The sensation hurts enough to morph oddly into agonizing pleasure that you've never felt before. 

Fuck, this is crazy. 

While you were losing your mind, Sunghoon was enraptured by the feeling of your cunt clenching and contracting around him. You were so tight, so wet that he couldn't help but rub circles around your clit rapidly to elicit more of your sweet spasm. 

"No— stop. Hahhahh— please stop, it's too much." 

You were sobbing in deep torment at this point, trying to clamp your thighs shut to slow his pace down. You lean back on his chest as your body grows dull by the pleasure every second, your thigh burning from riding him for too long.

Sunghoon was dissatisfied with your current state, apparent with how he stopped playing with your tits and clit, baring his fangs to bite between the junction of your neck harshly. 

"Too much?" Sunghoon let out an exasperated laugh punctuated with an edge of rage that you were all too familiar with. "You really are an ungrateful slut." 

With his arms around your waist to haul you up, you were pushed down on the wooden floor on all fours. Sunghoon made sure to realign his cock to nudge you deeper, your position with your ass up and head down made you at his mercy. 

"I gave you all the pleasure you need, yet, it's too much? Don't make me laugh." He spat, pulling you closer by the hips roughly.

The drag of your puffy nipples against the stone-cold floor at his action stings your eyes, droplets of salty tears dripping down your cheeks. The complaint died in your throat— you were afraid of what he'll do beyond if he ever heard another plea from you. 

Sunghoon can be grueling and hard on you, but maybe it was the internal masochist that kept you whining in pleasure at his forceful touch. 

"Move." He commands. 

You lay stagnant on the floor; the lack of proper spatial consciousness made you unable to compute what he meant, causing him to land a firm slap on your tender ass cheek. 

The sound of flesh meeting flesh echoed throughout the space, leaving a redden splotch behind. You jolt slightly from the impact, curling your toes in anticipation when you feel the wind of a second collision— only it never came. 

Sunghoon loves how your drenched pussy clings onto his cock tighter, finding amusement when he teases for a second slap. Fuck, he found solace that you wanted to be spanked by him, and he'll do it wholeheartedly until you come, but that beats the point of punishing you. 

"Don't let me tell you twice." 

You swallowed down and mustered up the last remaining strength you had in your lower half, snapping back at his cock begrudgingly slowly but enough for him to be content for following his order. 

"See, it wasn't that hard to follow my orders, right?" He rubs on the sore spot of your ass with his thumb comfortingly. "Such a needy little thing."

You cried out in your folded arms, pushing back until the head of his cock kissed the deepest part of your pussy. Persevering that your abused tits would rub the cold floor every time you move, you clench your fist and push back faster and harder to satisfy him. 

Sunghoon was at the edge of coming, tilting his head back and watching your ass jiggle with every movement. His abdomen tensed up with eyebrows furrowed, feeling you milking him dry— until you stopped moving your hips abruptly before he could come undone.

"What the fuck?" He groans, almost offended by the sudden halt. 

You could have let him have his way with you, but instead, you were digging your grave in an attempt to relinquish some sort of control over him. 

"I—I'm not gonna let you come, Sunghoon." You breathe out, feigning bravery to utter those words even with your compromised position. 

There was a pause in the air before Sunghoon outright laughed. 

"Think you're so tough now, doll? Saying I can't cum?" Rather than taking it seriously, he snides in adoration at your attempt of defiance because, in the end, what fun will it be without some challenge? 

"Fuck, you're adorable." Smoothing the curve of your ass to the arch of your back, his chuckle derives from the depth of his chest as he bit his lower lips to control his grin. "You're so cute, baby." 

Your face burned at his genuine remarks. 

The dominant energy he possessed previously dissolved a bit, holding your hips more sensually as he started pistoning his hips. The knot in your stomach rekindled, and his cock slid in and out of your cunt easily at the amount of arousal dripping out.

"My cute girl likes becoming my cum slut, doesn't she?" Sunghoon crooned, sloppily railing you slowly but slamming back once he was deep in you. "Do you want it, baby? Do you want me to fill your hole with my seed? 

"Yes, yes— Sunghoon, I'm gonna cum…." You hiccuped. 

At this point, the buildup of numerous torturous stimulation was clawing you to the brink of insanity, wanting nothing more than to cum around his cock until you could see stars. 

Sunghoon understood the immediate signs of your nearing orgasm, humping the floor and crying his name uncontrollably— he gave all his strength in one last thrust before you burst by the seams.

Your climax blinds you over with euphoric waves that overwhelm your entire being. You were burning up inside but shuddered simultaneously on the cold floor, feeling like a fever taking over your release with sweet respite. 

It didn't take long for Sunghoon to come as well, filling you up with his hot load as he promised. He fuck you through your orgasm, suspending you on cloud nine in the afterglow until you turn limp. 

Huffing and puffing occupied the silence as you lay flat on the floor, exhaustion taking over the muscles of your body. As you clench and unclench when he pulls out, the abundant milky arousal oozes out of your spent hole on your thighs. 

"Are you okay? Did I take it too far?" Sunghoon hovers over your lower body, kissing softly on the bruised spot on your ass guiltily.

"Did you?" You snort sarcastically, obviously perpetuating that it isn't with the way you're utterly numb. Sighing blissfully at the feeling of his soft lips on your stinging flesh, you had only one thing on your mind that made him laugh. 

"I think my nipples are frozen." 

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A Holiday Special: ➜ Sunghoon

| ➜ Heeseung | ➜ Jay | ➜ Jake |

[moonlitstoriess]

Across the Universe-ch.4 (Fenrys x Reader)

Summary: Y/n has everything she needs in life. A family, friends, a safe place she calls home and most importantly a male whom she loves. What happens when it all changes when Y/n finds out about the betrayal of her lover and her so called family? Well, ending up in Terrasen and in queen Aelin's court was not what she expected but what she will need to start her new journey full of surprises.

Warnings: mentions of trauma, abuse, suggestive themes but no smut yet

See masterlist

She was 13.

He came home furious. Shaking his wings from the ice and snow stuck to them. Today was the Winter Solstice. Y/n always liked to imagine how normal families, normal faelings celebrated this magical day. Presents, delicious food, games, dancing, laughing and singing all night long. How warm, loved and happy they are. Then she turned her head from the window and came back to reality as she saw his angry face staring right at her.

But, as if the Mother took pity on her for just this special day, he walked past her to his room. Maybe, she could ask him then. Maybe, this time he will listen.

"Today is Winter solstice."

He froze midway, turned around and looked at her, his scarred and bearded face forming a scowl as he said, "And?"

She took a deep breath. It was now or never. "Maybe...maybe we could celebrate it. Like a normal family."

"Like a normal family."

"Y-yes. You could buy me a present and if you give me money, I could buy you one too. Maybe you could help me coo-"

A harsh slap right across her left cheek.

He grabbed her jaw and squeezed it harshly as he spat at her face, "You idiot! Why should I waste my money on a useless whore? And how dare you suggest that I, a respected Illyrian warrior, a captain for fuck's sake, stoop so low as to help you cook?"

She simply stared at him with emotionless, dead eyes. Begging, cring and pleading would do her no good. She learnt it the hard way.

He smirked, "On second thought, if you love this foolish day so much, why shouln't I give you your gift."

The next thing she knew, he was stripping her bare and throwing her out into the freezing, unforgiving cold of the Illyrian mountains. He laughed as he said, "Happy Winter Solstice you pig." and with that, he shut the door to her face, leaving her to freeze to death.

Two hours and fifteen minutes. She knew it because as she knelt with her knees to her naked chest, she counted every second, every minute that passed by. Not once did she cry. She only prayed for the Mother to make her death as painless as possible. By the time her feet and fingers were getting blue, she had already collapsed and got covered in snow.

When she awoke, he was in the room, standing next to her bed, acting concerned, "Sweetness, forgive me, I did not know what came over me. But you had to somehow understand that Winter Solstice is only celebrated by fools and although you ARE an idiot, I can not allow you to still be manipulated by all that high fae bullshit."

She could not breathe. Everything became too tight. She was drowning. She could no-

A hand. A hand was stroking her head. There was a voice...so distant now. A male voice but...who? The hand was rubbing calming circles all over her back. Everything was foggy, so blurry. The comforting touch made her feel so light...like a feather and so free. She felt like she was lying in a field of flowers now. She felt the storms within her quiet.

Calm. Tranquilent.

Then, the soft touch was gone and y/n awoke immediately. But there was no one in the room. Only the light coming from the moon, illuminating the room through the curtains and the absolute silence of the place were there to keep her company.

By the early signs of sunrise, y/n was already awake and ready to fight some of this stress and pressure out. She found some training gear in the wardrobe which consisted of black, tight pants and a long sleeved tight shirt that was custom made to accomodate her wings. How Aelin managed to get such a shirt for her in a matter of hours, was a question to which she had no answer. With a final touch to her hair, y/n exited her room in search of a tarining area.

This palace was enormous. The walls were covered in white and gold. She passed room after room, went down stairs after stairs. How rich are they? For a queen that fought in a war 3 years ago, Aelin has done very well in improving her courts living standards. Y/n only hoped that the same applied to the rest of Terrasen. To the common people living within villages.

After reaching the ground floor and taking a couple of turns after asking some servants and taking a 3 minute walk outside the West wing, y/n managed to find the the training area. It was an open, medium sized, circular ring, surrounded by grassy mainlands and small hills. In the distance, you could see the forest. On the left side, there were rows and rows stacked with weapons and other training equipment while on the left side, there was a table with a pitcher, probably with water inside, on it and some chairs and lying mats. Opposite to her on the other side of the ring, was a dummy strapped to a wooden holder.

With a quick stretching out, y/n took some binds for her hands and then walked towards the dummy. She hoped that starting out with punches and kicks would somehow sedate her growing anger. Besides, it has been 3 whole days since she last trained. As she began punching, her anger seemed to only increase. Anger at Azriel? At the rest of her family? At the Book of Breathings? At Aelin and her court? No, she was angry at herself. How weak could she be? She was pathetic really. First she let that monster dictate her life for 20 years, then she was stupid enough to fall in love with a male who played her, and now she is weak enough for letting those horrible past days come to her as nightmares.

She killed him. He was gone. She was trained to be better than this. Stronger. But...he was still winning. Even in death, he was haunting her. And Azriel...how foolish could she be to open up to him about everything, show him her raw and vulnerable side, trust him, only to be betrayed by him. What a joke she was for thinking that she got a happy end. Never again. Never again will she ever be foolish enough to be with a male, let alone trust him. Such a coward, so-

"What are you doing here?"

She knows that voice. How could she not after it has been the most aggravating thing that she has ever heard. So infuriating and yet...so hypnotizing. As much as she hated him and his voice, she would also find herself yearning to hear i- No. Stop. He is rude and unapologetic and thinks only of himself. Now her anger shifted again. This time to the male standing behind her, waiting for a reply.

Y/n turned around with a glare but felt herself foam at the mouth as she took in the sight in front of her.

Fenrys was standing in the center of the ring, half naked. His soft, shining hair was put up in a half bun, his broad, extremely muscled and scarred chest and arms were put on display as she devoured the view starting from his throat going down to his v line and then...he was wearing loose black pants and some combat boots.

She must have been staring at him for who knows how long because he said, "Did you enjoy slithering your way into my queens embrace?"

All the growing lust she felt suddenly got washed away as she felt like a cold water was dumped over her. Does he truly think so lowly of her? How dare he. How dare he assume such things about her.

"Seems like you are really pissed about me being here. Mind telling me why on earth you were so rude to me yesterday?"

He turned around towards the weapons as he said, "I meant what I said. You may think you have everyone fooled with your games but not me. I watch your every move."

She smirked as she said, "So obsessed. Might as well create a whole devoted circle in my honor. You and Lorcan could be it's representatives or leaders."

At that, he turned around and slowly started stalking towards her as he said, "You should start praying to whatever being you believe in to help you find your way home quicker because if you don't leave this place soon, I am afraid it won't be nice for you."

He was around two meters away from her now. Not close but also not far.

"Oh really? And what will happen to me, I wonder? Are you going to turn into your big bad wolf form and eat me?"

At that, Fenrys smirked as he said, "Trust me, many ladies would agree that I do not need my wolf form to eat someone."

Y/n slightly blushed but still held her ground as she said, "Those ladies must surely be blind if you are their type."

They were close now. So close she could feel his breath hitting her skin. His woodsy and vanilla scent was hitting her nose now. His nostrils flared slightly and his pupils dilated. He stared right into her eyes as he slowly said, "You want to let your frustration out? Come fight me."

Y/n, still in a haze, only asked, "W-what?"

He smirked slightly and stalked back "Let us see the infamous Y/n who is so legendary in her world."

She shook her head as if forcing her body to wake up from the haze she was in as she scoffed and said, "I do not train with uncultured animals."

He only stared at her from the center again as he said, "Scared, princess?"

It seems like that was the push she needed because at that moment she wanted nothing more than to punch his infuriatingly handsome face. She started stalking closer towards the center of the ring as she said, "Alright. But only to prove to you how weak you are compared to me."

He smirked but said nothing as they both took their positions, opposite to one another. Before they could start, she gave him a slightly puzzled look "Aren't you going to put binds on your hands?"

"I do not need protection for my knuckles."

Y/n rolled her eyes "How impressive of you."

"I know what you are doing."

"Really? and what exactly am I doing."

"Trying to get me to talk so you could get the first pu-"

Fenrys did not get to finish his sentence as y/n lunged for him. But he quickly sidestepped her, his movements fluid and precise, as he threw a quick kick to her shin that sent y/n staggering backwards. In a skilled move, y/n lunged forward, aiming a powerful uppercut at Fenry's jaw. He managed to deflect the blow, but it left him momentarily off balance. Seizing the opportunity, y/n delivered a swift kick to his abdomen, sending him staggering backward.

As Fenrys stumbled, y/n launched herself forward, tackling him to the ground with a resounding thud. They grappled fiercely, rolling across the pavement in a tangled heap of limbs and adrenaline.

Despite Fenry's strength, y/n's agility gave her the upper hand. With a deft twist, she managed to pin him beneath her, straddling his chest as she pressed his arms firmly to the ground.

Their breaths came in ragged gasps, the heat of their exertion mingling with the chilly air of an early morning. For a moment, time seemed to stand still as they gazed into each other's eyes, the intensity of their connection sparking something deeper than mere anger or frustration.

He was always breathtaking. As if he was sculptured from marble. But now, as she lied there, chest to chest with him, she could see how absolutely marvelous he was. Such sharp and defined facial features, slight golden freckles, and those tempting lips. Cauldron boil her she really should get up if she did not want him smelling any of her arousal that was surely starting to grow. But...he felt so warm and his abs that were right beneath her....and then lower, she felt his-

"So this is y/n?"

Y/n immediately pushed herself off of him as Fenrys quickly sat up. They both looked to their left to see the source of the voice. It was a girl with red-gold hair and seemingly golden eyes. She did not look too small, more like just hitting puberty. She has deep scars on both of her cheeks but despite that, she was still very beautiful.

"Eva, what are you doing here?" Fenrys said as he got up and went towards the girl.

She ignored him as her curious eyes stayed trained on y/n "When I first heard of your arrival, I really really wanted to meet you but then Lysandra said no and then you fell unconscious and thennnn you were brought to Aelin again and I really really begged her to let me also see you but Aelin said no. That you may be dangerous- Oh sorry I should not have said that." she clearly was embarassed because she looked down.

Y/n giggled as she said, "Do not worry. What is your name?"

The girl seemed to quickly forget her moment of embarrassment as she smiled brightly and jogged towards y/n "Evangeline! But everyone calls me Eva. Lysandra and Aedion are my parents- well not real parents because they adopted me- Oh wow! you do have wings! may I touch them? Please please please"

She smiled as she looked at Eva and said, "Nice to meet you Eva, my name is y/n. You are very sweet but unfortunately I do not like when my wings are touched."

A frown appeared on her small face as she asked, "Why?"

"Because they are quite sensitive so if someone touches them without my permission, I will punch first then ask the questions. For those like me, wings are our most cherished possession." and with that, y/n's finger's booped Eva's nose as the little girl smiled and said, "I understand! I also get angry when someone touches my things without permisson."

Then, suddenly, Fenrys came closer as he sweetly said to Eva, "Is there something you needed sweetheart?"

"Breakfast is being set up, Lysandra allowed me to come and call you guys."

"That is very nice of you Eva, but I need to train some more-"

"We will be there in a minute, sweetheart" Fenrys cut y/n off to which, she gave him a glare.

Eva nodded before turning around and running to the palace.

"I am not hung-"

"You have been here since Gods know when. Your body needs food to stabilize it after all the energy it generates. Thought you knew that."

She scoffed "I do know that I am just not feeling-"

"Well, that is too bad because you are still coming to eat."

The way he said it left room for no questions as she sighed and followed him. As they were walking, y/n smiled a little as she said, "Is Eva always this talkative?"

At the mention of the little girl's name, Fenrys also smiled as he said, "On the contrary. She is very quiet and observant. She only gets like this when she is around us. And seemingly you. But who can blame her, the things that child went though..."

Fenrys quickly shut himself up before saying any more private things that he had no right saying. Not unless Lysandra or Eva felt comfortable sharing it with y/n. She did not ask him anything else as she understood and respected his silence.

By the time they reached the dining room, everyone was there. This room was less formal but luxurious enough nonetheless. The ceiling and the ground were both pale gray. To her right, there was a large floor to ceiling window with green drapes over it. The walls were pale green but they had silver floral designs over them. There were also candles in silver holders attaged to the walls. Finally, at the center of the room was a table which had multiple delicious-looking meals on it. Around the table were pale green chairs with silver legs. And on the chairs, were Aelin and the rest of her court.

"Y/n! Fenrys! come you two. Since you arrived last, you get those last two seats. Try not to kill one another." Aelin said while smiling as Aedion let out a snort and Lysandra cackeled.

Indeed, there were only two empty seats left at the end of the table. Y/n knew luck was never on her side but atleast now would be agood time for someone to switch places with her. Fenrys tensed beside her but quickly regained his calm before moving to sit on the chair.

When she also sat down, she noticed that there were 2 more children around. One looked like he could be 3, sitting on Lorcans lap while the other was a complete newborn snuggling in Elide's arms. When she saw y/n's look, Elide smiled as she said to her, "Y/n, these are our sons, that is Blaise, he is 2 and this...this newborn angel is Theon."

"They are adorable" she said with a smile

As they began eating, Aelin said to her, "I have made sure that you are granted acess to all the royal libraries here as you begin your search. Parallel with that, we will also be looking into the matter of the Wyrdgates because we think that now there is a possibility that one of them has ripped open. If that is the case, we must search for a way to close it again."

"Ugh not this again. We went through enough trouble the first time around, I can barely stand dealing with it the second time." Lysandra said with a sigh that had Aedion putting his hand behind her back to caress it.

"Well, I was too young back then to help you guys but I am old enough to do so now!" Eva said with a big and proud smile.

"You were 11 then, you are 14 now. Still too young. Not a chance." Aedion said with a teasing smirk before sticking his tounge out at her.

She huffed as they started their bickering session that had Lysandra rolling her eyes but still smiling.

Through her peripheral view, y/n saw how Fenrys was full on smiling. Not the teasing, annoying smirks he would give her, but a full, big genuine smile. Of course he would be at peace here. It seems like they all endured a lot and only had each other to protect and lean on. But, she knew, somehow felt it that he was sometimes putting on a mask. How no one noticed it as well was beyon her grasp. He had secrets. Nightmares. Ones he probably has not shared with anyone. That is understandable. After all, this could possibly be the only thing in which y/n can relate to him. They all had their dark secrets, past memories they tried to bury long ago.

Once breakfast was over, she joined Aelin and Lysandra on their trip to the library while Elide, together with Eva, took her newborn to sleep.

Fenrys had to go for his daily run as a wolf. It was something he has been doing a lot recently. It would help ease his visions of Connall's and Gavriel's death, his times with Maeve and the war. It has been 3 years already, they won the war, Maeve is dead, Erawan is dead, no more Valgs, everything is getting better. By now he should have moved on, felt less guilty and more happy. But he has not. Gavriel is dead while he is alive, his own brother is dead while he is alive. He was there when Maeve killed Conall, he could have done something to stop her. But, instead, he watched like a fucking coward. So now, as he left Lorcan and Rowan in the latters office, he shifted to his wolf form and headed towards the forest to once again, temporarily get rid of the growing shadows that surround him. He has been getting so aggressive lately.

It did not help that Aelin gave y/n a room that was right next to his in the West wing. Annoyed would be an understatement to describe his emotions. But, maybe it was because of the thin wall seperating them that he heard her moans of anguish, her nonstop chants of 'pleasepleaseplease' or maybe it was because he felt this sudden tug within him, urging him to go to her. Her energy and emotions were mixing with his own, he felt like he was suffocating too. He felt her pain. Even though he had promised himself to ignore her, to hate her with the hopes that whatever this feeling was would pass, he could not ignore her anguish. And so, he winnowed himself to her.

She was struggling, tears were staining her red cheeks, hair was all over the place, as she tossed and turned while still pleading to whoever or whatever it was she was seeing. It made his heart physically hurt to see her in so much discomfort. He quickly but carefully sat down next to her and put his hand on her back, rubbing calm circles over it.

"Y/n."

She did not hear him. Did not wake up. Did not stop her panick.

He tried again, with a more gentle voice, "Y/n, please."

She did not wake up but it seems like she heard him as her movements slowed slightly.

Taking it as a chance, Fenrys slipped his hands through her hair and barely managed to hold back his moan. Her silky hair was the softest thing he has ever touched. He started caressing it while saying very gently, "Princess please come back." "Come to me y/n, follow my voice." "I know you can come out of it. You are not weak."

At that, she calmed down completely as her tears stopped and her heart rate went back to normal. She was deep asleep again. That was his cue to leave but, he did not want to. She was beautiful. The moonlight only added to her serene state. He felt himself smile. Maybe he should not be so rude to her, maybe they could get along- What was wrong with him? She is a stranger, a possible enemy from another world and even if his queen welcomed her, he would keep his eyes on her constantly until the moment she left this place and he would be finally freed of her. And so, with a final look at her, he winnowed himself out.

Then, just this morning when he came to the training grounds to clear his mind, imagine the shock on his face when he saw the feisty little fireball furiously punching the dummy.

He was trying to get rid of her and yet, there she was, glaring at him from the other side of the ring. Not to mention how her tight little training gear brought really filthy images to his mind.

And then, when he walked closer to her, he saw how every thought emptied from her mind as she took him in. As if that was not enough, her sweet arousal hit his nose which had him witholding a groan and staggering backwards before he did something stupid.

When she pinned him down to the ground, he could only think about her warm, plush body on top of his. How perfectly they fit together, like 2 missing pieces of a puzzle. He was about to give in to his lust when Eva saved him by interrupting their little moment. He would have to buy a new fantasy book for her as a sign of gratitude.

She is everything that he hates. Annoying, too curious, aggressive, so self centered. He should really help his family on finding a way to get her out of here immediately. Or else...or else Fenrys is afraid of what may come next.

The library was huge. Tall shelves with rows and rows of books, massive windows that displayed the waterfalls and the green lands of Terrasen, marble floors that shined with the light streaming in from the sun and finally, couches, lounge chair, low tables were at every corner you turned. Gold and white was all around her.

At y/n's mesmerized face, Aelin says, "This library is the most valuable one of all the rest. It was destroyed during the conquest so what you see now is the renovated version, but I did try my best to make it look like how I remembered it."

Y/N gazed around in awe, absorbing every detail of the magnificent library. The sunlight filtering through the tall windows cast a warm glow over the room, illuminating the intricate carvings on the shelves.

"It's breathtaking," she breathed, turning to look at Aelin.

Aelin smiled, her eyes sparkling with memories of the past. "It's my pleasure," she replied, her voice soft yet filled with pride. "This library holds centuries of knowledge, wisdom, and history. It's a sanctuary, a place where one can lose themselves in the pages of a book and find solace in the words written by those who came before us."

"I can see why it's so important to you," Y/N said softly, reaching out to trace her fingers along the spine of a particularly ancient-looking tome. "It's more than just a library, isn't it? It's a symbol of everything you've fought for, everything you've lost, and everything you hope to achieve."

Aelin's smile faltered slightly, a shadow passing over her features before she nodded. "Yes, it is," she admitted, her voice tinged with a hint of sadness. 

Lysandra, who was watching the interaction with sharp eyes, came closer as she said, "It is also our best chance at finding something related to the issue at hand sooo...let us start. Where is Marcus or any of the other librarians?"

Aelin shrugged as she said, "I did not want any word getting out and causing everyone stress which is why I gave them a day off so we can search for it on our own."

Y/n nodded as she said, "Alright then, I think it would be more efficient if we seperate. I will go to the back rows."

After receiveng a nod from them, she stalked towards the far end. But what they failed to note is that Illyrians were always favored for their keen hearing. Which is why, when they thought y/n was a safe distance away they exchanged quick words that had her feeling lucky for her small asset.

"Anything suspicious?"

"No, she truly seems genuine in her actions."

"Maybe, but let us still keep our eyes on her."

And with that, they moved in different directions, going to search for books.

Y/n should have known that they would have their eyes on her. Well, it is not like she trusted them either so if spying on her made them feel better, then so be it.

One hour had already passed before y/n managed to find a very promising book that looked quite recent, but something within her drew her to pick it. Which led to her, Aelin and Lysandra to gather around one of the tables to see what the book held.

"Are we sure that this one will hold the answers to what we need? It looks quite new." Lysandra said with a curious glance at the book.

"I am not sure. But my feelings have never betrayed me. I feel like this book has something important in it."

Aelin sighed as she said, "Well, there is only one way to find out."

With a hopeful heart, y/n opened the unharmed, clean book. But despite its fresh covering, its pages were old, archaic, so yellow that it was almost brown-gold. It was as if this book was made in this way to steer everyone away by fooling them with its modern covering.

The first few pages were all talking of things that were of no interest to them. But it was a certain page that stood out to her after a couple of minutes of flipping through them.

"It's about the Valg," Y/N murmured, her voice barely audible above the hushed rustle of pages. "But it goes deeper than that. It speaks of gates, of worlds beyond our own, and the mysteries of the Book of Breathings."

Aelin's eyes widened with intrigue, her lips parting in silent wonder as she absorbed Y/N's words.

"The Book of Breathings? the one you have in your world? the one that sent you here in the first place?" Lysandra asked, now leaning over the table to read the pages.

Y/N nodded, her gaze fixed on the ancient text before her. "According to this," she continued, her voice trembling with awe, "the Book of Breathings is more than just a relic. It's a key, a gateway to other realms beyond our own. Just like the Wyrdkeys. In fact, what if there is a 4th Wyrdkey and that book is the one? And the Valg... "

Both Aelin and Lysandra were peering over her shoulders now, as Aelin quickly said, "What? The Valg what?"

"I-i don't know. I can not tell. The rest of the pages are in a language I do not understand."

All three females stared dumbfounded at the book, none of them knowing the ancient language written within.

"Look, there is something else in our language." Lysandra said as she pointed to the corner of the page.

There, a small writing that said:

“When shadows loom and darkness reigns,

The gates will open, breaking chains.

In fire and blood, they'll rise anew,

But only a chosen few can undo.

In the heart of a queen, strength resides,

To close the gates and stem the tides.

Yet fate may twist, the cycle's rhyme,

And darkness may reopen the gates in time."

"A prophecy..." Aelin said, still in deep thought as she re read the lines.

Lysandra sighed "This is very confusing."

"I don't understand, this prophecy seems to be talking about what needs to happen for the gates to open but darkness? shadows? you won the war though."

Lysandra nodded as she continued, "And this specific line that says 'in the heart of a queen, strength resides' makes no sense if this prophecy talks about how the gates may open after they were closed. Aelin is strong, but not when it comes to her powers, not anymore. So how is she supposed to close the gate when her magical strength has already been depleted?"

"And how is it connected to the Book of Breathings? Why did it send you to our world?" Aelin said, a serious look overtaking her face. The Aelin from a few hours ago was gone, in her place stood a true warrior queen who was worried for the safety of her people, of her world, who would do anything to keep the balance and peace.

Y/n sighed as she said, "We won't get any answers until we manage to decipher this ancient and foreign language."

Aelin and Lysandra nodded as the latter said, "But how? I do not think any of us know of this language and Aelin said we can not involve external sources so what do we do?"

Y/n said, "I have- had a close friend back at home. She could always decipher these kinds of things. I always admired her patience to sit, locked up in her house for days, not leaving until she figured it out."

Y/n had a sorrowful, nostalgic look on her face as she gazed through the large window to the outer world, remembering Amren. Her closest companion. Did she even care for y/n? What was she doing now?

Unbeknownst to her, Aelin and Lysandra were both staring at her, with a pitiful look on their faces. A look that conveyed how they felt for her, so lost and away from home.

Aelin put a gentle hand on her shoulder to bring her back to reality as she softly said, "I am sure we shall find a way. Come now, let us take the book and leave. We got what we needed."

Once they left the library with the book in y/n's hands, a servant came running towards them as she bowed at Aelin and said, "My queen, the Hand of the King Chaol Westfall and his wife lady Yrene Westfall have arrived at last."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

A/n: Over 5k words! It seems like this number will only go higher as the plot thickens which, believe me it will. So much is coming you guys, but for now, I thank you for taking the time to read this and see you in the next chapter <3

Taglist: @ladespedidas @mis-lil-red @going-through-shit @kaitttttttt @blackgirlmagicforever

@acotar-writing @paleidiot @snoopyspace @stained-glass-eyes0708 @saltedcoffeescotch

@wallacewillow0773638 @cleverzonkwombatsludge @crazylokonugget @bunnyredgirl

[andy-wm]

Everyone get seaweed soup in their birthdays

Do you really think so, Anon?

I can't imagine you would say this if you had any idea of what life is like on a military base. I'm going to explain it to you because you weren't rude, just wrong

See, I'm not an asshole all the time

Let's start with logistics:

There are 360 THOUSAND soldiers in the ROK army. Just the army.

Have you ever seen a large scale kitchen that serves thousands of meals a day? It's a pretty industrial place, Anon, and everything - from the steamers to the spatulas - is scaled up in size to make sure enough food for comes out at set meal times.

The people who work in those kitchens work bloody hard. There's no time for fucking around when there are hungry soldiers needing food. I know this because my ex-partner was an army cook.

There's no table sevice in the barracks dining room.

Huge trays of basic food are set out and its a help-yourself system for the staples like rice and kimchi. But the soldiers line up with trays for the rationed parts of the meals, and the cooks serve those on a production line so they can stay within a set budget for meals.

Yes they have a buget to work to, and menues are set with a fixed number of meal varieties available.

Seaweed soup isn't on the menu every day. And they don't make individual batches for individual soldiers.

The cooks don't go searching for anyone having a birthday and present them with a bowl of soup. You know that, right?

For soldiers, a birthday is like any other day.

(Unless you're Park Jimin)

It's either on the menu, or its not.

Today it was on the menu. Today is Jimin's birthday. Could it be a coincidence?

Yes it could.

Is it likely?

I think not.

The 5th division has at least 10000, maybe 20000 soldiers. Included in that number are two of the most famous Korean men IN THE WORLD and one of them works in the kitchens. There's ZERO chance that the pair of them have gone unnoticed, you know?

I'm not saying Jungkook is in charge of setting out the menus, but he is charming, hard working, highly skilled and motivated.

He is the man who climbs mountains to fetch snow.

He's the king of grand gestures.

However it came to be, the menu for today - Jimin's birthday - includes the traditional birthday meal that a parent would usually make. (Seaweed soup is associated with postpartum health which is why it's served on birthdays).

So no, everyone does not get seaweed soup on their birthday. That would be like another country's military providing birthday cake for soldiers on their birthday. They get whats on the menu, they don't get a party.

It's the army, not kindergarten.

I hope that clears it up for you.

[hardly-an-escape]

what's in a name? | Dream/Hob | 9300 words | rated E

this is my submission for @designtheendless's 3K commission giveaway: a Dreamling fic based on their fanart above!

tags: alternate universe - human, photographer Hob Gadling, artist Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, model Dream of the Endless | Morpheus, strangers to lovers, snowed in, only one bed, light dom/sub, oral sex, face fucking, anal fingering, anal sex, anonymous sex, Dream of the Endless is a horny little weasel, and Hob is no less of a horny little weasel, brief Princess Bride references, alcohol consumption, impulsive decision making, callous disregard for the geography of northern California, they go from 0-60 because they’re both nuts, neither of them are in a great place but they do make each other better rather than worse

Hob is on an ill-fated road trip through California. He’s making his way slowly down the coast toward Los Angeles when, trapped by a snowstorm in a small town near Mount Shasta, he meets a mysterious stranger in a diner. They share a night of anonymous passion – but when the sun rises, Hob finds that he can’t just leave the stranger behind…

this story developed partially from Picture Perfect, one of my Fluffbruary 2024 fills. I also incorporated some of designtheendless's other suggested image prompts, so do make sure you check their original post! and thank you so much for extending the deadline, it meant I had time to get my CHBB fic submitted before pivoting to finish this... and even so I'm still barely getting it done in time just because of who I am as a person :D

Hob leans forward over the steering wheel, brows furrowed as he peers through the driving snow at the street ahead. The windshield wipers are going like mad; he’s seen a plow or two out, but they seem to barely be making a dent, so traffic has slowed to a crawl. Which is, frankly, for the best, since the weather is bad enough that only a true nutter would be out in it at all.

Well… nobody’s ever accused Hob of being sane.

His GPS instructs him to take the next right and informs him that his destination will then be on his right. He can just make out the neon sign through the thick flakes: Townhouse Motel. “Vacancy,” it says below the old-timey script, blinking on and off. In the distance, the sun is just beginning to settle behind some mountains that he’s sure would be beautiful if they weren’t hidden behind such inclement weather.

He pulls in the driveway. The lot is nearly empty, so he parks right next to the office door and jams his winter cap on his head before hurrying through the flurries.

The bored teenager behind the front desk barely looks up from the reality show playing on her tablet as she runs Hob’s credit card and gives him his door key – an actual, physical key. Room 1389. He decides it’s not worth it to ask why the room number has four digits when the motel has maybe a dozen rooms total.

He does ask if there’s somewhere nearby to get a bite to eat and a drink.

“There’s a diner across the street and down a block,” the teenager says, “but they don’t serve booze.” Then, finally looking up, perhaps seeing the bags under his eyes and his generally downtrodden demeanor, she relents. “There’s a liquor store about two blocks past that. You can bring stuff back to your room, I guess. It’s not like anybody is going to ask questions around here.”

That, Hob thinks as he heads back outside and moves his rental car a little closer to his door, is obvious. There’s a general air of neglect clinging to the motel, and indeed to the whole street, from what he can see: the buildings are a little more weatherbeaten than can be plausibly explained by a cute vintage aesthetic, and at least one storefront seems to be permanently boarded up. The recession has clearly hit Northern California just as hard as it has the rest of the United States.

What a time to be playing tourist. What a time to be – well, he won’t think about that right now.

His room is clean, at least. Someone, at some point in time, has made a half-hearted attempt to decorate it with a seaside theme. The bedlinens are various shades of blue, rather than your typical beigey-white. There’s an unfortunate painting of a mermaid hanging over the outdated television, and a slightly less unfortunate painting of a lighthouse above the bed. The bathroom wallpaper has little seashells on it.

Hob leaves his camera bag on the desk and his duffel on the end of the bed, grabs his wallet, turns his collar up against the cold, and heads back out into the snowy evening.

The diner is, as promised, only a short walk down the street, but Hob is shivering by the time he gets there. The wind cuts right through him – silly British man that he is, he thought California would be warm, even in winter. He hadn’t really reckoned with unpredictable mountain weather, or with the cold front that was chasing him down through the southern end of the Cascades. The weatherman on the radio had been calling it “freakish.”

A little bell tinkles merrily when he pushes open the door. A waitress calls out a greeting, tells him to sit wherever he likes and she’ll be right with him. There’s only one other person in the diner, a slender man dressed all in black who is hunched over a cup of coffee at the counter. He glances up and immediately back down as Hob stomps the snow off his boots and takes an empty booth far enough away from the front door that he won’t feel the rush of cold air if anyone else comes in.

The waitress bustles over, bringing him a cup of coffee without even asking. Hob wraps his fingers around it gratefully. He doesn’t normally drink coffee this late, but it’s been the kind of day that calls for it: so cold, so uncomfortable and distressing, that the sturdy ceramic mug is exactly what he wants. The bitter note of slightly burnt coffee is tempered by the cheap, artificially flavored vanilla creamer he only ever uses at this kind of greasy spoon diner. He breathes deep and feels something inside him start to thaw.

When the waitress comes back with a menu, he warms up even more. She is middle-aged and comfortable, nice and no-nonsense, the sort of person with an indeterminate American accent who could have come from anywhere: Illinois, or Florida, or five minutes down the road. She recommends the olive burger with fries, and a side of fried pickles, because they’re the best in the county, and then her excitement simply bubbles over.

“I’m just so darn tickled to have two Brits here in the same night!” she enthuses. “Oh gosh, is that okay? Can I call you Brits or is that rude?”

“No, no, it’s fine!” Hob laughs. “Two of us, eh? That is a coincidence.”

“I know, right? Okay hon, lemme just get your order in and I’ll be back to warm up your coffee in a sec.”

She bustles away again, and Hob looks curiously at the man at the counter. He must have heard her comment, but he hasn’t turned around, or indeed acknowledged Hob in any way since he came in. He shrugs mentally and turns away to look out the window at the thickly swirling snow. It’s dark enough now that streetlights have come on, casting cones of light in which the flakes dance like a very slow sodium-tinted tornado.

He wishes he had a book. Or a crossword puzzle, or one of those packets of crayons they give to kids at restaurants. Something to keep his hands occupied and his mind off of everything that was threatening to consume it, off of the last few days, off of her –

Then the man from the counter slides into the booth across from him.

“Hello,” Hob says.

“Hello,” the stranger says. His voice is surprisingly deep and resonant, coming from his slim frame, and he looks to be in his late twenties, perhaps a few years younger than Hob. He is very pale. His dark hair is sticking up rather wildly and his eyes are a cold, clear blue that reminds Hob of the way the sky had looked this morning, before the clouds had descended.

“Who are you, then? Aside from a fellow Brit?” asks Hob.

“No one of consequence.” He’s lugging around a small backpack, which now rests on the bench beside him.

“I must know,” Hob says in a very bad Inigo Montoya accent.

“Get used to disappointment,” the stranger says with a smirk, and Hob laughs.

“Oh, we’re going to get along just fine,” he says, holding his hand out across the table. “My name’s Hob, yes that’s my real name, and yes, it is a long story.”

The stranger shakes his hand briefly. His palm is warm from cupping his coffee cup, but the tips of his fingers are cold. “Pleased to meet you, Hob.”

“And do you have a name, stranger?”

“I do. Several, in fact.”

“Any of them for public consumption?”

The stranger shrugs. “Will you forgive me if I maintain a certain level of mystery?”

Hob shrugs too. “That’s your lookout, mate. No skin off my nose.”

They chat. About the weather, and how odd it is, and how different to England. About books – the stranger appears to be a voracious reader, and Hob had loaded up an old iPod with audiobooks in preparation for a lot of driving, which sparks a lively debate on the merits of printed books vs reading aloud. In the midst of this, Hob’s food arrives, and he is derailed momentarily from the conversation by an overwhelming need to unhinge his jaw and stuff as many chips into his gob as humanly possible. The stranger watches in amusement.

“Hungry?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Hob says, muffled by his burger. “Been driving pretty much all day and I didn’t really want to stop, so…”

He’s suddenly self-conscious, very aware that the man sitting across from him is slender and willowy and dressed all in black, and that he himself is very much… not that. Dressed for comfort and warmth in slightly baggy jeans and a flannel shirt and his puffy jacket balled up on the bench beside him. But the stranger seems unbothered, simply smiling slightly and snagging a fried pickle off the plate between them, which Hob had invited him to share moments after it had arrived.

They are good; crispy and salty and uniquely American. Hob is certainly prepared to believe they’re the best in the county.

“So are you staying here in town, or is that shrouded in mystery as well?” he asks, once he’s slowed down a bit.

“I’ve been staying in a cabin up the mountain, a little way out of town. With my family.” He said the word family as though it is faintly dirty. “One of my siblings thought it would be good for us to get away together. But I have found it… trying.”

“Up the mountain, eh? Are you going to be able to get back in this?”

Hob tips his head toward the window. It is very dark now, and the snow is falling more thickly and wildly than ever. A crease appears between the stranger’s eyebrows.

“To be honest, I had not thought that far ahead.”

“Do you have much experience driving in the snow?”

To Hob’s surprise, the stranger actually blushes, just a gentle stain of pink across his cheekbones. “I… walked.”

“You walked?”

The waitress, stopping by the table to warm up their coffees, echos Hob’s surprise.

“Oh, honey,” she says. “In this? How are you fixing to get home?”

“I was planning to walk back,” the stranger says with some asperity. “But I admit I was not anticipating this kind of weather.”

“Let me check on the roads for you,” the waitress says kindly. “Which cabin did you say you’re at? My brother-in-law lives up that way, I’ll give him a call. I’m sure we can find you a ride.”

She goes back behind the counter and picks up the phone.

“I’m happy to give you a ride,” Hob says quietly. “If she thinks it’s safe.”

“You do not have to do that.”

“‘S okay. I want to.”

“Bill? It’s Jan. I have a question for you,” says the waitress.

Hob realizes, suddenly and with some surprise, that it is quite true, that he is not just being polite: he does want to help this mysterious stranger, who talks like a 19th-century Byronic hero and dresses like a college goth. His stomach is doing the tiniest little swoop every time they make eye contact, and he doesn’t want it to stop.

The waitress calls over to him.

“You got four wheel drive, hon?”

Hob thinks about the little Honda Civic in the motel parking lot. Thinks about mountain roads and snow. Shakes his head no.

Scraps of the waitress’s conversation float across the diner and Hob takes another bite of his burger.

“– well they’re foreign, Bill, they don’t –”

He snickers just a little; can’t help himself, really, because the waitress is just so kind and helpful and also clearly more than a little bit befuddled by their presence in her diner. These two Brits, total strangers, so unalike one another – and yet here they are, sharing a booth and a plate of fried pickles, five thousand miles and change away from home. He exchanges a look of camaraderie with the stranger and eats some more chips. They’re good too.

“– and tomorrow? What’s the overnight –”

After another minute or two the waitress thanks her brother-in-law and hangs up the phone. Her face is serious when she comes back to their table.

“Well, boys,” she says, “I don’t think anyone is going anywhere tonight. Bill says it’s pretty bad up there, and only getting worse. The plows aren’t even going out yet on account of the snow’s still coming down so hard, it doesn’t make sense to try and clear anything. You going to be able to find a place to stay?” she asks the stranger.

He looks at Hob. “Did you mention a motel?”

“Yeah, the Townhouse?” Hob says, and the waitress nods along. “I don’t know for sure if there are rooms available, but it didn’t look like the parking was full.”

“Probably not, this time of year,” interjects the waitress. “It’s a fine place, and Paulie can certainly use the business. I’ll bring your checks by in a minute, guys.”

She leaves them again. Her sensible sneakers squeak against the floor tiles as she walks.

“Thank you again for your offer of a ride,” the stranger says quietly. “That was very kind of you.”

“Course. I’m just sorry you won’t be able to get home tonight,” Hob says.

“It is my own fault. I should not have behaved so impulsively. But my siblings…” The man frowns. “As I said, they can be difficult. I would have done something regrettable, had I remained in the house.”

Hob waves a hand. “Ah, it happens to the best of us. Especially around family. You should hear some of the fights I’ve had with my sister, we can scream the paint off the walls when we get going.”

“Indeed,” the man says darkly.

“I’m glad you did come to town, though. It’s been kind of nice,” Hob says tentatively. “Having someone to talk to tonight.”

“Indeed,” his stranger repeats. But this time one corner of his mouth lifts in a tiny smile. “It seems to have worked out in my favor.”

Hob smiles back. “So, are you really not going to tell me your name?”

“Where’s the fun in that?”

“Fun, eh?” Hob glances down at his own hands, folded on the table, back at the stranger. “Is that what this is?”

The stranger smirks. He leans forward and plucks another fried pickle from the plate. He opens his mouth, sticking out his tongue just a little bit farther than necessary to pop the slice into his mouth. He chews, and smirks some more, and gives Hob an unmistakable up-and-down appraising glance, and underneath the table he presses one ankle against Hob’s instep.

Oh. Hob feels a surprising but not unfamiliar spike of arousal in his gut. So that’s where this is heading – has been heading, since he pushed open the door and the stranger had glanced up at him. Had he blushed, when his eyes met Hob’s? Or is he applying more detail to that brief interaction after the fact, now that he thinks he knows what his stranger is thinking?

And when had the man become his stranger?

“I see,” he says, and presses back against the bony ankle under the table.

Ten minutes later, they’ve settled their bills – his stranger had apparently eaten a club sandwich before Hob had arrived, and he’s weirdly relieved that the man has consumed something more substantial than coffee this evening – and are gearing up to head back into the cold. Hob is zipping up his coat when he realizes the other man appears to have only a thick black hoodie and a knit beanie (also black, of course). He glances out the window, where it’s still snowing pretty hard, and raises an eyebrow.

“You going to be okay in just that?”

“You said it is only a couple of blocks? I will be fine. I tend not to feel the cold. And,” he adds defensively, “when I originally walked down the weather was not quite so… inclement.”

“If you say so,” Hob says as he opens the door. The waitress calls out a good night and he waves to her over his stranger’s shoulder. Wonders, just for a moment, what she thinks of the fact that they’re leaving together, or if she will ever think of them again at all. They step out into the snowy evening. “The girl at the motel said there’s a liquor store down the street. Mind detouring there? I was thinking of picking up some whiskey, or something. Something to keep a man warm.”

The man chuckles and they head down the street. It’s not until they’re away from the diner windows that he takes Hob by the elbow and gently draws him just outside the circle of a street lamp.

“Surely,” he says, voice low, stepping into Hob’s space, “there are many ways for a man to… keep warm.”

And he kisses him.

His lips are warm and dry, a little chapped. It’s a simple kiss, a chaste one, just their lips touching and the barest pressure of the stranger’s belly and chest pressed against Hob’s, swathed in layers of winter gear. It lasts for a heartbeat, two, and then the man steps back with a hum of satisfaction.

“Oh?” says Hob, giddily. “It’s like that, is it?”

“Obviously,” responds his stranger.

“Well, I don’t know, mate,” says Hob as they make their way down the street. He resists the urge to link their arms together. “Maybe you play footsie with every guy you meet in random diners in Northern California.”

“Perhaps.”

The liquor store is a brief respite from the wind and the snow. Hob selects a mid-range bottle of whiskey and they trudge back to his motel room. The snowflakes and the streetlights and the swirling wind make everything feel more than a little bit surreal, like something out of a dream or a fairy tale. The two of them could be adventurers, explorers, wading through an arctic wasteland in search of shelter. The mountain looms behind them, dark and mysterious, like a great castle or some monstrous beast.

“Do you mind if I take a shower?” asks his stranger, kicking off his boots dropping his backpack by the desk. “I’m afraid I did get rather sweaty, hiking down earlier. I wouldn’t mind cleaning up.” His gaze, beneath his long eyelashes, feels heavy and significant.

“Go right ahead.” Hob gestures toward the bathroom. “I’m just going to nip down to the lobby and get a bit of ice.” He retrieves the ice bucket from the desk, brushing close to his stranger as he does. The brief contact jolts him back to the real world. They’re not in the arctic waste; this handsome, ethereal man is here, in his motel room. He is pulling off his somewhat sodden hoodie and draping it over the back of the chair, and sniffing dubiously at the sweater he wears underneath it. He is real.

Hob waits until he hears the shower turn on to slip out the door.

Although he has his moments of cluelessness, Hob is not a stupid man. He knows where this is going. He recognizes the signs, the coy little dance they’ve been doing around each other for the past two hours, and no, he’s not a stupid man, but if he were a better one he might be able to resist the temptation of falling into bed with a beautiful stranger who won’t even share his name.

But there’s something about this man. Hob wants him. Already can’t resist him. Wants to wrap him up and keep him warm and kiss his collarbones and, yes, wants to fuck him, wants to feel him shudder and moan and wants to watch his cheeks flush and his head fall back in ecstasy. He hasn’t felt like this for a long, long time, and now it’s come out of nowhere to slam into him and hook into his gut, this wanting.

He throws a few scoops of ice from the machine in the motel lobby into the bucket and goes back to the room.

He’s kicked off his boots, unwrapped one of the shitty plastic cups, and poured himself a couple fingers of whiskey by the time he hears the shower shut off. There’s the usual shuffling noise of towels, a brief blast of the cheap hair dryer mounted to the wall. Then the door opens and the stranger emerges, and Hob is slammed from the real world right back into a surreal dream.

The man is even more beautiful without his clothes on: Hob would compare him to an elf or a fairy prince, but he’s too busy choking slightly on the spit that’s suddenly flooding his mouth at the sight of long, slim limbs, a narrow waist, and a temptingly well-defined Adonis belt that disappears under the cheap motel towel wound around his hips.

There’s a long moment of silent eye contact. Hob’s leaning up against the desk, cup cradled in one hand. His face heats as he watches his stranger’s eyes travel slowly down the length of his body and back up, pursing his lips slightly. His mouth is very pink, with the kind of full bottom lip that’s made for nibbling on, and the rest of his skin is as pale and smooth as… well, as snow, with just a touch of redness from the heat of the shower spreading across his chest.

Hob downs half of his whiskey without even thinking about it. He can’t look away. He can’t think, can’t even blink. He’s afraid that if he does, this vision will disappear and it’ll just be him, alone, a saddish man alone in a motel room with a bottle of booze and a bag of expensive camera equipment, and then who knows what will happen?

His stranger gives him one of those tiny half-smiles, suggestive, not quite a leer, and stalks across the room toward him.

He widens his legs and his stranger steps in to stand between his feet. He takes Hob’s drink out of his hand and tosses back the last swallow of whiskey before setting the plastic cup aside. Then he hooks one finger into the collar of Hob’s flannel shirt and pulls him into a kiss. His mouth is a study in contrasts: warm from the whiskey and cool from the ice, soft tongue and sharp teeth. They sink briefly, gently, into Hob’s bottom lip, and Hob pulls the man close against his chest and returns the favor.

The kiss is turning wet and messy when the man pulls back far enough to start fumbling with Hob’s shirt buttons. He’s pulled the tails of the shirt out of Hob’s jeans and has it about halfway unbuttoned when a phone starts ringing.

It’s not the room phone – it’s coming from a pocket of the man’s backpack.

“Ignore it,” he mumbles into Hob’s neck. “We are busy.”

The phone rings three times; four times. The stranger has finished with Hob’s shirt and is pulling the tee beneath it out of the waistband of his jeans by the time it finally stops.

His fingers are toying with Hob’s belt buckle and ghosting over the seam of his fly when it rings again.

The stranger groans audibly.

“Do you think,” Hob says with the carefully deliberate cadence of the very turned on, “that your family might be worried about you?”

“I do not care,” his stranger grumbles, and sinks gracefully to his knees.

Eventually the phone stops ringing again.

He’s worked Hob’s belt and fly open and is nuzzling into the opening of his jeans, nosing at the base of Hob’s cock through his underwear and Hob is panting, his stranger’s hot breath so close to where Hob wants him most – when the phone rings a third time.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” snarls the stranger, and stands.

He fishes a slightly battered-looking BlackBerry out of an outside pocket of his backpack and stabs at the call answer button.

“What.”

He turns away, so all Hob can see is the furious, stiff line of his stranger’s back. He can’t hear the other half of the conversation, and he doesn’t think he wants to; every fibre of the man’s body radiates anger and discomfort and perhaps a little bit of shame. Hob adjusts himself discreetly, rezips his jeans, and tiptoes over to sit down on the edge of the bed.

“Obviously I am alive. I am fine.” A pause. “I took a walk.” Another pause. “Yes. Yes, I know what time it is. No, I am assured that the roads were too bad to make it back to the cabin. I am in a motel room in…” He looks over to Hob. “What is the name of this place?”

Hob supplies the name of the motel, and that of the town as well, just for good measure. The man relays the information into the phone. There is another long pause.

“That is none of your business. Shut up. You have no idea what you’re talking about. And if you speak to me like that again I will hang up the phone.”

There is another, longer pause, during which the stranger’s face grows progressively redder. He is very deliberately not looking at Hob.

“No. I said no. I will arrange for my own transportation in the morning. I –”

The person on the other end of the phone must say something truly outrageous, because his strangers eyes bug out in a way that looks almost uncomfortable.

“Do the entirety of the known universe a favor and crawl back into whatever slime hole you emerged from and leave me alone,” he hisses. “Goodbye.”

Hob can’t quite muffle a snort at this crowning line. Siblings.

His stranger hangs up the phone with a vicious jab of a button and slams it down on the desk; then seems to reconsider, retrieves it, and shuts it off entirely before throwing it into his backpack. He sighs, a surprisingly tired sound.

“I will have another drink, if you don’t mind,” he says. “And then I would like it very much if you would fuck me. Please.”

Hob’s cock, which had been feeling distinctly neglected, gives a twitch.

“I think that can be arranged,” he says. “Are you –”

The stranger waves a dismissive hand. “I am quite sober enough to have sex with you. And I could easily afford my own room, if that’s a concern. I am here because I want to be.”

“Glad to hear it, but that actually isn’t what I was going to ask,” Hob says mildly.

“Oh,” the man says. A faint blush rises on his cheekbones. He scoops up the whiskey bottle and uncorks it, taking an unceremonious swig. The towel hangs dangerously low around his hips. “What were you going to ask?”

His stranger pauses with the whiskey bottle against his lips. Hob watches the long line of his neck work once, twice, as he swallows, and figures he may as well put his cards on the table.

“I was going to ask if latex condoms are okay. For when I fuck you into the mattress in a minute here.”

The man clears his throat. “Oh,” he says again. “Yes. Latex is fine.”

“Good. Anything you don’t like? Hard boundaries?”

He pauses. “I do not enjoy being choked. Or having my hands restrained in any way. But I like… I like it a little bit rough. It feels good. To be used.”

Hob leans back on one elbow. “Is that what you want me to do? Use you?”

“Yes.”

The word drops into the quiet room like a handful of snow might drop off a tree branch – soft and muffled and sending the same delicious shiver down Hob’s spine.

“I can do that.” Oh, yes. Hob can use this beautiful man, if he is offering himself up to be used. “C’mere, then.”

His stranger walks slowly across the room to where Hob is half-reclining on the bed, feet still planted on the floor. He kneels between Hob’s legs and runs his hands slowly up and down his thighs from knee to hip. “And you?” he asks. “Your boundaries?”

Hob considers. “I’m with you on choking, not a fan,” he says. “I’m not big on pain, generally, but I can give it to other people, if they need it.”

“Alright.” His hands are still rubbing up and down Hob’s thighs, a slow, hypnotizing rhythm. When he speaks again his voice is thick. “Would you consider the preliminary negotiations to be concluded now?”

“Don’t you have anything better to do with your mouth than spout off like a horny nineteenth century robber baron?” Hob counters.

His stranger smiles, a proper smile that crinkles the corners of his blue eyes, and unzips the fly of Hob’s jeans.

In short order he’s pulled them open and pushed Hob’s boxers down just enough that he can get his cock out. He’s not quite hard, not yet, but he gets there quickly between his stranger’s gentle, surprisingly soft hands and the way he immediately buries his nose in Hob’s pubic hair and breathes deeply as he looks up through his eyelashes.

Then he opens his mouth, and wraps his tongue around the head of Hob’s cock, and Hob’s brain makes a noise like radio static.

Oh, he is good at this. Unfairly good. Supernaturally good. He teases Hob for long, long minutes, working up and down his shaft with light touches of just his lips and tongue, ducking down now and then to mouth gently at his balls, until Hob is twitching and swearing and straining, perched on the edge of the bed. When he finally has mercy and takes Hob’s cock fully into his mouth, it is barely a relief. He is so wet, so hot, and he sinks down on Hob with no resistance, no trace of a gag reflex. Before he can stop himself, Hob’s hips jerk forward that final fraction, and suddenly his stranger’s nose is brushing his pubic bone and his throat is contracting around the head of Hob’s cock.

He’s expecting the man to pull back, to splutter in indignation, but instead he makes an encouraging noise and squeezes Hob’s thigh before folding his hands almost primly in his lap.

“Fuck,” Hob mutters. He makes an experimental shallow thrust into the tight, wet heat of his stranger’s mouth. “Really?”

His stranger can’t nod, not with Hob’s prick in his mouth, but he moans. Hob feels it vibrate all along the length of his shaft and has to stifle a whimper of his own. He sinks one hand into the soft riot of the man’s hair, still a little damp from the shower, and cradles the back of his skull. The bone feels sweet and finely formed in his hand.

“You want me to fuck your pretty face?” he asks, soft and just a tiny bit mean. “Yeah? That’s what your mouth is good for, isn’t it?”

He thrusts again, in and out, and the stranger’s eyes roll back a little in his head, so he does it again, and again. Soon he really is fucking his face, not too hard but deep, fingers tightening in his stranger’s hair as his eyes fall nearly shut, narrowing to crystalline blue crescents.

Hob pulls back briefly to let his stranger breathe. Runs his thumb along his bottom lip, dripping with spit, before he pushes back in. He doesn’t stop until he can feel the first tendrils of orgasm beckoning to him; but as tempting as it is to keep going, to empty himself into this perfect mouth, he’s made a promise. And Hob is a man of his word, so he pulls the man off his cock by the scruff of his neck. He makes an obscene noise as he goes, and another thing string of saliva dribbles from his puffy mouth. His eyes are slightly glassy as he looks up at Hob.

“Get up on the bed, baby,” Hob orders gently.

When the man stands up the towel is just barely clinging to his narrow hips, and his erection is stiff and straining against the terrycloth. He’s so hard, Hob thinks wonderingly, just from having Hob’s cock in his mouth for a few minutes, and his own prick throbs in sympathy.

“Hands and knees,” Hob says, and the man crawls up on the bed. The towel falls away as he goes, languid but obedient, so that he’s entirely naked when Hob positions himself behind him. The contrast between Hob’s clothes and the other man’s nudity is delicious – Hob’s rough denim against the man’s soft thighs, Hob’s hairy wrists poking out from worn flannel as he runs his fingernails along sharply elegant shoulder blades.

He allows himself one long, gentle caress, from the nape of his stranger’s neck down to the shallow dimples in the small of his back, before he grabs at the man’s buttocks and unceremoniously spreads him open.

His hole looks surprisingly loose and relaxed already. Hob runs the pad of one thumb over it.

“Were you prepping yourself in the shower?” he asks, delighted. He presses gently and the furl of muscle gives, just a little, pink and fluttering.

“Hng,” says his stranger, shuddering. “Yes. I thought – I thought about your hands. Oh. I liked the thought that you were just outside the door. While I had my fingers inside myself.”

“Impatient little minx,” Hob says fondly. He kisses one of the lovely knobs of his stranger’s spine and pinches his backside for good measure before pulling away. “Stay here.”

He has to dig down to the bottom of his duffel bag in order to find the box of condoms and the little travel sized bottle of lube. He’d felt a little self-conscious when he’d packed them back in his flat in London – like he was presuming something – but then again he had been preparing for a supposedly romantic road trip with his girlfriend.

He’s glad, now, that he has them.

His stranger has remained on his knees, pitched forward to rest on his elbows, face pressed into a pillow and cock hanging heavy between his legs.

“Good boy,” Hob praises, and runs his hand along the man’s flank. “Beautiful. Oh, darling, I’m going to make you feel so good. And then you’re going to make me feel so good, aren’t you? You already have,” Hob coos, drizzling lube directly onto his arsehole. “And I know you’re going to keep being a good boy for me, aren’t you?”

Before the man can answer, Hob slips a finger inside him, right up to the first knuckle. He’s rewarded with a whimper and the feeling of his stranger pushing back against him, silently begging for more.

And then not so silently. “More,” moans the stranger. “Fuck. More, please.”

Hob strokes his finger in and out, petting the velvet inside his stranger.

“Don’t worry,” he says. “You’ll get more.”

He tries to spend as much time torturing his stranger with his fingers as his stranger had spent torturing him with his mouth, but by the second finger he finds his resolve dissolving like so many snowflakes on warm skin. The man is making such wanton sounds, and his knees skid wider and wider on the slippery motel bedspread, opening him inexorably to Hob’s hungry eyes and questing hands.

“Oh. Oh,” he says. “Oh, yes, fuck,” he moans. No more well-crafted phrases or erudite words; the only thing dropping from that perfect mouth are noises, guttural and breathy by turns, only half-muffled by the pillow his face is smashed into.

“Please,” he begs, “please, in me, I – please, I need –”

Hob obliges.

He’s pretty sure he’s never been harder in his life as he shoves his jeans down around his thighs and rolls the condom on. He has to do it one-handed, clumsily, because some frantic corner of his brain is convinced that if he lets go of the stranger’s hip then the man will disappear, between one blink and the next, and this whole night will turn out to have been some snowblind fever dream.

But his stranger stays where Hob has put him, desperate and writhing, begging for Hob’s cock, and when he finally pins the man down to the mattress and pushes into him, that first hard thrust is enough to silence both of them.

The room is utterly still for a heartbeat, and then another, and then one more, until Hob pulls out in order to thrust in again and his stranger wails and then Hob is fucking into him in earnest, fucking him hard, until the sound of their skin slapping together almost drowns out the sounds his stranger is making beneath him.

Almost.

His stranger moans and pants, and Hob answers him, thrust for thrust and moan for moan, Yes and Ah and Christ and Fuck, fuck me, use me, yes. He grips his stranger by the hips, so hard that his fingers leave little white divots behind when he shifts his grip, so hard that he worries he might leave bruises, and still the man pushes back against him and begs for more.

He comes, when he finally comes, untouched, rutting gracelessly against the mattress. Hob stills, grits his teeth, not wanting to overwhelm the other man as he seizes in pleasure, but his stranger continues to move against him, if anything even more desperate, even in the throes of orgasm.

“Don’t stop,” he gasps, “don’t, oh God, fuck me through it, don’t stop –”

So Hob hauls him up and pushes him down, one hand on his waist and one shoving his chest down into the mattress as the man’s hands scrabble at the sheets and he sobs and Hob pistons into him until he empties himself, until his prick is oversensitive and his stranger is twitching around and beneath him, and the room is finally quiet.

Then Hob takes the condom off, knots it and tosses it towards the wastebasket. He rolls them both away from the wet spot with only middling success, but he’s too tired to care. He shucks the rest of his clothes off. He is boneless and spent, and his stranger is inserting himself relentlessly into Hob’s personal space. They lie there for a long, long moment, sweaty and panting, until their breathing starts to even out and the desperate closeness has receded into normal cuddling. Hob presses a kiss to his stranger’s sweaty temple and marvels at his luck.

“I realize I neglected to ask you why you find yourself in Northern California,” his stranger says, tucked against Hob’s side, voice drowsy and hoarse. “Do you care to share?”

“It’s a long story,” Hob says. “I was – well, I am – on a road trip. With my, ah. With my girlfriend. Well. Ex-girlfriend, now. Actually.”

His stranger tenses slightly, and Hob doesn’t blame him; he knows how it must sound. “It sounds like there is a story there?” the man says, almost tentative.

“Yeah, we… we came over together, about two weeks ago. We flew into Seattle, were planning this whole big trip, right down the coast and all the way to Los Angeles. See the redwoods, do some wine tastings, the whole bit. I’m a photographer, I was thinking I could turn the whole trip into a photo essay, maybe even a book.” He sighs. “Then she heard about this yoga retreat, ashram sort of place. Bit culty, I don’t really go in for all that, but she absolutely had to check it out, so we did. Two days later, out of the blue, she tells me our chakras are misaligned and gives me the boot. Turns out Guru Todd Thingummy, who ran the retreat center, was very aligned with her chakras. As well as other, less… metaphysical things.”

There’s a sound from the vicinity of Hob’s armpit that he realizes with delight is a snort. The snort blossoms into a chuckle, and then his stranger is laughing, a frankly horrible honking sort of laugh, shaking in Hob’s arms with it, and Hob laughs along.

“I’m sorry,” his stranger gasps. “I shouldn’t – I shouldn’t laugh at you. It’s just… Guru Todd.”

“I know!” Hob snickers. “You can picture him, right? White boy dreadlocks and a fucking… shell necklace. Utter tosser.”

“I feel like I’ve probably met someone almost exactly like him, truly.” Eventually his stranger’s horrible laugh subsides. He shifts against Hob, playing idly with his chest hair, curling it around one finger. “In a way, I am also escaping a recent ex. She was the first person I dated after some… difficult experiences I had about a year ago. But in the end I was far more invested in the relationship than she, and she became. Uncomfortable. With my ardor.”

“She’s a bloody idiot then,” Hob says automatically, and his stranger looks up, startled.

“Do you think so?”

Hob briefly considers backpedaling. Don’t come off like a madman, he thinks to himself. Not when he’s finally talking to you. But there’s no hope for him. “Well, yeah. I mean, I’d say your ardor is my favorite thing about you so far.” He lets one hand drift down and gives his stranger’s arse a cheeky squeeze, and is rewarded with a squeak and another snort.

“You are kind to say so,” the man says, and interrupts himself with a yawn.

“It’s true. I… I’m really glad I met you,” Hob says honestly. Too honestly. He can’t help himself; the man is just so beautiful, mouth kissed red and limbs loose, fucked out and soft everywhere he’d been hard and prickly before.

Hob still doesn’t know his name.

“I’m glad I met you, too,” the man says softly.

Hob snuggles them both down into the lumpy motel pillows and pulls the blanket up firmly around their shoulders. The wind blows outside, he reaches up to switch off the lamp, and they fall asleep.

He wakes in the night and stumbles to the bathroom to take a piss. When he comes back, his stranger has starfished out and is taking up a full two-thirds of the bed, sleeping like a stone. Hob manages to reinsert himself into the remaining third and then simply lies there for a long few minutes, looking at the other man.

The skies must have cleared, at least a little, because there’s a few strips of moonlight filtering through the blinds. The pale light turns his stranger into marble, a work of art; he practically glows against the blue sheets. Hob’s fingers itch for his camera.

“You’re going to fuck me up,” he whispers. “I’m going to wake up next to you and never want to leave, and it’s going to fuck me up so bad.”

The sleeping man does not respond, of course; doesn’t even stir. Hob lies there, and gazes at him, until he slips back into sleep himself.

When he wakes again it’s fully morning. The sun is that peculiar thin shade of blue that you get on very cold mornings, but when Hob peeks out the window, the sky is clear and the snowplows have clearly been out making the rounds. He tries to tamp down a sudden feeling of disappointment.

He gets a drink of water, and when he returns to bed his stranger is stirring. First one blue eye opens, then the other.

“Morning,” Hob says.

The man hums and stretches luxuriously, rolling from his belly to his back. The sheets fall down around his hips, revealing one elegant hipbone and a tempting glimpse of dark curls. His pale skin practically glows against the blue sheets in the morning light.

“Enjoying the view?” his stranger asks, and his voice is rough with sleep and slightly hoarse.

“You could say that,” Hob says. He puts one knee on the bed, reaches out to run a hand lightly down the long, lean line of the man’s thigh. “God, you’re… you are so beautiful.”

“Come here to me,” the man says, beckoning to Hob.

Hob ducks his head and kisses up the ladder of the man’s ribs, takes one pert nipple gently between his teeth.

“Can I take your picture?” he says suddenly. “Not in a creepy way. I can even keep your face out of it if you like, I just… there’s something about you, in this light.”

“I don’t mind,” the man says.

Hob’s heart leaps.

A few minutes later, he’s gotten his camera out and adjusted. The room is so quiet, so still, that each click of the shutter sounds almost sacrilegious. He shoots in black and white. He thinks the sheets will show dark, almost black, and the man’s skin will show light and luminous against them. His stranger poses like a dream, languid and biddable, moving here and there on the bed, wherever Hob arranges him.

“You’ve done this before,” Hob accuses. He’s kneeling above the other man, shooting straight down, and his stranger has one arm thrown over his face so only one eye is visible. “Posed, I mean. You know how to move for a camera.”

“I have,” the stranger admits. “Mostly for life drawing classes, though I imagine the principle is more or less the same.”

“Incredible. Are you an artist, then?”

“I suppose.”

Hob tugs the sheet a little lower, so that it’s just barely covering the stranger’s prick, which has plumped up a little – whether from the attention of Hob himself or of the camera, he’s not sure, but it’s one of the sexiest things Hob’s ever seen. The neat patch of dark hair blending into the dark sheet. The gentle swell beneath it. His mouth waters.

“You suppose?”

“I find it difficult to call myself an artist. To claim that title. But I make art. If that is the same thing.”

“Hmm. I reckon so.”

Hob pulls the sheet another fraction of an inch lower. He can feel himself getting distracted. The itch he’d felt to photograph the beautiful stranger, now mostly satisfied, has transformed into an altogether different kind of impulse. He takes one more shot, barely paying attention to the framing. Catches himself licking his lips.

“Hob.”

“Yeah?”

“Put the camera down.”

He hastens to obey.

He’d pulled his boxers back on at some point last night, but they do little to hide his arousal as he slides under the sheets and slots himself in behind his stranger, rubbing his nose in the riotous bedhead and kissing his neck as the man tilts his head to one side to give him better access.

“I like how you say my name,” Hob murmurs. He grinds against his stranger’s narrow arse and reaches around to make a loose fist around his hardening cock. “You’re really not going to tell me yours, are you?”

“Mine?”

“Your name.”

“I –” The man’s breath hitches as Hob tightens his grip, stroking slowly up and down. “I haven’t – decided yet.”

“Well,” Hob says against the smooth skin between his ear and his shoulder. “Let me know what you decide.”

They writhe together under the sheets for a few minutes, until they’re both fully hard, until Hob’s chest is slightly tacky with sweat where it’s rubbing against the stranger’s sharp shoulder blades. He’s grunting, underwear pulled down, making quick little thrusts in the crease of the other man’s thigh, sticky and warm and so good.

“Fuck me again,” his stranger says. “Please.”

“Don’t be a madman,” Hob chides. “You’ll be so sore.”

But he doesn’t say no. And he slides a finger between the man’s arse cheeks and pets over his hole, still a little loose from the night before.

The stranger twists his neck around to look Hob in the eye. “I don’t care. I want you,” he says. “I want to feel it.”

And Hob tries his best to be a good person, he really does, but when confronted with this bald-faced desire he is only, after all, a man. So he mumbles Fuck, okay, yeah, okay against his stranger’s shoulder, and tears himself away to retrieve the lube and a condom. He fingers him open, as slowly and as carefully as he can bring himself to do it, and rolls the condom on, and he fucks him again. Face to face, this time; one knee hooked over his elbow, and long arms clinging to him like a drowning man, and panting, open-mouthed kisses that are as much simply breathing the other’s breath as they are real kisses.

The stranger comes first, his beautiful face screwed up in ecstasy, and Hob follows him over the edge mere seconds later.

The other man falls back into a doze almost immediately, drifting off as soon as Hob has disposed of the condom and wiped them down with a handful of tissues, but Hob is buzzing with too much energy to lie back down. He cleans himself up, splashing water on his face and brushing his teeth quickly, before dressing quietly and creeping down to the motel lobby to look for breakfast.

There’s a coffee machine, a few muffins – prepackaged, not fresh – and a rather sad fruit bowl with some mealy-looking apples. He assembles what he can and shoves some creamers and sugar packets in his jacket pocket. He asks the bored teenager at the front desk (a different one than the night before, although bearing a distinct family resemblance) about the weather report, and learns that although it’s supposed to stay cold, no more precipitation is in the forecast. Then he goes back to the room.

His stranger stirs again at the rush of cold air when Hob lets himself back into the room.

“I come bearing provisions,” he says, setting the coffees on the bedside table and dropping the rest of his meager bounty in the man’s lap.

“Foraging for our survival?” he asks dryly.

“Something like that. It’s slim pickings out there, I’m afraid. But hey –” he picks up a muffin and wiggles it “– chocolate chip!”

His stranger snorts and mutters something about being spoiled.

Hob is very careful not to say anything about how he’d like to spoil this man very much, actually, for the foreseeable future and possibly beyond that, because Hob has so longed for someone to care for, and because this man so obviously needs it. Hob eats his muffin, and very carefully does not say anything reckless or emotional.

They finish their motel snacks, and drink their coffees (Hob’s with a little creamer and one sugar; the stranger’s with no cream and an absurd amount of sugar). And eventually Hob broaches the subject that’s obviously hovering between them.

“So,” he says. “What do you want to do now? I’m still up to give you a ride to your cabin, if that’s what you want. The roads are supposed to be cleared by now.”

“I suppose I should,” the stranger says, fiddling with his styrofoam cup, not meeting Hob’s eyes. “I did tell my sibling that I would return in the morning.”

“Okay.” Hob clears his throat. “Alright then. Whenever you’re ready.”

It takes them another hour to leave the room. Hob showers, and then his stranger decides he needs to rinse off as well, and then there’s a frustrating search for car keys that turn out to have been kicked or dropped halfway under a bedside table at some point the night before.

Then the stranger stops Hob in the doorway with a hand on his elbow and kisses him, long and slow and wordless, before they step out into the brilliant snowy sparkle of the late morning.

The drive is very quiet. The stranger directs Hob out of town and along a rather steep road that winds up the thickly forested mountainside. It’s certainly not a road that Hob would have wanted to drive in last night’s weather, and even with clear skies and plowed roads he takes it slow, acutely aware of the grip of the rental car’s tires on the snowy highway.

Only one time does the stranger wince and shift uncomfortably when Hob cannot avoid a bump in the road. Hob smiles, and swallows his smile, and deliberately wrenches his mind away from the vivid memories of just why his stranger might be wincing and shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

His stranger is silent, except for when he briefly tells Hob when and where to turn. The farther they drive up the mountain, the stiffer he becomes, until he’s gripping the seat with white knuckles and his mouth is one firm line.

Hob doesn’t think it’s the wintry roads that are making him so tense.

They pull over, eventually, at the base of a long driveway. Through the trees Hob can see a large house – not really a cabin by any stretch of the imagination, but built of logs, and with a wisp of woodsmoke floating up from a picturesque brick chimney. They both gaze up at it through the trees. Hob puts the car in park but doesn’t turn it off.

“Well, here we are,” he says.

“Indeed,” his stranger says, and his voice sounds tense and slightly strangled. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

Hob waits for him to open the door and walk away.

The man does not move.

A minute stretches by, and another, and another, and still his stranger has not opened the car door.

Hob dares to hope.

“Come with me,” he says suddenly.

His stranger looks up, startled.

“I mean it. Come with me. Go get your stuff and we’ll just. Drive away. Go down the coast, find somewhere it’s actually warm. Or don’t even get your stuff,” he adds hurriedly, aware that his voice is sounding increasingly unhinged. “Say the word and I’ll just turn the car around. We’ll go. Anywhere you want, just… come with me.”

The man looks at Hob with an unreadable expression for a long moment. “You know nothing about me,” he says finally.

“I know I like you. A lot,” Hob says. “I know last night was one of the best nights I’ve had in a long time, maybe one of the best nights of my whole life. I know I’d regret it if I didn’t at least ask. So, I’m asking. Come with me.”

“I haven’t even told you my name,” says his stranger. “I could be a serial killer.”

“You could be, yeah. But I don’t think you are. I think… I think you just want someone to want you.” Hob reaches across the gear shift and briefly touches his stranger on the cheek. The man’s eyes flutter closed and Hob doesn’t think he’s imagining the way he leans ever-so-slightly into the gentle touch before he looks down. “I want you.”

There’s another long silence, punctuated only by an occasional call from the chickadees flitting through the trees.

“My name is Morpheus,” he says to his hands, clenched in his lap. “But some people call me Dream. People – people close to me. Call me Dream.”

Hob smiles. “Can I call you Dream, then?”

Dream nods. “Let’s go,” he says. Hob’s smile widens.

“Want to get anything from inside?” he asks.

“No. I think not,” Dream says. All of a sudden it’s like the tight strings of his body are loosened: he leans back in his seat, crosses his ankles, looking relaxed for the first time since they’d gotten out of bed. He lolls his head to one side and peeks at Hob and his face looks fey and happy in the afternoon light. “I believe I have everything I need for now.”

Happiness wells up in Hob’s chest, a rushing feeling like a mountain spring swollen by melting snow. He puts the car in gear and reaches over to take Dream’s hand.

“Right then,” he says. “Let’s go.”

Read on AO3 >>>

[the-californicationist]

Hey 🫵🫶🏻! I love your John Price fics A LOT and I wanted to thank you for that<3 I wanted your opinion! How do you like Price's new skin?!

I'm just thinking about that!!! On a camouflage/infiltration mission and he fucks reader in this outfit!

Me right now looking at this photo:

Cold Shoulder

I wasn't sure how this one was gonna go, but I hope this is close to what you imagined! <3 <3 love this outfit. TW: fem reader, dub con?

"There you are," he growled, lowering his gun when he realized it was you.

You were holed up in a small alcove of a cave on the west side of the mountain. It was snowing, and you were doing your best to keep warm, but it was getting more difficult by the minute. And now, you had your angry captain yelling at you.

"You could've been killed, Sparrow. What the fuck were you thinking? This is a full klick away from the RV."

He closed in on you. Price was still fully geared up, and his snow hood shaded his eyes, making them all the more menacing. He was wearing his shining skull mask, but the sharp teeth below it were scarier than the gleaming bones.

Price grabbed you by the arms and pulled you up to face him,

"Answer me, soldier."

His eyes searched yours, looking for the truth. You swallowed your spit, thick and suffocating, trying to comply,

"I don't know, sir."

"You don't know? You don't know how many men I fuckin' killed to get up here to find you. I thought..." His anger cracked like glass, sudden and violent, "I thought I lost you."

"What do you care... sir?"

The words tumbled out of you before you could catch them. It was hard to call him by his title when you were basically calling him out. But, you managed to tack it on to the end.

The problem was, you hadn't wanted to be saved by your captain. You had wanted to handle your ex-fil on your own. After all, it was he who had told you that you two should stop what you were doing. All the sneaking around and finding comfort in each other in the middle of the night. He had said it needed to stop. So, why was he so concerned about you now? You seethed,

"I could've gotten out of here on my own if you hadn't disconnected my sat-tab! I was closing in on their camp. Soap and his explosion blew my cover and I --"

"That explosion saved your bloody life, little bird. You jeopardized the mission, and you're not using your head. I know you're upset with me, but..."

"Upset? You told me you loved me, John!"

A cold, snowy silence stretched out between you. Even though he was so close to you, you could barely hear his heavy breaths. You could smell him. He was spice and tobacco and oak moss. His sweat and soap tangled with all of his other scents, reminding you of all of the times you had breathed him in.

Suddenly, striking like a viper, he grabbed you by the back of your neck and pulled you toward his face. You thought he would kiss you, but he didn't. He held you just close enough and said,

"Turn around, Corporal."

"What?" You were confused, but you were at his mercy.

Price turned you around himself, shoving you down on all fours in the stony floor of the cave. The rocks were wet beneath your hands. You heard the zipper of his pants, and you turned to look at him, shocked. He snarled, right in your ear, as he leaned over you,

"Won't listen. Gonna have to make you behave."

He started to pull down your pants, dragging them over your thick ass cheeks, revealing your pussy to him. He took off his glove with his teeth and began to play in you, telling you,

"Can't have you riskin' your life like that, little bird. I do love you. Can't seem to fuckin' help it. Tried to stay away. Can't. I can't."

Then, you felt it. His cock was at your warm entrance, pressing into you in that familiar way but at an unfamiliar pace.

Usually, he treated you like his soft little princess despite the fact that you were a seasoned soldier. He would eat you for hours, sometimes, making you dripping and pliant enough to take his heavy girth.

But, not now. Now, he was on a mission to make you remember how precious you really were. You needed to learn, and he was ready to teach you.

You screamed as he pressed your walls apart. It wasn't pain, but it was intense. He went slowly, but he didn't relent. As he began to pump himself in and out of your body, he lay his hand down hard across your ass, smacking you and letting the skin burn beneath his palm,

"Tha's it, birdie. Sing for me. Loud. Let me hear you."

Price's huge rod was fucking you so deep at this angle, and he wanted more. So, he pushed your shoulders down, forcing your chest into the snow. Your cheek hurt from the ice.

"So wet for me. Almost like you wanted me to find you," he teased.

What could you tell him? That he was right?

All you did to respond was pulse around him, gripping him hard inside of your body, making him stutter in his rhythm.

He let out a low growl and grabbed your ponytail in his hand, arching your back up towards him, barking commands at you,

"Say you're sorry! Tell me you're sorry for riskin' your fuckin' life up here on this goddamn mountain. Say it!"

"I'm sorry..." You managed.

"Sorry, what?" He bit down hard on your neck, marking you with his teeth.

"I'm sorry, sir."

"Good girl. See? You're so good. So good for me. Mmmf. Fuck!"

He pounded into you mercilessly, and his other hand began to play with your clit, smearing your wet juices all over your lower lips and skin, dragging it up over your mons and onto your belly.

"Fuck, you're so wet, Sparrow. I'm gonna come in you."

"Yes, sir."

"Fuck!"

You felt his hot come pool in your body, radiating through your skin, wet on wet on wet. Your ass cheeks stung, your body ached, and yet, you were so satisfied. You'd never seen Price get so worked up, but you wanted more. He had created a monster.

He fastened his pants and sat with you in his lap, breathing heavy in the darkness of his hood.

"Sparrow, I love you. I can't lose you. I won't. Don't do that to me."

"I love you, too, John."

You nuzzled against his neck, smelling his familiar scent, waiting for the next time you could misbehave.

[patheticpeoplesupreme]

Sparks In A Socket

[Airplane turns into a lightning demon — because system wanted some fun]

[just a WIP lol I can never do full oneshots because I love skipping all over the place haha don’t we love cliffhangers?]

He tried to breathe, he really did. But fuck, how could one NOT panic when there’s a storm surrounding the mountain AND THRE ARE BURSTS OF LIGHTNING COMING FROM HIS—HIS HANDS WERE TURNING LIGHT BLUE????

WHAT THE FUCK.

He glared at the system through his blurring vision, dammit, he didn’t even do anything weird this time!!! He was just doing paperwork!?!

[ (ง•̀.•́)ง Fight on, User 01!]

“Why—“ He stuttered on his breath, fighting the urge to curl up into himself, knowing that doing that would make the scent of burnt ash worse, “Why do I—Why lightning powers?”

[It’s a special event! User 02 has also turned into a demon for a brief period of time.]

Helpful! Really helpful!

“Can you please change my powers, System!?” Shang Qinghua pleaded desperately, see? You can see he’s really desperate because he’s using his “please’s” (and kneeling on the ground sobbing)

[System can do that for 1000000 B points!]

THAT’S ABSURD, AND A SCAM!?!? HOW HARD CAN CHANGING A POWER BE???

[(┳◇┳) it takes a lot of power!]

Screw you System!!!?!?!?

Shakily, he wrote a letter to his head disciple, telling her that he’ll be leaving for a while and another for Shen Qingqiu. He taps on the pendant that Mobei—Jun gave him so that he could travel around between the palace and the sect with ease and tried to take comfort in the chill and lack of thunder blaring in his ears.

The jitters scuttle all over the palm of his hands, and he flinches at the sight of sparks. He could see the snow on his fingers melting, maybe this was a bad idea?

No— he just needs to get inside of his palace, to his room, where everything’s blocked off and where he’ll be safe and where everyone around him is safe—God he can now understand why Elsa locked herself away when she accidentally hurt her sister— He darts inside, not giving a second glance to the guards’ bewildered look at his back.

—

He huddled as close to the fire as he could, trying not to stare at the frost on his window. The frost made the window translucent, some parts of the window had water droplets that had yet to be frozen. Some slipped down the window. He really tried not to stare at those.

His body was restless, he couldn’t stop twitching, he tried rubbing his hands together, but it only fueled the sparks in his hands, static static static— not dangerous, he reminded himself.

He would be fine.

He’s probably immune to the sparks, the lightning, he’s fine.

His gaze fall back to the drips of water.

It reminds him of the water bottle next to his computer. It reminds him of the cup noodles sitting right in front of him, tumbling tumbling tumbling— it’s NOT TUMBLING.

Shang Qinghua leans against the wall and shuts his eyes.

Just breathing.

inhale exhale. inhale exhale. inhale exhale.

“Qinghua?”

Many things happened after that statement.

1. He jumped away from the voice, almost mashing his back against the wall, unintentionally slapping the big cold hand that was reaching for him.

2. He didn’t scream, no, Shang Qinghua let out an eardrum—shattering shriek and with his eyes popping open with shock, along with the sound of thunder rumbled through the room.

3. Various flashes of light burst from his hands, a few crackling bursts crashed into the window glass, shattering it completely causing the icy winds to come into the room. Some sparks of lightning ricocheted off his wall breaking the lamp above his head, some singed the wooden parts of his bed and his desk.

After the lightning died down, he stared right into the dumbfounded ice demon’s eyes, mind completely blank, his body completely shutting down on him in his panic.

He had a full view of the destruction, he could feel the shards of glass from the lamp above him, the glow from his handsl, the rumbling of thunder in his ears doesn’t dissipate, nor does the smell of fire or the tingling feeling in his bones. He’s not dying, Shang Qinghua reminds himself, he’s not.

He’s not in pain, he’s completely dry and he just hit his king and the air in his lungs is leaving him.

“S—Sorry—“ he stuttered out, trying to hit his chest into breathing again, it only kind of helps.

He could swear that Mobei-Jun had a concerned look on his face.

—

[joels-shitty-puns]

Melt With You

Pairing: Pedro Pascal x Reader

Summary: Based on this request! "Just a soft and romantic winter night besides the fireplace with kisses and long talks..."

Warnings: Fluff, kisses, cursing.

Word count: 1k

_____

You climbed into the passenger seat of Pedro's car, throwing the shopping bags in the back seat with a groan. Pedro turned the key in the ignition and immediately you clicked the AC on full blast, only to be met with hot air. “UGHHHH,” you grumbled angrily. “WHY IS IT SO FUCKING HOT!?!” You clipped your seatbelt in a rage.

The two of you had just gone holiday shopping in the middle of December, not that you could tell based on the weather. If someone didn't know the date, they'd think it was June. The midday heat was baking your skin, the thermometer in your boyfriend’s car reading 80° Fahrenheit. California had some exceptional views and often nice weather, making for some great beach days... But when it's December and all you hear on the radio are songs like “Let it Snow” and “Winter Wonderland,” it was hard to feel wintery when the outside didn't reflect that at all.

“I know, baby. It doesn't really feel like the holidays when we're out here melting,” he settled his hand on your thigh, giving it a gentle squeeze.

The air conditioning had finally started to cool, along with your anger, and you gave a sigh. “I just want to sit by a fire with you and watch the snow fall outside the window,” you leaned your face into your palm, resting against the window. “It just doesn't really feel like the holidays right now.” Pedro turned his face away from the road to look at you briefly, reaching to take your other hand from your lap.

“Baby, I have an idea,” he answered you, kissing your knuckles.

_____

Two days later, you were packing a bag full of warm clothes, getting ready for a cozy weekend away in the California mountains. The drive was a couple hours long, but you were so excited to spend a relaxing weekend away with Pedro that you couldn't stop smiling. The radio buzzed away, playing holiday music, and before long, the station lost service through the mountain road.

“Sleigh bells ring, are you listening..” Pedro began, singing just above hearing volume into the now silent car.

“In the lane, snow is glistening…” you smiled at him, singing the next response.

“A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight,” he squeezed your hand, “Walkin' in a winter wonderland,” you harmonized.

Finally the two of you reached the house, a quaint little cabin off the main road, next to the forest. It was surrounded by thick pine trees freshly dusted with snow, and the flakes were starting to come down heavier now. Your grin spread across your face as you jumped out of the car like a child at the playground and instantly scooped up a snowball.

SMACK, you hit Pedro on his back with the fluffy ball, watching it explode into a mess of frost on his shirt. Pedro, who was unloading the bags from the trunk, turned in offense. “You did not just throw a snowball at me when I'm pulling your suitcase out of the trunk,” he laughed, immediately reaching down to scoop one up in defense. “And in the back, no less!” He threw the snowball directly at your chest, with a thump. “Like a coward,” he smirked, throwing a second snowball he had formed at the same time as the first.

You gasped in shock, “oh now you're gonna GET IT!!!” You quickly bent down to create another frosty weapon, but when you looked up, he had started to run away through the snow.

“And I'm the coward!?” You bellowed, your voice echoing through the mountain air.

You began to toss another ball, but before the perfectly aimed shot hit him again, he dove to the side in the snow, dodging it narrowly and hiding behind a tree trunk.

He let out an evil cackle. “Good luck getting me now, baby!” You saw him peek around the tree before bending down to scoop some ammo.

While he wasn't looking, you snuck closer, hiding behind a shed and running around to the other side for a sneak attack.

“Babe? Where'd you go?” Pedro asked loudly.

Jumping out from your hiding place, you charged him, throwing four snowballs at him, one after the other.

He screamed, snow in his mouth, his hair, his shirt, his pants. 

“You DEVIL!” He laughed before jumping up and chasing after you, tackling you into the fluffy powder below.

The snow at your back was freezing through your coat and pants, but with his warm body on top, pressed into you, you felt nice and toasty. It quickly lit a fire into you, and you pulled the collar of his thick jacket down towards you, pulling him into a deep kiss. 

“I love you,” you smiled, breaking the kiss.

“I love you too, sweetheart.” He pecked your lips gently. “Even if you do play dirty.”

“It's not my fault you suck at snowball wars,” you grinned, your teeth beginning to chatter as the snow seeped through your clothing.

“Let's go inside,” he rolled over, grabbing your arm and pulling you up with him.

You walked into the cabin, taking off your wet clothes and quickly changing into some sweats and a hoodie.

Pedro changed as well, throwing on a flannel and gray sweatpants. You stared, eyeing him from head to toe as he grabbed some logs and a lighter before starting a fire. The fireplace was next to the plush loveseat, a fluffy rug on the floor in front of it. The chimney was made of gray rock and was easily one of the most gorgeous fireplaces you had ever seen. With the fire finally roaring, you sat on the couch, grabbing a large, thick blanket. Pedro settled in beside you, leaning back and pulling you into his chest before tucking the blanket gently around your bodies. 

“Thank you for this,” you sighed, tilting your head back to kiss his lips before leaning against his shoulders.

“I needed this too,” he replied with a smile, wrapping his arms around your body. 

With the fire crackling a few feet away and your boyfriend snuggled tightly against you, you felt your temperature warming. But unlike the other day, this heat felt right. The two of you chatted and cuddled, kisses sprinkled throughout, before eventually falling asleep in each other's arms.

[bbyquokka]

trapped with him

– in which yn looses a bet and ends up becoming felix's pet !!

pairing | lee felix x fem reader

genre | work colleagues, enemies to ??, smut – 18+ is advised!

cw | dom felix ; breast/nipple play ; sexual bets ; oral (f rec) ; clit stimulation ; vaginal fingering ; sexual asphyxiation (choking) ; unprotected sex ; birth control ; clit slapping w cock ; multiple orgasms ; pull out method ; cum on body ; pet/master

words | 5.7k ~ ( 5,794 )

note | this is a lil thank you fic for @oshimee for sending me a second package 🙊 there is still one more ty fic that is in the works so uh, enjoyyy! don’t forget to leave feedback, reblog

m.list — you can also read it on my ao3

dont repost. dont translate. minors, ageless & default blogs; dni! feedback and reblogs are highly advised and appreciated!

“i can't believe this is happening.” you let out a disgruntled groan, head in your hands. a displeasured tut is heard from the side of you, causing you to feel even more annoyed at the situation.

you're stuck in work, or rather, you're trapped in work with your worst enemy; lee felix. a sudden snow blizzard occurred which caused a major power outage in the city. the whole city went quiet. trains and buses being canceled due to the fast mountain of snow being created.

unlucky for you, the company doors work electrical meaning you and everyone else have a fob key that allows you in and out and when there is no electricity, there's no escape.

what's even more unlucky, is that you and felix are the last to leave. you both work under the same branch meaning you both work somewhat closely together. today, you ended a little bit later than usual (only because your boss insisted on work being completed) 

you and felix were the only two in the office. no words were exchanged between the two of you and if there were, it was very short. once you completed the last set of work, you breathed a sigh of sweet relief, cleaned your desk and grabbed your belongings. as soon as you grabbed your coat, the power went out resulting in your current situation.

“i can't believe i'm stuck in here with you.” felix grunts. he's sat on the floor just opposite you. his hair disheveled from running his hands through it numerous times with his tie and top button of his shirt loosened up.

“i guess that's the only thing we find in common.” you say sarcastically with a sarcastic smile. ever since felix joined the company, you never liked him. you hate how everyone pines over him. you hate how he looks so pretty and perfect everyday. you hate how he can do things better than you. how he can pick things up faster than you. you hate seeing your employees fuss over him. you hate how he always comes into work and is greeted with flowers or chocolates or even a letter of confession.

you hate how he politely turns people down. you just hate everything about him and to be stuck in work with him is a living nightmare for you both.

“why hasn't the back up generator started yet!” you groan, kicking your head back and straightening out your legs in an attempt to feel somewhat comfortable. but that's hard when you spend all day in nothing but work clothing. the appeal of heading home and changing into fuzzy pajamas sounds like bliss round about now.

“this fucking sucks.” felix sighs before standing up and looking out of the window. the snow is still heavily falling with the wind blowing it in various directions. people holding onto their hats, nuzzling their faces into their scarves as the bitter chill hits them.

“how long do you think we will be here?” you mumble. felix tuts.

“the fuck am i suppose to know.” 

“alright! jesus, don't get your panties in a twist felix. was just a simple question.” 

“has anyone told you how annoying you are?”

“several actually. why? am i annoying you?” you smirk. annoying felix is much more enjoyable than you thought.

“please yn.” he sighs before sitting back down on the floor. “just shut up.”

“have you always been like this?”

“like what?”

“a stuck up annoying brat that has no manners.”

“only when it comes to you.”

“mhm, thought so. because you seem so sweet and innocent with other people. especially when they pine over you.”

“it's called being polite and they don't pine!” felix unbuttons a few more buttons of his shirt before untying his tie and throwing it on the floor beside him. his body is heating up due to how hot it's getting in the workplace. you get a small peak at his honey skin as well as his collarbones. 

your heart thumbs a little against your chest. butterflies swim in your stomach and lay dormant in your groin. you frown to yourself.

surely your worst enemy isn't making you feel aroused?!

“oh please! yes felix. right away felix.” you mock before rolling your eyes. felix smirks.

“what can i say. i love it when my pets behave.” 

“pets?!” you look at him wide eyed before glaring. “you're insufferable. i hate you.”

felix smirks before leaning back against the wall. several minutes have passed by in silence with the exception of passing traffic and cars honking their horns. the office now feels like a sauna. the insufferable hot air hanging above your head and making it difficult for you to breathe.

your work clothes stick to your body, making you grimace and feel disgusting. felix has pushed his hair back with a headband, his brow coated in a thin layer of sweat as a few more buttons of his shirt have popped open.

you wish you could pop open a few more of your buttons but with the tops of your breasts daring to show, you chose not to. felix sits with his legs parted, one foot on the ground and leg bent which allows him to rest his arm on his knee. his head tilted to the side a little, lips parted and eyes closed. 

"so fucking hot.” he mumbles. you give him a small hum of agreement, fanning yourself with your hand.

several more minutes pass with you and felix not talking to one another. this allows you to admire him from afar. you're so used to seeing him prim and proper. hair neat and perfectly styled, not a strand out of place.

seeing him like this however, makes you feel a little hot and bothered. he looks different, feels different. your eyes travel up and down his body, taking in every detail you can see. you can't deny that he's a very handsome man with a unique beauty. his freckles being your favourite thing about him; but you'd never tell him that to his face.

“like what you see?” you look at felix as heat travels to your cheeks. he's smirking. you've been caught. you swallow and avert your gaze which makes felix laugh. “cute.”

you scoff, rolling your eyes. from the corner of your eyes, you see felix unbuckling the belt of his work pants. his eyes are on you. he's watching you; teasing you.

you suddenly feel vulnerable but you don't hate it. your body heats up, heart rate speeding up. you look at him, making the mistake of making eye contact with him. he smirks. 

he's got you right where he wants you.

“hey yn. why do you hate me so much?” he says with a pout. you frown. you want to look away, avoid the conversation but you can't. your body won't listen. it's like he has a hold on you, gripping onto you tightly whilst watching you slowly melt in the palm of his hands.

“i don't hate you.” you mumble. “i just hate the way you act.”

“how i act?”

“you're so nice to everyone. so caring and attentive. you let people down gently, even when you get showered with cards and confessions. even when you look so uncomfortable, you still remain polite and professional. i hate it. it makes me sick.”

“are you sure you hate me because of the way i act with others or because you hate that other people have my attention?” your eyes widen at the thought.

you open your mouth to speak but felix is quicker than you.

“i see you yn.” he purrs before standing up and walking to you. you swallow thickly as you follow his movements. “i see the way you look at me. i see the dirty looks you give people when they confess. i see the jealousy.” felix bends down between your open legs. he strokes your cheek gently, a soft whimper escapes your lips as your body burns hotter and hotter.

“you want me yn. you desire me.”

“bullshit.” you whisper.

“tell me yn. when was the last time you had sex?” 

“t-that has nothing to do with you!” you stutter. felix tuts and strokes your hair.

“but are you not pent up, darling? don't you want to feel the touch of another human? feel yourself get lost in the pleasure. i know you want me and i can provide that for you.”

“what…?” you stare at him in disbelief. he smirks.

“isn't this what you want?” he takes your hand, slowly guiding it down his body to his crotch. your head spins as you feel his cock through the layers of fabric.

he's hard.

“fuck no!” you stammer. you feel heat on your cheeks. you try to pull your hand away but he's strong. you can feel him grow; feel him throb.

“lets make a bet.” you look up at him. a glint of mischief in his eyes as he looks down at you.

“what kind of bet?” you don't know where this is going. judging by the look on his face, it can only end in disaster but oddly enough, you don't hate it? in fact, you're more inclined and drawn into him.

“if i can make you cum with just my mouth, you have to be my pet. obey my every command.”

“and if you lose?” 

“you can do whatever you want to me. i'll be at your beck and call. your pet, so to speak.” you chew your lip as you think it over. “or i can leave you alone.”

“excuse me?” 

“i know you hate me yn. you told me that before. if you win this bet, i will leave you alone and we shall act as though nothing happened. a simple caught up in the moment kinda thing.”

“i don't hate you, felix.” you whisper.

“you don't?” 

“of course not. but why propose this? why me? why not all those people that confessed and bought you stuff?”

“because i’m not interested in them. i’m interested in you! i have been from day one. as soon as i saw you, i was smitten. you're attractive yn and slowly, i became more and more smitten and interested in you.” 

felix's cheeks are bright red. he avoids your gaze and rubs the back of his neck shyly. you look at him in shock. lee felix has a school girl crush on you and it makes you feel strangely giddy and excited. 

“ok.” you grin. felix looks at you before letting out a sudden groan due to the fact that you squeezed his groin. “lets play. i’ve always wanted a pet.”

felix scoffs before removing your hand from his groin. he leans in close, his breath fanning against the shell of your ear. “just to let you know, i've been told i do great things with my mouth.” 

his voice is deep and sensual. purring and rippling along your skin. your core throbs with excitement, heart rate speeding up. you press your lips together in a thin line before scoffing and rolling your eyes.

“prove it, lee felix.” you challenge. he scoffs before pressing his lips against yours unexpectedly. your eyes widen in shock, mind failing to register what's happening. you don't move, not because you don't want to, but because you can't.

you feel felix smirking against your lips. his lips are unusually soft but that's to be expected with the amount of times you see him apply lip balm. felix nibbles on your bottom lip gently which is when your mind finally registers.

you hold onto his broad shoulders. eyes fluttering close as you reciprocate the kiss. you tilt your head to the side to allow more room, the kiss heating up and becoming more needy as time goes on.

it's soft but sensual. it feels natural, like you've both been wanting this for so long. felix's hands cup your cheeks. his palms feel so soft and tender. his skin is hot on your face. he slips his tongue between your lips unexpectedly which causes you to shiver and groan a little.

he tastes the inside of your mouth, tongues battling for dominance. all the while, his hands are gliding down your body and cupping your breasts through your work shirt. there, he squeezes and massages your soft breasts, kneading them as if they're bread dough.

he's not even doing much. just kissing and fondling your breasts but you feel like your body is on fire. you feel electrified. your core throbs with anticipation. the pit of your stomach tightening and butterflies fluttering in your stomach.

felix detaches from your lips to kiss your neck. he starts off tenderly before sucking the skin. you tilt your head to the side some more to allow access which allows felix to easily plant kisses on your neck as well as leave a trail of purple bruises behind.

“felix.” you sigh out his name softly. he hums against your neck as a form of acknowledgement before unbuttoning the remainder of the buttons of your work shirt. he's back to squeezing and massaging your breasts through your bra. his lips never leaving your neck.

you're burning. it hurts. you're aching with so much lust and need that it makes you feel uncomfortable. his touch is doing something to you. it feels magical in a way as you can slowly feel yourself melting right into the palm of his hands. 

you reach up to tangle your fingers in his hair and tug gently. you whisper his name softly which causes him to shiver.

“my name sounds so sweet yet so dirty on your tongue.” he growls against your neck.

“it does?” felix simply hums in response, too caught up in taking your shirt off and unclasping your bra from the back.

“i’ve heard my name many times but it sounds so sinful when it comes from you.” you blush, shocked and feeling bashful at the sudden confession. felix laughs softly and kisses your cheek gently before taking your shirt and bra off and throwing it beside you.

he swallows thickly. his adams apple bobbing in time with the swallows as he stares at your chest. your soft round breasts and perky nipples that are inviting him to touch, to lick and devour. he removes his own shirt, discarding it with your clothing.

you watch him dive in-between your breasts. your breath hitches in your throat as he caresses them softly in the palm of his hands, slowly getting rougher with each passing second. his mouth latches onto your nipples, sucking and licking them sloppily and getting your skin coated in his saliva.

the hot, humid air paired with his saliva hardens your nipples further. the tip of his tongue flicks on them, fingers rolling the buds. your shakily tug his hair gently, head kicking back and moaning his name softly. he peppers kisses on your skin, traveling up to your neck before kissing the valley between your breasts to then instantly attach himself to a nipple.

your underwear is feeling uncomfortable at this point. you don't know what to say or do. your head is foggy and you're moving on your own. it feels like it's not your body. you never thought you'd take your worst enemy on with a bet let alone this type of bet.

you know you're going to lose. the way his mouth is working on your breasts makes you ache with excitement and is a clear indication that what he said is true; he can do great things with his mouth.

“felix. need you.” you pant. he looks up at you through his lashes, a nipple still in his mouth as he sucks. “please..” 

he smirks and lets go of your nipple with a pop. “so shameless.” your cheeks and the back of your neck feel hot. you watch felix strip you of your work clothing, leaving you in just your panties.

he licks his lips hungrily, palming his erection through his trousers. he eyes your body, taking in every detail like a lion eyeing up its prey. you feel small and submissive. your core aching to be touched and throbbing with desire and need. you're sure by now that your panties are soaked with an embarrassing amount of arousal.

you feel his fingers gently brush up your inner thigh, tickling the skin and leaving goosebumps behind. you watch, breath hitching in your throat as he hooks his finger under the waistband and gently tugging.

“cute panties. all for me?” you scoff and roll your eyes.

“not everything i do is for you, felix. i’m not your pet.”

“not yet.” 

“what makes you think you will win?” you raise a brow as you watch him lean down and plant kisses on the lower half of your stomach just above the waistband of your panties. “clearly you don't know me that well.”

“clearly you seemed to have forgotten what i said before.” he peers at you through his lashes. “do i have to remind you again, mhm?”

you swallow and scoff, determined to keep up this tough facade, but you can feel it slowly crumbling. with each touch, each kiss and each word, your resolve is slowly crumbling away resulting in you becoming nothing but a hot mess in the palm of his hands, ready and waiting. 

“i can do great things with my mouth, yn.” he smirks as he repeats himself once again. your bottom lip becomes caught between your teeth as you watch felix grab the waistband of your panties with his teeth and slowly pull them down.

he pulls them down your legs, unhooking one side and letting them rest on one ankle. you part your legs slowly for him to which he raises his brow at.

“already behaving like a pet i see. i didn't even have to give you a command and you're already spreading your legs for me.”

“stop.. it's embarrassing.” you mumble shyly.

“no.” he mumbles back before resting on his stomach between your legs. he starts by planting soft kisses on your inner thigh, leaving behind bruises. “it’s hot.” 

you whimper as you watch him. his lips are so soft against your scorching hot skin. every kiss and suck he does, leaves you wanting more. your skin burns and reacts accordingly to his touch. his hair tickles your thigh, his nimble fingers caressing and squeezing the other. 

he reaches your core, looking at you as a way of saying “can i?” you simply nod and watch him lick his lips before eyeing your core. 

your skin is glistening with arousal. your clit swollen and folds slightly puffy. your core noticeably throbs. felix licks two fingers before rubbing them between your folds slowly. you press your lips together in a thin line as your slick coats his fingers up nicely. he uses your arousal to gently tap on your sensitive clit.

it's just a few gentle taps but it's enough to make your thighs shake a little and electric like pleasure to shoot up your spine. felix gives a low chuckle, amused by your reaction. he applies a bit more pressure to the taps, adding in a few small and slow circles. 

“you’re cheating!” you moan out softly. felix hums and tilts his head to the side in a questioning manner.

“am i?” 

“you said mouth.. this isn't your mouth. you didn't mention anything about fingers.”

“oh? did i not?” felix blinks a few times before shrugging. “oh well.” his fingers pick up in pace, rubbing quick circles on your swollen bud of nerves. your back arches slightly, words stuck in your throat as you watch him lean down and bury his face between your legs.

your thighs instantly shake and jerk. the feeling of his wet tongue pressing flat against your clit to replace his fingers sends a whole new feeling up and down your spine. his eyes flutter shut as he teases and sucks on your clit. the tip of his tongue feeling pointy as he flicks it along the bud.

you bite your lip hard, refusing to let out any sounds. but it builds and builds in the back of your throat. you feel yourself slowly melt and succumb to him and you're in awe of it. all he is doing is licking your clit like a cat licking milk but it feels amazing. you can't describe it but the way your body is feeling and responding to felix is embarrassing.

the built up moan is let free as you feel two of his fingers circle and tease your sopping hole. your arousal gathers on his fingers as he licks and sucks on your clit like a starved man. he teases your entrance before removing his fingers and moving his head lower down.

you watch him with beady eyes. his hands plant on your inner thighs, keeping them stretched wide apart as he licks a long, wet strip from your entrance to clit. your arousal gathers on his tongue, heightening his senses and satisfying his taste buds. he doesn't want to admit it but he can't deny that he loves the way you taste. his body is reacting on its own, his own mind slowly fogging over and becoming hazy.

he's teetering on the edge of becoming feral and it's only a matter of time.

he didn't think it was possible. felix has tasted many before and no one has made me respond, think or feel the way you do. is it because of the weird ‘i hate you’ type relationship that's making it even more exciting for him.

watching someone hold themselves proudly and sneer at everyone with jealousy that pines of him, slowly crumble and succumb to him in a matter of seconds. he loves it more than he likes to admit.

“f-felix..” his ears perk up as he looks at you. he swallows thickly at the sight of your glowing skin and your flushed cheeks. he groans deeply, a groan that ripples through your body and causes you to throb. 

“fuck.” he mumbles repeatedly to himself. his tongue laps at your entrance, lapping up any arousal that spills. it coats his tongue and fills him with greed. the more he tastes, the more he wants.

his cock throbs and twitches in his trousers. he wants relief – sweet sweet relief but he has to wait until the bet is fulfilled.

his tongue dives in and out of your pussy. his fingers digging into the skin of your thighs, leaving bruises. you reach down to tangle your hand into his hair. you tug at the strands, removing the headband from before. 

you moan his name like a symphony. you dont hide how much you want and need him, at this point it's pointless. the air around you both is so thick with lust and want, that it's suffocating and clear sign of the desire you both share for one another.

one hand on your thigh disappears and you feel fingers around your entrance again. felix is back on your clit, his face buried deep between your legs. he sucks, licks and spits on your cunt. his saliva and your arousal coating his chin and lips nicely.

as he caresses and plays with your clit, he slowly pushes one finger inside your tight entrance. you gasp at first, toes curling a little at the feeling of something foreign entering you; but you soon relax once his finger slowly pushes in and pulls out.

“relax.” he purrs. you do as instructed, allowing yourself to be completely consumed in the feeling. this makes it a tad bit easier for felix to finger you, your entrance slowly loosening and becoming wetter for him. “there we go. nice to know my pet can behave.”

“i’m not your p-pet.” you stutter.

“not yet.” he smirks between gently nibbling on your well stimulated clit. he slowly and gently inserts a second finger, hooking them against your walls and moving them slowly.

the whole stimulation is enough to make you cum. he's not moving at a pace you'd enjoy but it's making you feel foggy, like he has a spell on you.

you watch felix close his eyes and turn his attention on pleasuring you. his fingers pick up the pace and your body tingles with pleasure. your stomach dips and your hands are quick to pull his hair harshly. thighs shake, body feeling electrified and skin feeling like hot molten lava. your orgasm is fast approaching. 

it burns in the pit of your stomach. you feel dizzy with all the intense lust. you tighten around felix's fingers as well as throb. your cunt sounds wet and sloppy and is mixed in with the sounds of the many moans and groans from you and felix.

felix smirks against your cunt. hot breathy moans fan against your skin as he drives his fingers in and out of you fast, driving you closer and closer to your orgasm.

at first, you decided to act tough and see how long you could last. you didn't want to crumble and give felix the satisfaction of knowing he'd win. however, all rationality flew out of the window the moment you felt his mouth on you.

“felix. i-i can't!” you pant, desperately. he knows by the way you have a vice grip around his fingers. how your hips are bucking against his face and your walls fluttering around his fingers. 

felix just gives a simple and satisfying hum. he watches your eyes flutter shut. he feels his hair being tugged harshly at the roots. in one long breathy moan, your orgasm hits you.

you moan, shake and whimper. felix fingers you and sucks your clit throughout the process, helping to drive your orgasm out a little more. your walls flutter and pulse around his fingers as your thighs shake and threaten to close around his head. his digits get soaked in your arousal and you gently push him away by placing your hand on his forehead due to the sensitivity of your clit.

felix pulls away slowly with a smug look on his face. he kneels between your legs as he makes eye contact with you and sucks on his two fingers. he moans at the taste of your arousal and you feel your body burning up at the embarrassing, yet sexy, gesture.

“seems like i've won.” you roll your eyes.

“whatever.” you mumble. felix dislikes your tone and he grabs your face roughly and growls.

“that’s no way to speak to your master, pet.” you struggle to look away. your cheeks being smushed together for a second before he lets go and travels his hand down to your neck.

your breath hitches in your throat as he squeezes the sides slowly before tightening his grip slowly. your eyelids flutter, oxygen slowly depleting and making you feel dizzy and hazy.

with his free hand, he pulls down his trousers and underwear. he wraps his hand around his hot and throbbing cock and pumps himself a few times, letting out a few grunts.

he lets go of your neck and you feel the oxygen returning back to your lungs. felix swallows a little, his hand pumping him at an uncontrollable fast pace. 

“fuck..” his head dips and he swallows as he looks at your glistening cunt. he wants to fuck you so badly, the want and need making him feral. he squeezes your thigh as well as squeezing his cock at the base. his skin is hot against the palm of his hand, tip wet and leaking pre-cum. he throbs several times in his hand and his hips buck.

maybe it's the sight in front of you that drives you to do it but you lean back a little, legs spread wide as you use two fingers to part your labia. felix's eyes widen as he watches your entrance pulsate and throb; it looks so fucking welcoming.

“it’s ok.” you purr. “you can use me. i am your pet after all.”

“i don't… i don't have condoms.” he stutters.

“i'm on birth control. it's ok.” felix's rationality and common sense snaps. he grabs the base of his dick and gives your swollen and sensitive clit a few slaps with his length. your body jolts with each slap before feeling him rub his length up and down between your puffy folds.

felix hisses as his tip enters you, his thickness stretching you which causes you to hiss at the burn. he pushes half his length in slowly before stopping to give you time to adjust.

as he waits, he shakes. the tightness of your cunt grips around him makes it hard for him to maintain his composure (not like he had any left.) your walls feel gummy and hot with added wetness that coats and hugs his penis so deliciously.

you look up at him with doe eyes and nod. “please move.” you stutter.

felix also nods before slowly moving his hips. his shaft strokes your walls slowly and gently. your brows scrunch up a little due to you not being completely used to the stretch. felix reaches down and toys with your clit with the pad of his thumb slowly. he rubs slow circles on the swollen bud and the added stimulation helps as the pain subsides and pleasure takes over your body.

“f-fuck!” you moan out. you rest on your back, head tilted to the side. felix picks up the speed slowly, his head kicking back as deep and long moans erupt from the back of his throat. his mind slowly turns foggy, his body tingling with pleasure.

you feel so warm and snug around his cock. he dares push all his length in, bottoming out in you. your eyes widen a little but are quick to flutter close. felix is thrusting roughly and fast. the sounds of skin on skin and your arousal mixing together with the moans and groans.

the background becomes a distance and fuzzy sound. the sound of cars passing by and pedestrians humming in your ears. you're hyper aware of your body and how good you feel alongside felix's touch. his hands caressing your hips and thighs. fingers on your clit to toy with. 

“god i never knew you could feel this good around me.” he groans. you simply hum, your words drying up in the back of your throat.

felix holds onto your waist tightly to steady your body as he thrusts harder. your breast bounce with each thrust. your body screaming at you from pleasure. 

“ah ah! fuck, felix!” you babble. felix grins and leans over you, his forearms planting firmly by the side of your head.

“are you enjoying yourself, pet?” you look up at him and nod.

“yes. you feel good. mhm, so good. more, want more. i want to be your pet forever.” you shamelessly admit. felix swallows thickly before letting out a shaky and hot breath. he leans down and buries his face into the crook of your sweaty neck.

“be careful yn. your words are dangerous to me right now.” 

you pant heavily and reach up to tangle your fingers in his hair. your walls flutter around felix's length as his cock twitches a few times in you. his movements are sloppy and slow. the pit of his stomach tightening with each thrust.

felix feels so deep inside of you that he is stroking untouched territory. it's driving you insane and with your earlier orgasm, you're sensitive and your second orgasm is quickly approaching.

you tighten around felix, your stomach dipping and thighs shaking. you hold your breath and squeeze your eyes shut tightly. felix kneels back up, hands back on your hips as he resumes the fast and hard thrusts to help drive both of you closer to orgasm.

“cum!’ you choke out. your walls flutter around felix, thighs shaking as you moan loudly. it hits you hard, knocking the air out of your lungs and for you to hear a faint buzz in your ears. felix rubs your clit through your orgasm to help you, your arousal soaking the skin of his shaft.

you push away his hand gently as you come down. your body feels heavy, exhausted and sweaty. you lean up and rest your hands behind you to support your weight as you watch felix chase his orgasm.

his brows scrunch together. sweat drips down his temples as his hair sticks to his forehead and back of his neck. his grip on you is tight, leaving bruises behind. he opens his eyes slowly and groans, quickly pulling out and ejaculating on your breasts and stomach.

his hips bucks with each shot, hand around his penis as he pumps himself. his head flops to the side as he pants and moans. once calm, he opens his eyes and bites his lip.

“before you say anything, yes i know you said you're on birth control, but still. the appeal of seeing my pet cover in my cum is just hotter than i imagined.”

you look to the side to avoid his gaze as you slowly feel embarrassed and shy. right now, you want to go home, take a shower and go to bed. 

as if on qué, the lights in the office light up and the sound of the air conditioning buzzing away is a relief. you and felix look at each other triumphantly.

you can finally go home!

“hey, uhm–” you look up at felix as he fixes himself. he looks at you, his cheeks red and stroking the back of his neck.

“yes?”

“uhm.. do you perhaps want to come back to my place?” you raise your brow.

“why? want to go for round two?” you smirk as you watch his cheeks go even redder.

“n-no! i mean, well, maybe but that's not why i suggested it. you're probably sore and well, i did y’know–” he gestures at your breasts and stomach “i do feel a little responsible for you, so please come back to mine. you can use my shower and wash up. i can cook up something to eat and you can borrow some of my clothing for the night.”

“and where will i sleep?” 

“in my bed. i’ll sleep on the sofa.” your eyes widen a little. maybe you've had felix all wrong this whole time. something seems different about him right now, whether that be the adrenaline and hormones slowly calming down but he seems so gentleman-like.

“sure.” you shrug. “might as well take you up on that offer.” felix grins before helping you dress and stand back on your feet.

“please take good care of me, felix.”

“don’t worry yn. i always take good care of my pets.”

[the-kr8tor]

Here’s something for fluffy Friday. Spider!Reader comes home from a very cold night of patrolling, (weather of your choice) reader comes home shivering and hobie tries to warm them up.

P.s. have a lovely day

Combined these two since they're quite similar, hope you two don't mind! Love both prompts! Thank you both for requesting ❤️ ly

Pairing: Hobie Brown x gn! Reader/ Spider-Punk x gn! Reader

Tags: no use of Y/N, no specific physical description of the reader, Spiderperson! Reader, description of hypothermia. FLUFF

ʕ⁠·⁠ᴥ⁠·⁠ʔ

"Ohh fuck" you shiver from the cold, teeth chattering, you attempt to warm yourself with a weak rub of your arms. Cold was the understatement of the century, there's a blizzard out, snow pelting you with every swing, you're basically frozen under the spandex of your suit. The thick jacket you're wearing on top of it did not help much, that's why you went back home to cover yourself up in more layers, with the intention of going back on patrol.

You're having a hard time closing the window of your apartment, the hinges frozen in ice, glass frosty from the weather. Your icy fingers don't help. "Come on" groaning, you push harder down to seal out the cold. "You bitch, c-come on" cool air breezes inside, snow gathering on your carpeted floor.

"Think if you swear enough you'll eventually close it" Hobie pipes up from your kitchen, watching you struggle closing the window while munching on your bag of potato chips.

The cold stops your spidey senses from warning you of a presence, you jump from his voice. "Fuck! Knock m-much?"

Hobie drops the chips on your counter, he saunters over to you, effortlessly closing the window for you. "You gave me a key, remember? Could always portal in but I still love the sentiment." He cups your icy cheeks. "You look like a popsicle, a very fit popsicle, still a very frozen one"

"I feel like a p-popsicle" your words swirl on your tongue from the cold, you feel the ice deep in your bones, burrowing inside.

"Come on, let me warm you up" Hobie wraps you in his arms without a second thought. You hum appreciatively.

You two waddle towards the couch, still intertwined. You're still a popsicle despite Hobie emitting heat like a furnace.

You plop down unceremoniously, teeth clacking together. Hobie lets you out of your damp jacket, it drops on the floor like a weighted blanket, water squelching inside.

"Need to get you out of this wet suit, love" He tugs at the hem of your sleeve.

"If.. you wanted me o-out of my c-clothes, you, should've s-said so" you still try to flirt even with you fumbling with your sentence.

"Maybe when you're not at risk of dying from hypothermia" worried, he tugs off your suit.

—

Now in warmer and comfortable clothes, your portable heater whirs in the background. Still shivering, the cup half full of hot chocolate in your hands barely warms you up. With a thick blanket draped over your slouched shoulder, Hobie worries with every second that you're not warm enough.

That's why he has a mountain of blankets in his arms, navigating your apartment back to your shrimp like form on the couch. He drops it next to you, you don't even flinch, your eyes glossy and staring off into nothing.

Hobie quickly wraps you up in your blankets, carefully avoiding the cup in your hand. After ten blankets worth, he sits behind you, arms embracing with you in between his legs. Hobie rubs your icy arms, body heat seeping through you.

You blink back to reality after fifteen minutes of uninterrupted cuddling. Cheek pressing on his chest, life starts going back to your previously frozen skin. Craning your neck up, you press a quick kiss to his chin.

"Hi"

"Finally thawed?"

"Like the chicken from the freezer I keep forgetting to take out"

"So, still frozen then?"

You chuckle softly, nuzzling further into his chest. "I feel better, thank you" pulling away, Hobie snatches you back to his lap, his arms trapping you there. You laugh loudly at his antics. "I need to get back on patrol" voice muffled by how Hobie holds a blanket over your head.

"D'you think there are any villains out in the blizzard doin' their regular shit?"

Your eyes flit over to your window, the storm pelts at the glass, the outside barely visible from the snowstorm.

"You never know, some of them might be taking advantage of the weather" You embrace him despite your own protest.

"Yeah, sure looks like Sandman's out there" he says sarcastically. "The bastard"

You look up at him with a mischievous smile. "He's called 'The Sandman' not 'The Snowman', Hobie"

"Should've left your frozen arse" you squeal as Hobie rolls you over, he lays limp over you, acting like another layer of blanket.

[highqueenofelfhame]

ROWAELIN MONTH DAY 11: SONGFIC

better late than never, right? this is kind of a mashup of tis the damn season and stick season.

warnings: language, sexual content

The irony wasn’t missed on her that she chose the middle of the night to drive into the sleepy mountain town. It was well below freezing and everything around her looked stripped from her very own soul: cold and dark. Almost like if she saw everything under the sun it would be too real and too hard to keep running from.

The thoughts were pushed, once again, to the back of her mind as she pulled into a long driveway that took her to a little cabin at the end of a gravel road. As soon as her car was turned off, she took a few moments to collect herself. In that short span of time, fog coated the windshield glass and she knew it would be a chilly evening all around. The interactions, the weather.

The part where she left.

Pocketing her keys and her phone, she slid from her SUV and approached the door. Snow crunched beneath her boots while two owls talked back and forth somewhere above her. Her breath was nothing more than puffs of vapor slipping from her lips as she raised her fist and knocked. It was so cold it stung her knuckles and left her rubbing her hands together to produce any sort of heat to bring them back to life.

“Rowan! It’s fucking cold out here,” she shouted, not worried about disrupting any neighbors. He didn’t have any for miles.

Aelin’s teeth began to chatter, the heavy cold settling into her bones as she waited. Just as she was nearly ready to kick the door, the porch light flicked on and it swung open, revealing a shirtless and slightly disheveled Rowan Whitethorn squinting down at her.

“You have a key.” She brought a gust of cold air with her as she breezed into the cabin, dropping her things on the coffee table.

“I lost it,” she lied. It was sitting in a landfil somewhere, rotting under thousands of pounds of garbage at this point.

“You were supposed to be here two hours ago.” Rowan stepped close enough that she could see goosebumps all over his arms and chest. Her eyes moved to his face and a fake smile forced her lips to attention.

“Work beckoned, traffic out of the city was terrible and all that.” It was getting too easy to lie to him– almost as easy as lying to herself. Maybe that’s why she was so good at it.

Aelin crossed the living room and put the kettle on, fingers tapping on the counter while she waited with her back to him. His presence sucked all of the air, along with her sanity, out of the room and being too close for too long while she wasn’t high off the touch of his hands was too much. She needed to be doing something.

“Oh, are we pretending you want to have tea and catch up? Not skipping straight to it?”

“We’re not pretending to do anything, I’m cold and want to warm up. You could have changed your mind since I clearly woke you up, and if that’s the case I’ll be out of your hair and on my way as soon as this is ready to go,” she rebutted, barely glancing over her shoulder.

“Gods, Aelin, I wish I could change my fucking mind when it came to you.” Rowan’s body was warm as he stood behind her, one arm bracing the counter and the other reaching around to turn off the stove before she was caged into the confines of his arms. She gulped down her anxiety, feet glued to the wooden floor as his lips grazed the back of her head.

For a moment, neither of them moved. The man behind her took a long deep breath as his fingers carefully pulled her hair to one side of her neck. Out of instinct her head tilted to the side and one of his fingers dipped beneath the fabric of her turtleneck and tugged down. Everywhere he touched was like she’d been branded, goosebumps following the trail of his fingers.

No word of admission would ever be muttered from her lips but she was touch starved for his hands on her body. The first graze of his lips against her neck had the smallest sigh filling the large room, and the first flick of his tongue elicited a moan. It was building up to be the perfect storm: his mouth on her neck, the pull of her shirt the mockery of what his hand would feel like around her throat. The final nail in the coffin was the low groan that Rowan let out at just tasting her skin. She knew he was dying for more, for everything, to be buried so deeply inside her that neither of them could think straight.

“Take it off,” she muttered, spinning in his arms while he pulled the shirt over her head and dropped it on the floor.

Aelin hopped up into his arms and he didn’t miss the catch, a hand on her lower back forcing her body to be flush with his while he carried her to his room blindly. Their kisses were feverish, punctuated with bitten lips and throaty moans. They didn’t even make it to the bed; Rowan was quick to push her back against the wall and sink to the ground in front of her. Clever fingers worked at the button on her jeans while she kicked off her shoes and the pants soon followed.

Standing in nothing but lacy underthings, Aelin combed her fingers through his hair. Warm lips pressed against her lower stomach while his fingers traced the shape of the lace on her hips.

“You wore this for me.” The growled words weren’t a question. Both of them knew it was the truth. Aelin had a knack for driving him insane and she hoped he couldn’t see through the wall she built up when it came to him. He drove her crazy, too.

Soon he tugged them down her body, slowly dragging the lace down her thighs. Everywhere he touched felt like sparks that would turn into a flame and engulf her entirely. She was proved right moments later when her thigh was over his shoulder, mouth pressed to her center.

Gods, his mouth, his tongue, the gentle nip of his teeth against her clit sent her spiraling into madness. Everything felt so good, too good. Waves of pleasure crashed over her as she cried out. Her fingers were knotted into his hair and daring him to stop, but he didn’t.

Rowan worked her until her legs were shaking, two fingers deep inside her. It was a tease of how his cock would feel and she needed it. She would wager they both did if the way he feasted on her was any indication.

“Please,” she gasped, pulling his head back by his hair and leaning down to press her lips to his in a messy kiss. Something about tasting herself on his mouth had her groaning again. “I want you inside me.”

“Fuck.” It was more of a hiss than anything else. Rowan was quick, stripping off his clothes and tossing her on the bed.

Aelin laid back, spreading her legs as he knelt between them. His thumb rubbed in smooth circles over her clit while his cock slid against her center. Rowan loved to tease her like this, loved to have her begging for pleasure only he could give her.

“Please,” she groaned, reaching down to line him up.

“Say it.” Fuck.

“I need you inside—” her desperate pleas were cut off by a sharp inhale that twisted into a moan as he slid into her. Gods above, nothing and no one could compare to this feeling. Every thought she had turned to ash. There was only Rowan.

Moments like this made her wonder why she ran from him, made her wonder why they didn’t and couldn’t work. Anything that felt this good had to be right. Nobody else could compare. Only ever him.

“You feel,” he breathed, leaning over her body to kiss her mouth, “So fucking good.”

Aelin swallowed his words, lifting her head to catch him in a searing kiss that threatened to undo her. All she could do was nod in agreement and allow him to take her hard and fast. Everywhere he touched was lit with flames, heat coursing through her body down to her toes. They curled when he hit a perfect spot inside her, a gasping moan escaping her swollen lips.

Rowan groaned, lifting her leg onto his hip to get even deeper inside her. Every thrust elicited a moan from her. Red nails scratched over his back and he bit the curve of her shoulder. He went faster and harder and Aelin knew he was close.

“Come for me,” she groaned, angling her hips up for him. Those words seemed to unravel him because he finished deep inside her.

In the aftermath he remained on top of her and inside her until he slipped out. Rowan flipped them and pulled her on top of him, strong hands rubbing up and down her back while they came down from the highest high Aelin had felt in a long time. Since the last time she saw him, if she was being honest. She had a knack of lying to herself, though.

“I need to go,” she whispered, raising onto her knees and smoothing her hair from her face. Rowan sighed heavily.

“No, you don’t.”

“Yes, I—”

“It’s the middle of the night, you don’t have anywhere to be. You’re just running like you always do.” Aelin sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and gazed toward the window. He was right. “All you have to do is stay with me, Aelin. I’m not going anywhere.”

It was a conversation they’d had a million times over but the words never seemed to sink in. She didn’t like getting too close to people, they always left. Her parents had died in a car accident when she was young, her foster father was abusive. Even her romantic partners always decided she was too much and turned away.

Everyone except for Rowan. It had been ten years of tip-toeing around a relationship but her fears drowned everything else out. They dated in college until she got scared and broke things off. Yet he remained, patiently waiting for her to come around to the truth: that he wasn’t ever going to leave her or give up on her.

Rowan propped himself up on one shoulder and used his thumb to coax her lip from her teeth. Aelin’s eyes dropped to where he tangled their fingers together, how he lightly tugged on them.

“Baby,” he said softly, and Aelin curled up on her side next to him. With her head on his arm, she looked at his face. “You know I’m not going anywhere. You know this is a good thing. What are you scared of?”

“People change their minds.”

“I’m never going to change my mind about you. I would have already done it. I want you. I want us. I've been so devastatingly in love with you from the moment I saw you. There’s no one else for me but you.”

“Okay,” she whispered, fingers tracing lines over the tattoo on his chest. Maybe she could try. Maybe Rowan wouldn’t be like the others.

“Yeah?” With her ear on his chest, she heard the quickening beat of his heart. Aelin nodded, face nuzzling his side.

“I want it all, too.”

“You’ll be here in the morning?” Aelin chewed on her lip again. Everything in her told her to run because she could get hurt. But she was tired of running. In her bones, her soul, she was exhausted. She wanted to feel safe and secure and the only source of that lately was Rowan.

“Yes,” she breathed, a slight nod of her head.

In the safety of his arms, she drifted off to sleep.

@rowaelinscourt

[elsbbg]

Watercolour eyes, Ellie Williams x reader

Synopsis: Doing Ellie’s makeup for the first time

Warnings: none, just pure fluff

Wc: 0.9k

A/n: heyy, so this is my first ever fic (so please go easy on me I’m sensitive :)), til now I’ve always made silly scenarios in my head, now I wanna write those fantasies down just for pure fun, soo hope you’ll enjoy <3 btw the title of the song has nothing to do with the story, I just liked it that’s all :) Also excuse any grammar errors English isn’t my first language

As the snow was collecting on the mountains and a storm was about to loom over Jackson, it was impossible for you and Ellie to go on your usual afternoon patrol shift since Maria thought it would be too dangerous to go into the woods in the middle of a storm. And so this is how you got here, in the comfort of Ellie’s garage.

The lights hanging on the wall behind her couch were emitting a soft warm light that hugged her whole living room. As you were lazily laying on her bed, back pressed to the headboard while reading a book, Ellie was laying between your legs, head resting on your belly as she was playing video games.

This was until you felt her shift from her original position and feel the warmth of her body slowly leave you. She had turned the television off, to then throw herself on the bed again next to your frame, face hiding in her pillow.

“Els, you okay?” You asked as you were closing your book to place it on her bedside table and give her your full attention. “Yea… just- really fucking bored”she sighed hiding her face into your chest. “Mhm… do you still have my little beauty case that I left here a couple of weeks ago?” You asked the freckled girl as you gently caressed her hair. “Yeah sure, why?” She asked laying on her side, hand supporting her head “there might be something interesting in it, you know to pass the time” at your response a smirk started spreading on her plushy lips: “oh yea? And what is it?” She asked, hand caressing your exposed hip. “Nothing like that dummy” you said, suddenly standing up from your place on the bed, heading to her bathroom to go pick the beauty case up “so I’m not getting laid?” She asked in a high tone, fake sadness draped in it. Just when you returned back to her, bright pink case full of cosmetics and coloured powders in your hands, that the realisation hit her “I’m not doing that” she stated in a flat tone, one you rarely heard. “Of course you’re not, I’m doing your makeup for you” you said brightly smiling, sitting on your knees in front of her “absolutely not. I don’t want sticky shit on my face”. “It’s not sticky and I’m gonna make you look so cool, like rockstar cool” you tried convincing her “I swear if you put pink glittery stuff on my face I’ll throw you out of the house, and your house is across the city” she jokingly threatened you, to which you responded “yea and Joel lives across the street” “shut up he doesn’t”.

Since doing her makeup sitting across each other would be too hard, you asked her if she could lay back for you and let you sit on her lap so to be closer to her face and more concentrated. Her hands were on your hips keeping you still, fingers slightly fidgeting with the hem of her sweater you were wearing.

You decided to do a makeup that would totally fit her, both with the way she dressed, with her usual dark baggy clothes, and with her loser and nerdy personality. So you opted for a black liner that would color her waterline, slightly smudged on her eye bags and blending a bit toward the outside of her emerald eyes. Just when you thought the girl couldn’t get prettier your expectations were fully blown. The way the black liner made her emerald eyes pop out was actually mesmerising, she looked so graceful yet so inelegant in all her beauty. Even tho her eyes were closed she could feel you staring “everything okay there babe?” She asked opening her eyes, squinting through the dim light of the room. “Yea, you just look- very pretty” you said gently caressing her cheek “yeah yeah, just finish your work of art” you smiled at how she defined her own skin as your work of art, a canvas to paint on. “Open your eyes els, I gotta put mascara on” you said gently tapping her cheek “I swear if you stab my eyes with that thing-“ “I’m not gonna stab your eyes out els, just trust me” you reassure her as you leave a kiss on her forehead. After having applied mascara and succeeding in not stabbing her eyes, it was time for her lips, as soon as she saw you pick a lipstick up she immediately stated “you’re not putting that on my lips” “yes I am” “no” “please… do it for your girl” you fake pouted, the look in her pleading eyes screamed kicked dog but you didn’t care. “Please… so I can smudge it up later while making out” you said accentuating a smile “what colours do you have?” That’s all it took her for her to say yes, and fall into your trap: a pout and a make out session.

After a good five minutes of choosing the right shade that complemented her pale skin, you opted for a nude dark rose lipstick color, and a light coat of clear lipgloss.

“You look beautiful els, like actually pretty- I mean you always look pretty but this is a different kind of pretty… I guess” you stutter a little “mhm, thank you baby, but now I wanna see how it turned out too”. You pass her the portable mirror you got and she actually looked pretty shocked too. “This is so cool and totally badass… I kinda do look pretty” she looked at you through the mirror with a giddy kind of expression on her face “maybe you should do my makeup more often…” she shyly said “I think so too els”.

“Now come here, I need you to smudge my lipstick” she said as she pulled you in for a sweet and passionate kiss. “Wait wait wait…” you brutally braked the kiss. “What is it?” She asked, a hint of worry in her voice “I wanna take a pic” you said smiling. She gave you a little peck before answering “we’ll take it when it’s all smudged and on your pretty face too” she said pulling you back in for the kiss, wide smiles plastered on both your features.

[ranchracoon]

Blood and Shadows

Dimitrescu Sisters x Fem Character

requested by: Sereniiiiiii

Lila blows into her gloved hands to try and warm her nose as she squats down by a nearby tree with a view of the entire village. She removes one glove, carefully fishing out the note with written instructions and a drawn picture of the village before her. This isn't the first time she's been hired by a secretive person; she's learned the hard way that most of her 'secret' cliental are usually people of great power. Hence why they can afford the secrecy. This contract was unlike any she had been given before; the contract itself included a ticket to Romania, instructions for finding a mountain pass, and the drawing with a note stating she would be given further instructions. At first she didn't want to do it, but the pay was too good to turn down, and her own curiosity won over her logic. 

She shoves the note back into her pocket and reunites her glove and hand all while shifting on her feet slightly. It's going to be dark soon, she should make camp or find somewhere to shelter from the snow. As she stands a crow overhead startles her when it caws up above, and with in another letter slowly floats down toward her feet. She scoops it up and rips it open, looking around briefly to see if she could find anyone. How did they know she was here? Specifically in this location? She shakes her head and reads the note, there's one drawing of the castle, another of a dagger, and what looks to be a map of sorts to where the dagger is. On the back of the picture is some poorly written words that are hard to make out.

"Bring me the dagger."

How specific. 

Lila huffs and shoves the new orders with the old and hugs herself as she examines the castle from a distance. It's getting too late now, so she'll have to examine the castle in the morning when she can approach without being seen. She would prefer to do this quietly, but if she has a good enough layout of the castle, it should be plausible. As the sun lowers she hears the monsters of the woods stir, beasts that she's never seen before and can only be described as 'werewolves.' She did notice the closer she got the village, the less she encountered but she'll take no chances and decides to camp out up in the nearby tree. 

Her sleeping bag provides little relief from the cold, especially once night falls and she shivers violently. She has to find somewhere warmer otherwise she'll die of hypothermia before she even reaches the castle. She sleeps very little, waking every time she hears a growl or footprints in the snow below but she knows better than to engage. 

*          *          *

Lila spends all day searching the castle grounds, it took her half a day just to get to the castle undetected. Scaling a rock wall while cold, sore, and tired did not help any. Just as she was about to give up she finds a caved in hole in the ground leading downward. Better than nothing. She climbs down the rumble carefully, cursing every time a rockslides loose and knocks downward, loosening other rocks in its path. Once she's on solid ground she scurries away from the pile as fast as she can only to be met with complete darkness. Great. She kneels and scrounges through her bag until she finds some matches, striking one to light her path until she finds an old torch. Talk about medieval. The torch illuminates her path but now she regrets doing such as she finds herself in the middle of a torcher chamber. 

Rows upon rows of cell doors each with their own little horror; stretching machines, chains, iron chairs with spikes, everything one can imagine. All of them have distinct brown splattering, and some red meaning these were used recently. Fuck. What has she gotten herself into? She takes a few steps forward only to stop again when she hears metal scraping on the stone flooring. She lifts the torch up further before a skeletal figure appears with its sword raised. Lila yelps and dodges the attack, groaning softly. Now she really wishes she wasn't so cold and tired. Her reflexes aren't as fast, but she's faster than this creature at least. 

She hightails it in the opposite direction toward the rumble pile seeing a set of stairs faintly in the back. As she climbs the staircase, she pauses upon hearing a droning sound getting progressively louder. She quickly douses the torch and runs down taking a sharp turn into one of the cells where she tucks herself into one of the little crevices. As she sits there listening to the droning get closer, she sees one of those creatures lying face down in front of her. When the droning stops it's replaced by hurried footsteps and the sound of something hitting another followed by a thud and clanging. It must have been the creature from earlier, but now the other creature in front of her stirs awake. Growling and snarling as it slowly rises to its feet.

"Ugh just the moroaica acting up again" it's a female voice. 

The footsteps fade down the corridor then back toward the cell where Lila holds her breath as the footsteps stop. She stares at the creature, the moroaica? Now it's on its feet, staggering and snarling with a sword dragging behind it. 

"Wait a minute"

There's a long deep breath in. 

"Hmm smells like there might be a morsel down here that isn't supposed to be."

There's a few more steps toward her cell. Lila's eyes dart to the edge of the cell door and back to the creature as the woman approaches. The woman is just outside the cell door and Lila can see the edge of a curved weapon clang against the bars. The moroaica is now limping its way toward her direction, snarling louder and heaving the sword clearly too big for it to hold. 

"Bela!" A booming voice loud enough to be heard even through the concrete walls. 

"Argh! I never get to have any fun" the woman whines. 

Lila listens to the droning pick up again and just as the creature is about to slam its sword down she ducks and rolls out of the way. That woman could smell her, and hear her. She'll have to take other precautions if she wants to move about undetected. She tackles the creature from behind and easily disarms it, taking the sword and cutting the creature in half leaving it laying there lifelessly. Before her very eyes the creature dissolves into a pile of ash but the cloak it wore remains which was her main goal. She tosses the sword aside and removes her pack, then she strips her outer layer and stuffs it into the pack before stashing it. She decides to travel light with only her hunting knife, the map, and backup knife before adorning the creature's cloak to hide her scent.

She climbs the stairs and finds herself in a pantry leading to a kitchen where she quickly goes back around the corner to hide. There's people working in the kitchen meaning she's not going to get anywhere quickly. So she waits. 

*          *          *

After she deemed the staff went to bed for the night, Lila climbs out of her hiding place and continues to follow the instructions on the map. She cuts through the kitchen, the dining room, takes a right, and goes straight forward. She found the door where the dagger is supposed to be, but of course it's locked. This means she'll have to search for a key and most likely whomever that booming voice came from. Lila checks every door she can, only finding one that's unlocked and leading to a long hallway. As she walks down it, she hears that low droning again getting louder, and fast. She looks around quickly for anywhere to hide but it's useless, so she twists on her heels and runs back out the door into the main hallway. The droning turns out to be hundreds, if not thousands of insects all swarming into one black mass. She shivers and watches as the mass takes shape into a person. A woman to be specific. The woman wields a sickle in one hand, and judging from the blood stained on her face she is NOT friendly. 

"Well well well, looks like someone is out past curfew." The woman chuckles. 

The woman swarms her direction with her sickle raised, Lila dodges and rolls to the side, the sickle barely missing her. The woman swings her sickle again violently, this time narrowly avoiding Lila's head. The insects cloud her vision, many of them nip and bite her skin making her slap where she feels a sudden sting. 

"Ouch that hurts" the woman whines sarcastically. 

As Lila gets to her feet the woman grabs her and pins her up onto a nearby wall, getting a better look at who defied the rules.

"Wait-you're not a maid!"

While the woman looks at Lila, she takes the opportunity to take out her hunting knife and slam the butt into the oil lantern above her head. The woman releases her and shields her face from the fiery sparks, giving Lila the perfect opening of escape. She runs down the stairwell, through the double doors, and tries the door to the courtyard. Locked of course. Kitchen it is. Lila returns to the kitchen but is cut off once more by the woman. Lila shoves the table between them in her direction but the woman swarms to avoid it, chasing Lila now into the pantry way where she blocks the exit again. Lila strikes with her knife but the woman easily blocks it with her sickle, throwing Lila back. With her loss of footing, the woman advances and shoves her onto a nearby table in front of the windows.

"I like it when they fight back." The woman chuckles. 

Lila cannot help the rush of heat to her cheeks. Why is she getting flustered now? She shakes her head and she eyes the window. An escape? Lila holds her knife up to keep the woman's sickle at bay while her other hand pulls at the woman's hand around her throat. She has to think of something quick. She tries to kick with her legs but they just go right through the woman's form. The table shakes from the weight and gives her an idea. Lila jolts her body violently, sending the woman off balance and giving her enough time to reach up and unlatch the window. With one firm shove she gets the window open. Behind her the woman screams loudly but Lila doesn't look back as she tries to jump through the window, only to be forcibly yanked back and thrown across the room. Lila coughs and grunts as a searing pain runs up her back from slamming into the shelving, as she looks up she sees the woman in a solid form.

The woman yells and her eyes lock onto Lila, now filled with more murderous rage if possible. Lila pats the ground beside her, searching for her knife or anything at this point and only finding a can of food. The woman is weakened by the cold. Lila throws the can with all her might; the woman easily dodges which is exactly what Lila planned as the can crashes through another window. Now the woman screams again and this time she charges Lila, grabbing her by the neck and raising her sickle ready to strike. The woman is solid now, Lila rears up and kicks with both feet the woman in the chest, making her drop Lila. 

She goes for the sickle; her and the woman struggle back and forth until the woman lunges forward and bites Lila on the shoulder. Lila screams and elbows the woman, the two of them going back and forth in a dangerous tango, another hot searing pain rips through her back leg as she screams and falls to her knees. She looks over to see another woman, a carbon copy of the first only with blond hair instead of black. She too has a sickle now buried deeply into Lila's thigh. Lila whimpers and lays on the cold stone floor, watching the two women slowly circle her before she gives into the exhaustion and pain.

*          *          *

When Lila wakes the first thing she notices is the intense pain in her leg, she reaches down and grimaces when her fingers brush against the wound. However, she finds it bandaged which is a good sign. The second thing she notices is she's not in the torture chambers, rather she's in a large room with ornate decorations and intricate designs. The roaring fire heats her aching body but now she shifts uncomfortably from how sweaty she is. When she tries to stand she instantly falls due to the weakness in her leg, so she decides to scoot away from the fire to get some relief. The door across the room opens with a loud thud, Lila startles and looks over to see an extremely tall woman crouching through before standing to her full height. 

"Nice of you to finally join us."

Us?

Lila leans over to see three women following her, all of them dressed similarly and now she recognizes one of them as the dark haired woman she fought. That woman locks eyes with Lila and flashes her teeth in the form of a grimace. Obviously there's still some hard feelings. The tall woman walks around and sits in a chair built for her size, in her hand is Lila's pack which looks humorously small in her hand. She tosses the pack at Lila who catches it with a grunt then looks back up at the woman. 

"I'm rather impressed you managed to sneak in undetected, because of that I will give you two choices: answer my questions honestly and I'll consider letting you leave, or I'll have my daughters pry the answers out of you."

"I have nothing to hide" Lila answers honestly. All of this isn't worth all the money in the world. 

"What's your name?"

"Lila Stromerst."

"Good. Starting on the right foot already. Why are you here?"

"I was given orders to obtain a dagger located in this castle."

"By who?"

"I don't know. I have the orders with me. You can look for yourself, there's no name or anything associated with them."

"I know."

There's a pregnant pause. The three women in cloaks shift restlessly as the woman crosses her legs and looks Lila over. 

"So you take orders by the highest bidder, does that seem accurate?"

"I have to survive somehow."

"That's not what I asked."

"I suppose so, yes."

The woman tilts her head slightly, "so if I paid you to tell me everything you know about this castle and the dagger, would you?"

"If I'm to be honest it would be wasted money. It seems you've already gone through my belongings, so you have all the information I do. I don't know anything. I'm not paid to ask questions."

"Like a true mercenary. Then tell me, did your orders include harming myself and my daughters?"

"No. I wasn't instructed to kill anyone. I usually try to avoid conflict. What's the point of these questions? You already have everything" Lile motions with her head to her pack sitting by the woman's feet.

"Yes, I wanted to see if you would be honest or not. Your honesty might have saved you this time."

The woman stands and walks past the three women, "very well. Introduce yourselves girls and show her where the staff quarters are."

"Wait-you said I could leave!" Lila attempts to stand, failing once more.

"I said I would consider it. I considered, and decided that someone with your experience would be better suited under my watchful eye. Play nice daughters."

*          *          *

Months pass. At least, she thinks they have. Lila lost count after about 27 days, or maybe 28 days, she can't remember. The moment her leg healed she was put to work but not in the same capacity as the other workers. The girls, whom she learned to be Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela, watch her every moment of the day. Bela studies her like a lab rat; asking her questions about the outside world, her work, missions she's been on. Cassandra puts her to work on meaningless tasks: sharpen her weapons, clean them, organize her things, organize them again. Daniela lets her just exist, she's hard to follow most days because her mood changes so rapidly but Lila has learned she's very easy to sway one way or the other. They rotate who watches her and she's slowly learned what pisses them off, and how to suck up to them. Bela hates attitude, and if she suspects any kind of attitude then she makes Lila do exercises just like when Lila was in school. 

Daniela is emotionally motived. Her mood is dependent on how she's interacted with her sisters, or her current read. Usually when she's in a bad mood Lila can tell her the plot of a movie which captivates her attention instantly. She especially loves the romance movies that Lila can recite which is not many, most of them she makes up as she goes. Cassandra is fun to mess with. Lila knows exactly how to get under her skin. Lila and her often get into screaming matches about who actually won the fight which landed her in her current mess; a rematch. Cassandra swings her sickle, slashing the air to warm herself up while Lila opted for a small sword. She hasn't dueled since she did fencing in junior high, but she's scrappy and prefers to move quickly. Cassandra agreed to do the duel outside where she can't swarm to make it neutral ground. Bela is of course the judge, and Daniela is the lookout for their mother. 

Cassandra is the first to strike of course, she's impulsive but fast even while unable to swarm. She also has supernatural strength which Lila will have to use to her advantage. Lila dodges and swings her sword toward Cassandra's legs, but she dodges the attack then swings her own weapon. Lila blocks. The clash of metal on metal ignites a few sparks, Cassandra struck so hard it left a chip in Lila's sword. She has to disarm her somehow. Cassandra is pushing her further down, Lila braces on her back and kicks her legs up, pushing and throwing Cassandra over her. Cassandra lands with a hard thud on her back, but her and Lila spring to their feet simultaneously. Cassandra chases after Lila who runs for cover in the gazebo, using the large blocks of stone to hide behind. 

"Stop hiding coward! This is supposed to be a fight! Fight back!"

Lila steps out and sees Cassandra raise her sickle up above her head, she waits for her to swing it downward before dodging. The sickle lands firmly in the stone pillar, and even Cassandra is unable to pull it out. Lila brings her sword up and slices upward, Cassandra barely has time to react, the sword grazing her as she pulls back. Leaving her sickle stuck in the pillar. Cassandra can still fight. She goes for the tackle, taking Lila down and knocking the sword out of her hand making them on the same terms. Cassandra uses her claw like nails to scratch but Lila blocks with her arms before she bucks her hips and rolls them over. She slams her fist down, hitting Cassandra square in the face.

"Enough!"

Lady Dimitrescu, the very tall lady, approaches with hurried steps, grabbing Lila by the waist and tossing her aside. She coughs loudly as she lands hard on the concrete, Cassandra stands up and growls looking over her shoulder. 

"Daniela! You were supposed to signal us!"

"I know, I'm sorry! The fight was just too interesting not to watch."

"Honestly, wasn't sure if you two were gonna fight or fuck for a minute" quips Bela.

"She wishes" spits Lila.

"Don't think this is over" screams Cassandra.

"This is over! Cassandra my office now! Bela, take the pest down to the dungeon."

It's not the first time Lady Dimitrescu has sent her down to the cells, and certainly won't be the last either. However, Lila stashed her hunting knife, some flint, and a piece of soft wood from the last few times she got sent down there. So, at least now while she waits she has something to do. She works the wood in the dim firelight until she hears a humming drone from outside, she looks over to see Daniela opening the gate to the cell. In her arms is a first aid kit and some food, she kneels in front of Lila and smiles brightly. Lila smiles back and chuckles softly as Daniela examines her for any injuries, as she's done every time Lila has been sent down to the dungeon. 

"I'm fine Daniela. Cassandra didn't get me this time."

"Still, I gotta look. I also brought you some food. Who know how long mother will keep you down here this time. She's pretty angry with Cassandra."

"Well, mind keeping me company for now?"

"Anytime."

Daniela scoots next to her, using her radiant body heat to keep herself warm as she watches Lila carve the soft wood. Eventually Bela comes to release Lila, finding her and Daniela snuggled together for warmth in the cold, dark cell.

*          *          *

She hates to admit it, but she's grown kind of fond of Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela. Maybe it's Stockholm, but she finds she enjoys their company. Sometimes. Cassandra no longer tries to kill her or challenge her, but she does frequently use her as a sparing partner. Daniela loves hearing stories about Lila's adventures, and the many, many movies she knows by heart. Bela is the coldest. She's analytical, factual, and she still views Lila as what she is: a threat. Even Lady Dimitrescu warmed up faster than her oldest daughter. She doesn't yell at Lila as much which she considers a win, and she's starting calling her by her name rather than 'pest,' 'intruder,' or her favorite 'stupid thing.

 The staff give her a wide berth, many of them mumbling under their breath about how she can freely roam. If any of them even thought about talking back to the ladies, they would find themselves on the business end of a sickle. Lila on the other hand, has nothing to lose considering she's stuck here so she pokes and prods as much as she can. Bela is with her today, keeping a close eye and to make sure she doesn't cause anymore issues. She's a tough nut to crack, but Lila's determined to find her soft spot. 

"So...what do you like to do for fun?" Lila asks. 

"Shut up" Bela snaps. 

Lila scoffs and rolls her eyes. She's been here for how long and Bela still won't engage in conversation. Lila pauses upon seeing a passageway she hadn't seen before, she's pretty much scouted this entire castle by now but she's never been down here before. Lila tilts her head and starts walking before she's forcibly grabbed by the arm and tossed onto the ground. 

"Hey! What the hell was that for?" Lila snaps. 

Bela simply narrows her eyes down at her, indicating she won't give any information. Lila has all but forgotten about obtaining the dagger, but Bela is still suspicious. The second an opportunity opens Lila will dart, like a house cat wanting to be outside. Bela continues walking but pauses before looking down the hallway again, Lila climbs to her feet and listens as well. Bela takes her sickle out as a nearby window bursts open and a dark figure stomps on the ground. He pulls out a gun and aims but Bela is quicker even with the rushing cold air. She slices up, her blade going clean through his arm, he screams out as hot blood gushes from the wound. 

Numerous others break through the glass, Lila looks between the intruders and Bela then the broken glass. She could easily slip through and climb down via the rope they swung in on. Lila watches Bela move slower and slower as the cold freezes her body, if she doesn't act Bela will die. Lila groans loudly and grabs the fallen gun from the dismembered arm, she aims and shoots. She hates guns. She prefers quieter weapons and the recoil makes her miss the first shot but captures the attention of a few intruders. Lila shoots more, dodging one of them who swings at her. She manages to injure enough of them for Bela to finish the job, the last one shoots and grazes Bela, making a large hole appear in her side. Lila aims again and pulls the trigger to find the gun empty. 

Bela falls to her knees, unable to move much more as the intruder approaches. Lila throws the gun with all her might, hitting the assailant square in the head giving Bela enough time to swing and hit their leg. Lila runs up and straddles the intruder, slamming her hunting knife through the eye, the blood bursts and splatters across Lila's face. She pants heavily and slowly removes the hood from the intruder. She gasps and stares down at the familiar face, as she looks over the body she sees a note sticking out of the side pocket; addressed to her. 

Lila takes the note and reads it, 'join us and we'll let you go.' Lila knows this handwriting, it's the same writing as the orders she was given to first obtain the dagger. She crumples the note and stands on shaky legs before she's, once again, grabbed and pinned to a nearby wall. Bela holds her sickle up to Lila's throat, hard enough the sharp edge cuts the soft tissue lightly. 

"What do you think you're doing?" Bela growls. 

"A simple 'thank you' would suffice."

"Why did you help me? Why didn't you run? Did you have anything to do with this?"

"No! I swear. I-" Lila hesitates, her mind spinning a million miles a minute but Bela didn't like the hesitation. 

Bela drops Lila to the ground, growling lowly as she holds her side in pain. She looks toward the unhooded figure then back at Lila. 

"You know them" she states matter of factly. 

"I do."

"Who are they?"

"Family."

*          *          *

Lila twiddles her fingers as she sits in the office of Lady Dimitrescu, she looks downward at her missing pinkie finger as she sighs heavily. The doors open to reveal Lady Dimitrescu with her daughters in tow. Daniela, sweet, caring Daniela who Lila considers a close friend now comes swarming over to her. She cups her face and examines you to make sure she is okay before Cassandra starts bombarding Lila with questions about the fight. Bela is the last to enter, moving slowly but looking better than before as she takes a seat beside her mother, not looking in Lila's direction. 

"You have some explaining to do, and if I sense even a hint of lying" Lady Dimitrescu flexes her fingers as long sharp claws elongate, Lila flinches back having never seen those before.

Lila nods her head quickly in understanding. 

"Who are these intruders? Bela says you know them. Did you bring them here?"

"No I didn't. To be honest I didn't think they'd find me out here."

"Tell me everything. Now."

"I was orphaned from a young age. I got involved in the wrong crowd and found myself in some hefty debts that needed to be paid. I started taking odd jobs which landed me a slurry of enemies, and I ended up betrayed by those closest to me. Those I considered family. Now I'm being hunted by them because they think I'm the one in the wrong. I thought I lost them long ago but it seems they've found me. Again."

"I need to inform Mother Miranda of this. As for you, you will tell me everything you know about them when I return. Cassandra, search the castle for any others that might have gotten through and for any weak spots. Daniela I need you to interrogate the staff, one of them must know something."

Daniela gives Lila a quick kiss on the cheek before swarming off. Cassandra narrows her eyes at Lila before she too swarms away, leaving Lila and Bela alone. Bela shifts uncomfortably as she looks toward the fire then sighs. 

"You never answered my questions from before."

"Hm?"

"Why did you help me? You could have easily ran off, escaped, but you didn't."

Lila looks at her hand once more, "I guess I'm just tired of running. I'm supposed to be a prisoner here yet, I feel oddly welcomed. I consider Daniela a friend, Cassandra an equal, and you, well, I don't know you enough to label you as anything. I've grown fond of you three. I guess...I didn't want to make the same mistake twice."

"Did they do that?" She asks, motioning to Lila's hand.

"No. I did. I planted it after my last job that went wrong, hoping they would think I was injured or died. It bought me at least five years of solitude until now. I don't know how they found me."

"Can I ask what happened? Why are they hunting you?"

Tears start to form in Lila's eyes, "I had a little sister, not a biological one, but she was orphaned around the same time as me. I did these jobs, earned all this money to try and pay back my debts. Worked myself to death so she wouldn't ever have to experience what I did. Then this rich tycoon fucker found her and -" Lila sniffles and sobs quietly, "be said he would release her if I betrayed the mercenary group I called family. He promised."

Lila covers her eyes until she feels a presence next to her, when she looks up through blurry, tear stained eyes, she sees Bela sitting beside her. She has one arm around Lila's shoulders, pulling her closely to her uninjured side. Lila couldn't help but lean into her and sob into her shoulder as the fire crackled in the background.

*          *          *

Daniela discovered one of the maids was communicating with someone outside the castle, and somehow word of Lila got to outside sources. That maid was quickly dispatched of, and no word has been heard from this Mother Miranda that Lady Dimitrescu keeps talking about. Cassandra preps her weapons for when the rest of the mercenary group attacks, which according to the maid, will be in a few days. Lila and Bela spend time reenforcing the windows to make sure no one can break through them again. At night, Daniela sneaks into Lila's room claiming that her room is 'too cold' even with the fire and wants to use Lila's heat instead. Cassandra has also been hovering closely when Lila is working alone.

The day arrives when the attack is supposed to happen, Lila waits in the main hallway with all three Dimitrescus and Lady Dimitrescu in the room adjacent to them. There's only silence. Lila hates silence, it makes her nervous and fidgety. Just as expected the group bursts through the hallway door, half of them in the room with Lady Dimitrescu, and the other half with Lila and the girls. Cassandra cackles loudly as she swarms in for the attack, followed by Daniela and Bela. 

Lila opted for a short sword and crossbow, using the bow to knock guns out of hands but the bullets did nothing for the daughters. The fight was brutal. Blood stained the wooden flooring and it looked as though they were winning. Lady Dimitrescu could cut through three intruders at a time while her daughters took down one after another. In the time it would take Lila to take down one, they would take down 8 or 9 total. Lila disarmed one of the intruders, slamming their hand with their gun against the railing of the stairs. She pulls out her short sword and shoves it clean through the gut before kicking the body and pulling the sword out.

Cassandra nearby gives Lila a wink of approval before she too returns to slicing bodies in half. Lila looks over to see another figure headed straight for the double doors on the other side. Before she can react, they place a glowing orb on the doors and run back, she knows that blinking anywhere. 

"Bomb!" Lila screams.

Lila ducks for cover behind the stairs as the bomb goes off, sending shards of wood everywhere and the freezing air inside the room. The girls scream from the cold as the bullets cutting through their forms now take out sections of them. Lady Dimitrescu cuts her way to her daughters, shielding them from the icy blast as she continues to cut down those attacking. Lila steps out and watches as the smoke clears and the figure appears, holding the dagger she was originally supposed to obtain. The figure removes their mask, making Lila gasp and her eyes widen.

"Mick?!"

"Hello Lila. Long time no see."

"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" He holds the dagger up, "you didn't think you were the only one after this did you? You being here is just icing on the cake. If I bring this, and your head, well, I'd be a god damn hero."

Lila sneers and charges Mick, he reacts faster, taking a gun from his hip and hitting Lila straight in the thigh. She screams and drops to her knees, gripping the bullet wound to try and stop the bleeding. Mick approaches her, his gun inches from her face with her staring up the barrel. 

"You know, you should have taken my deal."

Lila's eyes widen. Mick was the one who sent the note. The orders. How did he even know she was alive? How did he find her in the first place. Mick only smirks and cocks the gun. Lila closes her eyes, ready to accept her fate but it seems fate is not ready to accept her. She hears a wet schlop followed by a thud, and when she opens her eyes she sees a half frozen Cassandra standing there. A headless Mick lays on the ground beside her. 

"Consider us even" Cassandra snickers. 

*          *          *

Daniela kissed Lila first, and Lila kissed her back. While her bullet wound healed, she visited every day, bringing a new book to read with Lila. On this particular day she brought her favorite romance book, and she couldn't help it. Lila looked at her just the right way, her lips looked so plump and welcoming that she had to kiss her. To say she was ecstatic is an understatement, she practically tackled Lila when she kissed back. When she ran off to tell her sisters Cassandra snuck in to confess her feelings too but in her own Cassandra way. 

"You're a good fighter. I guess, and I enjoy sparing with you. I guess-what I mean is-I would like to keep sparing with you. As a partner."

"Um-"

But before Lila could respond to her, Cassandra swarmed off in a flurry of embarrassment only to be replaced by Bela. Bela sat on the bed with her, held hand and spoke softly. 

"Thank you for helping us. Again. Mother has called Mother Miranda and, should everything go well, I do hope you'll choose to stay. I've grown rather fond of your company."

Shit. 

Eventually Daniela returned with Cassandra in tow, Cassandra growling the entire time and Daniela on the verge of tears. Apparently all three of them did not communicate with each other beforehand. Lila slunk into her bed, wishing the mattress would open up and swallow her to avoid this. How can she choose? Daniela is so sweet and kind to her, but a bit sensitive and extreme when she doesn't get her way. Cassandra always gets what she wants, one way or another. Bela has given Lila the cold shoulder since day one, but ever since her admission she's been treating Lila differently. 

"You have to choose one" Cassandra threatened. 

"I can't! I love all three of you" Lila admits, covering her mouth when the words leave her. 

"You love us?" Daniela asks shyly. 

Cassandra's anger turns into a coy smirk, as she snickers, "wow you love us?" She teases. 

"Yes. I love you."

The three of them look at each other before sighing softly, "we love you too" Bela admits.

She shoves the note back into her pocket and reunites her glove and hand all while shifting on her feet slightly. It's going to be dark soon, she should make camp or find somewhere to shelter from the snow. As she stands a crow overhead startles her when it caws up above, and with in another letter slowly floats down toward her feet. She scoops it up and rips it open, looking around briefly to see if she could find anyone. How did they know she was here? Specifically in this location? She shakes her head and reads the note, there's one drawing of the castle, another of a dagger, and what looks to be a map of sorts to where the dagger is. On the back of the picture is some poorly written words that are hard to make out.

"Bring me the dagger."

How specific. 

Lila huffs and shoves the new orders with the old and hugs herself as she examines the castle from a distance. It's getting too late now, so she'll have to examine the castle in the morning when she can approach without being seen. She would prefer to do this quietly, but if she has a good enough layout of the castle, it should be plausible. As the sun lowers she hears the monsters of the woods stir, beasts that she's never seen before and can only be described as 'werewolves.' She did notice the closer she got the village, the less she encountered but she'll take no chances and decides to camp out up in the nearby tree. 

Her sleeping bag provides little relief from the cold, especially once night falls and she shivers violently. She has to find somewhere warmer otherwise she'll die of hypothermia before she even reaches the castle. She sleeps very little, waking every time she hears a growl or footprints in the snow below but she knows better than to engage. 

*          *          *

Lila spends all day searching the castle grounds, it took her half a day just to get to the castle undetected. Scaling a rock wall while cold, sore, and tired did not help any. Just as she was about to give up she finds a caved in hole in the ground leading downward. Better than nothing. She climbs down the rumble carefully, cursing every time a rockslides loose and knocks downward, loosening other rocks in its path. Once she's on solid ground she scurries away from the pile as fast as she can only to be met with complete darkness. Great. She kneels and scrounges through her bag until she finds some matches, striking one to light her path until she finds an old torch. Talk about medieval. The torch illuminates her path but now she regrets doing such as she finds herself in the middle of a torcher chamber. 

Rows upon rows of cell doors each with their own little horror; stretching machines, chains, iron chairs with spikes, everything one can imagine. All of them have distinct brown splattering, and some red meaning these were used recently. Fuck. What has she gotten herself into? She takes a few steps forward only to stop again when she hears metal scraping on the stone flooring. She lifts the torch up further before a skeletal figure appears with its sword raised. Lila yelps and dodges the attack, groaning softly. Now she really wishes she wasn't so cold and tired. Her reflexes aren't as fast, but she's faster than this creature at least. 

She hightails it in the opposite direction toward the rumble pile seeing a set of stairs faintly in the back. As she climbs the staircase, she pauses upon hearing a droning sound getting progressively louder. She quickly douses the torch and runs down taking a sharp turn into one of the cells where she tucks herself into one of the little crevices. As she sits there listening to the droning get closer, she sees one of those creatures lying face down in front of her. When the droning stops it's replaced by hurried footsteps and the sound of something hitting another followed by a thud and clanging. It must have been the creature from earlier, but now the other creature in front of her stirs awake. Growling and snarling as it slowly rises to its feet.

"Ugh just the moroaica acting up again" it's a female voice. 

The footsteps fade down the corridor then back toward the cell where Lila holds her breath as the footsteps stop. She stares at the creature, the moroaica? Now it's on its feet, staggering and snarling with a sword dragging behind it. 

"Wait a minute"

There's a long deep breath in. 

"Hmm smells like there might be a morsel down here that isn't supposed to be."

There's a few more steps toward her cell. Lila's eyes dart to the edge of the cell door and back to the creature as the woman approaches. The woman is just outside the cell door and Lila can see the edge of a curved weapon clang against the bars. The moroaica is now limping its way toward her direction, snarling louder and heaving the sword clearly too big for it to hold. 

"Bela!" A booming voice loud enough to be heard even through the concrete walls. 

"Argh! I never get to have any fun" the woman whines. 

Lila listens to the droning pick up again and just as the creature is about to slam its sword down she ducks and rolls out of the way. That woman could smell her, and hear her. She'll have to take other precautions if she wants to move about undetected. She tackles the creature from behind and easily disarms it, taking the sword and cutting the creature in half leaving it laying there lifelessly. Before her very eyes the creature dissolves into a pile of ash but the cloak it wore remains which was her main goal. She tosses the sword aside and removes her pack, then she strips her outer layer and stuffs it into the pack before stashing it. She decides to travel light with only her hunting knife, the map, and backup knife before adorning the creature's cloak to hide her scent.

She climbs the stairs and finds herself in a pantry leading to a kitchen where she quickly goes back around the corner to hide. There's people working in the kitchen meaning she's not going to get anywhere quickly. So she waits. 

*          *          *

After she deemed the staff went to bed for the night, Lila climbs out of her hiding place and continues to follow the instructions on the map. She cuts through the kitchen, the dining room, takes a right, and goes straight forward. She found the door where the dagger is supposed to be, but of course it's locked. This means she'll have to search for a key and most likely whomever that booming voice came from. Lila checks every door she can, only finding one that's unlocked and leading to a long hallway. As she walks down it, she hears that low droning again getting louder, and fast. She looks around quickly for anywhere to hide but it's useless, so she twists on her heels and runs back out the door into the main hallway. The droning turns out to be hundreds, if not thousands of insects all swarming into one black mass. She shivers and watches as the mass takes shape into a person. A woman to be specific. The woman wields a sickle in one hand, and judging from the blood stained on her face she is NOT friendly. 

"Well well well, looks like someone is out past curfew." The woman chuckles. 

The woman swarms her direction with her sickle raised, Lila dodges and rolls to the side, the sickle barely missing her. The woman swings her sickle again violently, this time narrowly avoiding Lila's head. The insects cloud her vision, many of them nip and bite her skin making her slap where she feels a sudden sting. 

"Ouch that hurts" the woman whines sarcastically. 

As Lila gets to her feet the woman grabs her and pins her up onto a nearby wall, getting a better look at who defied the rules.

"Wait-you're not a maid!"

While the woman looks at Lila, she takes the opportunity to take out her hunting knife and slam the butt into the oil lantern above her head. The woman releases her and shields her face from the fiery sparks, giving Lila the perfect opening of escape. She runs down the stairwell, through the double doors, and tries the door to the courtyard. Locked of course. Kitchen it is. Lila returns to the kitchen but is cut off once more by the woman. Lila shoves the table between them in her direction but the woman swarms to avoid it, chasing Lila now into the pantry way where she blocks the exit again. Lila strikes with her knife but the woman easily blocks it with her sickle, throwing Lila back. With her loss of footing, the woman advances and shoves her onto a nearby table in front of the windows.

"I like it when they fight back." The woman chuckles. 

Lila cannot help the rush of heat to her cheeks. Why is she getting flustered now? She shakes her head and she eyes the window. An escape? Lila holds her knife up to keep the woman's sickle at bay while her other hand pulls at the woman's hand around her throat. She has to think of something quick. She tries to kick with her legs but they just go right through the woman's form. The table shakes from the weight and gives her an idea. Lila jolts her body violently, sending the woman off balance and giving her enough time to reach up and unlatch the window. With one firm shove she gets the window open. Behind her the woman screams loudly but Lila doesn't look back as she tries to jump through the window, only to be forcibly yanked back and thrown across the room. Lila coughs and grunts as a searing pain runs up her back from slamming into the shelving, as she looks up she sees the woman in a solid form.

The woman yells and her eyes lock onto Lila, now filled with more murderous rage if possible. Lila pats the ground beside her, searching for her knife or anything at this point and only finding a can of food. The woman is weakened by the cold. Lila throws the can with all her might; the woman easily dodges which is exactly what Lila planned as the can crashes through another window. Now the woman screams again and this time she charges Lila, grabbing her by the neck and raising her sickle ready to strike. The woman is solid now, Lila rears up and kicks with both feet the woman in the chest, making her drop Lila. 

She goes for the sickle; her and the woman struggle back and forth until the woman lunges forward and bites Lila on the shoulder. Lila screams and elbows the woman, the two of them going back and forth in a dangerous tango, another hot searing pain rips through her back leg as she screams and falls to her knees. She looks over to see another woman, a carbon copy of the first only with blond hair instead of black. She too has a sickle now buried deeply into Lila's thigh. Lila whimpers and lays on the cold stone floor, watching the two women slowly circle her before she gives into the exhaustion and pain.

*          *          *

When Lila wakes the first thing she notices is the intense pain in her leg, she reaches down and grimaces when her fingers brush against the wound. However, she finds it bandaged which is a good sign. The second thing she notices is she's not in the torture chambers, rather she's in a large room with ornate decorations and intricate designs. The roaring fire heats her aching body but now she shifts uncomfortably from how sweaty she is. When she tries to stand she instantly falls due to the weakness in her leg, so she decides to scoot away from the fire to get some relief. The door across the room opens with a loud thud, Lila startles and looks over to see an extremely tall woman crouching through before standing to her full height. 

"Nice of you to finally join us."

Us?

Lila leans over to see three women following her, all of them dressed similarly and now she recognizes one of them as the dark haired woman she fought. That woman locks eyes with Lila and flashes her teeth in the form of a grimace. Obviously there's still some hard feelings. The tall woman walks around and sits in a chair built for her size, in her hand is Lila's pack which looks humorously small in her hand. She tosses the pack at Lila who catches it with a grunt then looks back up at the woman. 

"I'm rather impressed you managed to sneak in undetected, because of that I will give you two choices: answer my questions honestly and I'll consider letting you leave, or I'll have my daughters pry the answers out of you."

"I have nothing to hide" Lila answers honestly. All of this isn't worth all the money in the world. 

"What's your name?"

"Lila Stromerst."

"Good. Starting on the right foot already. Why are you here?"

"I was given orders to obtain a dagger located in this castle."

"By who?"

"I don't know. I have the orders with me. You can look for yourself, there's no name or anything associated with them."

"I know."

There's a pregnant pause. The three women in cloaks shift restlessly as the woman crosses her legs and looks Lila over. 

"So you take orders by the highest bidder, does that seem accurate?"

"I have to survive somehow."

"That's not what I asked."

"I suppose so, yes."

The woman tilts her head slightly, "so if I paid you to tell me everything you know about this castle and the dagger, would you?"

"If I'm to be honest it would be wasted money. It seems you've already gone through my belongings, so you have all the information I do. I don't know anything. I'm not paid to ask questions."

"Like a true mercenary. Then tell me, did your orders include harming myself and my daughters?"

"No. I wasn't instructed to kill anyone. I usually try to avoid conflict. What's the point of these questions? You already have everything" Lile motions with her head to her pack sitting by the woman's feet.

"Yes, I wanted to see if you would be honest or not. Your honesty might have saved you this time."

The woman stands and walks past the three women, "very well. Introduce yourselves girls and show her where the staff quarters are."

"Wait-you said I could leave!" Lila attempts to stand, failing once more.

"I said I would consider it. I considered, and decided that someone with your experience would be better suited under my watchful eye. Play nice daughters."

*          *          *

Months pass. At least, she thinks they have. Lila lost count after about 27 days, or maybe 28 days, she can't remember. The moment her leg healed she was put to work but not in the same capacity as the other workers. The girls, whom she learned to be Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela, watch her every moment of the day. Bela studies her like a lab rat; asking her questions about the outside world, her work, missions she's been on. Cassandra puts her to work on meaningless tasks: sharpen her weapons, clean them, organize her things, organize them again. Daniela lets her just exist, she's hard to follow most days because her mood changes so rapidly but Lila has learned she's very easy to sway one way or the other. They rotate who watches her and she's slowly learned what pisses them off, and how to suck up to them. Bela hates attitude, and if she suspects any kind of attitude then she makes Lila do exercises just like when Lila was in school. 

Daniela is emotionally motived. Her mood is dependent on how she's interacted with her sisters, or her current read. Usually when she's in a bad mood Lila can tell her the plot of a movie which captivates her attention instantly. She especially loves the romance movies that Lila can recite which is not many, most of them she makes up as she goes. Cassandra is fun to mess with. Lila knows exactly how to get under her skin. Lila and her often get into screaming matches about who actually won the fight which landed her in her current mess; a rematch. Cassandra swings her sickle, slashing the air to warm herself up while Lila opted for a small sword. She hasn't dueled since she did fencing in junior high, but she's scrappy and prefers to move quickly. Cassandra agreed to do the duel outside where she can't swarm to make it neutral ground. Bela is of course the judge, and Daniela is the lookout for their mother. 

Cassandra is the first to strike of course, she's impulsive but fast even while unable to swarm. She also has supernatural strength which Lila will have to use to her advantage. Lila dodges and swings her sword toward Cassandra's legs, but she dodges the attack then swings her own weapon. Lila blocks. The clash of metal on metal ignites a few sparks, Cassandra struck so hard it left a chip in Lila's sword. She has to disarm her somehow. Cassandra is pushing her further down, Lila braces on her back and kicks her legs up, pushing and throwing Cassandra over her. Cassandra lands with a hard thud on her back, but her and Lila spring to their feet simultaneously. Cassandra chases after Lila who runs for cover in the gazebo, using the large blocks of stone to hide behind. 

"Stop hiding coward! This is supposed to be a fight! Fight back!"

Lila steps out and sees Cassandra raise her sickle up above her head, she waits for her to swing it downward before dodging. The sickle lands firmly in the stone pillar, and even Cassandra is unable to pull it out. Lila brings her sword up and slices upward, Cassandra barely has time to react, the sword grazing her as she pulls back. Leaving her sickle stuck in the pillar. Cassandra can still fight. She goes for the tackle, taking Lila down and knocking the sword out of her hand making them on the same terms. Cassandra uses her claw like nails to scratch but Lila blocks with her arms before she bucks her hips and rolls them over. She slams her fist down, hitting Cassandra square in the face.

"Enough!"

Lady Dimitrescu, the very tall lady, approaches with hurried steps, grabbing Lila by the waist and tossing her aside. She coughs loudly as she lands hard on the concrete, Cassandra stands up and growls looking over her shoulder. 

"Daniela! You were supposed to signal us!"

"I know, I'm sorry! The fight was just too interesting not to watch."

"Honestly, wasn't sure if you two were gonna fight or fuck for a minute" quips Bela.

"She wishes" spits Lila.

"Don't think this is over" screams Cassandra.

"This is over! Cassandra my office now! Bela, take the pest down to the dungeon."

It's not the first time Lady Dimitrescu has sent her down to the cells, and certainly won't be the last either. However, Lila stashed her hunting knife, some flint, and a piece of soft wood from the last few times she got sent down there. So, at least now while she waits she has something to do. She works the wood in the dim firelight until she hears a humming drone from outside, she looks over to see Daniela opening the gate to the cell. In her arms is a first aid kit and some food, she kneels in front of Lila and smiles brightly. Lila smiles back and chuckles softly as Daniela examines her for any injuries, as she's done every time Lila has been sent down to the dungeon. 

"I'm fine Daniela. Cassandra didn't get me this time."

"Still, I gotta look. I also brought you some food. Who know how long mother will keep you down here this time. She's pretty angry with Cassandra."

"Well, mind keeping me company for now?"

"Anytime."

Daniela scoots next to you, using your radiant body heat to keep herself warm as she watches you carve the soft wood. Eventually Bela comes to release you, finding you and Daniela snuggled together for warmth in the cold, dark cell.

*          *          *

She hates to admit it, but she's grown kind of fond of Bela, Cassandra, and Daniela. Maybe it's Stockholm, but she finds she enjoys their company. Sometimes. Cassandra no longer tries to kill her or challenge her, but she does frequently use her as a sparing partner. Daniela loves hearing stories about Lila's adventures, and the many, many movies she knows by heart. Bela is the coldest. She's analytical, factual, and she still views Lila as what she is: a threat. Even Lady Dimitrescu warmed up faster than her oldest daughter. She doesn't yell at Lila as much which she considers a win, and she's starting calling her by her name rather than 'pest,' 'intruder,' or her favorite 'stupid thing.

 The staff give her a wide berth, many of them mumbling under their breath about how she can freely roam. If any of them even thought about talking back to the ladies, they would find themselves on the business end of a sickle. Lila on the other hand, has nothing to lose considering she's stuck here so she pokes and prods as much as she can. Bela is with you today, keeping a close eye on you and to make sure you don't cause anymore issues. She's a tough nut to crack, but you're determined to find her soft spot. 

"So...what do you like to do for fun?" Lila asks. 

"Shut up" Bela snaps. 

Lila scoffs and rolls her eyes. She's been here for how long and Bela still won't engage in conversation. Lila pauses upon seeing a passageway she hadn't seen before, she's pretty much scouted this entire castle by now but she's never been down here before. Lila tilts her head and starts walking before she's forcibly grabbed by the arm and tossed onto the ground. 

"Hey! What the hell was that for?" Lila snaps. 

Bela simply narrows her eyes down at her, indicating she won't give any information. Lila has all but forgotten about obtaining the dagger, but Bela is still suspicious. The second an opportunity opens Lila will dart, like a house cat wanting to be outside. Bela continues walking but pauses before looking down the hallway again, Lila climbs to her feet and listens as well. Bela takes her sickle out as a nearby window bursts open and a dark figure stomps on the ground. He pulls out a gun and aims but Bela is quicker even with the rushing cold air. She slices up, her blade going clean through his arm, he screams out as hot blood gushes from the wound. 

Numerous others break through the glass, Lila looks between the intruders and Bela then the broken glass. She could easily slip through and climb down via the rope they swung in on. Lila watches Bela move slower and slower as the cold freezes her body, if she doesn't act Bela will die. Lila groans loudly and grabs the fallen gun from the dismembered arm, she aims and shoots. She hates guns. She prefers quieter weapons and the recoil makes her miss the first shot but captures the attention of a few intruders. Lila shoots more, dodging one of them who swings at her. She manages to injure enough of them for Bela to finish the job, the last one shoots and grazes Bela, making a large hole appear in her side. Lila aims again and pulls the trigger to find the gun empty. 

Bela falls to her knees, unable to move much more as the intruder approaches. Lila throws the gun with all her might, hitting the assailant square in the head giving Bela enough time to swing and hit their leg. Lila runs up and straddles the intruder, slamming her hunting knife through the eye, the blood bursts and splatters across Lila's face. She pants heavily and slowly removes the hood from the intruder. She gasps and stares down at the familiar face, as she looks over the body she sees a note sticking out of the side pocket; addressed to her. 

Lila takes the note and reads it, 'join us and we'll let you go.' Lila knows this handwriting, it's the same writing as the orders she was given to first obtain the dagger. She crumples the note and stands on shaky legs before she's, once again, grabbed and pinned to a nearby wall. Bela holds her sickle up to Lila's throat, hard enough the sharp edge cuts the soft tissue lightly. 

"What do you think you're doing?" Bela growls. 

"A simple 'thank you' would suffice."

"Why did you help me? Why didn't you run? Did you have anything to do with this?"

"No! I swear. I-" Lila hesitates, her mind spinning a million miles a minute but Bela didn't like the hesitation. 

Bela drops Lila to the ground, growling lowly as she holds her side in pain. She looks toward the unhooded figure then back at Lila. 

"You know them" she states matter of factly. 

"I do."

"Who are they?"

"Family."

*          *          *

Lila twiddles her fingers as she sits in the office of Lady Dimitrescu, she looks downward at her missing pinkie finger as she sighs heavily. The doors open to reveal Lady Dimitrescu with her daughters in tow. Daniela, sweet, caring Daniela who you consider a close friend now comes swarming over to you. She cups your face and examines you to make sure you're okay before Cassandra starts bombarding you with questions about the fight. Bela is the last to enter, moving slowly but looking better than before as she takes a seat beside her mother, not looking in Lila's direction. 

"You have some explaining to do, and if I sense even a hint of lying" Lady Dimitrescu flexes her fingers as long sharp claws elongate, Lila flinches back having never seen those before.

Lila nods her head quickly in understanding. 

"Who are these intruders? Bela says you know them. Did you bring them here?"

"No I didn't. To be honest I didn't think they'd find me out here."

"Tell me everything. Now."

"I was orphaned from a young age. I got involved in the wrong crowd and found myself in some hefty debts that needed to be paid. I started taking odd jobs which landed me a slurry of enemies, and I ended up betrayed by those closest to me. Those I considered family. Now I'm being hunted by them because they think I'm the one in the wrong. I thought I lost them long ago but it seems they've found me. Again."

"I need to inform Mother Miranda of this. As for you, you will tell me everything you know about them when I return. Cassandra, search the castle for any others that might have gotten through and for any weak spots. Daniela I need you to interrogate the staff, one of them must know something."

Daniela gives Lila a quick kiss on the cheek before swarming off. Cassandra narrows her eyes at Lila before she too swarms away, leaving Lila and Bela alone. Bela shifts uncomfortably as she looks toward the fire then sighs. 

"You never answered my questions from before."

"Hm?"

"Why did you help me? You could have easily ran off, escaped, but you didn't."

Lila looks at her hand once more, "I guess I'm just tired of running. I'm supposed to be a prisoner here yet, I feel oddly welcomed. I consider Daniela a friend, Cassandra an equal, and you, well, I don't know you enough to label you as anything. I've grown fond of you three. I guess...I didn't want to make the same mistake twice."

"Did they do that?" She asks, motioning to Lila's hand.

"No. I did. I planted it after my last job that went wrong, hoping they would think I was injured or died. It bought me at least five years of solitude until now. I don't know how they found me."

"Can I ask what happened? Why are they hunting you?"

Tears start to form in Lila's eyes, "I had a little sister, not a biological one, but she was orphaned around the same time as me. I did these jobs, earned all this money to try and pay back my debts. Worked myself to death so she wouldn't ever have to experience what I did. Then this rich tycoon fucker found her and -" Lila sniffles and sobs quietly, "be said he would release her if I betrayed the mercenary group I called family. He promised."

Lila covers her eyes until she feels a presence next to her, when she looks up through blurry, tear stained eyes, she sees Bela sitting beside her. She has one arm around Lila's shoulders, pulling her closely to her uninjured side. Lila couldn't help but lean into her and sob into her shoulder as the fire crackled in the background.

*          *          *

Daniela discovered one of the maids was communicating with someone outside the castle, and somehow word of Lila got to outside sources. That maid was quickly dispatched of, and no word has been heard from this Mother Miranda that Lady Dimitrescu keeps talking about. Cassandra preps her weapons for when the rest of the mercenary group attacks, which according to the maid, will be in a few days. Lila and Bela spend time reenforcing the windows to make sure no one can break through them again. At night, Daniela sneaks into Lila's room claiming that her room is 'too cold' even with the fire and wants to use Lila's heat instead. Cassandra has also been hovering closely when Lila is working alone.

The day arrives when the attack is supposed to happen, Lila waits in the main hallway with all three Dimitrescus and Lady Dimitrescu in the room adjacent to them. There's only silence. Lila hates silence, it makes her nervous and fidgety. Just as expected the group bursts through the hallway door, half of them in the room with Lady Dimitrescu, and the other half with Lila and the girls. Cassandra cackles loudly as she swarms in for the attack, followed by Daniela and Bela. 

Lila opted for a short sword and crossbow, using the bow to knock guns out of hands but the bullets did nothing for the daughters. The fight was brutal. Blood stained the wooden flooring and it looked as though they were winning. Lady Dimitrescu could cut through three intruders at a time while her daughters took down one after another. In the time it would take Lila to take down one, they would take down 8 or 9 total. Lila disarmed one of the intruders, slamming their hand with their gun against the railing of the stairs. She pulls out her short sword and shoves it clean through the gut before kicking the body and pulling the sword out.

Cassandra nearby gives Lila a wink of approval before she too returns to slicing bodies in half. Lila looks over to see another figure headed straight for the double doors on the other side. Before she can react, they place a glowing orb on the doors and run back, she knows that blinking anywhere. 

"Bomb!" Lila screams.

Lila ducks for cover behind the stairs as the bomb goes off, sending shards of wood everywhere and the freezing air inside the room. The girls scream from the cold as the bullets cutting through their forms now take out sections of them. Lady Dimitrescu cuts her way to her daughters, shielding them from the icy blast as she continues to cut down those attacking. Lila steps out and watches as the smoke clears and the figure appears, holding the dagger she was originally supposed to obtain. The figure removes their mask, making Lila gasp and her eyes widen.

"Mick?!"

"Hello Lila. Long time no see."

"What are you doing here?"

"What does it look like?" He holds the dagger up, "you didn't think you were the only one after this did you? You being here is just icing on the cake. If I bring this, and your head, well, I'd be a god damn hero."

Lila sneers and charges Mick, he reacts faster, taking a gun from his hip and hitting Lila straight in the thigh. She screams and drops to her knees, gripping the bullet wound to try and stop the bleeding. Mick approaches her, his gun inches from her face with her staring up the barrel. 

"You know, you should have taken my deal."

Lila's eyes widen. Mick was the one who sent the note. The orders. How did he even know she was alive? How did he find her in the first place. Mick only smirks and cocks the gun. Lila closes her eyes, ready to accept her fate but it seems fate is not ready to accept her. She hears a wet schlop followed by a thud, and when she opens her eyes she sees a half frozen Cassandra standing there. A headless Mick lays on the ground beside her. 

"Consider us even" Cassandra snickers. 

*          *          *

Daniela kissed Lila first, and Lila kissed her back. While her bullet wound healed, she visited every day, bringing a new book to read with Lila. On this particular day she brought her favorite romance book, and she couldn't help it. Lila looked at her just the right way, her lips looked so plump and welcoming that she had to kiss her. To say she was ecstatic is an understatement, she practically tackled Lila when she kissed back. When she ran off to tell her sisters Cassandra snuck in to confess her feelings too but in her own Cassandra way. 

"You're a good fighter. I guess, and I enjoy sparing with you. I guess-what I mean is-I would like to keep sparing with you. As a partner."

"Um-"

But before Lila could respond to her, Cassandra swarmed off in a flurry of embarrassment only to be replaced by Bela. Bela sat on the bed with her, held hand and spoke softly. 

"Thank you for helping us. Again. Mother has called Mother Miranda and, should everything go well, I do hope you'll choose to stay. I've grown rather fond of your company."

Shit. 

Eventually Daniela returned with Cassandra in tow, Cassandra growling the entire time and Daniela on the verge of tears. Apparently all three of them did not communicate with each other beforehand. Lila slunk into her bed, wishing the mattress would open up and swallow her to avoid this. How can she choose? Daniela is so sweet and kind to her, but a bit sensitive and extreme when she doesn't get her way. Cassandra always gets what she wants, one way or another. Bela has given Lila the cold shoulder since day one, but ever since her admission she's been treating Lila differently. 

"You have to choose one" Cassandra threatened. 

"I can't! I love all three of you" Lila admits, covering her mouth when the words leave her. 

"You love us?" Daniela asks shyly. 

Cassandra's anger turns into a coy smirk, as she snickers, "wow you love us?" She teases. 

"Yes. I love you."

The three of them look at each other before sighing softly, "we love you too" Bela admits.

[melisusthewee]

In my ongoing attempt to convince people to watch this movie (because it is so fucking good you have no idea), I put together this list of reasons why you need to watch this film. Sorry, but I can't be normal about this:

None of the backgrounds or environments are CGI! Those mountains? Those are the Andes! That's the real Valley of Tears! While filming with the actors was done in a different location (I believed they filmed in the Sierra Nevadas?), location photography and filming was done in the Andes and then spliced accordingly into the film.

It's an ensemble piece! Until now, most movies/docs/books have (understandably) focused almost exclusively on Nando Parrado and Roberto Canessa because of their 10 day trek through the mountains. But the group was more than just the two of them and this film shows that by emphasizing everyone's importance and roles in their survival.

Having said that, NANDO PARRADO IS THE FUCKING GOAT. This guy fractured his skull during the crash which caused his brain to swell. Everyone thought he was dead at first and only brought him back inside the plane when someone noticed he was still breathing. Even then, he wasn't expected to survive for very long so the others placed him where it was coldest which ended up saving his life as the cold temperature along with dehydration helped bring the swelling in his brain down. He was in a coma for three days, woke up to learn his mother was dead and his sister was dying, and decided, "Fuck this, I am getting off this mountain and you're all doing it with me." AND THEN HE DID, part of which involved hiking for 10 days across the Andes with NO GEAR.

The decision to make Numa Turcatti the narrator was brilliant. I cannot say more due to spoilers but iykyk.

Speaking of other films (looking at you, 1993's "Alive"), this movie cast exclusively Uruguayan (and some Argentinian) actors in order to give it proper authenticity.

This movie does not fuck around, with the crash happening within the first 15 minutes of the movie. And it is horrible in that it is probably one of the most accurate portrayals of a plane crash? I don't like flying, and I was incredibly anxious watching it to the point where I thought initially I might have to turn it off. But despite this, it never feels exploitive or anything. Just... real.

The entire movie was shot chronologically in order to give the make-up team an easier time with getting the actors to look increasingly gaunt and disheveled as well as adding a tighter consistency between shots and scenes. Many of the actors lost upwards of 50 lbs by the time filming was concluded.

For the avalanche scene, the actors were buried under nearly 8 inches of real snow. Because of this, the redness of their skin isn't the work of make-up or special effects but is very real.

Michael Giacchino's score. But even more importantly, his use of silence.

Honestly, this movie feels genuinely cold in a way that most movies and tv shows never quite capture. The sound of frozen clothing crunching, the frost that covers them, the clear impact of cold and frost on hair and skin, the shaking and shivering. It's really hard to describe, but like... it didn't feel like these were just actors on a set walking around. It felt genuinely cold.

The payada (rhyming/rap battle) was entirely improvised by the actors.

Enzo Vogrincic (Numa) looks like a young Adam Driver. You know you want to watch him stare soulfully into the camera for two hours. (But really, the acting in this movie is phenomenal.)

For Cold Boy fanciers, Gustavo Zerbino is basically the group's Goodsir - a cinnamon roll doing his best.

Fito Strauch's homemade sunglasses!

I could write an essay about the way the film confronts and portrays the cannibalism. Since I've rambled on long enough, let me just say here that it feels authentic in the way it's handled and not like you typically expect to see in stories like the Franklin Expedition, the Essex, or the Donner Party. (My only criticism is that it looks like they used raw chicken as the meat? And I unfortunately happen to know that human meat very much does not look like chicken.)

MOST IMPORTANTLY, this movie gives voices to those who didn't survive the mountains. And yes, it is a story about survival (and is a wonderful portrayal of positive masculinity) but it is really a story about love. Love for one's friends. Love for each other. And how love is the only way we survive.