andalustforlife

[andalustforlife]

guys please romanticize your life. go on solo dates, study in coffee shops, buy yourself flowers, wake up at 5 am to do a workout, cook yourself some dinner. it will bring you happiness i promise. not for people to see, just for yourself

[andalustforlife]

The answer to your problems is self-discipline

[andalustforlife]

🎀≽^• ⩊ •^≼୧ ‧₊˚

rafe wasn’t a big sweatpants wearer.

he liked to think of himself as matured, classy, reeking of money. sweatpants was something he associated with being a slob, lazing around, not getting off your ass and working. that didn’t mean he didn’t own a few pairs— you know, for sleeping, lounging, etcetera.

because of his dislike for the garment, you’d rarely see him in anything other than work slacks or kook-y board shorts, which is why when he brushed past you in the hallway of tanny-hill, wearing grey sweatpants and a black tshirt — you were lost for words.

“wh—where are you going?” you all but mewl, quietly padding behind him as he frantically searches the bowl placed on the chest by the door.

“uh, gotta run n’see barry— the fuck are my keys? you seen ‘em?” he stressed, itching his forehead as he thinks about where he might’ve left them.

“no, uhm… you’re going out dressed like that?” you ask.

grey sweatpants — a grown man’s lingerie. with each step rafe took, it became abundantly clear that he’d skipped out on boxers today, something he never did, true lazy-day style. his dick print hung heavy in the centre below the draw strings, thick and causing a bump in the soft fabric. he glances down at himself upon following your gaze and shrugs obviously.

“laundry day.” he stops his search to face you properly, eyeing you where you stand. “the hells with you, seem all out of it today.” his voice is low and tired, and you can’t help but bite down on your glossy bottom lip, stepping towards him. you say nothing, staring up at him— and he stares back, eyes vacant and lips parted. you stand on your tip-toes and kiss him.

he kissed back, albeit confused— and as soon as you pressed your body to his, feeling his bulge right on your tummy — something took over you. it wasn’t enough that you were ovulating, the sweatpants were making you feral.

you quickly pull away to sink to your knees, a hand stroking his hip bone as you start to leave kisses to his clothed cock, the meat of it instinctually hardening beneath your trained touch. he smirks for a moment in disbelief, watching the way you mouth at him — humming like you were the one being pleased.

“alright, hey— i get it. ‘think sarah’s home. you—you want her comin’ down the stairs n’seeing the shit? stand up, kid.” he reluctantly reprimands you, giving your jaw a firm little tap but you only whine and pull him closer— your open mouth breathing hot air onto his growing erectjon, flat of your tongue pressed to the soft fabric between loving kisses.

“s’okay dad just wanna give you kisses.” it comes out muffled, distracted, like you don’t actually know what you’re saying. he licks his lips irritably at you not listening, eyes fluttering before he grabs your jaw, pulling you up to stand.

“i said alright. easy, yeah?” he warns once he’s closer to eye level with you, still gripping your jaw. you grin, all slick-lipped and glassy eyed.

“can’t go out anymore daddy, not like that.” you point to his crotch, your mouth having darkened the light grey fabric all around his hardened bulge— making it obvious something had gone down. it was true, he couldn’t go out like that. barry was always looking for new things to tease rafe about, and this would be giving him perfect ammunition. he presses his lips together, nostrils flaring before he lets go of your face, the same hand reaching round to the back of you, grabbing the back of your little booty shorts and yanking, using the momentum to spin you suddenly to face the same way as him.

as soon as you’re facing the other way he slaps your ass, before prodding at your shoulder — signifying for you to walk toward the stairs. “shit, little brat. start walkin’, think you owe me something.”

you giggle, slowing your pace like you were gonna come back with another retort but he simply gives your shoulder another little shove — practically bullying you. “said go, didn’t i?”

🎀≽^• ⩊ •^≼୧ ‧₊˚

[andalustforlife]

kissing and hope they caught us | jesse (tlou pt ii)

jesse x reader where you’re on patrol together and you realize how badly you want him after he saves your life

warnings: tlou expected violence in the first few paragraphs, smut, jesse is a sub, looots of kissing, oral (male receiving), riding, reader isn’t gendered but it’s implied that they have a vagina, slight breeding kink, he calls the reader mommy once, aftercare and fluff at the end <3

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You and Jesse had been going on patrol together for a little over a month now and although you had originally found him aggravating, the forced proximity had gotten to you and you now found him kinda charming—albeit still in an annoying way.

You were with him on patrol again today and the two of you had seen nothing out of the ordinary so far. Despite that, something just felt off to you. Quiet, it felt quiet. You glanced at Jesse and realized shortly that he hadn’t been cracking his stupid jokes. Usually, he’d be talking your ear off with things that he found hilarious but couldn’t earn even a giggle from you.

You looked at him again, concerned. Despite finding his usual antics less than entertaining and wishing for them to stop, now that you got your wish it didn’t feel right. You opened your mouth to say something when you suddenly heard a familiar clicking sound.

Jesse’s head whipped towards you and then in the direction the noise came from, and you both crouched wordlessly against the closest wall. He motioned for you to stay still before inching towards the doorway and looking through it. You watched him move forward and out of your sight. It didn’t take long before you heard the rustling of clothes and the sound of a struggle as he presumably grabbed the clicker and began to strangle it.

After waiting for a few seconds, you stood up and went to join Jesse again when you felt something grab you. You screamed and scrambled to claw at the disgusting hands wrapped around your neck but only had to fight for half a second before a gunshot sounded in your ears and you felt the thing fall off of you. You looked over your shoulder at the motionless runner, out of breath, before looking straight again and locking eyes with Jesse who looked more serious than you had ever seen him.

“Thanks,” you mumbled, suddenly embarrassed. You rubbed your neck slightly and averted your eyes, not being able to look at him for some reason.

“Don’t worry about it. Are you okay?” Jesse asked, and when you glanced up you saw him still staring at you with that earnest expression that made you nervous. You cracked a smile and shrugged, stepping forward so that you two were in close proximity. You suddenly didn’t want to be away from him.

The corner of his mouth quirked in response, but you could tell that he was still troubled. “Well, we should take another look around and then get out of here. Tommy and Joel should be here soon to trade off,” he said, and you couldn’t agree more, nodding quickly.

It seemed that the two infected Jesse took care of were the only ones in the building so the both of you mounted your horses and took off back to Jackson with no further incident.

After dropping your horses off at the stables, Jesse gently bumped your shoulder with his and asked if he could walk you home. You felt your cheeks heat up at the suggestion, for reasons unbeknownst to you, but nodded. “Sure, Jess. Thanks,” you said.

He grinned at you, more relaxed now that you were both home safe. “It’s no problem,” he said, and you two took off walking so closely together that your arms brushed against each other’s on every other step.

You soon arrived at the little house you lived alone in, and he came up the steps with you. “I’m gonna get going, goodnight.” Jesse said with a little smile, preparing to leave when you stopped him with a hand on his shoulder.

You don’t know where it came from, but after a quick glance towards the street and neighboring houses, you pulled Jesse in for a short but passionate kiss. You pulled away, mortified at your own actions, but before you could usher out a flurry of apologies, Jesse’s lips were on yours again with a palpable excitement that matched your own.

The two of you broke apart after some time, both breathless, and you grabbed his hand as you turned around and hurriedly fished your key out of your pocket and opened the front door all with one hand. You pulled him in and closed the door before you pushed him up against it to kiss him yet again.

You slipped your tongue into Jesse’s mouth, delighting in the little pleased noise he let out as you did so. You brought a hand up to rest on his clothed chest, admiring the firmness of it and sighing into the kiss feeling more content than ever. You felt like you could do this for hours and were fully prepared to when you felt his hands slide down to hold you by the waist. The intimate action made you feel hot and you suddenly needed more.

You pulled away and giggled a little as Jesse tried to chase your lips before giving up with a whine. He looked down at you with wide eyes, panting, and you smiled sweetly. “I want you to fuck me.”

Despite engaging in a kiss that could only be described as completely sexual literal seconds ago, Jesse’s cheeks flushed and he started stumbling over his words as he tried to give you a response. Eventually, he landed on an, “I want that, too. I wanna fuck you.” The desperation in his voice made you ache and you told him to follow you to your room where you hastily shut the door.

You backed him up so that he was sitting on the foot of your bed. “Can I boss you around, baby? Would you like that?” You asked, positioning yourself in between his thighs. Jesse nodded enthusiastically, letting out a groan at the mere suggestion of you telling him what to do.

“Good. I changed my mind about what I said earlier,” you started, feeling a sick satisfaction as you watched his face drop, “I want to blow you before you fuck me.” You watched him process the words, knowing you had him wrapped around your finger when his jaw slackened slightly and he nodded again, repeating the action so quickly and frequently that you feared he’d get whiplash.

You sank down to your knees and reached for his belt, undoing it and waiting for him to lift himself up so that you could pull his jeans and boxers down in one go. You gazed hungrily at his already hard and leaking dick, taking no time to grab it softly and pump up and down once. You felt it twitch in your hand as Jesse let out a whine. You glanced up at him, the glint in your eye telling him not to move.

He looked down at you and you reveled in the absolute adoration present in his eyes. You directed your focus back to his pretty dick and pressed a kiss to the tip just to tease him before swirling your tongue around the circumference of it and finally taking the whole thing-or as much of it as you could- into your mouth.

Jesse positively wailed at the stimulation, fingers curling into the sheets on either side of him as he fought to keep his hips in place. You were so proud, humming satisfactorily around him as you moved your head up and down on his dick at a decent pace. Despite your best attempts, you couldn’t fit all of his dick in your mouth so you redoubled your efforts and wrapped a hand around whatever you couldn’t swallow.

Jesse obviously liked this, letting out the sweetest moans of appreciation. You looked up at him again and saw that he had his head thrown back with his eyes shut. You loved making him feel good but your own needs were becoming distracting so you pulled your mouth off of his dick, and switched to pumping it slowly with your hand. He picked his head up to look down at you with a little whine, wondering why you stopped.

“I want to fuck you now. Do you want that?” You asked the question in a mocking tone, but the words themselves were completely serious. He nodded hastily but that wasn’t good enough. “Tell me that you want me to fuck you.”

“I want you to fuck me. Please, I want it so bad.” You grinned, barely able to contain your excitement at how willing he was to beg for you. You stood up and directed him to take his shirt off. He pulled it off in seconds, and you admired his figure as you stripped out of your own clothes, giving him something to look at too.

“Lay back. I’m gonna ride you.” Jesse groaned, immediately doing as he was told and staring up at you intently as you crawled over him and sat inches away from his dick. You played with yourself a little, honestly slightly nervous to take him in. He was huge. You grazed over your clit once and sighed at the pleasant sensation before picking your hips up and positioning yourself over Jesse’s tip.

You heard his breath hitch but didn’t tear your concentration away from slowly sinking down onto his dick. You let out a long, drawn out moan as you finally made it to the base, feeling Jesse’s hips under your ass. You steadied yourself by placing your hands on his chest and bounced up and down once. He moaned but you paid him no mind as you got used to the feeling of being so full.

You bounced experimentally a couple more times before deciding that you were ready for him to fuck you. “Sit up, baby. I want to kiss you while you fuck me.”

Jesse sat up with haste and you moaned as the upward movement jostled you on his dick. He wrapped his arms around your waist and kissed you desperately, and you finally directed your attention towards how needy he was. The constant twitching of his hips was driving you mad and you didn’t bother to detach yourself from his mouth, demanding right against his lips that he fuck you.

Jesse let out a grateful whine into the kiss and immediately began fucking up into you. You moaned with him as he set a fast pace that made you want to scream with how amazing it felt. You tugged at his hair, taking a mental note of the absolutely delicious groan it elicited from him, and pulled him away from your lips. He looked at you deliriously, seemingly drunk off of your pussy, and you just held his head up like that, pulling at his hair occasionally and making deliberate eye contact with him.

His whimpers and moans steadily grew louder and you could tell that he was growing overwhelmed so you loosened your grip on his hair and let him go. You let out a surprised little yelp as he immediately dropped his head down to mouth at one of your tits. You cupped the back of his head again, this time not pulling his hair but just holding him with both hands, and moaned out at the combined sensations of him sucking on the skin of your breast while also fucking you passionately.

You were growing dangerously close and you figured that Jesse was too if the loud whines and stuttering thrusts of his hips were anything to go by. You moved one hand from his head to stroke down his back soothingly and started moving your own hips in time with his, chasing your release.

This spurred Jesse on and he moaned out against your nipple before redoubling his efforts and making his final thrusts count. He pulled off of your tit and cried out, “I’m gonna cum. I’m so close. Can I cum in you? Make you a mommy?” He was babbling at this point, and you couldn’t be sure that he even knew what he was saying but that last question caught you off guard in the best way, making you moan.

“Yeah, baby, you can cum in me. Make me a mommy, babe, I wanna feel it. Cum in me.” You answered him just as desperately and felt his thrusts get faster at the encouragement.

He moaned out again and could feel himself teetering closer and closer to the edge of release. He didn’t want to get there without you, though, so he snuck a hand down into the impossibly tight space between you two to rub rapid circles into your clit.

You almost screamed at the onslaught of stimulation you were experiencing and came with a loud cry less than a minute after he got a hand on you.

You clenched down on Jesse as you came, the sensation causing him to follow immediately after you with a wail. While you were both still riding the blinding waves of your orgasms, he sought you out for another kiss, this one soft and sweet. You swallowed his whimpers and didn’t part from him until the aftershocks faded and you both stopped twitching.

You rested your forehead on Jesse’s after he pulled out and looked into his eyes, watching him look at you just as intently. You smiled at him and he returned it lazily.

“‘s it good?” He asked, and you could hear in his voice that he was exhausted—so were you, thoroughly satisfied with how he fucked you.

“So good, baby,” you replied and brushed a strand of hair out of his eyes with a giggle. He returned the favor before jutting out his bottom lip in a comical frown.

“Gotta clean up. Where’s your bathroom? I wanna take care of you.” He said. You groaned, not wanting him to get up, but you wanted to fall asleep with bodily fluids leaking out of you even less so you gave him directions and made yourself comfortable while you waited for him to come back.

He returned in less than a minute with a wet rag and got to work wiping you down, making sure to be careful where you were most sensitive. When he got you cleaned up, he wiped himself down too. He gave you a quick kiss and then left again to get rid of the rag before coming back and swallowing you up into a huge hug, yawning into your neck.

“Tired, Jess?” You asked, knowing full well he was, and he didn’t bother to answer with words, only nodding against you. You smiled.

“We should prob’ly talk about this…” Jesse drawled, sleep creeping up on him. You giggled and played with his hair, agreeing with him.

“We should, tomorrow. Let’s go to sleep first,” you said, but didn’t need to, because Jesse was already snoring cutely into your neck.

[andalustforlife]

it was a very simple concept, a universally agreed upon rule even if it was an unspoken one. you don’t date the people in your friend group. it could only end horribly, even more so when your ex and ‘best friend’ end up together after your breakup.

it wasn’t a case of jess being interested in your boyfriend and ultimately stealing him, you and bobby were broken up for months before she told you bobby had asked her out. of course you told her it was fine, she was your friend and you didn’t want to be the one to kick up a fuss and tell her she couldn’t see him.

and that’s how you found yourself alone at a house party, leaning back against a counter as a beer bottle hung from your fingers as you unintentionally glared at the pair in the living room.

“would it be a dick move to say you’re making me feel better about myself?”

ryan baker, jess’s ex boyfriend, asked with a chuckle as he leant on the counter beside you.

“yes. it would be”

“okay, then i won’t tell you you’re making me feel better about myself”

your glare is redirected, now focused on the boy beside you as opposed to the reunited couple across the floor. you knew of ryan, but you didn’t know him. the only thing you did know about him for definite was the two of you were in the same boat.

“my bad,” he grins, raising his hands in fake surrender as you hold your glare “struck a nerve.”

“there isn’t a nerve there to strike,” you reply bluntly, not intending to be so hostile “she’s welcome to him.”

“tell that to your face.” ryan chuckles again, bringing his own bottle to his mouth as he took a drink “you look like you’re ready to tear them apart.”

“what kind of friend does that? i mean, seriously!” you begin ranting, finally having someone without current ties to either party “on what planet is that okay to do to your best friend?”

okay, so maybe you were a little pissed at jess, but how couldn’t you be!?

“wait, didn’t you and bobby get together after he broke up with jess?”

“a year after they broke up, not three months! besides, she moved on.” you huffed with a vague gesture his direction “who’s side are you on!?”

“i’m on my side” ryan nodded with a quirk of his eyebrow “i was an innocent bystander before all this, you know”

“weren’t you trying to fuck jess while she had a boyfriend?”

“that’s a rumour..”

“i was there!”

you can’t help but laugh at ryan’s avoidance, slowly beginning to forget all about jess and bobby a couple feet away. ryan laughs too, though he clearly isn’t as upset about the situation as you are, if anything he’s grateful because now he had and excuse to approach you, even if his opening line was about your ex.

there’s a silence between the two of you, well, as silent as it can be at a party. neither of you want the conversation to end, but you also don’t want to continue talking about your not-quite-ultimate-betrayal.

“do you wanna get out of here?”

ryan asks suddenly, making your brain freeze as it tried to process his offer. of course you want to leave, and leaving with ryan would be a bonus as you wouldn’t have to leave alone, or worse, with bobby and jess.

“that isn’t me trying to get in your pants, by the way.”

he adds when you take a little too long to answer, worried he came on too strong considering you were barely acquaintances.

“you couldn’t get into my pants even if you were trying.”

you joke, knowing in the back of your mind that you wouldn’t be entirely against the idea. but you didn’t need to contribute to ryan’s ego.

“yeah, okay y/n, we’ll see about that.”

[andalustforlife]

anything 4 ryan baker ( thanksgiving movie) ? in starvinggggggg

OHHH I HEAR U ANON.

ryan is such a bitchy boyfriend. like.

i’m talkin knocking people out of the way with his broad shoulders as you walk together, whipping his head around to smirk at them. he’s an ivy-league asshole; so of course he’s showering you with the most lavish gifts. designer purses, clutches, jackets…u name it (but you don’t even have to) and it’s yours!!!

he’s overly possessive, draping himself over your shoulders at a party as he leans on you from behind. blurting a “hey, why don’t you fuck off, slick?” with a click of his tongue and wink to the guy across from you. the poor kid is so embarrassed that he just walks away, mouth agape. and he drags you into the bathroom, pounding into you as he bends you over the sink counter, holding you back by your hair.

“you make me-feel so good-“ you pant, gasping. “oh, honey,” he coos through grunts, “i know that. just think everyone else here should, too.”

[andalustforlife]

ryan; who gets a little too out of hand at the local bar. ryan, who begs the guy whose been hitting on you to do it ‘one more time.’

ryan, who beats him bloody, being carried out of the bar by the new deputy, who spits at the ground and cusses under his breath about ryan being a ‘fucking idiot’.

ryan who eats your pussy when you get home; knuckles still bloody as they brush along your thighs, crimson catching on any patch of flesh he bumps against.

ryan who holds you tight to his body as he fucks into you from behind, kissing along your neck and relentlessly whispering against the shell of your ear that he would’ve done it all again.

[andalustforlife]

i want to wear his initial. . ryan baker

to celebrate thanksgiving finally streaming, take this idea that’s been rotting in my head for weeks since i saw this ad.

warnings: 18+, explicit language, suggestive conversation, afab!reader, unprotected sex ( please don’t do this? ), smut!, pnv, my literal first time writing smut be nice to me or else.

your eyes lit up the second it came across your tiktok for you page, you knew ryan would question the charge on his card from a website other than your usual haunts but explaining it away as a small business you found on your explore page seemed to be good enough for him.

you were known all over your campus for your fashion sense, your 2000’s inspired outfits drawing the attention of everyone you passed by, more specifically the ‘whale tail’ that was never missing from an outfit, the strings of your usually neon coloured thongs peeking above the waistband of your low rise jeans.

today was no different, your low rise jeans and white baby-tee, the neon pink strings high on your hips with the custom sparkly letter charms adorning the back; ryan.

“hey, baby” ryan greeted with a smile, leaning down to press a kiss to your lips after spotting you from across the courtyard, blissfully unaware of what everyone was double taking to read.

“hi” you giggled against his lips, pressing another quick kiss to them before pulling away “you got class?”

different degrees, same campus. it was actually how you’d met ryan, some sorority party during your first semester.

“not for another hour..” his voice trailed off, eyes looking past you at the pair of girls that had pointed at your back “turn around for me, baby. think you got something on you..”

you play dumb, turning your back to him and looking over your shoulder. you revel in the look on his face, how his eyes can’t look away from your ass, how his eyebrows have raised and his mouth is agape, and how he tries to subtly adjust himself in his jeans but fails miserably.

“is there something there?” you ask, like you don’t know exactly what it is he’s staring at.

there’s a second of silence, ryan’s brain short circuiting as he struggles to catch up with the real world continuing around him. he shakes his head before grabbing your arm, leading you towards the library without a word and ushering you into the bathroom.

“ryan, i have a class” you giggle, making no attempt to stop him when he pushes you against the door and latches his mouth to your neck.

“don’t care,” he mumbles against your skin, a hand creeping under the fabric of your shirt and towards your breasts, groaning when he realises you aren’t wearing a bra “fuck, baby, think this is the hottest thing i’ve ever fucking seen.”

his free hand slips a finger around the band of the thong, pulling it away from your body and releasing it with a snap. ryan’s mouth swallows your gasp as its back on yours, kissing you roughly like he’s trying to consume you entirely.

your hand trails down to the waistband of his own jeans, feeling his hard on pressing against your lower stomach as he presses you against the door, his tongue roaming around the inside of your mouth.

“easy, baby.” ryan chuckles, pulling your hand away with his own. in a fluid movement he has you bent over the bathroom sink, reaching round to unbutton your jeans and shove them down your legs “don’t remember putting you in charge.” his middle and ring fingers tease your clit through the bright pink fabric, watching your reaction in the mirror as your mouth falls open in a silent moan.

ryan applies a little more pressure, rubbing slow circles as his free hand frees his cock from his jeans and teasingly runs it back and fourth along your folds.

“quick teasing,” you huff, hooking your thumbs around the band of your underwear to remove them when ryan lands a light slap to your clit in warning.

“these stay,” he speaks matter of factly, moving the fabric to the side and groaning as he pushes into you “wanna see my name every time i look down at my cock filling you up, princess.”

[andalustforlife]

[andalustforlife]

*stumbles out of my notes app covered in blood* hi

[andalustforlife]

I do not respect the grind. Go to bed

[andalustforlife]

[andalustforlife]

the desire to be in a relationship only comes around when you’re about to sleep, on the journey home alone, sundays, after the club, when it’s raining, winter, at the cafe, today, tomorrow and yesterday

[andalustforlife]

Love going to bed with a new, good daydream scenario fresh in my mind. Like yes girl, movie night!

[andalustforlife]

[andalustforlife]

prompt: ghost and you are the only survivors of a military plane crash. you spend weeks alone in the wild together. (ns/fw)

-

In the years you’ve worked as a flight attendant, you’ve never experienced a plane crash before. It’s exactly like what you would’ve expected.

Clear skies rapidly turn grey outside the tiny windows to your left and right; you notice it almost instantly because it casts a pall over the interior of the aircraft. It makes the small group of men that you’ve been travelling with sit up a bit straighter in their seats, only a few of them looking genuinely concerned. Military men often do; it’s in their nature to worry and fret. You feel it like a twinge in your gut, like something telling you that you don’t usually fly through dark clouds. 

The soft ding of the seatbelt sign comes on a handful of seconds later. The turbulence only a few moments after that.

Pilots are trained to avoid cumulonimbus clouds like they’re a harbinger of death (and they are). Even large airliners avoid crossing the path of a cumulonimbus. Your pilot should’ve known to divert and fly around the cloud, avoiding the possibility of flying through a thunderstorm altogether. The pilot’s voice crackles over the intercom for everyone to fasten their seatbelts and you notice distantly that his voice seems frazzled. 

Your hands grip the seat as you strap in. This is exactly the kind of scenario you’ve prepared extensively for, but in the face of it, your stomach tosses and turns. Practice can only hope to ape reality; it often falls short. 

From across the aisle, you lock eyes with the lieutenant in the skull mask that politely refused a beverage ten minutes ago. The plane jostles you violently in your seat as it passes through a rough patch of turbulence. Even the lieutenant, twice your size and rooted into his seat, his hands clamped around the arm rests, grunts when he’s rocked side to side. 

There’s a loud pop outside the aircraft and the plane teeters dangerously to one side. The bags in the overheads bash against the doors, the plastic squeaking under their weight. 

Someone screams. The other attendant sitting across from you is already shouting, “Brace! Brace! Brace!” The mantra bursts from his chest along with spittle and the singular, quivering note of fear. There’s not much more you can do but follow his lead, dropping your head to your knees and wrapping your arms around your legs.

Your stomach drops when the plane descends far too suddenly. You would’ve been pulled back against the wall if your arms weren’t wrapped around your legs. You have enough time to peek up briefly to see all of the other men assuming the same position, some with their heads pressed against the seat in front of them before the aircraft nosedives and there’s a sharp whistle in your ear and the lights flicker ominously in the cabin and something tears and tears and tears and—

Then it’s dark.

Your grip must have loosened because the world disintegrates after you hit your head. There’s only a faint buzz and something ice cold, something that grips you from the inside and slithers over your skin. The aftermath of a crash is so quiet for the devastation it brings.

The big one in the scary mask is the one who drags you from the wreckage, lifting you into his arms when you’re still too dazed to do more than whimper pathetically. Fear and pain and adrenaline have crumpled you up into a little ball. 

“Keep your eyes open,” he says, and maybe it’s a shout. His voice is so loud. When you open them, you nearly close your eyes instinctively when you see the gaping hole in the plane where it’s been torn apart. 

“Where are—” it hurts to speak, but you have no choice, “—the others…”

He doesn’t respond. That makes it worse. You slip your arms around his neck so he can hike you closer up his chest. Slung over his shoulder is a black duffle bag that he must have pulled from the overhead, or what’s left of them. When your head turns on a swivel, you startle at the sight of the other attendant still strapped in his seat, his neck snapped back at an odd angle. 

You turn your head away. 

“My leg hurts really bad,” you sob, fingers clutched in the sweat-matted fabric of your saviour’s shirt. 

He palms the back of your head and tips you just enough for you to meet his eyes. Something dark shutters over his face for a split second. If your eyes weren’t filled with tears, you might’ve noticed it. It passes fast though, too quick for you to register it in these conditions.

“‘Gonna be okay, sweetheart,” he says, gentler this time, rough-sounding like he’s not used to using that tone. “Gonna get us out of here and then I’ll check your leg. Just hang on to me.”

It’s hard to catalogue every moment because you drift in and out of consciousness. You feel the man shift you in his arms whenever he clambers down the side of the mountain your plane must have flown into. There’s debris from the wreckage scattered around the rocks, the other half of the plane not too far away. When your eyes blink open briefly, you see how decimated the other half is. 

There aren’t any other survivors. Only bodies. He doesn’t stop for them.

Far off from the wreckage, he sets you down onto the soft earth and rifles around in the bag he took. There’s a first aid kit with supplies that he uses to wrap your ankle, which is swollen and tender. The adrenaline crash is nearly more violent than the plane crash you just survived. It wracks through your body as the lieutenant strips your shoes and socks, gently manipulating your foot in his big hands. You notice he’s also lost the mask.

Ochre yellow and green plains spread outward from the mountains. You remember from the flight maps on board that you were somewhere over Mongolia, but the exact mountain range eludes you. This could be the Khangai or the Sayan or the Altai, but you have no way of knowing. 

“Is there a…a phone in the bag? How’s anyone gonna know we’re out here?” You sound helpless, smaller than you’ve ever sounded. 

He shakes his head. The tight ball of tension in the middle of your chest grows tighter. The thought that you’re stranded in the mountains in Mongolia, thousands of miles away from home and no way to get help is almost enough to send you into a panic attack. 

A hand cups under your chin to tilt your head up. His face up close is exquisite and haunting—weathered in the way that career military men often are, burn marks and old scars littered across the delicate skin, lips perpetually chapped, and a nose that looks like it’s been broken way more than once. You can’t look away. 

“Someone’ll be looking for us,” he says. It’s reassuring only because he says it like it’s a certain thing. “Don’t know if you saw who was on that flight roster. A lot of important men were supposed to arrive in Germany at twenty-one-hundred hours.”

You nod, tears still dribbling down your cheeks even when he swipes his thumb across to rub them away. He’s not wrong. There was a colonel on your flight after all. Dead now, hot corpse still steaming in the wreckage half a kilometre away, but he would’ve been important enough to warrant an immediate rescue. 

You go still under his touch. “You weren’t on the flight list.”

He shakes his head. “Never am.”

“But you were with them?” You remember someone on the flight addressing him by his rank. It was early on in the service, when you were still strapping down bags and doing cross-check, making sure everything was in place. But you remember, even then, seeing that there were more bodies on the plane than names on the list; you’d brought it up to the captain, but he’d brushed off your concerns. Maybe he knew the reason behind the lieutenant’s name being held off the passenger list. 

It’s all moot now anyway. 

“Can’t bring a ghost on a flight,” he says darkly, like it’s a joke. Like you’re in on it together. “Can’t put it on the roster at least. S’bad luck after all.”

It’s a monstrous joke at a time like this. Your life feels cracked in half and the scarred brute of a man that pulled you from the wreckage makes jokes like it happens to him every other day. When the sky splits later that night and pours out a lake’s worth of rain, it feels appropriate. You huddle with the lieutenant at the base of a densely branched tree and shake.

Five weeks in the mountains go by slowly. 

The shelter he builds is haphazard but meticulous, composed of various materials that Ghost scavenges from the plane wreck. A door becomes a makeshift roof. He makes you sit and wait as he collects dozens and dozens of branches, chopped down from the surrounding trees and fashioned into a lean-to. Padded with moss and leaves. 

“I can help with getting the leaves,” you protest when he catches you hobbling around and carries you back to the nest of blankets and tarps that he’d pulled from the plane. He goes back every so often to see what remains and what can be used. It’s the only time other than when he hunts that Ghost leaves you alone for even a second, preferring to be within arm’s length of you the rest of the time.

“You can help by sitting your ass down,” Ghost grunts without even looking up at you. 

You frown, fingers digging in the dirt by your feet. It’s a silly complaint but there’s never anything to do but wait. 

In the early morning hours, Ghost goes off and hunts for you, when the world is still quiet and the animals are still asleep. They’re sluggish when dawn still hasn’t peeled its pink belly off the surface of the world. Ghost comes back with a deer slung over his shoulders one week, his knife still protruding from its neck, and your stomach only twists a little bit. Not used to seeing where your meat comes from. 

There’s not much choice when you’re on your own in the elements. Every day, you expect to see a helo appear over the horizon, and you end each night crestfallen when it doesn’t. 

It’s not like you haven’t completed basic training, a prerequisite to applying as a military flight attendant, but admittedly it’s been several years and basic never taught you to hunt for your food. You did other things that seemed, at the time, inconsequential to your career path, like learning to rappel and how to wait an hour for your NCO to show up for PT in the morning. 

Even if your ankle hadn’t been badly sprained, you wouldn’t be much help. Ghost’s remarkably self-sufficient. It makes you question whether he’s done this before—whether he’s gotten stranded in the woods for weeks on end and had to learn to live hand-to-mouth. 

“Have you…where’d you learn all of this?” you ask him in the dead of night, when the wind is a shrill hiss through the trees and you cower close to him in your sleeping bag (also salvaged from the wreck, though his has a tear down the side of it).

Ghost is quiet for a moment. “All over the place. Been doing this for years, love; had to learn.”

“Anything ever like this?”

Even with the absence of his mask, it gets so dark at night that you can’t see his face. You can hear the wry smile that plays on his lips in his voice though. “I’ve had worse days.”

There’s a story there that you see like a fish darting under the water. Too quick for you to catch with your bare hands. 

You wake up with your cheek pressed against his pillowy chest most days. It’s embarrassing at first, but you learn to let it melt off you when you meet Ghost’s eyes and there’s nothing there but piercing blue. They root you in place most of the time but they never tell you to move. 

It takes a while before your ankle starts noticeably healing. In the intervening weeks, Ghost almost dotes on you, in a rough, untested sort of way. Like he doesn’t have much experiencing tending to another person besides himself for weeks on end. As the weeks drag on, it morphs into something unrecognizable, like a wounded animal healing wrong. 

It starts when Ghost insists on sharing sleeping bags. It’ll be easier for him to pull you close if something tries to drag you off in the night (and doesn’t that thought put you on the brink of a panic attack until he shushes and soothes you). It escalates when you make the mistake of tending to the meat hanging over the fire while he fiddles with the little radio he’d dragged back from the plane, and the look he gives you when you tell him that supper is ready borders on reverent. 

It gets even worse when he has you both strip your clothes off on a particularly cold and rainy night, wrapped around each other for warmth. 

“Sweetheart, you’re shaking,” you hear him rumble, big hand drawing a line down your back. You do tremble at that. “C’mon, get closer. Gonna warm you up.”

You wake up in the middle of the night when your ankle is starting to feel solid enough that you think you can manage to go off on your own to relieve yourself instead of waking Ghost up again. That’s the plan anyway. Before you’ve even managed to crawl all of six feet away from your sleeping bag, a rough hand pins you by your shoulder to the ground and the heavy, over two-hundred pound body of your companion drapes itself over you.

“Where the fuck do you think yer going?” Ghost snarls. 

For the first time in a week, there’s a moment of genuine fear. It’s like realizing for a split second that the animal you’ve let creep up behind you is a lot more dangerous than you thought it was. 

“I have to pee,” you whisper-hiss, heart still skittering in your chest.

He’s silent behind you while he mulls that thought over; you think maybe he’s still half-asleep, his body acting on instinct before his brain’s ready to take over. The tension only releases you when he finally picks himself up off you, but it’s immediately made worse when he insists on accompanying you into the woods. 

He doesn’t even turn around while you pull your underwear down and squat. Ghost’s eyes are bright in the dark, trained on you like it’s the thing that gives him purpose. 

Things change in the woods. There are people who are only one bad thing away from reverting to their neolithic mind; as the weeks go on, you see the way his eyes change when they fall on you, no longer detached but gluttonous. 

There’s a brown bear that slouches past your camp one day, sniffing around only because it’s curious, and Ghost all but completely obstructs your vision with how he shoves you behind him. He puffs up big when the bear gets too close, keeping you hidden until it snorts and ambles off, not interested in the pair of you. 

Do animals act like this? He curls you around him in sleep, legs tangled together. When you soak in the lake under the glare of the sun, he slips into the water and comes up behind you until his hands close around your waist and he tugs you closer to the edge, away from the deeper parts. It’s testament to how long you’ve been out on your own that you’re no longer unaccustomed to the feel of his hands on your bare flesh. 

His lips on your bare shoulder are a little less commonplace, but you only shiver and stare out at the mountains. 

Then one day, you look up into the sky away from the sun and there it is, a black dot on the horizon at first. You scream for Ghost, who’s skinning a fish on a damp log near you and start waving your arms wildly in the air, unbridled joy streaming out of you. He’s quick to pull his mask on when the chopper lands a few hundred yards away and two similarly dressed soldiers spill out. 

You ignore the stiffness in his body as he sits beside you in the chopper, pinning you against the side. Ignore the way he answers for you when the men start asking questions. 

What does it mean to come back worse?

“Wha’s that, love?”

“Trauma bonding,” you repeat, swallowing nervously. It’s months later, but the weeks on the mountain and the forest still haunt you. The real world seems flimsier now that you’re back in it, less real somehow. Here, no one hunts for their food. “The therapist said that we trauma bonded. And—and that’s why you won’t—”

Here’s where the words can’t seem to come out on their own. 

He sleeps in your bed these days—can’t stand to be more than a room away from you at any given time. Follows you into the bathroom when you need to clean up at the end of the day, crowding you into your too-small shower. The you from a month ago wouldn’t have been able to imagine inviting a six-foot-four soldier into your apartment, but—and here’s where your brain scrambles a bit to catch up—you didn’t invite him in. 

He lifts a brow. The mask comes off in your apartment, so you’re able to see the way his lips slip into something unimpressed. “Why I won’t what?”

You swallow. “You know. Leave.”

“Do you want me to leave, love?” 

That’s the crux of it. The heart of it. You really don’t. In the dark sometimes, if the wind rustles outside your window just right, shrill like those weeks in the forest and out on the open plains, your heart pounds in your chest until it grows so tight that you think it’ll just stop. 

“No,” you whisper in response to his question.

Most nights, you wake up drenched in sweat, still half in a dream where you turn your head and the other flight attendant is staring back at you with wide, empty eyes. Blood dribbling down from his head. Where a plane is ripped in half, grey metal strewn across a mountain and the valley below is a dark pit where you go to die. 

Then you roll over in your bed and Ghost is there, already awake and cupping a wide hand over your cheek, laying kiss after kiss across your face. Murmuring that it’ll be alright, that you’re safe. That he’s got you. 

His breath is hot on your skin.

You let him roll you over and spread your legs when he says those things. Let him be a bit filthy after being so kind to you in the woods. 

He spits on your pussy and rubs it in with a coarse thumb, chuckling when you yelp all breathlessly and squirm away. Sometimes when you fuck, he gets rough with you and slaps it, but he’s always tender with you after a nightmare, content to sooth you with his mouth on your pussy until you’re close to hyperventilating. 

“S’alright, sweetheart,” Ghost breathes, spearing you on his turgid length, barrel chest heaving when he finally crams it all in. Always a bit too big for you to take without crying. “I got you, I’ve got you. Not gonna let anything happen to you.”

It’s a new development, but it feels older than time. You could’ve let it happen in the woods and you might have, if no one had ever come. 

“Look at me, sweet girl,” he tuts when you turn your head to the side, holding your face in one hand until you have no choice but to stare at the bulk of him straining over you. He has shoulders like mountains that roll when he pushes into you. “Didn’t I say I’d take care of you?”

You don’t want to acknowledge what this is: that you found something in the woods and it followed you home.

[andalustforlife]

no i havent seen that critically acclaimed movie with significant relevance to culture. no yeah, still working through bad stuff from other decades