#he pushes past to get a task done/fix whatevers wrong. so i wanted to translate that into the flashlight duo universe with the emotional/pr | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

wildshub · 3 years

Photo

WHO: The Twilight of Adam Boys WHAT: The boys come across Warren’s dead body and bury him. WHEN: Day 3 NOTE: For future reference.

Blue blue had been replaying the entire night over in his head. he had been against leaving sawyer and warren alone on the cliff, they were all a team in this but theyd always be combative until they got that. maybe the guys saw how much carrying another guy around + a lack of good sleep had done to blue, he himself felt like his energy was cut in half. maybe that's why he relented and followed the rest back, in what felt like a half sleep daze. But there they all stood, having seen far too much of what remained of warren on earth. it was the first dead body blue had ever seen, and the image seemed to puncture through any other thought. "what um, what did you guys last say to him?" his eyes housed some extra moisture, but he would be unashamed of this. a brother died, even if he wasnt blue's favorite. and sawyer, soy dog, being given this huge task, and having this be the outcome, it was heartbreaking. "i last told him he needed to translate the message..." he wished he had said anything more comforting, personable, leas tinged with annoyance. but that was the truth

Kian Kian had never been good at dealing with death. When the great aunt he barely ever spoke to on his mother's side passed away, he hid in the coat closet at her wake and refused to come out until the body was gone. That was eight years ago. It wasn't any easier now, standing here in front of a lifeless, mangled corpse...especially not that of who, just hours earlier, was joking and laughing and lazing around like they weren't in dire need of rescue. He had to tear his eyes away from Warren, focusing his gaze on a rip in the hem of his t-shirt. "Dunno. Probably something about how much of a twat he was being," Kian mumbled, none of his usual bite to his words. "But we were all kind of being twats yesterday."

Sawyer Warren was a fuck up. And, selfishly, Sawyer felt drawn to him for that very reason—because he took comfort in knowing he wasn’t the only person on the isle whose smart mouth and poor rationale got him into trouble more often than it got him any good. When Warren chose to stay with the fire, Sawyer hung back with him. He could read people like he read books, knew there wasn’t something right with the guy after he’d been choked out, beaten up, and hung off the ledge of a cliff within an inch of his life. If he indulged in a little alcohol he’d been keeping from the rest of the boys—and if Sawyer shared some with him—nobody needed to know. He’d needed that liquid courage to face camp in the morning...fuck. It felt like a given, only seven hours ago, that he’d even wake up to see the next morning. “S’my fault,” he said suddenly, drawing fourteen sets of eyes away from Warren’s body and to where he stood, feet away from the group. His voice shook as he spoke. “We were drinkin’, a-and I knew he was upset about the radio and shit, and I should’ve…looked after ‘im.”

Joe Instead of properly processing the events of yesterday Joe had pushed them to the back of his mind. He shoved the memories into a filing cabinet where they became an unorganised jumble of shouting, pulling and dashed hope. He trudged back to the camp with the hope that a good night's sleep would fix everything. He prayed that a new dawn would make for a bright new start or maybe he would wake up to find out that the last forty-eight hours had been a nightmare based on some disaster movie he watched years ago. But turns out the exact opposite happened and the new dawn brought more fucking anguish. Eyes still transfixed on Warren's lifeless body he was about to tell the Adams that the last thing he probably said to Warren was be careful, Joe wished he meant be careful in general instead of specifically with the radio. Maybe things would have ended differently if his past life prioritised Warren's life instead of a stupid old radio. That train of thought was interrupted by Sawyer. "Don't you fucking dare." It was supposed to be a command but it was more of a whimper. The words blame yourself remained stuck at the back of Joe's thought. "It wasn't your fault,ok. You couldn't have seen it coming." Yeah, Sawyer stayed behind to babysit Warren but making sure somebody didn't get yelled at wasn't the same as making sure they didn't die.

Dash Dash had seen a dead body once before but Warren’s looked mad different, mangled and limp and scraped up from the rocks. He loitered away from the group huddled together in lieu of getting any closer to the body after the panicky, failed revival. Touching his cold, lifeless skin to drag him ashore had been enough macabre bullshit for one day. Dash flexed his hand as he looked at Warren’s lax face. Well, third time’s the charm, he thought wryly, then felt a little sick. Any of them could die here apparently, and it started to feel a whole lot less like Total Drama Island as the Lost vibes violently rocketed up. The neckbeards who worked at Google were gonna have to hurry up and tap into their space stations to find them before someone else met their untimely demise. His eyes cut toward Sawyer when the other guy spoke and then to Joe when he replied. Dash shrugged uncomfortably. “Yeah, I mean, I guess there’s not much you could’ve done about it if you were asleep, man. Alcohol plus dangerous heights equals...” he trailed off. He rubbed the back of his head, eyes narrowed when he noticed something missing. Warren’s belt bag was gone; it had been one of the first things Dash noticed about his fit on the place, not entirely without envy. “Looks like Mother Ocean wanted his fanny pack.” He paused. “Uh... should we let her take him too? Yunno, ol’ Viking funeral style. Those were basically his people, and we gotta figure out what to do with the body.” Dash was all for suggesting some kind of action if that meant he didn’t have to stare at a bloated corpse anymore. Besides, he was going to start stanking the beach up in the hot sun sooner or later.

Lukas Put him in front of the grossest, goriest movie or game and Lukas had a stomach of steel. The second he laid eyes on Warren, he lost the airplane nuts and seltzer that had filled his stomach the night before. Though he did have the decency to at least step away from the group to do it. Wiping his mouth as he returned taking up the spot beside Dash towards the back of the group to avoid his stomach being unsettled again. He shook his head when Sawyer spoke up, wasn’t his fault he wanted to say but he was worried he’d say it with a side of puke. Thankfully Joe had them covered on that front, even if he did say it with a wobble of his lower lip. “ Isn’t that usually with a boat and fire and shit? “ Like that even mattered right now but it was a lot easier than thinking about having to bury Warren.

Liam for the first time in his life, liam was glad he was shorter than most. surrounded by so many taller than him, liam couldn't get a good look at the body in the water, not that he wanted to. while he may have found warren annoying and after the whole ordeal with the radio, everyone was pretty pissed; but that didn't mean he wanted the boy to die. it didn't take long before liam's eyes stung with tears a the thought of one of them dying. he looked to sawyer as he explained what happened, liam reached out and placed a hand on his bicep. "yeah, it's not your fault," he repeated joe's words, but as he did, the tears started to spill. liam quickly rubbed his hands over his cheeks to try and hide the evidence before some of the meaner members of the group (cough sebastian cough) noticed. dash and lukas started talking about what to do with the body and liam had nothing to add, worried if he did have anything, his voice was shake and crack if he spoke.

Kian "He's got family, though," said Kian, shifting his weight from foot to foot. As much as he desperately wanted to go all out of sight, out of mind with Warren's corpse, the thought of lighting him up and sending him off to sea settled in his stomach like a handful of rocks. He couldn't imagine being Warren's parents in that situation, forever haunted by the fact that they'd never get to see their son laid to rest. Fuck, this was all so fucking fucked. "Maybe we should keep him buried somewhere cool. So he doesn't...get too bad before rescue comes."

Joe "Kian's right." Joe said bluntly, breaking the silence that hung over them. He buried his hands deeply into his shorts pocket. Fuck he wished he had his jacket. It didn't matter that he was already being smothered by the humidity of the island."Just throwing him into the sea would be dead disrespectful." Warren was a disrespectful twat when he was alive but that didn't mean he deserved to be dumped into the ocean. He was a person with a family that loved him. Plus, a decomposing body would probably fuck up the ocean floor's ecosystem or whatever it was called and the poor crabs didn't deserve that. Joe took Liam quickly rubbing his cheek as a sign he needed to go into full distraction mode (something he learned to do from awkward family dinners)."And there's so much shit wrong with the viking funeral idea, no offence Dash. We don't have a boat and the Vikings were from that bit of Europe that looks like a tongs grabbing a bit of lettuce. That's not where Switzerland is." He was hardly a viking expert but being forced to go on a two hour coach trip to go to some museum on the other side of the Pennines when he was in year 3 counted for something. It didn't stop him from being complicit in the death of some rich bastard but it counted for something." Not that any of that matters."

Sebastian Sebastian looked at Warren's lifeless corpse and saw the shape of his own hands reflected in the discolored bruising around the other boy's neck. Would it ever go away or would he be buried with the reminder that his last hours had involved Sebastian trying to kill him? He swallowed hard, disturbed by the thought but the lump in his throat refused to shift in even the slightest way. He decided not to answer Blue's question, everybody knew what Sebastian's last words to the other boy had been and he didn't want to repeat them, not now. "It's not your fault," he insisted, his voice low and gravely as he responded to Sawyer, "You're not his keeper," none of them were. They were looking out for each other to an extent but they weren't obliged to one another beyond that, not really. He looked over at Kian and nodded his head, "Yeah," he concurred when Joe spoke up, assuring the group that Kian was indeed right. He cleared his throat softly and contemplated their options, "We gotta bury him," he announced, though the prospect was unbearably grim. "The animals will get him if we don't," that was worse, much worse.

Sawyer Sawyer appreciated the words of comfort—really, he did—but nice as they were, they did little to lighten the guilt sitting heavy atop his chest. He was the last person Warren ever spoke to. The last person Warren ever saw. If any of them had the ability to prevent his death, it was Sawyer, and he just…drifted off to sleep after a measly half-canteen of cognac. Did he ever ask if Warren was okay? Did he notice if he was drunk enough to make any dumb, rash choices? And if he did, did he even care? With a hard sniff, Sawyer tightened his jaw and focused his attention on an upturned shell poking out of the sand. Having a pity party for himself, he decided, wasn’t gonna bring Warren back from the dead. “Yeah. We can use that emergency blanket to wrap him up, keep the bugs an’ shit out.”

Dash Yeesh, it was just a suggestion, Dash thought, and it was easier to focus on that small smidge of annoyance than the word 'family'. Things were less complicated when Dash could look into Warren's empty eyes and imagine that he spontaneously generated on the plane like one of those meat flies. Okay, so now other cultures’ funerary rites are disrespectful? Awright, cheers, Sir Moseley, he wanted to say, half-jokey in tone and a painful mimicry of Joe's accent, but the quivery feeling that rattled his insides made him swallow the words almost immediately. Maybe it was his Catholic upbringing, and sure he just suggested they log roll Warren into the sea, but cracking jokes in front of a dead body actually seemed kinda uncouth. Kept him from pretending to snore in response to Joe’s list of Viking-related facts, too. Before he could say anything though, his mouth snapped shut when Sebastian spoke. If there was anyone he’d believe actually went on a Dr. Jekyll-Mr. Hyde midnight ride and yeeted Warren from the cliff, it was that guy. The bruises on Warren’s neck seemed evidence enough for a case of premeditated murder in his books. He pressed his tongue against the inside of his cheek and his gut twisted again at Sawyer’s next words, the prospective task nauseating. “Sure, yeah. Makes sense.” He cleared his throat and nodded, then promptly expelled the thought of bugs burrowing into Warren’s carcass from his mind or else he’d follow in Lukas’ footsteps in the retching department. He gave his buddy a commiserating pat on the back as he looked over his shoulder at the stretch of beach, totally lost as to where they’d have to put him. “When my mom’s dog died, we had to bury that thing pretty deep so the bobcats wouldn’t dig him up. So, uh... guess we should get started on that, too. Might take awhile.”

Kian If he wasn't in the presence of a decomposing corpse, Kian would've rolled his eyes. The flippant way Dash was acting about the whole "Warren is dead" situation unnerved him more than he would've liked to admit; as if this was just another fucking Saturday for him. "There's no bobcats in Hawaii," he said.

Lukas " Polar bears then, " Lukas retorted dryly. Even if he had made it to day 3 of the island before making a LOST reference, he wasn't gonna start outright joking about things this soon after Warren's death. He'd give it, like, five more minutes. " Point is, I don't wanna meet whatever the fuck lives on this island because it decided to make Warren a midnight snack. " And he also didn't want to deal with the body, clearly he did not have the stomach for it so he was definitely aiming to be part of the dig crew. " It shouldn't be near camp either. Just in case. "

Dash Dash exhaled sharply. The words ‘what did I do wrong!!!!’ broadcasted themselves in bright, obnoxious colors in his head. Did it start when he wouldn’t say some bullshit things over Warren’s dead body about him and what Dash might or might not have said to him in their final moments together? Because that felt insincere and shitty. He wasn’t going to pretend that he meant anything to Warren, or make the guy’s death about himself. The best thing they could do was save him from the indignity of lying around like a washed up CPR doll while they all stood around crying. He snapped then pointed at Lukas. “Exactly." Kian and Joe wanted Warren to get back to his family? Well, hey, Dash was sure there was a fair chance they wouldn’t wanna see him with chunks missing. But fuck him for trying to be helpful, apparently. “Hence: deep hole.” He lifted his hands in faux surrender. “Can we move on from bitching at me? Yeah? I’ll help dig.” Anything to put some distance between himself and Warren’s body. He hadn’t looked at him once since he said the Viking thing, and he was happy to put that off for awhile longer. He nudged Lukas with his elbow. "Let's find a spot. Who's gonna help?"

Sawyer So that was that. Warren was dead and he wasn’t coming back and they were going to bury his body deep in the ground so wild animals couldn’t eat away at his rot before help arrived. Sawyer felt like shouting, or hitting something, or running off into the ocean until the saltwater swallowed him whole. He felt everything at once and nothing at all. “I’m gonna...go grab the blanket.” If he had to spend any longer staring at Warren’s emotionless face and twisted limbs, he wasn’t sure he’d make it to the burial.

Callum “I’ll help.” They were the first words to leave Callum’s mouth since they found Warren’s body. Unlike most of the group, he couldn’t tear his gaze away from the boy’s mangled corpse. He fucking hated Warren when the bastard was alive and breathing, but looking at him now, unmoving and silent for the longest period of time since he’s met him, Callum actually felt something other than irritation and rage for the boy. Was it regret? Guilt perhaps? And possibly some weird variation of yearning where he just wanted the idiot to get up and start doing something stupid like he always did. Yes, he was an annoying son of bitch who fucked up drastically, but he was also the first person Callum saw on this island. The first person to make him feel less alone. Whatever was going on in Callum the longer he stared at Warren’s body wasn’t great. It was a strange mix of things he didn’t quite understand and he wanted so badly for the feelings to go away and be replaced with something familiar. Something he knew how to react appropriately for. Something like... anger. That’s what he preferred to feel when he couldn’t understand what was going on within him. He turned his head when Sawyer spoke, grinding his teeth together and squaring his jaw. “Sure you can do that? You're not gonna let your fingers get all slippery and have it be blown away by the wind? Maybe we should have someone go with you, you know, since you clearly can’t be held responsible for a simple. fucking. task.”

Blue blue froze, bewildered by callum's reaction. while he knew in their time together that callum couldnt be....intense, how could someone so clever not hear the pain in sawyers voice. dash, a guy he admired for his unabashed self and how he expressed it with ease, was ready to point fingers. "it wasn't an easy task. was it an easy task for us to keep warren away from the radio? we don't know what the hell happened up there last night, for fucks sake, if you think something shady happened, share with your brothers." his voice broke a little on the last word. and his eyes darted from callum to sebastian. he expected it from seb, but he thought cal ran cooler than that. "Ill go with sawyer...." his eyes darted more quickly than usual to each boy, wondering on their thoughts. though he always gave a helping hand, he knew it usually came with a smack from a more callous present, but he already put his faith out there, and he did it for sawyer, and the truth.

Sawyer When Callum spoke, Sawyer found himself wishing he’d just punched him across the face—would’ve hurt a whole lot less than taking some salt and throwing it to the fucking sea to pour acid on the wound, instead. He recoiled as though Callum had shot him in the chest, mouth working and gaze darting from boy to boy as he fumbled for something to say. Where were you when Warren decided to hang back? When he needed someone to help carry him down the hill? When he was hovering over the ledge of a cliff and having his windpipe crushed by someone twice his size, where were you? Where the fuck were you? His arm swung uselessly at his side. The ugly truth of it all was that Callum was at the camp, and Sawyer was sleeping right beside Warren, and neither of them were able to stop him from taking a tumble into the ocean. And nothing he could say was going to change that. So, Sawyer did what he knew to do best, and choked out something that might’ve sounded like an “I’m sorry” before he turned and started walking briskly in the other direction.

Kian "Fantastic," Kian said, all-too-ready to participate in the blame game when it suited him but not to stand up for the other members of the group when they were under fire, "you pissed off the guy with the criminal record. Great going." Maybe that meant Callum's body would be next to mysteriously wind up wedged between two rocks tomorrow morning. Maybe Kian would've preferred that to hearing him flex his macho bullshit over a group of grieving 18-year-olds. His arms found themselves wound tight around his middle as he moved away from the body—the last thing he wanted to do was go searching in the jungle with two of the most annoying people on the isle, but like fuck he was going to sit here and stare at a rotting corpse for the next hour. "Guess I'll go, too, then.”

Lukas Lukas was team dig even before Dash nudged him with his arm, starting to move when he did. But he'd barely taken a step when some other bullshit started. Callum spoke up, and was mad at Sawyer. As if he wasn't suspect number two in Lukas' mind. He'd spent all of Warren's two days on the island threatening the dude, was no homo best buds with Sebastian, and had already taken a swipe at Dash. Speaking of, as Callum was having a go at Sawyer, he cast a glance to Dash, making a quick face as if to say What the fuck, are you seeing this shit? And then just as he's trying to start moving again Blue said, share with your brothers and Lukas had to try really fucking hard not to laugh, especially because his voice cracked. These mother fuckers weren't his brothers, especially not Warren. He rubbed the back of his hand against his nose, trying to conceal the small exhale that had escaped, as he started moving again, the task of digging a fucking grave on his mind. " For auto theft– not assault and battery. " Lukas pointed out as he walked, meaning it in Sawyer's defence. The perfect proof that having a criminal charge didn't make you inherently dangerous was Liam, but since the guy was crying he wasn't gonna throw his name down the gauntlet. And he also wasn't gonna offer up his own name and felony seeing as Kian had been so quick to judge Sawyer's record. For what he was going to say next he leaned into the small group going to dig a grave, lowering his voice to avoid getting some bruises to match Warren's, " 'sides, think we all fuckin' know who's got the quick temper 'round here. " He said, raising his brows. Lukas was ready to accept that Warren was just a moron that slipped off the cliff in the middle of the night, but if they were gonna point fingers he didn't get how anyone was pointing them anywhere but Gigantor.

Blue blue rose his hands up, palms to his brothers as he listened to his peers, his fellow castaways though it was easier to think of them as as more in his nature. "seb lost his shit more than anyone." The image of his hands on Warrens neck burned hard but that's wasn't the whole story. "but his strength helped pull warren up when he hung by the ledge.." blue looked each castaway in the eye,unfazed by the personal distance. "If any of you know more than dumb guy blue....say it!"

JJ He understood the tensions raising and the unpredictability of reactions to ensue. However, he knew couple of things for certain, Warren was dead. The radio was gone. The help is not here. There was no need, in his opinion, to pass around blame or mope for too long or make a bad situation even worse. Then again, if his opinion mattered they wouldn’t have left Sawyer and Warren alone over night in the first place. He will look over at Callum then Sawyer than back on Warren and laugh. “Sorry, it’s really not funny...” he will say and nod at Luke and Blue who seemed to have been the most clear minded at the moment. Aside from palpable tension in the air that is. “Sawyer man, don’t beat yourself up. It’s was reckless as fuck leaving yall alone up there in the first place.” He said in his best attempt to provide some comfort to the other before focusing on what to do with the issue at hand. “Burying him in the woods is the best option. We wrap him, dig deep so animals can’t dig him out and mark the place so we can find him when the rescue gets here. But first...” he will kneel down and start digging through Warrens pockets. If there was anything there, they could use it more than the dead guy.

Dash Without a backwards glance, he started toward the jungle, lowering his voice like Lukas did just in case: “Did I or did I not call this shit Day One, dude? Roasted. Fuckin’. Pigs.” He shook his head. “The whole Macho Man rescue thing? Red herring moves. Zigging when we expect him to zag. Classic misdirection.” He looked at Callum out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t know if him and Sebastian had any kind of bro bonding moments so far, but Dash at least knew he was on Team Sawyer’s Fault which put them at odds once again. Perfect. His shoulders hunched and he fought back a shiver; the moment they flipped Warren over onto his back replaying in his mind like the most twisted boomerang. The word family haunted him almost as much as those few seconds. “This blows,” he said with feeling. Once they past the treeline, he picked up the first fallen stick he saw. It looked like it broke off at an angle, leaving a slanted end. “I once watched one of those 3 AM History Channel specials about how aliens helped ancient people build pyramids and shit. Alien Theory Guy goes, ‘You want me to believe these Incans could dig thousands of holes totally randomly? Nah, that’s a Martian move.’” He looked over the stick in hand. It seemed pretty sturdy, about an inch and a half in diameter. “Then some corduroy jacket-wearing Ivy Leaguer crops up and says, 'Ever heard of sticks, bitch?’” He cleared his throat again and rubbed at his jaw. Weirdly the further they got from Warren’s body, the more it preoccupied him. Like now that they weren’t looking, he’d pull a grisly Toy Story move and get to his feet. Except he’d be making daddy jokes in his Dr. Doofenshmirtz accent. Dash held up the stick for inspection. “What do you think? Could try and make it work a little bit. Just so we don’t all end up with bloody hands by the end of this.”

Kian “What in the actual fuck are you talking about,” was the only response Kian could muster when Dash started going off on a tangent about Aliens and pyramids. Warren didn’t need a tomb, he needed to be lowered into the earth and kept cool long enough to be recognizable when someone—anyone—could come and exhume him. Chopping him up and stuffing his body parts into little holes in the ground seemed like JJ’s gig, and like, they didn’t need even more of a reason to be suspected of group murder. “We’re burying him, not cutting him open and harvesting his organs. Only reason there’d be any blood is if Godzilla here and his buddy King Kong decide to swing on one of us again.”

Sebastian Sebastian was admittedly surprised by Callum's response. He'd seen flickers of the other male's disdain toward the group but at the time, it had seem warranted. Now, however, he seemed more irritable about Sawyer's failure than perturbed by the fact that the course of the evening, regardless of whether it had to do with Sawyer at all, had resulted in the death of somebody they knew. As he digested it, he considered that maybe Callum was in shock, maybe he'd never experienced death and couldn't process it. When Sebastian's grandfather had died, his Dad had been angry for no reason at all but it was a part of the grieving process, his mother had assured him. "We're not arguing about who is in the right and who is in the wrong right now, we're not arguing at all- we're getting this done," he instructed, leaving little room for protest. Then Jorts piped up, "Who the fuck are you pointing fingers at, Jorts?" Sebastian shot at the other male and he would have had more, far less civil words for the other boy if Blue hadn't chimed in.

Lukas God, Sebastian was so back and forth wasn’t he? Yesterday he was barely tolerable and now he was back to giving off future military recruitment vibes, like pick a lane already. Perhaps stupidly, Lukas rolled his eyes as Sebastian pulled his attention from what Dash was saying. “ It was just a fucking joke, “ well, sort of. It was a joke he had meant. “ Obviously, he took a drunken swan dive off the cliff, right? “ he looked around the group, confirming that was the consensus. “ But you’re not gonna go far trying to convince anyone that those are my hand prints on his neck, that’s all I’m saying. “ He held up his hands as he said it, continuing to take a couple steps backwards before he turned back around, hands returning to his sides. Back to the project of digging a grave for the less than dearly departed. He grinned along with what Dash was saying about Martians building the pyramids. An easy chuckle leaving his lips too. Then head turns to Kian and Lukas finds himself unable to stop another stupid snort escaping him. “ Who the fuck is talking about cutting him up? “ He asked, amused Kian had even gotten to that point. “ Like maybe old grave robber over there, but not me that’s for sure, “ he said, feeling a little too bold about the distance between them and most of the group as he nodded back at JJ literally looting a corpse. Though the comment of King Kong and Godzilla was a good one and again he laughed. Reaching for a stick like Dash had he held it up, inspecting it as if he knew what would make a good grave digging stick. “ What is it about big dudes that think they gotta fucking rough everyone up to prove something? Like we get it, you’re fucking boring, quit making it our problem.”

JJ He looks over at Lukas "He's dead, he won't need any of his shit. We might."

Callum Seeing JJ drop down to his knees and not hesitate in the slightest to search Warren’s pockets for something valuable was fucked up beyond belief but Callum couldn’t argue that he did have a fair point. And if they couldn’t find anything useful, maybe they could find something to give back to his family. It was then that Callum took notice of the watch on Warren’s left wrist. Fuck, was he really about to do this? With an irritated sigh (because even in death, Warren was making him do things he didn’t want to do), he walked over to the other side of Warren and knelt down to undo his watch. He figured they could give it back to his family along with Warren’s body when they were rescued. Rising to his feet once he was done, he brushed some dirt off of Warren’s watch with the pad on his thumb. The watch face was cracked and after giving it a closer look, he noticed that the hands weren’t moving, stopped at 1:49AM. “Did everyone manage to sleep through the night last night?” He then asked, his gaze still fixated on the watch.

Kian “Something something toxic masculinity, something something animals.” Kian knew he could be a dickhead sometimes, but at least he was a dickhead to everyone. Boys like Sebastian and Callum were wolves in a pack, sniffing out other people’s weaknesses and arranging them accordingly on the ever-arbitrary pecking order. In their eyes, all you needed to be was tall and muscular to be deemed worthy of respect, and that was pretty fucking gay if you asked him. But god forbid anyone point that out to them. “They’ve never had to develop personalities beyond being human jockstraps and it shows.”

Sebastian Sebastian kept his arms folded tight to his chest, perhaps to stop himself from choking anybody else out that afternoon. Everybody knew that the bruising around Warren's throat matched Sebastian's prints perfectly but they also knew that it was as a result of the argument yesterday and not anything that had happened over night- right? His gaze shifted between a few of the other boys, trying to read their thoughts to no avail. He shrugged his shoulders, "I woke up a few times but it was too dark to tell the time," he explained, looking at his own watch briefly, "I don't think I even bothered to check," he confessed a moment later, he'd been exhausted, maybe even a little delirious the few times he'd woken up, irritated by the sand, the cold wind chill, the sound of other boys snoring and talking in their sleep.

Dash Dash distracted himself from Kian’s bonkers, nauseating interpretation of his suggestion with what Lukas had to say. “He's pretty batshit for doing that but can’t imagine they’ll find anything useful on him, unless they plan on hocking the fancy watch when we get out of here. Other than that, he’s probably just got a busted Juul, a nipple piercing, and a few kroner he planned on slipping to the flight attendant for a splash of Stoli in his OJ. None of which are super beneficial to our survival.” As the conversation continued on the topic of Chud and Chuddier, he scoffed lightly when Kian said ‘human jockstrap’. Dash used a similar phrase the other day too and he wasn’t stoked about their thoughts running parallel right about then. He wasn’t stoked about some dude hating him on sight either, but whatever. He poked at the ground with the flat edge of the stick. “My bet’s Mayor of Poutineville’s concussed to hell. Goddamned walking, talking potatohead. Dude operates on nothing but pure, scrambled egg-brain aggression. Rabid dog ass — no fuckin’ hope for the guy.” He stopped when they soon hit a relatively clear area, not too dense with trees and not so far from the beach that they couldn’t hear the sound of the ocean waves or catch the odd glimpse of sand. There was enough shade that the air felt cooler too, and he was sure that it’d be easy to find again. In a pure asinine move, Dash thought hopefully 'hey, maybe Warren'll like it here.' He leaned on his stick and surveyed the dirt like he had any real idea of what he was doing. When he dug a hole for the little rat dog back home, the soil had been pretty sandy. He hoped they had a similar experience here, because he didn’t wanna lug rocks around on top of burying a body. It had to be immoral for a day to be physically and emotionally exhausting. “How’s here?”

Lukas Lukas couldn't help but feel a little elated when Kian joined in on the trash talking, his choice of words especially tickling him. " That's fuckin' true, ay, " he agreed, more than happy to accept that Sebastian and Callum were so easily annoyed by him because they were jealous of his sparkling personality. Even if that was not what Kian had meant in the slightest. " For sure, dude, " he concord with Dash on the topic of Callum without missing a beat. " Yo, you know who they remind me of? " Enthusiasm quickly filling his tone, looking to Kian and Dash, " You ever play Outlast? " He did not stop and wait for an answer to that question, though he probably should have, " The fucking twin meatheads from that. The ones that just like walk around the map, like, " He severely hunched his shoulders, arms dangling comically at his sides as he pulled his face into an over exaggerated expression for the next few goofy steps before he straightened up again. " Dicks out and just saying weird as fuck shit to creep you out. " Lukas was misremembering a lot of details but he could not forget the fact that those characters had been naked the entire fucking game, seemingly for no reason. That image had been seared into his brain in 2013 like a curse and he had not been able to forget it. By the time he's finished his comparison, Dash had stopped in a clearing. When he asked how's here, Lukas actually looked around the place. It seemed as good a place as they could get without putting in, like, actual effort so it seemed perfect. " Yeah, here's probably good. " He dug at the ground with the heel of his shoe, noting how it moved easily out of his way. " Ground's not too hard. " he assessed before moving again. Drawing out an approximately Warren-sized rectangle with the stick he'd picked up, before kneeling to the ground, ready to dig. " How deep d'you think? Like two, three feet? "

Kian Kian could only blink at Lukas's comparison, nose wrinkling in disgust as he tried not to imagine Callum and Sebastian running around camp with their dicks out. Unlike Dash, he couldn't seem to decide who was the worst offender of the two; in his book, a cunt was a cunt was a cunt. He followed the other boys to the clearing and stomped around a bit in the dirt, testing the soil's softness with the soles of his trainers. "Yeah, I'd say a meter at the least. We want it to be deep enough for the animals to keep away, but not so deep we can't get him back out." If they'd have to dig him back out. Personally, Kian was hoping that the rescue team came armed with shovels. "Anyone have objections to using their hands?" He asked with a pointed glance at Dash.

Callum "Hm," was all Callum could think of to say in response to Sebastian. Out of all them, the other boy was clearly one of the most upset with Warren yesterday. But seeing as Sebastian was also one of the first to dive in to save Warren, Callum didn't feel the need to prod for further information. "We need to ask Sawyer what the hell the two of them were doing last night after we left when he gets back here. And what time they fell asleep. All that." He tucked Warren's watch into the pocket of his pants, looking around for sign of Sawyer. "Why the hell is he taking so long? It's a blanket, not a pile of rocks." He shook his head, irritated. Then he shifted his gaze to JJ. "Did you find anything?"

Dash Dash shook his head but still watched Lukas act out the so-called Dick Out Twins with sincere fascination. “Sheee-it. Uncanny resemblance, dude. You even got that bowlegged caveman shtick down pat.” The internet told his mom that they had to bury the dog at least three feet to keep any predators from digging him up, so Dash nodded when Lukas suggested that depth. His eyes still went skyward when Kian agreed, because wasn’t that motherfucker just giving him shit about the very same topic because ‘there are no bobcats in Hawaii’ like five minutes ago? If Dash said it, it was bullshit. But if Kian said it, it was apparently obvious fact. Good to know! he thought sarcastically. At Kian’s question, Dash hummed contemplatively. “Huh. Okay. Here’s the plan,” he started, walking closer to where Lukas drew a rectangle in the dirt. “When the Russians spot us on their satellites and decide to hit up their Navy—yunno, headed up by Nikita Khrushchev's chemically preserved ballsack—and then a rusty little battlecruiser rolls up to haul us to the Gulag, I’m gonna ask Count Admiral Baba Yaga to take out his busted Samsung and google the Ancient fuckin’ Mesoamericans for you.” Dash lifted the stick for emphasis. “Digging stick. It’s a thing, and I’m gonna use it.” He suddenly felt very sure of his expertise as a man who had dug literally one (1) hole in the woods in his lifetime, and ignored the fact that he only doubled down once Kian gave him such a hard time. He stuck the flat end of the stick into the ground and pressed downward. There was some resistance, possibly a shallow root snapping under the pressure, then he bent it to upend a large chunk of dirt. “Hooty-fuckin’-hoo, it works," he announced, voice dripping with performative surprise. "Now let's just get this shit over with. This morning sucks enough already."

Sawyer Sawyer took a few minutes to gather himself before he returned with the space blanket, eyes rimmed red and torso covered with the sweatshirt he'd been wearing on the plane. Didn't make much sense for him to hold onto a dirty wife-beater covered in another person's blood...a dead person's blood, at that. This way, he figured, he could at least be comfortable and respectful. "S'got a couple holes in it," he sniffed, unfolding the blanket as he approached, "y'know, from the fire and all, but I figure we can stuff 'em with grass if we really wanna..." His voice trailed off when he spotted JJ, knelt at Warren's side with his hands down his pockets. Even beneath the warm inner lining of his sweatshirt, Sawyer's blood ran cold. "...Seriously? We're fuckin' lootin' him, now?"

Kian Dash, Kian was convinced by now, was just inventing names and facts for the sole purpose of making himself sound smarter, although it was obvious to anyone with ears that the guy was a complete and total prat. And Kian would've pointed this out to him had he not proceeded to shove his stick in the ground and flick dirt everywhere, onto Kian's shoes, his shins, his clothes. Dickhead. "Are you taking the piss right now? You're getting shit everywhere, we'll go a lot faster if we just use our fucking hands."

Liam in all honesty, liam wasn’t paying attention, he was off to the side and trying to keep what very little control he had over his emotions. his eyes kept wandering to group of boys standing over warren but every time he glanced at the boy laying there, he could feel his chest tighten and anxiety bubble up inside him. that’s going to be all of us. we’re all going to die here, he thought to himself as he sat on the ground, hands gripping his hair against his scalp. he tried to think back to the last thing he said to his siblings, probably something dumb like don’t touch my things or don’t go in my room. now he wished he had told them he loved them one last time. just as he was getting sucked into these thoughts, he heard sawyer come back to the group. his head shot up and he wiped his eyes quickly as if it wasn’t already obvious that he had been crying. “they think he might have something useful on him,” he chimed in, as if sawyer couldn’t figure that out on his own, but liam didn’t know what else to say without breaking down completely.

Lukas " Thank you, " Lukas gave a facetious bow when at least Dash seemed impressed with his impression. Arms extended out to the side then straightening up with a grin. If it wasn't for the fact that they then very soon afterwards stopped to dig a literal grave, Lukas could have almost forgotten the body that had been found less than an hour ago. When Kian brought it up, he crinkled his nose a little at the idea of using his hands, or honestly digging the hole at all. But it seemed the suggestion was not for him, but for Dash, who was still holding onto that stick and quickly started making a case for it. A case with a lot of words that kinda just went right over Lukas' head to be honest. However, when the stick launched a collection of dirt into the air (mostly onto Kian), he couldn't help the laugh that escaped him. And it was only made funnier when Kian responded in anger with that fucking accent. Hand on his stomach as he tried to subdue it. " Okay, okay– as fuckin' funny as that was, ol' Alfred Pennyworth's got a point, hands will probably be quicker. " That's what she said. But before he gave in to covering himself in dirt completely, he took off his sweater, about to toss it behind him before he paused to offer it out to Dash. " You want it? So you don't fuck with your nice Neil Bar-whatever? " He asked, brows raised. He could not remember that fashion name for the life of him, but he assumed Dash still cared far more about his clothes than Lukas did his own. Then glance to Kian, holding up the front of the remaining two layers he'd slept in. " Got one more layer up for grabs if you want it. " Because even with two of the least threatening of the group, Lukas was still not gonna show his chest. And he'd feel like sort of a dick offering Dash something and not Kian, even if the dude was already covered in dirt.

Sawyer “Useful,” Sawyer echoed after Liam, huffing a dry laugh as he traded his sorrow for anger. As if the dead kid was hiding a secret cellphone or something from them - he barely knew how to use a radio when he was alive. “Why don’t we just strip his clothes while we’re at it? Can even use his fuckin’ sneakers as tinder for the fire. Fuck ‘im. Fuck his folks who might want somethin’ to remember him by.”

Callum Fucking finally. Callum thought it'd take ages for Sawyer to get back. "We got a keepsake to give his parents." Well, he did but Callum didn't care to get into the specifics. What he did care about was what the hell Sawyer and Warren were doing up there last night. "What the hell were you and Warren doing up there last night?" He asked, brows slanted downwards in a frown.

Sawyer His gaze flickered to Callum's shoes before they found his face, jaw working like not going off on the guy who just rubbed Sawyer's nose in shit over someone else's death caused him physical pain. "I told you, we were..." Didn't he tell them? They were drinking. Talking, about what fuck-ups they were and how they ended up at the retreat. At least, that's how he remembered it - brandy always made his memory a little hazy at the edges. "Drinkin'. Some of that fancy cognac he smuggled with him on the plane."

Callum "Drinking?" Callum repeated. "That's it? You were drinking one moment and Warren was taking a swan dive off the cliff the next?" Was that insensitive? Probably. But Callum needed Sawyer to hear how fucking vague that sounded. "I'm trying to get some context for why this fucker would off himself, and all you're gonna tell me is that you two were drinking." He scoffed and shook his head. "What else? Were you talking about anything?"

Sawyer "Nah, we drank in fuckin' silence." Callum's edge, no doubt, was starting to rub off on Sawyer, sharpening his tongue like the blade of a knife. Fuck was he supposed to say? That Warren told him he was gonna jump off a cliff and Sawyer said 'sounds good, man, I'll just leave you to it'? It wasn't that simple. Nothing in life was that fucking simple. "Y'know, I don't know if...it were an accident, or if he did it on purpose, but if I was askin' myself what might'a pushed someone to make a decision like that, I think I'd start with the ones threatenin' to off 'im the night before," he said, tapping his temple.

Liam liam's eyes went between the two boys as things started to heat up, blame being thrown around. as someone who preferred to avoid conflict all together, liam chimed in. "maybe we shouldn't be pointing fingers, yesterday was super fucking stressful but whether this was an accident or if he did it... on purpose," liam had to pause to swallow down the lump in his throat, "we can't be putting that on sawyer."

Callum Callum squared his jaw. He thought back to the last thing he'd said to Warren. You fucking idiot! That was our only chance! The last thing he could remember anyway. He walked off to cool his temper before he did something stupid, like break Warren's jaw in three places. Callum just wanted someone to blame, to direct whatever was going on inside of him at someone, and he couldn't very well do that with a dead boy. "Oh, fuck you," Callum shot back. "We may have been pissed with Warren yesterday, but we went back to camp, tired as hell. You think one of us had it in us to hike all the way back up there and throw him off in our state? And you fucking heard Sebastian, it was too dark to fucking seeing anything even if any of us did wake up so there's no way it could have been one of us, and all the more reason it could have been you." That was a little out of left field but Callum was angry and it was all he had. "You're telling me you weren't pissed off with Warren? Who's to say you didn't get drunk, start spouting horrible shit to fuck with him, and that sent him over? Or maybe you just pushed him off yourself, fuckin' criminal," he spat venomously.

Sawyer So, admittedly, the laugh that escaped Sawyer the second ol' fuckin' Dudley Do-Right accused him of second-degree murder didn't exactly help his defense, but sue him. He couldn't help it. Back in Conrad, he'd been called all sorts of nasty things to his face - from felon to fairy - so he wasn't too miffed by having his criminal record thrown back in his face like a handful of sand. What did unnerve Sawyer was the implication that he was a violent drunk, the kind of person who yelled and raged and hurt people after a few drinks. After a fucking nightcap, at that. "Pushed 'im?" He said, each word dripping with disbelief-tinged mania. "Pushed 'im? You think this is a fuckin' Tarantino movie? Is that it? Are y'all so goddamned sheltered in Moose Nut, Canada that everyone with a parkin' ticket looks like cold-blooded killer?"

Callum "Yeah, pushed him," Callum echoed derisively, stepping forward. He wanted to rile Sawyer up to see what he was capable of. A hand of his balled into a fist at his side. He couldn't tell what part of the Hick's comeback irritated him more but the dig at his home country definitely didn't sit right with him. All Callum knew was that he had to get his hands on Sawyer so that's what he did. Crossing over, he held his hands out and shoved the boy. "Yeah, pushed him. Like that."

Liam tension between callum and sawyer escalated, and liam felt like his protests were futile as they got into each other's faces. fuck, where the hell is lukas and the others? he thought to himself. he watched as callum pushed sawyer and liam shot up, trying to push his way in between the two of them but considering they both towered over him, they could easily push him aside. "guys, seriously, this isn't helping anything, just stop," he said, raising his voice at them.

Sawyer They hardly needed Liam’s intervention to put any distance between them; Callum was strong enough to send Sawyer stumbling backward with a shove. Like that, Sawyer was in the mess hall at juvie again, getting pulled into fights with the rougher guys because they were bored and he was an easy target, big bark and little bite. And when Callum pushed him, he wanted to push him back. Worse, even—he wanted to punch him in the fucking throat. “Yeah, Pretty Boy,” said Sawyer, grinning ear-to-ear over Liam’s head, “would be a shame for you break a nail fightin’ the criminal.”

Sebastian Sebastian was getting tired of people pointing fingers in his direction when he had just as much reason to suspect any of them of foul play. He'd been asleep on the beach for most of the night, he'd already said as much so why did it still keep coming back to the argument he'd had with Warren a whole day ago? "Unless you're saying you were so blacked, you wouldn't have noticed one of us coming up on the cliff, you wouldn't have heard a struggle and you wouldn't have heard him screaming as he fell- and if you're happy to go ahead with that summation, you'll also have to accept that you were too blacked to remember what the fuck you said to him or what he said to you or what happened after that. You could have been messing around, accidentally tripped him over- or you coulda been mad about the radio, pushed him," he insisted, "Alcohol changes people- I don't know what kind of drunk you are, do you? I'd make sure your name is clear before you start throwing anybody else's on the table, huh?"

Sawyer Sawyer did not have “get gaslit into thinking you might’ve committed a murder while drunk” on his vacation bingo card, but neither did he have “become stranded on a desert island,” so he supposed he still had a thing or two to learn from the local senior living home. The spark in his stomach fizzled out with the last of Sebastian’s cold analysis, a flame touched, expression falling from a manic grin to a hollow, tight-jawed stare. People could say what they wanted about him: that he was a hick, a petty criminal, a burnout with no fucking future. But Sawyer had never laid his hands on another person—not on anyone who hadn’t laid theirs on him, first—and he’d never used his buzz to put out someone else’s. “Fuck you,” he said, voice wavering. “You don’t know jack shit about me.”

Joe Joe couldn't believe they were having the most stressful game of Cludeo ever over Warren's fresh corpse. Where the fuck were Pinky and The Brain and Kian ? Maybe the others would see sense and realise that accusing an innocent guy of murder wasn't going to fix anything once their focus was on burying Warren's body. "Everybody simmer down.",Joe moved to Callum's side. Somebody had to be there in case the situation escalated beyond shoving and Thumbelina wasn't going to be much use. Bless Liam for trying but with his mild manner and short stature compared to the other boys he could easily be ignored."Baseless murder accusations aren't going to fix anything. We don't have any reason to believe Sawyer murdered Warren, there's only circumstantial evidence. Couldn't Warren have just fallen because he was hammered?"

Blue he wasnt proud of it, but blue could not see the boys without picturing their fates the same as Warren's, and he slipped out to go yell at the water, and write dirty words in the sand just to watch the water take them back, it might have been an odd grieving process but it was his, and as he returned to the group, the air was so tense he, he instinctly reaching his pocket for his phone to see 204 unread messages and feel the dread. but there wasn't anything there, the dread wasn't contained to the tiny electric box, it pumped through the mob's veins and they breathed it back into the air. he looked to each one, lingering a but before speaking it. "hey boys, the fucks all this?" his tone sounded fatherly, concerned but orderly, and he got the chilly feeling that warrens blood wasn't the only time theyd see the red stuff tonight.

Kian Alfred Whomst? Kian opened his mouth to make a quick retort, but was beat to the chase when Lukas offered him his...shirt? It read you're too close in bold, angry red letters, which just about summed up how Kian felt about the two boys he'd made the terrible decision to come grave-digging with. "Fuck's sake," he muttered, looking off into the jungle for a few silent moments as he contemplated his life choices. "Just...give it here, then."

Lukas Stupid grin spread on Lukas' features when Kian, albeit begrudgingly, accepted offer of a protective t-shirt. Pulling it off, he made sure to grab the white long sleeve underneath so it didn't lift up as he removed the top layer. Removal successful he held it out across the drawn rectangle for him. Pushing his own sleeves up to his elbows once hands were empty and announcing " Let's get to it then, " kneeling down on the ground and starting to dig. " Before the Dick Twins get over here and try and find something else to be assholes about. "

Dash The only thing that truly kept Dash from laughing aloud at the way Kian’s voice went high and warbly in his Peppa Pig accent was the fact that the hole they were all bitching about would soon occupy an actual human body. But even that just kept it at bay. When Lukas agreed with Kian, he snorted—the proffered sweater going a long way in quickly smoothing down any ruffled feathers. Dash pressed his lips together, but felt the fight slowly leave him when he suddenly just felt tired. He couldn’t sworn he slept the whole night, but he definitely didn’t feel it. He sighed heavily, stretching his arms out and letting the stick fall by his side. Dash had every intention of bringing it back to camp, regardless of whether or not it had any other use than as a makeshift shovel. “This is not a concession,” he started, and gently pulled his own sweater over his head and folded it neatly to place on the ground. He only had a white t-shirt on underneath but even that was Tom Ford, so he didn’t hesitate to take Lukas’ offer a moment longer. “This? It’s an act of benevolence.” His voice went slightly muffled for a moment as Lukas’ Thrasher sweatshirt went over his head. “We’ve spent more time arguing than getting this shit done, so I’ll throw you a bone here.” With a grimace, and a silent miserable thought about his pants, he got down next to Lukas and dug.

Kian Lukas's shirt was smaller and tighter than the baggy one Kian had on underneath, causing the sleeves to pillow out at his elbows like some kind of weird pirate tunic. He exhaled sharply through his nose. Fuck. This. Properly incensed, Kian knelt across from the Americans and began to claw his way through the dirt. Unlike Dash, however, he at least made sure not to kick it up everywhere. "Would you stop calling them that?" He huffed. "The last thing I want to think about is Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dipshit stomping around camp with their pricks out."

Lukas Lukas wondered if Kian saw the irony in him grumbling out some complaint about his hilarious joke the second after Dash had said they'd spent too much time arguing already. " You knew exactly who I was talkin' about though, and it only took two seconds to say, " he defended as he dug. Defending the phrase for no reason other than he didn't want to talk about the fact that a dead body would be heading towards them any minute now. And god forbid they fall into silence and he just had to think about the dead body again. He's stomach churned just a fraction, so he quickly continued. " Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dipshit is good, but could be anyone, " for example, it could have very easily been used to identify Lukas and Dash.

Kian "Bert and Ernie, then. Literally anyone else." Kian had hardly even made a dent in the ground before his nails were caked with dirt, and if he hadn't spent the better half of his childhood digging through the mud for bugs to show Clarke, he would have been disgusted at the state of them. God, let there be a freshwater lake in the wilderness for him to wash off in. "Besides," he said, wiping hair out of his face with the back of his sleeve, "I think they're the sort to be flattered that you think about them naked so often."

Dash Dash let a low whistle as he tossed a pebble over his shoulder. He didn’t think flattered would actually be the appropriate word for how those two would feel if they knew Lukas had mentioned their names in relation to dicks. “I think the word you’re looking for is disgusted, actually. Or, uh. Vein-throbbingly violent? Like, on the edge of going full-on berserk.” He scooped out another handful of dirt and already felt exhausted by the whole endeavor. Dash reminded himself that they were doing this for what was a good cause and it’d be fucked up if he sat back now. “Gay bash-y, definitely, but whatever.” He gritted his teeth as he came across another root. Fuckin’ weak ass trees and their weak ass roots. Some of the ones back home were similar, always getting blown to shit by every passing hurricane. He stood enough just to bring his heel down hard enough to snap it. “Wait, just to confirm, we’re in agreement that Lord Humungus took the kill shot, right?” he asked Lukas.

Lukas Lukas didn't know where the fuck Kian had got the idea that Gigantor and his Mini Me would be flattered that Lukas was talking about them in such a fashion, but he definitely disagreed. Thankfully, Dash quickly put his thoughts into words. " Yeah, that's more the vibe I'm getting, for sure. " Lukas agreed, eyes staying down on his hands as he dug for a moment. Just get this fucking over with, get Warren in the ground and then they could move on. Eyes lifted when Dash spoke again, meeting his and for the second time today having to disagree with him. " I think he totally could have. You know, definitely had motive and means down, " Start with agreement, wasn't that a debate thing? He didn't fucking know, he wasn't a debate weeb. " But opportunity? " He sucked his teeth, eyes back to the ground as he continued making work on the grave. " Unless he turns into a fucking werewolf at night, there's no way he would've been able to make his way up there in the middle of the night. It was dark as fuck. " Okay maybe there were a couple of ways, but Lukas wasn't sold. " So, like, maybe he did it, I dunno. But what are we supposed to do about it? "

Kian Lord Humungus? Did he mean Sebastian? "Think he's just upset he didn't push him off himself when he had the chance," said Kian. Because Lukas had a point (as much as it pained him to admit), it was way too fucking dark for Sebastian to be able to get up, hike all the way up that cliff to murder Warren, and slink back before sunrise without anyone noticing. All signs pointed to Warren's death being an accident - a shit, unfortunate fucking accident. Kian picked a worm out of the shallow hole he'd created and flung it into the grass. "I'm not taking my chances with him, though. You saw the way he choked Switzerland out - he's definitely out for blood."

Dash "Involuntary manslaughter, then." If that's what it even was called. "Lack of oxygen gave him a big brain booboo which lead to the guy seizing like a motherfucker. Bumble balled it right over the ledge.” Dash raised his eyebrows like, huh? How about that? But what could they even do about that? He didn’t know fuck-all about like, obtaining quote-unquote justice. The whole system was wanky back home, so pulling from real life examples didn't really vibe with him. Plus, there was the whole... they were stuck on an island thing. The best he could come up with was: "Uh. Banish him to the other side of this tropical limbo to go think about what he's done?" He kept digging, and digging, and digging. It couldn't have been a more boring activity, and he wished the other guys would hurry with the body if only so they'd have more hands on deck. Dash tilted his head to the side in lackluster agreement with Kian. Lackluster because he kinda hated to agree with him right then. "For suuuure. I can really respect Warren's kinky side, but that shit's not in my wheelhouse."

Liam clearly, no one was paying attention to anything liam was saying since the giants of the group wanted to keep going back and forth at each other, blue and joe chiming in with a more level headed approach, but liam was already over it. he understood that everything was stressful and the past few days have been a roller coaster, but he couldn't deal with the fact that the others would rather fight with each other than take care of warren's body. he pushed his way out from in between the other boys, "fuck this," he muttered to himself as he walked away from the group. if they weren't going to be helpful, the least he could do was go find the others and see where they are at with digging. he took one last glance at warren, which was probably a mistake because the second he did, he felt the familiar tightening in his chest again. looking away quickly, liam started the walk to the others and hoped he wouldn't get lost in the process. though, being lost in the jungle was starting to seem like a better option than being stuck with all the toxic masculinity of the other group. alone and walking, he finally let himself feel everything and didn't stop his tears until he started to hear the three boys talking. he ran his hands over his face and took a deep breath to compos himself before stepping out to make himself known. "uh, how's it going here? do you guys need help?"

Lukas Lukas made a small chyeah sound with an accompanying chuckle when Dash suggested involuntary manslaughter. Even though it appeared he had more experience with the justice system than these two, specifically in a case of involuntary manslaughter, he didn't think they could prove such a thing. Even with the, what? 14 witnesses? 13 now he supposed. They couldn't even convince one another, how could they convince a court of people who hadn't even been there. He kept digging. " What, like Survivor? " He asked when Dash suggested banishing Sebastian. " Even if he didn't kill Warren I wouldn't be against sending him the fuck away just so I didn't have to see him stand around and brood all fucking day. " Though part of him wanted Sebastian to stay close, so they could see when the eventual murderous rampage was coming on. He's about to tack on some crude joke about Warren getting choked out to what Kian and Dash were saying but that's when he hears a voice behind him. Head turning to look and stupid smile widening on his features. " Yo! " Same shirt! Lukas thought again, even though Dash was currently wearing his Thrasher sweater. " Yeah, for sure, get in here. " He tilted his head back to the grave, resuming his digging while Liam pulled up a spot. " So, the fuck were the others up to that you decided digging a grave was the better option? " He asked, chuckle falling from his lips at the very circumstances. Even if this was definitely the better group of people, by Lukas' definition, Liam had stayed with the others a while before joining them, Lukas figured something must have been happening.

Liam liam tried to muster up as much of genuine smile as he could despite the fact that his had just spent a better part of his walk over crying. he looked between the three boys, noting the progress they achieved in the amount of time it took the other group to do literally nothing but fight and point fingers. with a nod, he walked over to them, getting on his knees at the edge of where they were digging and started to help. he let out a broken laugh when lukas asked what was going on, he couldn't even hold it in because the whole situation seemed ridiculous. "they're fucking not doing shit. jj's, like, looting his shit because he's not going to need it. which fair, but he just went straight to it. everyone's pointing fingers. and sawyer got the emergency blanket but as soon he came back, him and the one tall roid head started going at each other because apparently sawyer and warren were drinking last night and they think it's his fault. then fucking gigantor came in and amped everything up." liam realized he was probably talking pretty fast and agitated and he rambled, so he paused and took a second to catch his breath. "i just- i needed to get out of there. none of them would listen to me."

Kian "Fuck's sake," Kian said for the second time in the span of ten minutes, pushing his momentary annoyance at yet another member joining their group aside to express his utter exasperation at the sheer dickheadness of the dickheads on this island. JJ being a weirdo didn't shock him; nor did Thing 1 and Thing 2 using someone's death to be complete pricks to everyone around them. "What did I tell you? Out for blood."

Dash Dash looked over his shoulder when he heard a new voice, and his brow furrowed. Liam looked a helluva lot like a guy who had just been crying, and Dash could vaguely recall him getting a little choked up when he had still been loitering around Warren’s body. Clearly he was taking this hard. The threat of a big-d Death was annoying and years-long over the course of his life, so he could forget that someone's shit could get really rocked by the whole thing if they had never lived like that. “You good, dude?” he asked, only a little awkward in execution. Being on the receiving end of a barrage of friendly check-ins didn't really make him any better at extending them. As Liam recounted what was up on the beach, Dash rolled his eyes. Day Three of hanging around these reprobates and he already wasn't shocked by some of their behaviors. JJ looting a body? Bit fucked, but not totally out of left field. He was sure the guy still had multitudes of weirdness to expose though. "Okay, cringe. But, uh, did they find anything?" he had to ask, still a little curious if he was right about the nipple piercing thing. Kian’s out for blood comment spurred him to continue: “And is anyone bleeding yet? Someone should probably them it’s kinda tacky to duke it out in front of a dead body.” Warren’s body. Dash grimaced, and went back to digging.

Callum Callum huffed grumpily when Joe came by his side and diffused the situation. "All the stories Warren tells about taking champagne up his ass and having to swim in whiskey before he feels anything, you think a fucking flask got him hammered? That's a joke." He stayed glaring at Sawyer. Then Blue came into the picture. "Something is up and this criminal's just too good at hiding it." Callum couldn't help but take another dig at Sawyer.

Sawyer Sawyer should’ve taken comfort in the fact that the other boys, some of whom he’d barely even spoken to, were willing to stick their necks out for him. He should’ve heeded Liam’s advice, walked away when he had the opportunity to do so with his hands clean. There were a lot of things in life he should’ve, could’ve, would’ve done if he were a better man. But there was something in Callum’s tone—an undercurrent, heat simmering beneath the surface of his icy demeanor—that made him see red. Who gave him the right to speak about somebody like that? He didn’t know Sawyer. None of these assholes knew any more about him than he did of them. His limbs moved of their own accord before his head even had time to process what was happening, tackling Callum to the floor of the impacted sand, arm reeling back and fist connecting with his smug fucking face—once, twice, until his knuckles began to split. “Fuck you,” he spat. “Fuck you—”

Sebastian Sebastian couldn't deny that Callum had made a good point about Warren's alcohol tolerance. The kid seemed to actually be more efficient with a little booze in his system than he was without- so how were they supposed to believed he'd managed to get so plastered the night before that he'd toppled off of a cliff all by himself? Something wasn't adding up and Sawyer's increasing irritation was only adding to fuel to the conspiracy fire. "Whoa- hey!" Sebastian called out impulsively as Sawyer leapt at Callum, tackling him into the ground and taking one manic swipe at him after the other. On instinct, he crashed into Sawyer's back, throwing his arms under Sawyer's and pinning them back as he dragged the other boy, rather clumsily, to a standing (ish) position, away from Callum. "Come on, come on, come on," he insisted, for a lack of anything more profound or meaningful to say to either boy. "Bro, somebody fuckin' check on him," he instructed anybody that was listening to aid Callum after the spontaneous beating. "You gonna cool off man?" he asked sawyer, using all his strength to keep his arms in a submissive position with his arms locked between Sebastian's. "-Or we can go for a walk, you gotta choice here," he insisted, giving Sawyer at least some sense of control in an otherwise out of control situation.

Callum "Umpf—!" One second, Callum was throwing Sawyer a dirty look that could piss off a pacifist monk and the next, he was on the ground getting his face rearranged. He should have probably seen this coming with the way he was running his mouth. For a moment, the embarrassment of being put down was worse than the pain of actually getting his face pummeled. Callum was just barely catching up, getting his hands on Sawyer's arms when he felt the boy's weight be pulled off of him entirely. Then he heard Sebastian's voice. Thank fuck, he thought. Relief washing over him for only a moment before the pain set in. "Fucking prison rat..." He muttered, turning his head and spitting out some of the blood in his mouth. "I'm fine," he insisted, swatting a hand before any of the other boys could do something like rush to his aid. He wasn't some pussy, he could get up just fine. Or so he thought when he attempted to sit up and a sharp pain shooting up his back reminded him he was still very much recovering from an unfair bar fight. "Fuck," he grunted, sucking in a sharp breath in an attempt to contain his reaction to the pain.

Sawyer Sawyer could do little more than let out a pained yelp as his arms were wrenched behind his back—Sebastian had all the strength of a corrections officer and less than half of the patience, pulling Sawyer to his feet before he could get a final blow in. “Don’t—fuckin’—touch me!” He tried, in vain, to weasel his way out of the other boy’s firm grip. Fuck him. Fuck Callum. Fuck Warren for dying, fuck the pilot for crashing, fuck his parole officer for sending him on this retreat and fuck him, fuck Sawyer for thinking he could better himself, that you could add bells and whistles to a broken-down car and expect it to get anywhere good. “You wanna talk about me?!” He yelled, eyes stinging hot with tears again. But this time, he wasn’t crying out of guilt or sorrow—rather, the frustration at his inability to control his situation, or anything, had nowhere left to go but out of him. “Huh?! You wanna talk about what kinda drunk I am?! You’re not even good fuckin’ people sober!”

Callum "And what makes you think you are?!" Callum shot back from where he was twisted uncomfortably on his side. "Fuckin', Mr. Criminal Record!" With his back fucked, Callum was all bark and no bite right now. "Take a fucking hike, convict," he spat from where he was on the ground. "We'll carry Warren ourselves. Don't you need you hijacking his ring and that stupid fucking chain around his neck for some spare change and a place to live."

Sawyer The next thing Sawyer did, he wasn’t too proud of (he wasn’t very proud of pummeling Callum to the ground, either, but in the heat of the moment it felt more than deserved). If these guys wanted to assume the worst of him, though, he’d give ‘em a better fucking reason to. He mustered up the last of his resolution to spit at Callum’s immobile form, hoping, childishly, that he felt the touch of cold saliva on his skin, that he felt every bit as tainted by Sawyer’s indecency as Sawyer did. What little dredges of fuck he had left to give died on his fists the moment they made impact with Callum’s face. With a full-bodily jerk, he managed to free himself from Sebastian’s grasp at last, holding his middle fingers up at Callum as he took a few steps backward before he turned his back to the group. He wasn’t hiking back to the camp or the jungle, but to the furthest corners of the beach, where he could melt into the shoreline and imagine himself turning into sea-foam—swept away, all at once, by the tide.

Callum Spitting on him? Really? Callum scoffed and shook his head. Then he watched Sawyer's retreating figure. "Yeah, walk away, convict. We don't need you," he called out. A final nail in the coffin if Sawyer didn't hate him enough already. He brushed his hand against his pants where Sawyer's spit landed, making a face at the wetness that now covered his palm. Gross, he thought. When he figured the boy was far enough, Callum decided it was high time for him to get up and move too. "Can someone give me a hand?" He asked grumpily, after having attempted to get up himself; though he couldn't quite do it without assistance. "And let's get Warren out of here already."

Lukas Lukas couldn't help but grimace as Liam told the three of them what had happened in their absence. Yeah, no, definitely the superior group right here, he thought. Looting, yelling, and pointing fingers at each other. He was only a tiny bit upset to be missing it all. He nodded in agreement at Kian's point. " Dude, they're so fucked, " he commented, pulling more dirt out of the hole. However, he did also kinda want the answers to Dash's questions so he looked to Liam expectantly, waiting an answer. Then Lukas thinks he hears something. Not sure what he looked over his shoulder again with furrowed brow. " Y'all hear that? " he asked the group, his gaze remaining behind him for a second longer. Sounded like yelling, but it was just too far away for Lukas to put any more effort into finding out what it was. As he looked back to the hole, soon to be grave, he was pretty fucking impressed with their efforts. Someone had to be. " That's probably deep enough, right? Looks about two foot, bit over. "

Joe This had to be some kind of divine punishment. There was no way he would be stuck on a desert island with wankers that couldn't go a full day without getting into a punch up if he wasn't tainted in some way. As tempting as it was to leave Callum on the floor Joe knew had to be a bigger person and make some kind of contribution ,he didn't get Sawyer off of Callum and he did a shit job at including Liam. He would have to apologise to Liam later but in that moment his main focus was grabbing Callum's hand and dragging him off the ground. "Oh yeah, yous are going to have to stop being pricks for a second because we need to move Warren. Is there a technique to moving bodies?"

Callum Callum let himself be pulled up by Joe, offering a short grunt of 'thanks' in appreciation once he was back on his feet. He dusted himself off, scoffed a little at being referred to as a prick, and answered Joe's query. "Not that I know of. But we got the blanket–" Thanks to Sawyer, who he did not care to credit or mention even if there was a gun to his head. "–we'll lay Warren on there, and there's..." He counted whoever remained. Him, Sebastian, Joe, and Blue. Perfect. "Four of us. So each take a corner and just carry him like that I guess." He shrugged. Heavy lifting wasn't a great idea with his back all knotted up and achy like it was right now but Callum figured with three other guys helping carry the load, it shouldn't be too bad. He walked over to the lower half of Warren's body and grabbed his ankles. "Someone get the top half of this kid please. And the rest just like, hold the blanket down flat, hands on the corners."

Blue blue told himself that it was like carrying an injured teammate, you'll pull your brother up, move him off the ice, the nurses patch him up, or that one time when he had to visit beau at the hospital...but he needed that visualization to make it through this strange night. as he placed the blanket down with the others, and then took a step back, all of that went away and the darkness all around enveloped him. "does anyone know the song from sound of music? the sad one?"

Kian It was easy to block out the events of that morning when you had nothing to do but dig and dig until your arms ached. Moving meant you had less time to think, and the less time you had to think, the less time you had to feel. Mostly, Kian just felt numb...and like, he couldn't figure out whether that made him a shit person or not. That he could look at a dead body and feel nothing but a sense of disgust and dread, like if he stared for too long, the clutches of death would reach out and grab him by the wrist. Scary shit. He scoffed at Lukas's remarks, blowing a piece of hair out of his eyes. "Two feet's not deep enough. It has to be a meter, so, like...three." God. Fuck the Yanks and their stupid measurement system. "You can go tell the others to hurry the fuck up if you want, though."

Lukas Personally, if Lukas was wearing someone else's shirt to prevent dirt getting on him, he probably wouldn't be such a dick to them. Well– he probably would but that didn't stop him from being offended when Kian had a go at him. " I said two and a bit, didn't I? " he rebutted, begrudgingly returning to digging. " And you've gotta give the metres thing up, you're clearly fuckin' outnumbered here. " He cast a glance to Dash and Liam as if to say, right guys? As for going back to the others, however, he shook his head adamantly " No fucking way, I'll fuckin' puke, " again. You would fucking puke again, Lukas. " You can go tell them if you want though, " he offered back to Kian, being completely facetious. He didn't think there was any way any of them were volunteering to go back and tell the others what to do. " Tell them all about how we've got a metre " he poorly mimicked the other's accent for that word and that word alone, " deep hole here and they need to hurry up, you and Warren would look good with matching hickeys. "

Liam liam looked to dash when he asked if he was okay, and again he tried to put on a brave face and pretend like everything was okay. "yeah, i'm good," he said despite being the opposite. liam has never experienced death before, not even a pet. even if they hadn't known warren long and he was pretty annoying, it still made reality hit him hard. "i don't know if they found anything good, i wasn't really paying attention," i was trying to not cry in front of everyone he finished in his head. but then kian seemed annoyed by how deep they should go and lukas teasing him about meters. liam just looked up at the others and shrugged. he didn't see what the big deal was. "they probably wont even listen to you," he mumbled. "they didn't listen to me. they're too busy seeing who's dick is bigger by ganging up on sawyer." he just hoped they were done being dicks long enough to actually get to moving warren over here.

Kian If Lukas's hastiness didn't tick him off, that piss-poor imitation of his accent certainly did. He did not sound like that - Kian could pronounce his r's just fine, thank you very much. With a saccharine-sweet smile, he took the next fistful of damp soil from the ground and flicked it in Lukas's direction. "There. Now it's two and some more." Prick. Liam was much more tolerable than the other two prats, if only for the fact that he seldom talked and always looked like he was on the verge of tears. No wonder he couldn't stick it out with the meatheads, Kian thought. "The one from jail? Why're they ganging up on him?"

Liam he grimaced at the comment. the one from jail. everyone was so focused on the fact that sawyer had been to jail, he wondered what all of the others would think if they knew he had a record too. sure, his was probably much less than sawyers, but they really didn't know anything about each other. "yeah, him. because he was the last to see warren alive and i guess they were drinking last night. they think he got drunk and killed him or something." saying it out loud sounded so ridiculous. even if they didn't know each other well, he couldn't see sawyer doing it. after all, sebastian was the one who choked the dude out.

Lukas He's late to see the handful of dirt flying at him but still he tries to bat it away, leaning back as he did. As if that would help. Looking down at the mess, he couldn't help but snort another chuckle again. How fucking stupid was this whole situation. He thought as he returned to digging. He glanced to Liam as he spoke, but then he laughed again when he revealed the others had been pointing at Sawyer as the cause of Warren's death. " You're joking, Sawyer? Seriously? " He chuckled, giving it a moment to gage that Liam was in fact serious. While Kian was pretty keen to keep bringing up Sawyer's record, Lukas wondered if he was the only one who remembered the cowboy had admitted it was for auto theft. Plus, if a criminal record was all you needed to be a murderer then well shit, guess him and Liam were on their way to the janky island electric chair too. " That's fucked. " He shook his head, still amused but at least a fraction more somber about it now. " There's no way they actually think that, they're just tryna shift the blame 'cause they know they're the most fucking suspect. "

Kian For the first time, Kian and Lukas were on the same wavelength; he couldn't help but let out an ugly guffaw when Liam revealed that some of them were now accusing others of murder. Yeah, no. Sawyer was way too friendly to kill someone - and not in a, like, American Psycho way, but in a weird uncle who drinks too much and mistakes you for your sister way. Believe him, Kian sat across from the guy on the plane. He knew a person who spiked their drinks in secret when he saw one. "And besides, Warren was dumb enough to nearly fall off a cliff without alcohol. What makes them think he didn't just take a long walk off a short ledge when he was trying to piss or something?"

Liam "that's what i thought too," liam chimed in. warren didn't seem like the brightest person sober, nearly walking off the cliff just hours before. "i think they're all so focused on making sure they don't look guilty that they're trying to put the blame on someone else. but i think we all know that if anyone did anything, there are far more convincing people than sawyer."

Kian "Like that JJ fucker," said Kian, eyes going wide. "Swear, I haven't seen him so much as smile since we got here. I think he's a proper psychopath."

Dash Dash didn’t really believe Liam’s ‘I’m good’ and made a mental note to check in on the little dude later. He might not be a total help to him, of course, but it made Dash at least feel like he had something to fill his day after this hellish morning instead of staring vacantly at the ocean. Drops of sweat gathered on his brow from exertion as he listened the other guys contemplate who to point fingers at. "You know where I stand on this whole thing, man,” he said. “Chokey time, brain damage, mouth frothing and a one-way ticket cliffside — ipso facto: Gigantor’s fault.” Dash wiped the moisture away with the back of his hand, and tiredly thought that maybe he should’ve taken his aunt up on the repeated offer to join her at her godforsaken, soul-sucking cycling class. He stood to inspect their work—the boundary of the hole came up to his thigh-ish, edging toward his hip—and stamped down a boot to flatten the earth beneath his foot. “Jesus...” he spoke under his breath, then continued aloud, “Is this finally a fuckin' meter or what?"

Kian Kian sat back on his haunches, heaving a sigh. Grave-digging was no easy task on its own, but having a sweaty mop on your head and a boa constrictor wrapped around your chest put it on equal footing with, like, running laps. Or building pyramids with tree branches. "Proper fuckin' meter," he said, ricocheting right off of Pink Floyd, "where the fuck are the pallbearers?"

Callum Callum made a face at Blue. "The fuck. No?" He shook his head. "Can we just focus on getting Warren out of here?" He asked, his patience thinning quickly with his back pain. Once everyone was in position and Warren was safely wrapped in the emergency blanket, the boys hauled him off, proceeding across the beach until they came across the boys responsible for digging Warren's grave. "Yo, you guys done?" Callum asked when he was close enough to be heard by the other boys. They looked like they've been busy digging so Callum hoped they were, and didn't just spend all this time fucking around.

Dash It was like Kian’s pure pissiness summoned the ‘pallbearers’. Dash looked up from where he watched a shiny beetle scuttle around his boot and was met with a real one-two of shitty and honestly fairly gratifying images. One being Warren’s body, wrapped up like a shoddy mummy—that was horseshit—and the second the pretty black eye developing on Callum’s face. Dash was a pacifist by nature but it was still a refreshing look, if you asked him. He let out a low whistle and leaned back against the edge of the hole, letting his hands rest palms down against the grass. “Wow. Sweet shiner.” He shook his head as he turned to hoist himself out of the grave. “Gotta say, babe. You’ve never looked better,” he wisecracked, a grin started to itch at the corner of his mouth until he looked back from where he came. An empty hole. For Warren. What a way to spend a vacation. He cleared his throat and shrugged both shoulders. “So, uh. Guess you guys just lower him in then,” he continued, gesturing toward their work.

Kian Yo yOu gUys DoNe? As if Moose Knuckle and the park rangers hadn't just taken ages to wrap a body in a blanket and carry it not half a kilometre into the jungle. Kian had a quip ready to go, a right hearty fuck off, but the second he turned around to open his mouth, he lost his shit. Seeing one of the Winklevoss Twins with a bruised eye nearly made up for the corpse within arm's length of his face. "Has he risen from the dead to punch you in the face?" He asked, scuttling out of the way so they could lower Warren's body into the hole. "I miss the fucker, already."

Liam liam’s whole body tensed up when he heard the unmistakable sound of callum’s voice. but at least that meant they were finally done and they could put this whole awful day behind them. getting up from his spot by the hole, liam turned around just as the other boys started commenting on his black eye. clearly the arguing turned physical after liam left, which really didn’t surprise him. but rather than bring attention to himself, he just moved out of the way so the others could move warren’s body into the hole.

Callum Callum swore if he wasn't helping carry a dead body right now, these fuckers — Dash and Kian — would be in the grave along with Warren too. Ignoring the heat he felt in his cheeks when he was cheekily referred to as 'babe', Callum merely scoffed and shot a measly "fuck off" at the two boys with comments. "Let's go," he urged the boys helping him with Warren's body, shuffling forward to position the corpse directly above the hole so it could be a smooth descent. "Ready? Bring him down slowly." It was easier to pretend this was his summer job doing construction work, and not burying some guy they survived a plane crash with. Nice and steady, Warren was lowered and just like that, the boy was laid down in his temporary resting place. Callum blew out a breath once he was standing at full height again. "Fuck..." He didn't expect it to be difficult to look at the grave with the blanket-wrapped body in there. "Guess we just... cover him up?" It felt strange to discuss. He wondered then how Dash, Kian and Lukas felt digging up this hole knowing what it was for.

Dash Dash watched the way Callum’s face heated with fascination, as his tongue poked at the inside of his cheek—one part confused to two parts jazzed about the power he must’ve had to elicit a reaction like that. He badly wanted to say something, to make a joke about how there must’ve been a heart beating there in his chest all long ‘cause his pink cheeks proved it. But he swallowed it down, the words like bile at the back of his throat. It seemed his body would only allow one joke in the presence of an actual burial, which kind of sucked really because without that there was nothing much to do but look at the lump that was once Warren get lowered into the ground. Dash thought about the last time he was at a funeral—and the shower of roses that were placed on the casket before it too was buried beneath pounds of dirt—and glanced around until he saw a flower. “Wait a sec.” It had five large pink petals, and looked like it’d work well enough. He plucked it, then looked over at the other guys. “I dunno, like a fuckin’ — show of respect or something,” he defended himself. “To make up for that Viking burial thing.” He tossed the flower down the hatch. It fluttered, then fell near Warren’s feet. Close enough. “Alright, dirt time,” he said, but still waited for someone else to make the first move.

Kian Kian watched the flower fall to Warren’s feet with little fanfare. That was shit, he wanted to say, but for once, he held his tongue. This was an actual, real thing they were doing; no going back now. Dash’s words hung in silence for eons before Kian began to shove dirt into the hole with his foot, covering up what he assumed—and hoped—was Warren’s face, first. “Where’s Sawyer gone? Thought he’d wanna...pay his respects or whatever.”

Callum "He's off being a pissy little bitch," Callum muttered as he pushed some sand into Warren's grave with the side of his foot. He knew it would be far more useful to go on his knees and shovel dirt in with his hands but he couldn't be fucked to hurt his back even more.

Dash Dash bent to pick up his abandoned stick. He used the flat end to knock dirt onto Warren’s body — it gave him something to do and saved his boots from more damage: two birds, one stone. “Lemme guess,” he started, angling the stick only enough to point in Callum’s general direction. He placed a fingertip under his right eye and tugged down for emphasis. “He responsible for that?”

Callum "Oh fuck off, Troll Doll." Though with his tiredness (and slight guilt), the insult didn't quite have the bite Callum wanted it to have. "It's not my fault the Prison Rat can't take the heat. If he wasn't guilty of anything in the first place, he wouldn't have had trouble sticking around." Callum moved some more sand over the grave with his foot and brought his hands up in a 'it wasn't me' gesture. "S'all I'm saying."

#wilds.thread #wilds.toa

2 notes · View notes

kayteewritessteve · 5 years

Text

Fated - 4/8

Description: You’re a rogue werewolf, a bounty hunter. It’s not the most glamourous life, but it keeps you paid well and highly entertained. But when a long time acquaintance resurfaces with a mission and a lot of money to throw around, you finally relent and take a job from him. And then things get crazy when you stumble upon your Fated Mate along the way.

Catch up HERE.

Word Count: 4,150 ish.

Pairing: Steve Rogers x Werewolf!Reader

Rating: 18+

Warnings: Curse words. Sassy, snarky and adult comments and moments. Depictions of fight scenes and fighting, the same as canon stuffs.

A/N: I sadly don’t own any of these characters. And no beta reader, so I do proudly own all the errors and this story, so there’s that.

You release a deep sigh as you rub aggressively at your dry, stinging eyes. You’d barely gotten any sleep over the last week, not since the night before you arrive at the tower. Who knew that finding your True Mate would all of a sudden make it impossible to sleep alone anymore?

‘I did,’ your wolf answers smugly in your mind.

You just ignore her comment, though it does cause your eyes to narrow just slightly, looking as if you are glaring at your computer monitor now. Because once again, she was always so damn helpful..

But anywho, yes, you said week. It’s been a full week since your little sparring session with the guys. A full week since you arrived at the tower. And a full week since you’ve talked to Steve. Since you’ve even been near the man.

‘As if I hadn’t noticed that,’ your wolf growls now.

She’s been pretty pissed off at you the last few days, what with you going out of your way to avoid Steve. Every time you’d smell him near you’d run in the complete opposite direction. Always taking the stairs, locking yourself in your room every night, and even going as far as to eat every meal at random times during the day, and usually in your office.

Oh and yes, you now have an office also. Fury had told you to speak to Stark about a space for you to use. So you had, and he’d set you up with a random empty room, so that way you could have a quiet space to work, uninterrupted. A place away from all the hubbub of the tower, the team, and Steve. Though naturally, that last one Stark wasn’t actually aware of.

There wasn’t much to the room, when you walked in the door, there was a medium sized desk centered near the back of the room. It faced the door, and had a large bookcase behind it. On the right wall was a large white board and a fake plant in the corner closest to the door. Then on the left corner near the door were two chairs and a small table—yes, that’s where you’ve been eating your meals the last week.

But the one awesome feature about this little lacklustre office was the fact it was in the Avengers tower. So naturally, it had an insanely futuristic computer. One the likes of which you had never even seen before, let alone imagined you’d be using one day. Though it wasn’t exactly a plot twist, now that you think about it. Stark wasn’t known for being a cheap ass. That’s for damn sure.

You pick up the mug of coffee of your desk and take a few large gulps. The life juice being the only thing keeping you upright at the moment. Your body and mind are protesting the distance you’ve put between yourself and Steve. Begging you to go to him, to be near him. The constant urge to be close to him is maddening. And the fight to stop yourself from caving and listening to those urges, is fucking exhausting.

‘Ya know,’ your wolf starts, ‘this little exhaustion problem could be easily fixed if you just pulled your head out of your ass and let us be near him. That’s all we want.’

‘Who’s ‘we’?’ You scoff. ‘Last I checked, I do not want that.’

‘Simmer Ego-rella,’ she rolls her eyes. ‘I was referring to myself and the Bond. We need to be near him. Don’t you get that? Your body is weakening in protest of your stupid plan to avoid him. You can’t continue on like this,’ she sighs deeply and shakes her head. ‘You’re killing us all.’

‘Okay, Drama-rella,’ you roll your eyes now. ‘We aren’t going to actually die without him, so just dial it down a notch.’

She growls, snapping her jaw at you, ‘speak for yourself.’

You sigh, ‘look, you think this is how I wanted all of this to go down? You think I enjoy avoiding him like a plague?’ You shake your head. ‘I miss him too, okay? But it’s just too painful to look at him and know that he is with someone else. It’s too hard to be around him, and not be able to touch him or hold him, or, or love him. I just,’ you trail off, releasing a deep sigh as you glance around the room slowly. ‘I just can’t be around him right now, I need to focus on this mission. We need to focus on it.’

‘Plot twist, we can’t. Not without him near. If you actually want to accomplish this, you need his help now. Once our Mate enters our lives, there is no going back, nothing is the same anymore. Even if we can only have a part of him, it’s better than nothing at all.’

You nod slowly, you know she is right. It just hurts so much looking at him and knowing he isn’t yours, even though he was made entirely for you. And only you. Just as you were made for only him. ‘Fine, I won’t avoid him anymore. But when being around him hurts us both, because it will eventually, don’t say I didn’t warn you.’

‘Yeah, sure, whatever,’ she replies flippantly, quickly disregards your words, as she bounces around happily in your head. ‘It can’t be any worse than not being around him at all.’

You sigh, praying to the Goddess that your wolf is actually right. But deep, deep down you feel like she isn’t. Like she won’t be right, and you will both suffer greatly for it.

You push those thoughts aside as you hear a knock on your door, your heart rate skyrocketing. You weren’t expecting any guests, or rather, interruptions. You raise your nose high in the air, taking a deep sniff in. And instantly your heart rate levels back out as your muscles relax.

“Come in,” you holler from your spot still sitting at your desk. The door opens and Fury walks in, shutting it behind him. “Wow, I’m honestly surprised you didn’t just walk in like you owned the place, Plankton. You sick or something?”

Fury sighs but completely ignores your comment, and your second Spongebob reference, figures. “Where are we on tracking Heinrich down?”

“We?” You scoff as you raise a brow at him, “I didn’t realize you guys had any leads?”

He narrows his eyes slightly, making his way closer to your desk, before shaking his head. “That’s because we don’t.”

You nod, a small giggle leaving your lips, “that’s what I thought.” You turn your attention to the computer screen, “I, on the other hand,” you say smugly as you type on your keyboard, “am just waiting on a contact to get in touch. If all goes well, that should be sometime later today.” You glance back up at him, “once I hear from him, I’ll find ya,” you wink, tapping your nose with your index finger, informing him you will sniff him out. Then you turn your attention back to the screen and to the leads you were currently working on.

Fury nods once, then turns to leave. He was never one for long visits, thank Goddess. He was always a get to the point kinda guy, and you actually respected him a little for that. You weren’t a fan of idle chit chat. Not when there was a job to be done.

‘I personally wish he just wouldn’t talk at all,’ your wolf comments, ‘I rather enjoy when he isn’t around.’

You giggle to yourself at her words, rolling your eyes fondly, before you focus your mind back on the task at hand.

Since becoming a rogue, you’d found that other rogues were actually your best allies. You’d always assumed rogues were nomads, loners who hated all other wolves and wanted nothing to do with packs or the hierarchy system. But oooh how wrong you were.

Yes, rogues were usually lone wolves, who liked to remain isolated or in very small groupings for safety and support. But rogues as a whole were honestly more like a pack of their own. Not formally, no, but they looked out for each other. They helped each other like a pack would. If a rogue was having troubles or issues, the others nearby would stand with them. Would fight with them, solely for the fact they themselves were rogues as well.

It was like a brotherhood. Like they all had such a pivotal moment in their own lives that linked them together forever. Rogues weren’t just wolves who abandoned or betrayed their own packs, and then were kicked out for it. Some had actually left for similar reasons to your own, some had left due to issues with a mate or being rejected by one. Some had left to seek a better life, or a mate that they hadn’t found yet. And some just left because they honestly wanted no part in the pack ways.

All of your stories were so different. Yes, some were similar, but no two stories were the same. Though, you all had one major thing in common, you were all now label Rogue. That was enough to pull you all together, that was enough to form a loyalty to each other.

Yes, some rogues wanted no part in any of that, but the majority did. The bulk of you still yearned for that connection, for that sense of family. So you had made many friends over the years, in your various travels to hunt down your ‘paydays’. You had contacts all over the world, and right now you were waiting to hear back from one such connection.

Though he was honestly more than just another ‘connection’ to you. He was actually more of a friend, you’d worked alongside each other in the past. He was also a bounty hunter, but stuck mainly to working in Europe. The UK, specifically. But he also took jobs in Russia, Germany, the Ukraine and everywhere in between.

He spoke a few different languages fluently, and anytime you needed a translator you’d contact him first. If your bounty ever fled to that part of the world, you’d get in touch and see if he was available to help. It was a two way street friendship though, if he ever ended up in your neck of the woods, he’d do the same with you. Contact you for intel, local connections or assistance in apprehending the ‘payday.’

At the beginning, you would pay each other for your services, as it was the only way either of you would even consider helping the other. But over time, your partnership blossomed into a friendship. And now, you both helped each other for nothing. It was a mutual agreement that if either needed help, the other would be there. No money needed to change hands, as the deal was now just for simply swapping assistance. Being there for each other, no matter what.

Your cell rings on the table beside you, and you glance down at the screen to see John’s name. A smile pulls at your lips as you quickly pick up the phone and answer.

“Hey loser, whatcha got for me?” You grin cheekily, though obviously he can’t see it. But you know for a fact he can hear it in your voice.

He scoffs, “what, no hello dearest John, how are you? How’s life? Or I duno, maybe a thanks for sticking my neck out for you,” he pauses for effect, “again?”

‘And you call me dramatic,’ your wolf rolls her eyes. Though you both know she adores John just as much as you do. He is like the older brother you both never had.

“I’m sorry, did I hurt the big bad wolf’s feelings?” You laugh, “oh my bad, let’s try that again. Hello dearest John, how are things?”

“Pfffft,” he drags out the sound playfully, “too late to ask that now, ya dick. You already hurt my feelings. We might as well just get on with the real reason why I called.”

You laugh, “alright, alright, I’ll do better next time. I promise.” You laugh a little more at the disgruntled and disbelieving noise that comes through the phone. You know he is just messing around, he likes to play this stuff up. It’s exactly why you bug him in the first place, just to get a reaction out of him. But he always gets you back, tenfold. “So what’s the scoop?”

You hastily make your way down the hall, a manila folder clutched tightly in your hands. Heading towards the main meeting room, the very same one you’d asked Friday to have the whole team meet you in, 5 minutes ago.

John had managed to track Heinrich, and some of his men, down to an abandoned facility nestled deep in the Carpathian Mountains. A location almost smack dab between Dârmoxa and Broșteni, in Romania.

How John had managed to hunt him down, was beyond you. But you figured his wolf played a pretty substantial part in his search efforts. As he had originally been the top tracker for his old pack, before a disagreement on morals caused his Alpha to banish him. Something about John not wanting to use his tracking skills to hunt down smaller packs just so his Alpha could attack them, and take all their territory. John was never a violent man, and killing innocent wolves never sat well with him. He’d have rather been a rogue, than a merciless monster. And he sadly got his wish.

Though in the eyes of every pack member, rogues were the merciless monsters. If only they could see the truth. If only they knew the real facts. But teaching old dogs new tricks was a waste of time, and never worked out. So let them believe whatever they wanted to, you could honestly care less what any of them thought of you. And John was exactly the same.

But anyways, back to the issues at hand. Now that you knew where Heinrich was, you just had to brief the team on the intel, ship out so you could pinpoint his exact location in person and then hopefully take him down, smoothly and without too much hassle.

After the call with John, he had sent you an encrypted email with the long range photos he’d taken of Heinrich. As well as maps pinpointing the exact location. So you quickly printed all of that off and now clutched the hard copies within your fingers.

You reached the door to the boardroom and took a deep breath in. You weren’t nervous about telling them this information. Not at all. You were nervous because Steve was sitting behind this very door, and this would be the first time you’d actually see him up close in a week. Let alone been stuck in the same room with him. So yeah, this was gonna be a royal pain in the ass for you. Fingers crossed you can get through this debriefing without getting too flustered by him. Here’s fucking hoping.

‘Oh Goddess,’ your wolf sighs happily. ‘I can already smell him. Hurry up! I need to see him!’

You sigh deeply, closing your eyes for a moment to beg the Moon Goddess for strength, then with a final deep breath in you push the door open.

Your eyes instantly snap to Steve, sitting at the large table in his glorious Captain America suit. Damnit! Why does he always have to be such a fucking snack?!

‘More like a 10 course meal,’ your wolf purrs. ‘I’d happily eat the fuck outta that man. Any day of the week.’

You inwardly groan then flick your eyes to the other side of the room, where Fury currently stands.

“Leela,” you nod your head once to the man. “Thanks for taking the time out of your busy schedule to be here,” you smirk.

He shakes his head, but just as he goes to speak a sexy voice behind you speaks up first. “I understood that reference,” Steve mumbles proudly behind you.

You glance over your shoulder and the smug look now on his face makes an involuntary smile break out on your own, thanks to just how fucking adorable this man truly is.

‘Look at his little face!’ Your wolf coos. ‘Oh gosh, go pinch his cheeks! Cooome on! Just do it! Do it now! I beg you!’

You shake your head, hearing Tony groan loudly at Steve’s words, before your eyes flick to the former and see him roll his eyes playfully.

Steve looks gleefully around the room before his intense blue eyes lock onto yours. Which causes you to quickly break the contact and turn your head back to Fury. Just his direct attention alone makes your heart skip a beat and your tummy flutter with excitement. Goddess, you really are doomed.

Your wolf scoffs, ‘the only thing we are doomed with, is getting to have amazing, otherworldly coitus with that mountain of a man for the rest of our lives. Though I, myself, would personally count that as a blessing. Just look at him,’ she growls lowly in your mind, the noise sounding a lot more sexual than normal. More like a purr.

Fury clears his throat to gain everyone's attention, “okay, what do you have for us Y/N?”

You smile widely at him, “the exact location of Heinrich’s current hideout,” you say smugly as you open the folder, and then hand everyone around the table copies of the photos and maps that you’d just printed off.

Fury nods looking down at the pages in his hands, “excellent work, Y/N.” He glances around at the team, “alright everyone, we leave in 30. Pack everything you’ll need and let’s go get our guy.”

“Wait, hold up,” you quickly say just as everyone is starting to stand, halting all their actions. You playfully widen your eyes as you stare at Fury, “did you just praise me!?” You gasp, “say it again! Oh please, just once more!” You glance around still wide eyed and see everyone grinning at you, a couple team members laughing quietly. “Did you guys just hear that? The highest of praises!” You throw both fists in the air like you’d just won a dang Olympic gold medal. But you guess that a praising comment from Fury was basically just that. If not even a larger privilege in and of itself. Compliments from that man were few and far between, that’s for sure.

Fury just shakes his head and sighs deeply before exiting the room without another word. You and the others following suit and heading off in your different directions to pack and prepare for the flight to Romania.

You make your way up the Quinjets ramp, your duffle bag slung over your shoulder. Glancing around you realize you are the first one to arrive, everyone else clearly still packing. You would have taken longer to pack yourself, if you actually needed to bring more than a few days worth of clothes and your weapons. So basically what you’d brought with you to the tower in the first place, and as you hadn’t actually unpacked, what with the knowledge that you wouldn’t be in the tower long, your bag was basically always ready to go.

You made your way further into the aircraft, dropping your bag with a thud on the floor and sitting down on a build on bench against the outer wall of the plane. And the moment you did, you noticed one of your combat boots was untied so you promptly leaned forward to fix that little issue, and as you did you heard loud footsteps coming up the ramp. You instantly tense up and take a quick inhale of the air to determine who it is.

But the second the familiar smell hits your senses, you relax and finish tying your laces before glancing up at the newest member of the ‘Fast Packers’ club.

“Hey bestie,” you dragged the words out cheerfully, a smile on your lips.

His deep chuckle only makes your smile grow just a little more. “Hey Doll,” he replies, shooting you a handsome grin along with his friendly words. Bucky makes his way towards you, dropping his bag on the ground and plopping down in the spot beside you.

“Light packer?” You ask nonchalantly as you glanced down as his medium sized duffle bag on the floor.

“Don’t really need much,” he shrugs glancing over at you. “Growing up in the 40’s, we were lucky if we had more than one outfit per occasion. Still stuck in the mind set, I guess.”

You nod, pulling your phone out of a pocket of your tactical pants to check the time. “Makes sense,” you say back as a comfortable silence falls over you both. Upon seeing the time you notice that you still have about 10 minutes before everyone else should be here, so you tuck your phone away again and lean back onto the wall with a sigh.

Bucky follows suit, leaning back on the wall with you, the back of his head resting against it. After another moment he breaks the silence, “So, where ya been all week?”

You roll your head to the side to glance at him, seeing him staring back and then you shrug, turning to look forward again. “Around. Just been following any leads I can find, and drinking way too much coffee,” you chuckle.

He nods, clicking his tongue in agreement. And now you can almost feel the stifling presence of the question he wants to ask but hasn’t.

“If you have something to ask, just ask,” you say, breaking the silence this time. “No questions are off limits, but I just may not answer them all.”

He sighs, giving you a side glance, “it feels like you’ve been avoiding us all week.” You can tell it’s a statement, but also a question.

“That’s probably because I have been,” you reply, nodding.

“Why?” He turns to look at you fully now.

You shut your eyes, partially due to the exhaustion of the sleepless week, but also because you’re not exactly sure how to respond to that question. You weren’t avoiding everyone, just Steve, but sadly the others sort of came as collateral damage as they all seemed to aways be around him. And with eating at different times and alone in your office, you barely ran into anyone in the kitchen.

Keeping your eyes closed you reply, “honestly, I’m just not used to working on a team anymore. Normally it’s just me now, sometimes I’ll bring someone in to assist me here and there, but that’s not often. I guess I’m just used to going it alone and sort of suck in my ways. It’s nothing personal to any of you, just the way I am now.”

“I can get that. But try not to be such a stranger anymore, all of us here really like you, and enjoy when you’re around,” he chuckles lightly. “Plus I’m getting real sick of hearing Steve ask everyone where you are, or if anyone has seen you lately.”

‘Look what you’ve done, woman!’ Your wolf chides you in your mind. ‘The poor man is clearly missing us!’ And once again you just ignore her, not wanting to get into another argument with her over this exact topic.

“I’ll keep that in mind for the future,” you reply, giggling sleepily at the thought of Steve annoying everyone as he incessantly tried to track you down all week. That very thought both warms your heart and yet also hurts it, at the same time. You know the Mate pull has probably been affecting him all week, nowhere near as severely as it has to you though, but most likely enough to be a little bothersome. You feel slightly guilty now, mainly for the fact that you hadn’t even taken into account how your absence would affect him. Which honestly was kind of selfish of you, maybe you weren’t entirely ready for your Mate’s arrival in your life. Maybe you needed more time to figure yourself out, and prepare. But, too late for that now, as here you were.

“That’s all I ask,” he says back, and you can hear the smile in his voice.

A bunch of loud footsteps and voices ring out through the silent space and you know that everyone has arrived now, meaning you will be taking off soon.

“I’m gonna get some shut eye, wake me up when we arrive?” You ask, cracking your right eye lid to peek at the super soldier beside you and seeing him nod.

“Of course, Doll. Have a good sleep.”

You hum in thanks, smiling as you shut your eye again, excited to finally get some much needed sleep. Knowing that you’ll need to be a little more rested for the days to come, and for your upcoming encounter with Heinrich.

And thanks to the fact that Steve is somewhere close by, on this very aircraft, you should be able to actually sleep now. That should be enough to allow you to get some much needed rest. Because even though you haven’t actually laid eyes on him just yet, the Bond knows he is close. The Bond can sense him—well that and his glorious smell that is slowly taking over the Quinjet. But you’re not complaining one bit, his smell alone instantly calming your worries, your mind and your soul.

And as the darkness takes you, your last thought is, next stop, Romania.

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

@caps-lockdown @itsstillnotwhatyouthink @tfandtws @boxofteenageideas @wangdeasang @giggleberts @casuallydarktiger @theonelittleone @agentbadbitch @ratwrites @starrystellars @bandsandanimefreak @rockyroadthepastryarchy @lovvliies @cuffski @icesoccerer @alwaysright4 @lilsthethrills @steeeeverogers @zombiepotterfour @mu-mu-rs @ledandan1244 @straightforwardly @denzmallows @xremember-me-notx @gwynethjodie @lollipopdomination @capstopavenger @jemimah-b99 @rcvenqers @justkending @alagalaska @silent-loucidity @sabertooth-potato @pies-wands-and-more @interstellarmess @gabriella69816 @phantom-soilder @wordlesscaptain @captain-hammer-of-asgard @starstucknature @viarogers @pixieferry @kaithezaftig @the-kinkiest-goblin @hysterically-original @badassbeckettswan @heyiamthatbitch @zlixlle @capsicledoll @givemehopenfandoms @pretendingandpreposterous @frozen-phoenix17 @emotionallysalty @saturngirlz @atomicsludgedonutbiscuit @ivannagotthebeat @bohemian-barbie @marvelous-capsicle @ivoryhazlewood @steverogersxreader @cjhorseback @jasminecalia @jessiedaeum

#au fanfiction #fanfiction #long post #long read #marvel au #marvel fanfiction #steve rogers #steve rogers x y/n #steve rogers x you #werewolf reader #werewolf!au #steve rogers x werewolf!reader #werewolf!reader #fated #part 4 #steve rogers au #steve rogers x reader

109 notes · View notes

lettersofwrittencollective · 5 years

Text

The Pull (27/?)

Summary: The Ragnulf’s are one of the oldest lines of werewolves known. A gift from ancient times was given to the line. Though not all of the line will experience it. There are some who will experience a Pull. This Pull leads them to their true mate, a soulmate. The problem is, just because the wolf finds their true mate does not mean that they are the same for that person.

Author: @lettersofwrittencollective

Pairing: Stiles x Hale!Cousin OC (Reader)

Word count: 2854

Warnings:

A/N: Okay so a couple things, this is going to be the last posting of The Pull for at least two weeks (Unless I can find time in between all the crazy to get a scene out). I have finals coming up and recently there was a family thing that has come up that needs my attention and may require more attention. In the meantime, PLEASE let me know what you think of this scene/ story! Let me know if you want to see more! Truthfully, interaction makes me so very happy and I love to hear from all of you! So, comment, reblog, send me smashed keyboards, anything works 😘

Also - I do not speak Japanse. I did want to use what was actually said in the show but could not find a translation in the time that I had. So, I went with a taunt. I will put what the taunt should be after the tag list. If someone who reads Japanese sees this and knows it’s wrong, please let me know I am happy to adjust/ fix.

<<Prev || Masterlist || Next>>

Panting, Stiles uses what he has left of battery on his phone to turn on the flashlight. The cold felt like it was seeping into his bones but his leg was starting to feel numb and he was worried about what that actually meant. Turning, he shined the light on his leg and found a bear trap in his leg. The sight terrified him and the scream that left him turned into a sob. What had happened? How had he gotten here?

The sound of scraping caught his attention and he moved the phones light to where the sound was coming from as it continued. When nothing was immediately visible, he shakily asked: “Who’s there?”

Merely watching the boy was becoming quite satisfying. It had been years since he’d been fed and then these children had decided to go ahead and make themselves a sacrifice. It had been the perfect opportunity to get back into the world.

He continued to move around the space, without responding to the boy, reveling in the horror, fear, and pain that radiated off him.

“I know you’re there, I can hear you.’

Sitting down, Void watched as the light moved through the created room. A smile formed on his features as he felt the boys panic rising. The light had almost passed him when it suddenly flashed back to his position.

“Who are you?”

Standing, he drew a kanji on the wall before stepping back into the shadow. As the fear spiked he feasted on the gift before him.

Stiles’ heart was beating as the figure had stepped away. Looking at what had been drawn, it took him a moment but he realized that it was the kanji for “self.” He wasn’t sure how he knew that but he did.

He watched as the seemingly innocent chalk then flew away in particles of the flashlight moved away. A feeling of dread crawled down his spine.

Watching the brunette from the shadows, he waited. This host was stronger than the hunter. Stronger than the previous host it would seem. There were qualities that even he wasn’t aware of and it made him giddy to know that some of those very qualities would be what would allow controlling the situation so much easier.

The best part? The pain of the supernatural was always more potent than the pain of the human.

You’d barely parked your bike when you were screaming for the sheriff as you ran into the police station as Scott called after you. You could feel your control slipping as you turned to growl at him.

The three of you must have made a sight because one of the deputies had a hand on his gun and was asking what you were up to and how he could help.

“We need to see the Sherriff,” Scott tried and when the deputy went to answer, you could tell he was going to give you some excuse as to why you couldn’t so you cut in and informed him that The Sheriff's son was missing.

The blood drained from the deputies face and you moved past him towards the offices.

Kindness. This is his dad, he’s going to care and it’s going to hurt him but he is cool but he has to keep his cool, your instincts reminded you and you slowed to knock on the door.

Hearing the words come in, you pushed open the door with Scott and Isaac right behind you. You looked at Noah Stilinski and your heart broke. He was just a man whose son had managed to get caught up in the supernatural and who probably worries for him more than Stiles actually knows. This was going to be a nightmare come true for him.

You’re not sure what Isaac and Scott were thinking but neither of them said a word at first and the room must have been silent for too long because a moment later, Mr. Stilinski was looking up from his paperwork. As soon as he saw the three of you, his face dropped.

“Where’s Stiles?” he asked, the fear in his voice ensuring you that you were right, this was his nightmare.

You want to answer, you really do but you know it would be better to hear it from Scott so you turn to look at him. Scott looks like he would rather not be the one to deliver the news but you watch as he falls into the role of the Alpha. Stepping past you, he tells the Sheriff that he’s not sure.

Mr. Stilinski’s heart stops for a moment before it resumes beating much faster. He takes a moment to breathe and get his heart beat under control and he calls out for Parrish.

A younger looking deputy comes into the room, “Sir?”

“We have a missing teenager.”

Parrish pulled out his notebook, “Who?”

“My son.”

Parish stopped and looked at the Sheriff and then the group of you before nodding his head, “I’ll get everyone gathered.” He turned around and left the office.

“Scott, what happened?”

Scott tells him about the phone call and going to the house. How Lydia had had one of her feelings and been there as well. How she had stayed behind because she said there was something going on in the room. He didn’t, however, tell him aout the terror in Stiles’ voice or how he’d begged that you all leave is dad out of it.

“But his jeep was still at the house?”

Scott shakes his head. Before Mr. Stilinski or Scott can say anything else, Parrish is back in the room letting him know that the deputies are all gathered.

You watch as Mr. Stilisnki changes right before your eyes. He’s still a terrified dad but he’s put that to the back and is the Sheriff. Stepping out of the room and in front of his group, he begins, “We have a missing 17-year-old caucasian male.” Immediately, every deputy in the room is writing down the information, “He’s 5’ 10”, about 150 lbs, brunette hair.”

He then turns to you, “When was the last time you saw him?”

You had to think about it for a moment, “I think it was about 10ish. He was tired and had said he wanted to call it a night.”

You could see the look of confusion on some of the deputies faces and you were sure that someone probably thought that you had done something but you didn’t say anything.

“The missing boy is my son.”

From the reaction of the deputies, you figured that Parrish hadn’t said who the missing person was because you were sure that a few of them had whiplash.

“If his Jeep is gone, that’s where we start,” the Sheriff tells you and you’re not sure why he does though you suspect it’s so that he can stay focused on the task at hand. He then turns to the deputy from earlier and starts assigning tasks, “Parrish, let’s get an APB out on a blue 1980 CJ-5 Jeep. Cordova, I want a list of any kind of industrial basement or sub-level of any building that he could’ve gotten into while sleepwalking.”

The Sheriff then turns to the rest of the deputies, “It’s the coldest night of the year so far so if he’s out there barefoot in just a T-shirt, he could already be hypothermic. Let’s move fast, let’s think fast.”

As everyone gets up and moving, he turns to the three of you, “The three of you, come with me.”

Following him back into his office, he closes the door and looks at the three of you, “Is there anything you need to tell me that I can’t tell everybody out there?”

“Only that Lydia knew he was missing, but we already told you that.”

“Can she help find him?”

“Well, she’s working on it,” Isaac points out and while he doesn’t sound hopeful he does sound like he thinks she’s a good bet.

“Anything else?”

Scott points out that he called Allison for help.

“And I texted Derek and Peter, they’re going through the Iron Works right now to see if there’s any scent of him,” you said reading the message on your phone.

“Alright,” he says slowly, “Can you find him by scent?”

Before anyone can respond, Parrish is opening the door and informing that the jeeps been found. The Sheriff and a few deputies run out of the station and are in their squad cars. You see Scott get in one but hop on your bike and follow them, Isaac not far behind you.

You pull up to the hospital and see the jeep just as everyone else does and as soon as you’ve removed your helmet you get Stiles’ scent. The confusing part, though, is that it the strongest part of the scent seems to be coming from above you. Taking a deeper breath, you make sure that’s what it is.

The Sheriff’s already confirmed that he’s not in the jeep. They’re rushing inside and you run past Scott and the Sheriff towards the stairs. Running up them, you come to the roof and have to stop. That feeling of foreboding has increased and you’re sure, for some reason, that whatever is on the other side of the door isn’t gonna be Stiles.

Stepping out, you’re immediately hit by the scent and it makes you whine. Like most wolves, you’d never liked the scent but this was something different, it wasn’t just bitter it was heartwrenching. But, you kept walking onto the wolf. Even though you knew he wasn’t here you had to see it for yourself that Stiles wasn’t here before you walked away.

As you’re searching the rooftop, Derek shows up. Turning to him, you watch as he registers the scents as well. He begins to walk the roof, in the opposite direction of you.

“You notice it’s just his scent?”

You nod your head before you realize that Derek probably can’t see you, “Can you feel how tortured he was?”

“Why do you think that would be?”

You stop searching and come back to the middle of the roof with Derek. “I don’t know,” you whisper softly before closing you’re eyes and taking a deeper breath. As you do you open yourself up to the emotions.

There’s torment and anguish and you’re feeling them in a way that you haven’t before. It’s almost as if the building itself has absorbed the emotion and you’re about to let it go when suddenly there’s a voice, “Remember, Little Wolf, we are trying to save you.”

“Why would you say that?” you ask Derek, confused at his choice of words. Before he can respond, though, Scott and Isaac are on the roof.

“He’s not here,” you tell them.

“Not anymore at least,” Derek points out.

Scott clarifies that you two do, in fact, mean the whole building.

“He’s gone.”

Scott shakes his head and then turns to Isaac who is offering to go tell the Sheriff and nods his head before reminding him to find Allison as well. She apparently hasn’t picked up her phone.

Isaacs gone and you’re left on the roof with your cousin and Scott. Scott comes to stand next to Derek and you again close your eyes, trying to focus on the scent around you. It is Stiles’ scent but at the same time, there is something off about it.

Derek asks Scott if he notices the scent on the roof, how strong it is and then asks him if he’s ever heard of chemosignals. You have but you’re not sure what they are and you’re hoping Scott hasn’t heard of them because you’d really like to know. Derek, however, doesn’t give Scott a chance to respond before he says, “Chemical signals that communicate emotion. Just our sweat can give off anger, fear, or disgust.”

He tells Scott to take a deep breath and tell him what he feels. Scott follows instructions and you’re glad that he also recognizes the stress and anxiety. But he misses the terror and it’s then that you realize Derek hadn’t mentioned what he smelled just that he did smell things.

“Is there anything else either of you are getting?’ you ask them, unsure if you’re losing your mind. They both shake their head, Derek turns a questioning gaze on you but before either of you verbalize anything, Scott’s asking what Stiles’ had been doing on the roof.

“We don’t know, “ Derek says with a shake of his head, but there was definitely some kind of struggle.”

“With who?”

“Himself,” you say. Scott turns to look at you and you shake your head, “We need a game plan.”

“Isaacs going to find Allison to see if she can help more. Argent will come with them and he’s petty good at tracking,” Scott begins, “Lydia’s with Aiden at Stiles’ house to see if she can find anything in his room with all the strings. I’ll stick with the Sheriff and help him with any other leads he’s got. You said that Derek and Peter were checking the Iron Works earlier?”

You nodded your head and looked at Derek, “We found nothing. Peter’s asking around downtown to see if anyone's seen anything or to see if he can catch a scent,” he tells you guys and Scotts annoyed but nods in agreement anyways.

You figure that he just wants to find Stiles and figures that there’s no point in arguing it. It leaves just you and Derek.

“What are we not covering?” you ask.

Scott turns his gaze to you and the three of you have the same idea, “The high school, you two go check the high school.”

Nodding your head, you and Derek make your way out of the hospital pretty quickly and are, thankfully, not stopped by anyone on the way. You follow Derek out of the lot on your bike.

He can tell that she’s worried but the boy has no idea, it will make the destruction all the sweeter. His phone’s dying and the little bit of light that he had is now disappearing from him. He watches as the boy tries to pull the bear trap off his leg again and he steps back out. If he’s going to get his feast, he needs to push this one to stay alive and reach his potential.

The sound must have caught his host's attention because he’s asking, “Who’s there?” and then screaming, “Who are you?”

Walking amongst the things his host has created, he responds, “私は彼女をあなたの手を使って破壊し、あなたがそれを理解したときにあなたが感じる悲しみを祝います”

Stiles doesn’t understand what the man before him is saying and he’s already made it clear but he just kept talking in the same language and Stiles is genuinely afraid that Scotts not gonna make it. That Natasha isn’t gonna make it and he can feel the tears form, “I don’t,” a sob breaks through, “I don’t understand,” he says as he pushes himself against the wall.

Suddenly, the creature with him is speaking in accented English, “Not who are you, Stiles. Who are we?”

Stiles tries to push himself up but the trap digs in and he lets out a pain filled grunt as he falls back. The creature doesn’t help him but continues, “It’s getting colder, Stiles. Did you notice, we stopped shivering?” The creature sounds genuinely annoyed at that and Stiles has to stop and breathe for a moment before he realizes that his breathing is getting shallower.

“Do you know why that’s a bad sign?”

“It’s the body trying to conserve energy. It was my fifth-grade science report, hypothermia,” Stiles says as he tries to move his body some. He’s going to die in this basement it would seem.

“Our speech is starting to thicken. Then comes fatigue. Confusion. We’re going to die if we don’t get out of here. We have too many things to do to die, Stiles.”

There’s a taunting in the voice that irriates him and Stiles shakes his head, “Stop saying that. Stop saying we.”

The creature just ignores him, “We’re trying to keep you from freezing to death.” He sounds like he’s getting angrier when he says, “You better get up, Stiles.”

“How?!” he yells back and motions to his leg, “There’s a freaking steel-jawed trap on my leg!”

The creature is silent for a moment and then all Stiles sees are silver sharpened spiked teeth, “Is there?” comes the whisper.

Sure that he’s about to die, that his father is going to have to bury him next to his mother, Stiles begins sobbing. He turns his body to sit in a different position.

“Notice something different?” the creature asks. “It was on your right leg before wasn’t it?”

Stiles looks and sees that the trap is on his left leg, “No…” he murmurs softly. The creature asks him if he’s sure and he remembers it being on the right leg. But how can that be? He turns back to the voice, “What is this? What are you doing?”

“We are trying to save you, Stiles. We’re trying to save your life.”

The Taunt: I will destroy her using your hands and feast on your sorrow when you understand what you have done.

<<Prev || Masterlist || Next>>

tag list: @nicole-lynne @fandom-princess-forevermore @capandbuck @biles-bilinski-24 @stiles-o-dylan24 @fiveisadorable @falling-stars-never-cry @blueraindrops @its-livelovelife @screamxqueenx94 @ceceliaking-18 @jasmineshwayze1994 @dear-vista @fangirlbitch02 @riseandshinelittleblossom @jessicakimba @truthdaze @seninjakitey @kateeee0817 @squadkyoya @lucifersnipnips @niawoods @pansexualbitchesofhell @bloodrose-scythe @fox-in-a-mousetrap-8 @findingmyselfinthismessedupworld @shantayok @yougottalovefandoms @that-idiot125 @booklover240

Do not copy and paste my writing anywhere without my consent. This work is the property of lettersofwrittencollective . Associated characters belong to MTV and are being borrowed for this work, all OC’s are the property of lettersofwrittencollective. These works contain material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of this material is prohibited. No part of these works may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher.

Posted 26 May 2019

208 notes · View notes

angelaiswriting · 5 years

Text

Larisa | Clint Barton x fem!OC

[original picture found on: pinterest]

✏️ Pairings: Clint Barton x (non described) fem!OC

✏️ Requested by no one haha you probably hate the length of the instalments of this series, but I love Larisa HAHA

✏️ Summary: Todorovky’s second Italian soirée means facing a tormenting past for Larisa. Still battered and broken after what happened fourteen years ago, she’s now forced to meet her only nightmare as the memories come back full force.

✏️ A/N: please, let me know what you think of this fic (or series in general). I live off of your comments and they truly help me get better at what I do.

✏️ Warnings: 18+ only: manipulation, emotional manipulation, dark past, mentions of killing, female sterilization + sexual NSFW content: slow burn, masturbation, sort of voyeurism kink (I don’t know what to call it haha), fingering, pussy sliding, cum, sex with age difference (in a flashback) + sex with the enemy (in the same flashback), sort of authority play/kink, general sexual themes. MINORS, DON’T INTERACT!

✏️ Word-count: 10,639 (getting longer i see... i apologize, hope you don’t mind long stories)

📚 This is the third part to The Mantis and Hawkeye (you can find the link to my Masterlist in my bio. Unfortunately Tumblr hides my posts if they have links)

📚 Translation (so weird to translate my own language haha): buon divertimento = have fun

LARISA

Lara wasn’t looking at Steve, who was standing in front of her hotel bed with his arms crossed over his chest. She hadn’t seemed surprised to find him there, or, at least, that was the impression Clint had had when he had stepped inside their shared bedroom behind her.

“Communication must be maintained at all times throughout the whole mission.” Steve was fighting to keep the tone of his voice under check, but it looked like an impossible task when she kept on avoiding his gaze as she removed her earrings and carefully laid them down on the dresser. “Certain rules exist for a reason,” he went on.

Torn between the will to speak up and the need to see how Larisa would handle that conversation, Clint kept his mouth shut, eyes fixed on Natasha. She was leaning against the wall right next to the French window that gave on the balcony and there was the ghost of a smirk tugging at her lips as she stared at both her friends.

“Certain rules exist for the only reason to get you killed,” Lara rebutted, walking into the bathroom to remove her makeup. Steve followed her, stopped right in the frame of the door, and Clint could see the tension in the muscles of his back even through the light cotton of his shirt. “And I don’t think getting killed would be beneficial to this mission, do you?”

“You’re here to help,” Steve bit back, moving out of the way when she walked out of the bathroom with a now clean face. “Don’t fool yourself into thinking that we would ever allow you to lead a mission.”

Lara sighed. She had stopped right in front of Clint and, for a moment, he feared she was going to kiss him. Instead, she shoved a hand in the left pocket of the pants of his tuxedo and retrieved the invitation they had been given for the second night of the event. She threw him a grin before turning around to show Rogers the elegant piece of paper.

“You really think we would have gone this far with stupid earpieces in our ears?” She smirked triumphantly and Steve had to grit his teeth. “Or do you really deem agents such as myself to be so stupid to not put up security measures to stop unwanted guests with even more unwanted gear?” She walked up to him and only stopped when the tips of her sandals were touching those of his shoes. “Todorovsky is no newbie. I am no newbie. Nobody in the real heart of that party is a newbie. You’d have to dig real deep to find someone who’s not a murderer among your man’s friends. We’re all spies, hitmen, and murderers, and we’ve dealt with our fair share of good guys to foreshadow how you’re going to act.”

Steve seemed to ponder her words and after endless minutes of tense silence, he moved his gaze from Larisa to Natasha. “It’s done, she’s out. You and me, same plan, we’re acting tomorrow.”

“Steve, I-”

“No need to step in for me, Nasha.” Lara raised a hand in mid-air to cut her friend’s words. “I’m not going to allow this stuck-up soldier to change plans. You came to me, you boarded me on your quinjet, you sent me to that fucking party with your archer. You should have known I don’t bow down before anybody’s orders–or did Fury make you believe I’m one of his agents?”

“You are a loose cannon and I’m not going to risk a mission that has taken us five months to plan just because you-”

“I mean, you’re free to do whatever you want, I’ve already had my share of fun at the party and with Clint.” Lara shrugged, back relaxed and shoulder blades drawn back to open up her chest. Even from behind, her body language was mesmerizing and Clint couldn’t force himself to tear his eyes away from her. “But who do you think Todorovsky is going to trust? Captain America, everybody’s pain in the ass? Black Widow, the traitorous bitch that moved to stand behind enemy lines? Or the Mantis, his one and only weak point?”

“Steve, she’s right.” Nat had stepped away from the wall and she moved to stand next to the former KGB agent. “We’re too well-known, it’s no secret that we stand against them. She’s-”

But Steve interrupted her. “She’s been in America for far too long to fool them and make them believe she’s still one of them.”

“Who says I’m one of you?” Larisa chuckled. “As far as my agency is concerned, I’m on a voluntary leave to keep my eyes on the infamous Avengers. They all want dear Natasha back and since we’ve always been pretty close…”

“You’re saying you’re against us?”

“I’m saying,” she sighed, hands sliding up Steve’s chest before they firmly cupped his neck, “that I’m your best shot, no matter how much you hate it when someone doesn’t follow your orders. I’m saying that I know Todorovsky, that I know his men. Clint and I also got to know some of his guests. What do you think would happen if you stepped in our place?”

“We get this mission done with.”

“No,” she answered, sighing to stop herself from slapping the arrogance out of Steve. “You’re only going to make suspicions arise. If you think nobody recognized me tonight, then you’re either too hopeful or too dumb. The Mantis shows up to a party with her pretty husband and then skips the second and most important night? People are going to question my absence and if his guests become unsettled, Todorovsky won’t show up.”

It was then that Clint stepped in. He grabbed Larisa’s wrist and pulled her back as he stepped forward. “Let’s do this her way,” he said to his captain. “You might not trust her, but I do.”

“You barely know her. She could sell us off, for all we know. Natasha was wrong to want her here.”

“I’m still in the room, Rogers.”

Neither of the men paid Natasha any attention, for Clint had already started to talk. “We’ve had time to… deepen our knowledge of each other, one could say.” He felt Larisa smirk from slightly behind him, the exhale from her nose an amused sound in the tense atmosphere of the room. “And she knows them all better than we do. And anyway, I’m going to be by her side for the whole duration of the night: a wrong move and we’re out of there.”

Steve’s concerns could have been his own, had Clint not already fallen under Larisa’s spell.

“Who is this Todorovsky guy to her?” he asked Nat. They had gone out for a run in Central Park early that morning and were now sitting on a bench, shielded from the morning sun by the branches of an old tree.

Natasha kept quiet for a while, legs stretched out and head thrown back to look up at the clear sky. He stared as she inhaled deeply and then exhaled slowly, as her eyes fell shut for a moment before she lulled her head to the side to look at him. “If I tell you, this remains between the two of us.”

“You really think I’d go around spilling secrets?” He mocked outrage. “Fuck, Romanoff, I thought there was mutual trust here.”

She chuckled and he grinned at her. “This is… This is more important than anything else. This is her story and I’ve sworn to never tell her secrets. She’s like a sister to me–always has been and probably always will be. If I tell you, you must pretend you know nothing about this with her.”

He stared at her long and hard. They shared everything–or almost everything. They were partners, they had each other’s back and in order to have each other’s back, they needed to know as much as they could about the other. This, however, went beyond their friendship. It overflowed into whatever it was that he had with Larisa–attraction, lust, love, the wish to be friends, he truly did not know.

What he did know, though, was the need to find out more about the woman that plagued his every day. What was she like? And what had she been like before coming to America? How was the girl that grew up in the Red Room, that became a KGB agent first and a renowned assassin later? She was there, working behind his scenes, and yet, she felt worlds apart. The certainty of not standing a chance to be allowed in the closed and guarded box of her memories only pushed his desire to get to know her more to the next level.

“I won’t tell her,” he heard himself assure. “Not to her and not to anyone else, I promise.”

Nat didn’t look away and for a moment she seemed to contemplate whether she truly wanted to risk being beheaded by her oldest friend. Eventually, she chose to speak. “You remember when I told you that I…” She closed her eyes, mouth suddenly dry and lungs heavy as the scar on her belly seemed to catch fire. “That I cannot have kids,” she forced herself to say. It felt more consuming than the run she was recovering from, harder than it had been to leave Lara behind when she finally graduated from the Red Room Academy.

Clint cleared his throat and as he stared at her, he saw her snap out of the shadows of her past. “It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it if it still hurts.”

“You clearly like her and she clearly likes you back.” Natasha shook her head and moved to sit up straight. “It’s about time she finds someone worthy of her.”

He didn’t know what she meant with that. Or he did know–or at least imagined–, but it was easier to feign ignorance when the thought of actually having the chance to try a move with the same woman that had kicked his ass in Budapest scared him to the bone.

“The short version is, Todorovsky was the surgeon they used to sterilize us.” Each and every word she spoke had the same weight of lead balls. They hung heavy in the clear, early-summer air for a few seconds before they fell to the ground like the cases of used bullets. They tasted like blood even in Clint’s mouth and he suddenly regretted asking that much of his friend.

He kept silent, not knowing what to say and doubting that an idiotic ‘I’m sorry’ could make her feel better.

“The long version is, Larisa has always been the sweetest girl the Academy ever had and he betrayed her. They all did.” She swallowed, averting her gaze from Clint’s and staring off into the distance in front of her. “No matter what she wants to believe, it took them longer to break her than it took them to break the rest of us. She had this… grace; she was like a living doll and it was probably one of the reasons why they wanted her so badly. Had we been in a completely different environment, anything she asked for, I’m sure they would have given it to her. She hasn’t changed much on that aspect, I’m sure you’ve noticed.” She let out a shallow chuckle and Clint couldn’t stop himself from smirking.

“Had she asked me to shoot myself, back in Hungary, I probably would have complied,” he agreed, confessing what still felt like a stupid thought. “Foolish, I know.”

She laughed. “Nah. When it comes to her, thoughts like that aren’t as foolish as you might think. It was the same back there, growing up. She never used such influence; she only turned to it on rare occasions and even then, it was just because I pushed her to. It was also the leverage Todorovsky used to gain her trust.”

“He broke her, didn’t he?”

Nat nodded, the movement slow and heavy. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her.

“There was a side program,” she started again after a brief pause. “Not in the Red Room. The KGB was carrying it out. The underlying purpose was breeding, a sort of agent-making farm, you know. It was fucked up, but she loved kids and he used that on her. Everybody knew she wanted children of her own, one day–we all did, of course, but with her… Somehow, it was different. She had a talent for it all–both kids and anything we did at the Academy: killing, spying, fighting. It was as though she was born for it.”

“He promised her he’d put her on that program?”

She nodded again and this time she met his eye. “It was all a lie, though. The program didn’t exist, but at the time we didn’t know. I found out the truth only after my graduation and even then, it took me months. Apparently, it was a rumor someone had spread and it somehow became a crystal castle we all wanted to believe in. Not because we had a chance, I don’t even know why we misplaced our hope so blindly.” She laughed, then, and it was short and almost robotic. It sent a shiver down Clint’s spine in the rising temperature of the day. “He told her she was special, though, and that he wasn’t going to touch her for the last part of the graduating ceremony.”

“How could she believe him, though?”

“Just like Lara, he had his ways. And back then, he was only ten years older than us, fifteen at most. We all swooned over him: he was beautiful and strong and he was one of the few men we had the chance to interact with at the Academy. Even I had a small crush on him,” she chuckled. “They shared something deeper than a crush and he somehow convinced her he would never touch her, that he would never put her on a stainless-steel table, and she fell for it. You ask how she could believe him. The real question is, how could she not?” She shrugged her shoulders and once again, she avoided his burning gaze. “We all fought it, fought the idea of having that piece of us taken away from us. Some fought more fiercely than others, but in the end, we all bent to it. But when it came to her, she… She refused to see reason to the point where she started to slack off and consequentially, to get punished regularly. That stupid program was the dream they used to manipulate her.”

It was fucked up. He never consciously entertained the idea of bringing kids of his own into this world, but sometimes, when he was lonely and bored in his room, the thought came up. And while he would never confess it, in those moments he found himself wondering what it would be like to be a father.

He couldn’t even start to imagine how Larisa must have felt.

“She wouldn’t stop gushing over the idea of getting out of the Academy in one piece,” Nat went on, absentmindedly fiddling with her hands. “I was jealous, of course, but I was also ecstatic for her. She had a way with kids… When the youngest of us made a fuss about anything, the heads of the Academy sent her to calm them down. It was easier for them to find peace with one of us rather than with one of them, and so they kept on feeding her that illusion to keep her sweet. But then, when the time for her graduation came, they broke her, they… They turned her into who–into what–she is today.”

It didn’t take long for Clint to put two and two together and the frown that had settled on his face evened out into a more relaxed expression. “You insisted on making her go on this mission because of this, didn’t you?”

She hunched her shoulders. “It’s also why I begged them to have you assigned, too.”

She was avoiding the real question and he knew it. “What is she going to do to him?”

“Whatever it is that he deserves.” Nat clenched her jaw. She kept her gaze set before her, fixed on one of the dogs playing in the park. “I’m not strong enough to do it. She probably isn’t, either, but she’s angrier. He also likes her–he’s always liked her, no surprise she was his favorite. She will tear him to pieces and then we will both be free.”

Alone once again, Larisa went back to being her teasing self. She turned towards him and all Clint could do was swallow the now forgotten question he had been on the verge of asking.

“Your friend almost ruined my mood,” she purred into his ear when he closed the door of the room. Her hands trailed up his chest from the waist of his pants before they moved to his back to pull him against her. “I loved how you told him you trust me because you see…” She peppered light kisses along the line of his jaw, gently nipped his ear lobe and inhaled deeply, her nose skimming along the side of his neck. “You should not.”

He gulped, but now that he had tasted her and that she had tasted him–heck, she had swallowed him in a fucking public place–, he couldn’t find it in himself to stop his hands from moving over her ass and squeeze it harshly. “Still, no need for him to know it, isn’t it?”

Lara moved her head back and she stared right at him, a mischievous smirk tugging at her lips. “I love it when they play my game,” she grinned to herself. But had she meant to keep it a secret, she would have at least made the vain effort to mutter those words in Russian–which she didn’t. “It makes it all the more enjoyable,” she added, moving better between his legs and pressing herself against him. “Almost makes me want to let you take me on this very bed.”

“‘Almost’?” Clint asked, slightly tilting his head to the side and lowering his gaze to swipe it across her cleavage.

She took a step back and her hands traveled up her sides to reach the straps of her dress. Eyes fixed on his, she never broke eye contact as she slowly let the straps fall down her shoulders, allowing the dress to slide down to the floor. “Almost,” she confirmed.

Clint found himself incapable of moving as he stared at her. Dressed in only nude lace panties and golden sandals, she looked like a fucking goddess, one that kicked Steve and the whole Todorovsky mission out of the metaphorical window of his mind.

A whimper tore out of his throat when she pushed her panties down her legs before she took a step back, closer to the bed, to step out of them.

“I will let you touch me once, though,” she said, voice suave and gaze burning, smirk turning into a small smile.

“Just once?”

She nodded. “For now,” she clarified. “I’m still hungry. You must be one special kind of man if I still make myself come at the thought of you after ten long years.”

He took a step forward and for a moment he wished for it to already be dawn–and for it to be legal to fuck her on the balcony of their room and in the light of day. She made him bolder and she made him reckless, and he wasn’t exactly sure he didn’t like it. All he needed was a word from her and he was sure he’d do anything she wanted–much like Nat had said that day in Central Park.

“Come here,” she moaned, beckoning him to her with a finger. “And kneel.”

The thought of her allowing him to give her head again, after the way he had made her come at Tony’s party a month ago, made him shudder as he stared at her before he let himself fall to his knees in front of her. It made him hard–harder than he already was. He almost felt tipsy at the idea of swiping his tongue between her folds and as he glanced at her, he saw that she was wet.

God.

God, he wanted so many things at once so badly: to touch her, to touch himself, and for her to touch him.

God, he was going to beg her–what for, he didn’t know, but he’d be happy with anything she chose to deliver.

“Take my heels off.”

His eyes snapped up to meet hers and he felt his chest constrict a little at the sight of her hardened nipples. “What?”

Her smile turned into a smirk once again and he gasped when she trailed her right foot up along his thigh. It was just a matter of inches, but it made his vision spin and his breathing turn labored. “Take them off.” She pushed his hands away when they glided up her thighs, though, and the amused spark in her eyes told him not to take the tone of her voice too seriously. “I didn’t say you could touch me, only that you have to take my heels off.”

“You said I could touch you once,” he frowned, fingers trailing down her shin and wrapping around her ankle as he lifted her foot an inch off the ground.

She laughed, skin breaking out into goosebumps when he unfastened the strap of the high-heeled sandal. “Don’t worry, Clint,” she drawled, hands coming up to cup her breasts. “I always keep my word.”

A few minutes later, Larisa was sprawled out naked on the bed, a hand between her legs, and Clint was sitting on the cushioned chair he had taken out from the old- but rich-fashioned writing desk present in the room. Butt-naked, he was doing his best not to touch himself. He wasn’t one to obey orders in the bedroom, but fuck, the things he let her make him do…

“Do you have any idea of how often I’ve found myself in this position?” she whimpered, tugging at a nipple with a hand and absentmindedly sliding a finger up and down between her slick folds. “With the image of you sitting naked in front of me, staring at me coming with your name on my lips?”

Clint’s breath hitched in his throat and he had to stop his hips from slightly bucking off the chair. “Tell me.”

She chuckled at his breathy voice, so meek and almost broken, and she slipped a finger inside her vagina. “So many times.” Each word hung heavy in the hot air of the bedroom, forcing him to open his legs a little wider.

“Why not let me touch you, then?” he wondered. He could feel himself twitch as he followed her every move. She had started to slowly finger herself–with two fingers now–as her free hand kept on teasing her breasts. “Why not let me make you come?”

She whimpered, and a choked ‘Clint’ left her lips as her head tilted back slightly. “Oh, I will.” She was panting softly, giving her left nipple a tug before the hand that had been fondling her tits caressed down her abdomen and stopped between her legs. He moaned when her fingers moved over her clit, tentatively circling it once. “But I want to do this first,” she went on. “And I want it so badly.”

“Fuck.” His was a whispered curse, muttered under his breath, but when her lips broke out into a grin, he knew she had heard him. “Fuck, the things you do to me,” he groaned. His left hand moved from his thigh to give his erection a firm tug and he whimpered when he swiped his thumb across the reddened head of his dick.

“Don’t touch yourself,” he heard her beg. “Please, don’t touch yourself yet.”

The way she said those words, with that weak and dreamy voice of hers, halted his movements and his eyes drifted back to her bare form.

“Look at me.”

And he did just that. He stared at her heaving chest, heavy breasts covered in a thin layer of sweat as the blood boiled under her skin. He stared at her nipples, wishing he could only tug on them the way she had done herself, wishing he could lightly graze their sensitive skin with his teeth. His gaze drifted lower then, back between her legs, and all he could do was whimper loudly as she pleasured herself.

She was impossibly wet and Clint could both see and hear it–see it on the now glistening skin of her hand and inner thighs, and hear it in the slick sounds of her fingers slowly but steadily thrusting in and out of her.

“God, I could come just at the sight of you,” he found himself blurting out as he shifted in his seat. His dick had already started to ooze pre-cum.

“You better not,” she groaned, raising her head to stare at him. “Don’t you dare come in that chair, Clint.”

More than an order, her words came out as a plea and it made him smirk. “I can’t make promises, doll,” he said, hand moving back to his dick and firmly grabbing its base. She stared at his movements–the way he dragged his hand up, moving the foreskin of his uncut erection with the movement, and then the way he swiped his hand back down and arched his neck in pleasure. “Not when you look so ravishing as you make yourself come for me.”

Her movements halted and she looked at him with burning eyes as she fought her way through her labored breathing to think a little more clearly. “Come here,” she eventually ordered, “lay down next to me.”

Clint complied more than happily: he stood from the chair and hissed when the leaking head of his dick bumped against his stomach and he strode towards the bed, doing his best to look dominating when she clearly had him by his balls. Against his wishes, that almost pushed him to lay between her legs, he followed his better judgment and laid down on his side next to her.

She moaned at the sight of him, so close and for the first time in ten years, as naked as he could be. She could feel him against the skin of her thigh and he could feel her too–he ground himself against her leg once before she pushed him onto his back.

“I don’t like being manipulated,” she grunted, straddling his hips.

Clint’s chuckle was cut short because God, he could feel her a breath away from the base of his dick and he was shot to the fucking Moon and back. His hands came up her thighs and for a moment or two, she let him do. “I am the one manipulating you?”

She scoffed. “I stopped manipulating you the day Fury released me from my cell. So, unless you see another man in this room,” she whispered, bending down above him to brush her lips against his neck, “then yes.”

He didn’t have the time to ask his most burning question–after all, he thought she was the one manipulating him into wanting her this badly–for she swatted his hands away from her body and she slid against him.

His breath got caught in his throat.

God, she was so fucking hot and wet against him, as his erection slipped between her dripping folds and as she dragged herself along its length… It left him breathless, his mind empty as his back arched off the mattress. She repeated the movement and he whimpered–and she whimpered at the sounds he made, too.

Fuck, if this wasn’t the hottest thing a woman had ever done to him… He was so close to being sheathed inside her and yet, at the same time, so far from such a dream. Almost better than sex.

Almost.

“God, you’re harder than a rock,” she whined in his ear, pressing her chest down against his. “I can’t wait to feel you inside me.” She sucked a point right under his ear and his hips bucked up a little. For some sick twist of fate, though, all he bumped into was her clit, forcing a loud moan out of her as her forehead fell down onto his shoulder.

“Can’t wait to feel your cunt stretching around me,” he muttered, grabbing a hold of her hips and not moving his hands from there even when hers came up to swat his away again.

“Not now,” she panted, sitting up and moving her hands on his pecs to keep her balance. “Keep your hands there, but not now, please.”

He moaned at the sight of her glossy eyes, at how she could keep them open as she kept on sliding her dripping folds back and forth along his length, and she whimpered in response.

Breasts heavy, lips parted as breathy moans escaped through them, she was such a sight that Clint didn’t exactly know how he managed to keep his cool.

“Fuck, you’re something else entirely,” he groaned, fingers kneading the flesh of her hips.

She smirked down at him, speeding up her sliding movements along the length of his dick.

Less than two minutes later, he was coming hard on the taut skin of his stomach and she was falling apart just above him.

What would have later turned into a plan for revenge against Todorovsky had initially started as a silly game in the Red Room. Lara had unconsciously started to plant roots in the surgeon’s head and many years from that first day, it would be their shared past the only loophole the man hadn’t considered would lead him to his own demise.

It seriously started on one Friday night as she exited the auditory-overload room. Corridors and halls empty in that wing of the building, Aleksandr Todorovsky stood right opposite the door, leaning against the wall.

“Sashenka,” she greeted him in a teasing tone, closing the metal door of the room behind her back. It was something she loved to do–call him with that girly nickname–, for she loved to tease him. Hadn’t he been her superior, she would have probably found a way to sneak into his private quarters without him purposefully coming to look for her.

“Larisa Efimovna,” he teased back. “One might start to think there’s a reason behind your constant in-and-out of corrective rooms.”

“Oh, yes?” She smirked as she passed him in the dimly-lit corridor. “One might start to think there’s a reason behind your constant presence outside such corrective rooms, as well.”

Aleksandr chuckled. It went against any rules the Academy had ever come up with–any kind of personal relationship between the students and the professional body was forbidden–, but when it came to Larisa, anything could turn into a tease without the risk of repercussions. At least, not now that she had started to rebel even more against the rules after the discovery of the compulsory sterilization. “Fancy to join me for dinner?” he asked, falling into step right beside her.

The back of his hand brushed not-so-innocently against hers and she had to swallow a smirk. It was no secret that most girls–if not every single one of them–harbored some sort of crush for the young doctor. The age gap didn’t seem to matter, not when he looked like a fallen god–caramel-blonde hair, piercing grey eyes, the body of a fighter, and the precise hands of a clockmaker that worked wonders in more fields than one.

Larisa loved to play hard to catch, though, so it was no surprise to hear her hum. “I was indeed going to sneak into the kitchen to steal some food. But a tête-à-tête dinner? I don’t know, sir,” and she drawled out that last word, for she knew how much he enjoyed to be addressed as such. “I’m already punished often enough as it is. I wouldn’t want to risk another trip to the zone…”

A ‘trip to the zone’ was how Nasha had started to call the not-so-welcome stays inside the auditory-overload or sensory-deprivation rooms. It was just four walls and the poor, punished student that had had the bad luck of ending up in there. And in such a constrictive space, one couldn’t help but think of being in a prison cell.

Todorovsky’s hand moved behind her to rest on her lower back, fingers a breath away from a borderline dirtier touch. “No need to worry, Larisa Efimovna,” he answered, lips skimming against the warm skin of her left temple. “After all, I should make sure everything’s alright with you after two hours in that room. Control your hearing, check how well you respond to my stimuli…”

A shiver ran down Lara’s spine and the smirk she had previously successfully managed to suppress found a way to plaster itself on her lips. “Well, when you so kindly propose, sir…” she said, pressing herself better against his side, a hand trailing down his abdomen to fleetingly palm his crotch. She was covered in cold sweat, but he didn’t seem to mind. “Isn’t it a little late, though? After all, it’s well past dinner time… If my coordinator finds me out of my dorm at this hour of the night, I’d be in deep trouble.”

“Health first,” he simply said, leading her down the staircase that hopefully led to his quarters.

It was a game they often played. He enjoyed to have the upper hand, use his authority on the Academy’s most-wanted student, and she enjoyed making him believe he was actually the one in charge, fooling him into believing he had any power over her as she let him settle between her legs.

So, she faked a gasp when he opened the door of his room and moved to the side to let her enter first. Even though he had never really brought her there, she had still seen such a gesture coming after all the intimate and teasing moments they had shared. “Sir, this is not your study.”

“There’s no need to go and open it again at this hour,” he shrugged. He closed the door and locked it without breaking eye contact. “Besides, I thought you’d rather eat something before I start my… examination.”

There was no threat in his voice and Larisa knew that if she only said a word, he’d let her go back to her room. Todorovsky could come off as an imposing man, and even more so with those broad shoulders and tall and built body of his, but he wasn’t one to take advantage of women. And it didn’t matter that she could take him down in less than a minute, even being half his size, for he still respected her and her decisions–even despite the misleading plan he was carrying out against her.

“I’m afraid it’s not food I’m hungry for right now, sir.” She had a way of her own to come off as both innocent and ravishing at once. Hands clasped behind her back in a seemingly deferential stance, she was drawing her shoulders back to open up her chest, and in the warm lights of the room, she knew he could see her half-hardened nipples underneath the sweated cotton of her shirt. “Even if I’d gladly have a shot of something to drink. Detention left me quite thirsty.”

Giving alcohols to students could be severely punished if such a violation were to be disclosed. But Todorovsky was a well-respected doctor inside the walls of the Red Room and anything he said medical-wise was never met with obstacles. So, he poured himself and her a shot of vodka and handed her the glass. “For medical purposes,” he admonished, fingers grazing hers when their hands touched.

“Of course, sir,” she smiled.

She kept her gaze fixed on his as she downed the burning contents of her shot and watched raptured at the way Aleksandr’s Adam’s apple bobbed as he mirrored her movements.

Then, just like that, he was on her. Hands insistent on her hips and lips bruising against the skin of her neck, she found herself opening up to him as her hands came up to cradle his head.

A harsh movement and she would snap his neck. It was a recurring thought–not because she secretly dreamed of murdering him, she wasn’t that stupid after all, not when she had such a man willing to pleasure her for his own pleasure, but because she wanted to know what it felt like, to kill a man, to hold such a power in her seemingly-innocent hands.

It always started like that between them. He pretended to tend to her neck, careful not to leave any suspicious hickey in his wake before he got her naked in a matter of minutes.

“I should make sure your punishment didn’t leave you fuzzy-headed,” he contemplated as he took her naked body in.

God, was she perfect. Perfect skin, taut muscles and soft limbs at once, nice and round tits–she surely was a sight to behold. She kept him awake at night and the occasions where he got himself off at the memory of her sprawled out on his bed weren’t exactly rare.

“Is that alright with you?” he smirked, thumbs caressing her hardened nipples in a slow and teasing touch, almost making her toes curl.

She wanted to tell him to cut the game short, to fucking give her whatever the fuck he wanted, but she thought better of it. Instead, she nodded, hands holding his wrists in place for a couple of seconds before they moved up his forearms and biceps. She also wanted to point out how, as a doctor, he should be wearing his white coat, but fuck, the sight of him in that light grey shirt of his made her wetter than she’d like.

He knelt before her, lips skimming along her belly and hands holding her thighs tightly to keep her in place. “Make sure you’re still in one piece,” he muttered a second before he lapped at her labia with his tongue, making her gasp.

Lara shooked herself out of her memory and smiled at Clint. Whether there was something deeper between the two of them or it was simple and unadulterated lust, she tried not to care too much, for it was always better than the ways she had allowed Todorovsky–once simply ‘Shura’ or ‘Sasha’–to touch her.

“I’m most likely going to do and say some things in Todorovky’s presence, even coming to call him by his name,” she said as she followed him inside the elevator to reach the ground floor and exit in the warm, summer night. “I need to know you truly trust me, that you know I’m only playing my part in the grand scheme of things.”

She saw Clint glance at her, caught their reflection in one of the mirrored walls of the elevator. Dressed in total black, Clint looked as good as ever. She smiled at him, a small, sad smile that could have given all her fears away if only Clint Barton had truly known how to read her.

“I do,” he confirmed when the doors of the elevator opened.

They both crossed the lobby, gaining many a look from the other residents of the hotel for their more than elegant attire. Lara curtly nodded to the woman behind the desk and smiled at the ‘buon divertimento’ she cheerfully wished them. The night was probably going to go in the opposite direction of ‘fun’, but it was time she faced her demons–time she defeated such demons.

“I will need you to follow my lead,” she sighed, inhaling deeply before entering the white cab they had asked the hotel to call. She quickly gave the address of Todorovky’s villa to the driver before she turned to stare at Clint.

He had taken her hand in his and was toying with the diamond on the fake wedding ring she was wearing for the mission. “I’ll play your game,” he nodded after a while.

They spent the rest of the drive in silence, both too busy following their thoughts to spark up any kind of conversation. And as Clint was visibly thrilled to get to the party and finish the mission, he couldn’t read Lara. Seated with her back relaxed against the seatback, she was staring out of the window at a Bellagio buzzing with tourist life.

He had been on the verge of telling her how good she looked in red many a time ever since he saw her in that dress. Plunging neckline, vertiginous split that cut the front of her right leg to a little higher than mid-thigh, sleeves that hugged her arms, she looked like a goddess. For some reason he couldn’t explain, though, he couldn’t bring himself to speak his mind, not after the half-disgusted look he had seen her give herself in the elevator.

And when he hopefully found the guts to say something, she had already exited the car and was still waiting for him in her spot when he reached her after he paid the driver.

She smiled up at him when she fixed his tie and for the first time, it wasn’t a real smile. Clint noticed–he always did, he was probably starting to learn her better–, but didn’t directly point it out.

“Tense?” he asked as he hugged her waist with an arm.

She shrugged her shoulders. “I’m inexplicably exhausted all of a sudden,” she confessed after a while, as they walked up the graveled path that led to the entrance of the villa. “Todorovsky and I…” She let out a sigh, fixing a loose strand of hair that had already escaped her hairdo. “We share a past. I would tell you about it, but I…”

“No need to,” Clint reassured her, gently squeezing her side once before she showed their invitation to the same gorillas that had welcomed them the night before. He only continued to talk when they stepped inside the mansion and headed to the doors that led to the real party, past a crowd of guests even bigger than that of the first night. “I said I’d follow your lead, and that’s what I plan on doing. You’re in charge tonight.”

That last sentence made her chuckle and it took her a second longer to show her БГМЛ tattoo to the new set of bodyguards.

“I sure like the sound of it,” she grinned.

He didn’t tell her she could share her secret when she felt like it and he truly didn’t know why. He looked at her and he just knew he couldn’t. It was something that went beyond him, and it was probably silly, considered who she was and what she had always done for a living, but he truly hoped he’d one day gain her full trust.

She flashed him a grin, then, and suddenly, it was as though everything was back to normal–her eyes were twinkling, her hand was teasing his inner thigh as they entered the heart of the party, and her lips came up to press against his cheek.

“Ready to be my trophy husband again?” she giggled and her words made him chuckle as he stared down at her.

“Count me ready and thrilled,” he teased, smacking her ass and making her laugh.

“Very well, then.” She accompanied him to the bar and ordered him a drink. They had switched back to Russian not to make suspicions arise and not to catch anyone’s attention. “I will go and try to earn us a private meeting with our dear host before his actual appearance. You can enjoy the naked dancers in the meantime,” she smirked.

Clint stared at her with a grin on his face as he lifted the glass of whiskey on the rocks to his lips and only when she disappeared behind a door, he shook his head and turned his gaze to the party.

The same women that had been naked the night before were just as bare today, even though the golden glitters making their bodies glimmer had been replaced with sparkling red dust that made it look like they had tongues of fire on their skin. But as tantalizing as the view was, he couldn’t enjoy their slow and sensual dance, not even when the dancers exchanged kisses and touches. He didn’t even notice how the main color of the room was red today: red decorations, red-tinted ice statues, elegant red dresses on the stunning women that had been invited.

He probably shouldn’t have let Larisa walk away alone. After all, he had assured Steve he’d be with her at all times. It didn’t matter that he had a prepaid phone in the front pocket of his pants and that he could either call Rogers or Goncharova, for he found himself paralyzed on the bar stool he was sitting on.

What an idiot! To trust so blindly someone deemed so untrustworthy was a true child’s mistake. And yet, he wanted to believe she was redeemable, just like Nat. He wanted to believe it, for if it was true and if the impossible became possible, he could let himself fall for her as completely as he wanted.

Just as he was on the verge of walking off in the direction Lara had disappeared into, though, he felt someone wrap around his side and was startled to see his pretended wife frowning at him.

“You okay?”

He hurried to finish his forgotten drink–whiskey on melted rocks, now–and nodded his head, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her closer. Head nuzzled in the crook of her neck, he breathed her in, involuntarily pushing her to tense.

“You sure?” she whispered, pressing her lips against his cheek. “I can do it on my own if you fear we’re risking something.”

“No, I’m fine, just…”

“You just thought I was going to betray you,” she finished his sentence for him and he averted his gaze in embarrassment. “It’s okay, you don’t have to justify yourself. I know who I am and what I’ve done, I hold no grudge. Sleeping with someone and trusting that person are two completely different things, trust me: I know.”

“I trust you,” he tried to say, “I just…”

“Clint,” she called, cradling his face in her hands and planting a kiss on his lips when she felt Todorovsky’s eyes on them. “I am with you, I promise. But we should go now, we’ve almost reached our target. Rasputin’s nail,” she added when she noticed the puzzled glance of a woman that had just reached the bar. She glared at her until the other scurried away and then took Clint’s hand in hers.

The walk to Todorovsky’s office was silent. Larisa had half-expected for the treacherous man to lead the way after seeing his reflection staring at her in one of the mirrors in the ballroom, but when she and Clint reached the door that led to the farthest side of the house, she found the way empty.

The unguarded door of the office was open, though, and as Lara’s customs, she entered without knocking.

“Some habits are hard to die,” the man behind the huge cherry-wood desk welcomed them, standing up and walking around the piece of furniture.

“Just like you, Aleksandr Sergeyevich,” Lara laughed, kissing both his cheeks when he came close enough. “I saw you staring. Hard at the sight of me dressed in your favorite color? Or maybe jealous you lost me to some other man?”

“As if a trophy husband could stand a chance against me,” Todorovsky chuckled, shaking his head and extending a hand to Clint to shake. “James, right? I would have never expected for someone like Larochka to settle down.”

Lara kissed Clint’s cheek and side-hugged him. Clint could feel her breasts press up against his arm and for a moment, that was the only thing he could think about, grounding him enough to allow him to remember the fake name they had chosen for the mission.

“Had I known you haven’t aged one bit, I would have waited to marry someone else,” she winked. “Or,” she added, extending a hand to trail an imaginary line from the crotch of Todorovky’s pants to his Adam’s apple with the perfectly manicured red nail of her index finger, “I could be shared. I’m sure James wouldn’t mind.”

They talked as if Clint wasn’t in the room and even when they all sat on the armchair and couch present in the office, Lara and their target seemed to only have eyes for each other.

Clint’s trust in her started to dwindle.

“I wanted to get back to business,” Lara was saying, her foot teasing Todorovsky’s shin up and down. “Get back under one roof and all that. I miss that life. America is…” She seemed to struggle for words.

“Boring?” the man suggested, casually resting a hand on her exposed knee.

She smiled. “In lack of better words, yes.”

“I thought you had been assigned on a recce mission.”

“You can speak freely, Shura,” Lara smiled, moving her hand over his and seemingly forgetting about Clint’s presence. “My husband knows not to talk about my business.”

“You have him by the balls, don’t you?”

“Tell me what man I didn’t have by the balls,” she laughed disdainfully. She hated how that man had been Aleksandr Todorovsky himself, but she did her best not to show it. “And besides, he’s quite good at brainstorming. Gave me many an idea on many an occasion.” She glanced at Clint, throwing him a smile, but before he could react, she had turned back to Todorovsky.

“Very well, then,” the man nodded, unbuttoning the first button of his shirt. It was quite hot in the room and the closed windows couldn’t help and ease the mugginess of the air. “Any luck with the American patriots?”

“I’m considering getting someone else assigned on the mission. The idiots aren’t as brainless as we thought them to be–after all, I’ve been at it for ten years now. It’s getting boring and they’re starting to ask questions. Fresher faces and even fresher minds could unblock the situation.”

“So you thought of getting back to me? Why?”

“Call it sentimental nostalgia,” she drawled, leaning closer to him over the armrest of the sofa. “I miss the old days, miss your touch. Don’t get me wrong, James’ game is stronger than that of any man I’ve been with for one mission or another, but you were still my first…”

Clint swallowed, eyes zeroing in on Lara. He found himself praying with every fiber of his being that the double face she was pulling wasn’t against SHIELD–against him.

Todorovsky’s hand shamelessly trailed up the slit in Lara’s dress and dipped between her legs, where she trapped it between her thighs to prevent him from touching her. “Still playing hard to get, though, I see,” he remarked with a smirk. “Holding no grudge because of that little game I had to pull on you, aren’t you?”

She swatted a hand in mid-air, giving him a sly smile. “Nah, it made everything easier. No kids, no worries, right?” But Clint had felt her hand tense against his thigh and he only hoped Todorovsky hadn’t picked up that slight change in her demeanor.

The man nodded, retrieving his hand to rest it on his own crotch as the other arm was slung over the seatback of the armchair. “I’m glad to take you back into my team,” he eventually admitted. “Mind you, you’d be treated differently than in the Red Room. After all, you’re no student anymore. Your husband is welcome, too, but I’d like to discuss these matters in private.”

A glance at Clint and he was listlessly leaving the room.

“He’s trustworthy, I told you,” Lara tried to reason once Clint had closed the door behind his back. Suddenly, she was on edge, alone with the man that had so easily manipulated her back at the Academy.

“I don’t trust easily, Lara,” Aleksandr groaned, shifting to sit next to her on the couch. His lips were on her neck before she could stop him and now that they were free of any worry, for now there was no Academy who could punish them for the hickeys on her neck, his touch was insistent, his sucking - bruising. The shivers of anticipation that ran down her spine scared her to the bone. “Not when other men are involved.” His hands came up to grab her hips and he pulled her over him until she was straddling his lap. “You were supposed to be mine and I,” he continued, lifting his gaze from the plunging neckline of her dress to meet her eye, “do not share.”

She did her best to contain the shiver that ran down her spine but the truth was, Aleksandr Sergeyevich Todorovsky made her blood run cold, her mind turn empty. “You also do not marry,” she tried to distract him, caressing the sides of his neck with her thumbs.

He laughed. “I was just kidding, kid, relax.” The circular movements of his thumbs on her hips should have been soothing, but all they did was made her even more cautious. And frightened. “Still, I would like one more time with you before discussing the details of this alliance. For old times’ sake,” he specified.

Lara forced a smirk before she nodded. “Why don’t we start with a massage, then? If I remember correctly, you used to tense up your shoulders when you were stressed.” The thought of having sex with him again made her nauseous.

The man cursed, a low moan of appreciation leaving his lips. “Go ahead,” he said, letting her stand up and shaking off the jacket of his suit. “Want me to move to a chair?”

He stayed put when she told him the couch was more than fine and as she moved to stand behind him, she sneakily grabbed a heavy, marble paperweight from his desk while he was relaxing against the seatback with his eyes closed. She hit him before he had a chance to understand what was going on.

It took her endless minutes to reach the door of the office and the awaiting Clint, Nasha and Rogers in the corridor, for she couldn’t tear her eyes away from the unconscious body of the man who had successfully managed to kill Larisa Efimovna Goncharova.

The first time Larisa showered after her graduation, she let tears run free for the first time in forever–no crying and no showing weakness at the Academy, it was simply not allowed, not if you wanted to go far. Being in that shower went against what the nurses in the Red Room had told her before releasing her into the world, but now all she wanted to do was see the stitched wound on the lower part of her abdomen rot. She wanted to see it bleed her out to death, wanted to pick at the stitches until they snapped.

How could have she been so stupid to fall into their trap?

And how could have she been so foolish to let Aleksandr manipulate her? To believe he wasn’t just doing it–doing her–for some sick wish for pleasure of his? She had always believed she was the one with the upper hand in the carnal relationship they shared and yet, here she was, betrayed and torn and broken. Covered in bruises and with a slowly healing wound that shouldn’t have been there. One piece less to call her own–to make her whole.

She punched the tiled wall of the curtainless shower, unconcerned by the pain that exploded in her knuckles.

It didn’t matter that the running water was scalding on her skin and setting those damned stitches on fire, punching the bruises on her body one by one, for a wave of slowly-mounting anger had started to creep up her back. It went straight to her mind and turned her sight blurry. It didn’t matter that the real cause was the water of the shower running down her face, mixing with her tears of shame, for all she could feel now was the blood burning in her veins, her nails cutting into the flesh of her palms, her short and ragged and heavy breathing raising the already boiling temperature of the room.

There was a minute, in that motel shower, where she promised herself she wouldn’t let herself be so foolishly blind anymore. The good old days of the Red Room were behind her back now–and so was the short-lived innocence of her childhood and adolescence. It was a fleeting thought, one that was gone as soon as it popped up, but she swore herself she’d make good on her promise until the day she died.

One by one, she was going to take down all those who had twisted her mind around the utopia of her being safe in her perfect cocoon of innocence. Sasha was going to be the last, she promised herself. She’d watch him react to all the other deaths, gauging for any sign of recognition about who, exactly, could be behind the murders, before she took her time with him, the same way he used to take his sweet time with her.

“Lara? You’re in there?”

Nasha’s voice was muffled both by the bathroom door and the running water of the shower, but Lara still managed to make out her words. Still, she didn’t answer and when Natasha entered the bathroom, she didn’t startle in surprise.

She didn’t know how her friend had managed to find her, but it was no wonder. Now that Natasha stood with the KGB, Lara was sure she had her ways to find out things. And people.

“You okay?”

She shrugged, still not facing her.

“How did the graduation go?”

There was a tense curiosity in her friend’s voice. It made her chuckle–cold and mechanical and devoid of any emotion.

“As it was always supposed to go,” Larisa stated, voice flat and emotionless before she turned around to show her the freshly stitched wound on her belly.

Natasha didn’t speak. She eyed her friend’s cut for endless minutes and her gaze burned hotter than the water pouring down Larisa’s battered body like rain. Then, she took a step forward, leaving the almost otherworldly safety of the doorframe. “I’m sorry.”

It was something stupid to say, something meaningless. Had her friend apologized to her upon finding out about her sterilization, Natasha would have burst out laughing in her face. But Lara didn’t react and in the dying light of the afternoon, she saw rage sparkle in her friend’s eyes. Had she been foolish, she would have found herself retreating before the beast that was now standing less than two meters from her.

“I was stupid,” Lara started after a while, turning around to turn off the water. “A stupid girl who thought she could beat the wolves in their own den. Stupid enough to believe a man could ever fall for someone like us.” She turned then, walked towards her until her hands grasped the towel she had left in the sink. “Lethal weapons of destruction.”

Natasha tried to think smartly, but the four walls of the bathroom felt like they were closing in on her as she stared at her ragingly calm friend. “The world is not the Red Room. And the Red Room is not the world.” She laid a hand on her shoulder, but the contact was short-lived as Larisa took a step back as she absentmindedly toweled her sore arms dry.

“Maybe you’re right,” she smirked, eyes as hard as steel as the neon-like light above the sink shed nightmarish shadows on the unblemished skin of her face. “Or maybe you’re not. But it doesn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t?”

She shrugged, carefully dabbing the stitched cut on her abdomen dry, never once grimacing at the pain. To Natasha, it was almost as though she couldn’t feel it–couldn’t feel the raging tongues of pain lapping at her whole body, couldn’t feel the fire burning the wounded skin, the toe-curling waves of unsettling agony that made her spine shiver.

The truth was, though, it was consuming her, eating her alive.

“We were taught to kill manipulation,” she spoke, “because we are the ones who manipulate, who don’t subdue to such games. It doesn’t matter what the world looks like, nor that we can fool men enough to fall for us.”

Natasha took a step back, unable to stop such movement as she watched the now unrecognizable young woman standing before her, slowly dressing.

“They made themselves an enemy. And what do we do to enemies?”

“We sneak up behind them and we kill them.”

Pure, animalistic fury burned in Lara’s smile and for the first time, the true face of the Mantis showed up. “We sneak up behind them and we kill them,” she confirmed, letting the used towel fall to the ground.

“What do you think you’ll do with the agency? You’re a KGB agent now.”

“Oh, I’ll work for them alright. I’ll spy for them, I’ll kill for them, but slowly, one brick at a time, I’ll tear the Red Room down.”

“Lara, you-”

“Lara is dead, Nasha. She never left the operation room.”

And for as dead as Larisa felt, the Mantis had never been more alive. Blood buzzing in her fingertips, she sat in the cockpit of the quinjet with the same majesty of an ancient being ready to strike.

Clint had been staring at her the whole time, even before boarding the aircraft. She hadn’t said a word after she had opened the door of Todorovsky’s office and yet, he had seen the look in her eyes go from terrified to murderous.

It was clear, in the suffocatingly quiet space of the cockpit, that there were now two parties competing for Todorovsky’s body and he was sure, then and there, that she was going to win.

But as determined as Steve was to see the end of such a tiring mission, he couldn’t seem to be able to catch a whiff of what was going on. Piloting the quinjet with the help of a weary Natasha, listening with one ear to the plan Tony was going over of again, he was as oblivious to the imminent threat as Clint himself was aware of what was coming.

Right then, Lara turned her head to look at him. It was almost like being in a horror movie: her body as still as that of a statue, only her head turned to the side and ever so slowly, the left corner of her mouth stretched into a lopsided smirk. The steely void he could read in her eyes unsettled him, so different from the burning gaze that had looked down on him just the night before. The night of almost-sex they shared seemed to belong to a previous life.

“Lara?” he called, unsure, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning the seat to face her.

“Lara is dead, Clint.” There was a spooky eeriness to her voice, one that seemed to lock every single vertebra of his spine into place as his muscles tensed up. “I am not the only murderer on this jet.”

Yep, you got it right. There’s going to be a long-ass part four, too HAHA Probably in a bit, though, for I wouldn’t want to accidentally spoiler something about the new movie to anybody. Btw, thank you for reading to this point 💛

TAGS (to be added to or to be removed from any list, shoot me an ask. Same goes for ‘Bratva’)

Everything: @idhrenniel @saibh29 @fuckthatfeeling @aya-fay @pebblesz892 @mblaqgi

Bratva (people not on the lists but that might still be interested): @sweetvengeancee @kind-wolf + a couple of lovely people that showed interest in the first part when I asked: @flowers-in-your-hayr@pagan-geek-girl-4-life

75 notes · View notes