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He Comes Alive (Part 5)

Part 1 Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

Summary: The townsfolk decide to hold the annual Harvest Festival despite the police chief's son being found dead. Meanwhile, Leon acts on his instinctual desires.

Word Count: 6.7k

Pairing: vampire/plagas!Leon Kennedy x fem!reader (afab)

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. Actions depicted in this story are not condoned in real life. You are responsible for your own content consumption. If any of the following warnings trigger you, please read at your own risk. Minors do not interact, this story is 18+ only.

Warnings: Biting, blood, gore, murder, unprotected p in v, masterbation, oral (m and f receiving), stalking, pet names, kidnapping, breeding kink, blood play/kink, age gap, dubcon, DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT [More warnings may be added in future entries]

A quick reminder that I no longer do tag lists

You’re somewhere in the middle of asleep and awake as you listen to Leon descend the stairs to answer the door, hearing him call out as you hear the squeak of the front door opening. You can’t understand what they’re saying but you immediately recognize the voice as Chief Bob, causing your anxiety to immediately spike.

Had your Dad actually called the police on Leon?

You decide it’s best to get up and look for yourself, so you climb out of bed, your eyes widening at the literal bloody mess that’s on Leon’s sheets. You’re mortified but you’ll deal with that later. Not wanting to put yesterday’s clothes back on just yet, you walk up to what you assume is Leon’s closet, opening it to see if you can find a t-shirt you can throw on. You spot a navy blue t-shirt, grabbing it and slipping it on over your head. It just barely covers everything, but it’ll work. 

You go downstairs, following the sounds of Leon and Chief Bob’s voices to the front door. You walk up from behind Leon to stand next to him rubbing the sleep from your eyes.

“Everything ok, Leon?”

Leon turns to you, his eyes widening subtly upon seeing your attire before he replies, “everything’s fine, angel, Chief Dion was just telling me about the emergency town meeting later tonight.”

“Oh?”

“With the closure of the hiking trails up in the Notch, we need to decide if it’s safe to have the Harvest Festival,” Chief Bob explains, “I hope to see you both there tonight. It’s at 7:00.”

“Of course, we’ll try to be there,” Leon replies, giving Chief Bob a warm smile.

“Perfect, take care, you two,” Chief Bob says, giving the two of you a subtle wave before walking back over to his police cruiser. 

Leon shuts the front door, looking over at you. His eyes scan up and down your body, a subtle smirk forming on his lips.

“I never thought you’d look so breathtaking in one of my old Raccoon City Police t-shirts.”

“Oh--” you reply, looking down at the faded R.P.D. logo before shifting your attention back to him, “I just threw on the first t-shirt I saw in your closet. I hope you don’t mind…”

“Of course not, angel. Now then, I’m sure you're starving, let’s get you some breakfast, hm?”

You reply to Leon with a nod as you follow him into the kitchen and watch him make breakfast for the two of you; the smell of bacon and eggs soon filling the room.

“Thank you, by the way,” Leon suddenly says as he continues to cook breakfast.

You raise an eyebrow, “for… what?”

You watch Leon plate the bacon and eggs before turning to you, handing you the plate, “for letting me be your first.”

“Oh…” you say, realization hitting you like a ton of bricks, causing your cheeks to turn pink, “n-no, thank you. You were amazing… and sorry that I’m on my period… I can’t imagine that was pleasant…”

“On the contrary, angel,” he says, plating his own breakfast before leading you to the dining table, “I very much enjoyed myself, regardless.”

If your cheeks weren’t red before, they certainly are now as you slowly eat away at your breakfast, glancing over occasionally to see Leon doing the same. After a few minutes of eating in silence, you speak up.

“Do you think they’ll cancel the festival?” you ask, mid-chew on a piece of bacon.

“Only one way to find out.”

The rest of the day had gone by in a flash and, before you know it, it’s time to go to the town meeting. You and Leon get into his Jeep and drive into town. You are taken aback by how crowded it is; Leon had to park in the grocery store parking lot, forcing the two of you to walk about 10 minutes to the town hall. You gather that almost everyone is here; there weren’t even any chairs left in the meeting hall; you and Leon stood in the back of the room, his arms wrapping around you.

You lean into his embrace as your eyes scan the crowd for your parents. Sure enough, your eyes settle on your father’s. The look on his face as he stares back at the two of you could have set something on fire. You watch as your mother suddenly turns to you, smiling before turning to your father and smacking him in the shoulder, forcing him to look away from the two of you. 

You watch as Chief Bob walks out to the podium, tapping on the microphone to get everyone’s attention. The idle chatter immediately ceased, the room so silent that you could hear a pin drop.

“Thank you for coming, everyone,” Chief Bob begins, “We honestly did not expect this large of a turnout but it warms my heart to see that the festival is something that our town clearly cares about.”

He clears his throat before continuing, “as many of you know, Oakvale has held this festival since 1947, this year marking its 40th anniversary. We’re about two weeks out but the festival committee has been keeping a close eye on the situation with hikers getting attacked and killed on the Franconia Notch trails. With Nate’s untimely death, that hit close to home for many of us, especially for my wife and I.”

You feel Leon give you a reassuring squeeze in his arms upon the mention of Nate.

The Chief continues, “and with the closure of the Notch trails, the committee has gone back and forth on whether or not we cancel the festival for the safety of not just our citizens, but of the tourists that will come here for the festival. However, it was decided that we will discuss this as a town; I’d like to open the floor for questions, concerns and comments.”

You and Leon listen as compelling arguments are tossed back and forth both for and against canceling the festival, the main concern being the loss of revenue for the town. There is no doubt that the festival is a huge money maker for Oakvale. Another concern, one that your father unsurprisingly brought up, is that with the trails now closed, that there’s a risk of the animal wandering into town, drawn by the large crowds.

“That can be avoided with enough police presence, Lincoln and Woodstock have already stated they’d lend us officers in the event we decide to hold the festival,” Chief Bob replies to your father. 

For agonizing minutes, the room bursts into chatter while you and Leon stand in the back of the room, observing the spectacle. Chief Bob taps on the mic once more, the room going completely silent once more.

“Alright, let’s hold a vote. All in favor of canceling the festival, raise your hand.”

You watch as about a dozen hands go up, including your parents’.

“All in favor of holding the festival, raise your hand.”

This time, almost everyone’s hands go up, including yours and Leon’s. You lock eyes with your father once more, his look of disdain going straight into you, causing your blood to turn cold.

“Well…” Chief Bob says, looking around the room full of raised hands, “I guess that answers that question.”

It’s late; Leon doesn’t know what time it is. What he does know, however, is how perfect his angel looks beneath him, passed out from the string of orgasms he gave her some time ago. It’s been a week since she started staying here with him; Leon couldn’t believe his good fortune. He finds his gaze focused on her exposed neck, his hunger becoming ravenous.

No. He made a promise to himself he wouldn’t feed on her until it was time to give her his gift. Climbing off her, he sits at the edge of the bed as he peels the condom he used off. He lifts the condom up to eye level to inspect it, watching as a single larva wriggles around inside his seed trapped in the condom. Letting out a sigh, he stands up, walking into the bathroom, grabbing some toilet paper to wrap the used condom in, giving it a firm squeeze in his hand to ensure the larva is dead before tossing it into the trash.

Walking back into the bedroom, he grabs his boxers and jeans off the floor, putting them on. He walks over, checking to make sure she’s sleeping before he leaves the bedroom, descending the stairs to the padlocked basement door. Digging his keys out from his pocket, he unlocks the padlock and descends the stairs, turning the light on at the bottom. What he finds troubles him.

The young man he had brought back from his hunt over a week ago is clearly dead, his body slumped forward; the only thing keeping him upright is his restrained hands tied behind him around the support beam. Leon walks up to him, grabbing him by the hair on the back of his head and lifting his head up, letting go. He watches as the young man’s head immediately drops forward, confirming that he is very much dead. Judging by how white the man’s skin is, Leon wouldn’t have gotten much out of him anyway if he was still alive. 

“Shit…” Leon mutters to himself. 

Leon walks over to a workbench against the basement wall, grabbing a large knife from it. He walks back over to the dead young man, cutting his restraints. The body falls forward onto the floor with a loud thud. Leon walks back over to the workbench, putting the knife down and picking up a large tarp to wrap the man’s body in. Once the body is thoroughly wrapped, Leon slings the body over his shoulder, carrying it up the stairs, shutting the light off on his way up. He sets the body down onto the floor, turning around to lock the basement door back up.

He then turns to go up the stairs, stopping in the bedroom threshold to admire his angel’s sleeping form for a moment before he walks around to her side of the bed, bending down to give her a soft kiss on the lips. She stirs in her sleep.

“Leon…?”

“Hey angel,” Leon starts with a soft smile, “I have some traps on the hiking trails I need to check for the B.O.W.. I’ll be back, ok?”

“O-Ok… be careful…” she says softly, closing her eyes.

“I will. I promise,” Leon replies, giving her another kiss on the lips before he turns, leaving the bedroom.

He goes into the living room, putting his socks and work boots on before he walks back over to the body to pick it up off the floor, walking outside with it. He walks up to his Jeep, opening the tailgate and tossing the body inside, shutting it. He walks over to the drivers side, putting his keys into the ignition and driving off.

It must be really late because there isn’t a single soul on the road as Leon drives to the trailhead where he originally found the two poor hikers unfortunate enough to cross his path on his hunt. The fact that they were the same two men that gawked at him and his angel as he was courting her was just an added bonus. Coming upon the trailhead, Leon kills the headlights on his Jeep and turns in to park. He wastes no time grabbing the body from the back, unwrapping it from the tarp and heading deep into the woods with it. He finds a good spot to dispose of it, about a half mile from the body of the other hiker he killed that same night. He’s honestly surprised Fish and Game hadn’t found it yet.

After disposing of the body, Leon goes on the hunt, sniffing the air for any signs of anyone on the trails. He knew it was a long shot now that the trails are closed, but he is hoping there would be someone stupid enough to come anyway despite the ordinance. Leon must have walked several miles but can’t find a single scent of human life in the forest. He does stumble upon a deer. He technically can survive on animal blood but Leon is a picky man.

Human blood tastes so much better.

After several hours, Leon can see that the sun is about to come up, so he calls off his search, returning to his Jeep to drive home while it’s still dark. His timing is perfect, because the sun is just starting to rise as he pulls up to his house, parking his Jeep to go inside. He’s surprised to be hit with the smell of eggs and bacon as soon as he walks in; his angel must have gotten up to make breakfast.

“I’m back!” he calls out as he walks into the kitchen, confirming his suspicions upon finding her in front of the stove. 

She turns, smiling at Leon as he walks into the kitchen, “you went out without a jacket or anything? Aren’t you cold?”

“Nah I’m fine, the cold air is good for burning calories,” Leon replies with a chuckle as he walks up next to you, wrapping his arm around your waist, “thank you for breakfast, angel.”

Leon kisses the top of her head as he watches her cook. He appreciates the gesture, even if the food will do nothing to sate his hunger. 

“Any sign of the B.O.W.?” she asks, leaning into his embrace as she cooks.

Leon shakes his head, “nope. Nothing.”

While the town is busy getting ready for the Harvest Festival, you and Leon are hard at work on his house. Over the last couple of weeks since you practically moved in with him, you two managed to get the living room and entryway redone and decided to work on the master bathroom upstairs. It’s small, so most of the time it was just Leon working on it while you keep him company. Currently he’s laying under the bathroom sink, redoing the plumbing from the sink while you sit on the edge of the bed.

Over the last day or so, you notice that Leon is looking exceptionally pale and today, you can see some of his veins are dark and prominent, especially on his arms. He also seems to tire more easily, his breaths heavy as he works to wrench off one of the pipes under the sink.

“Leon,” you finally speak up, “have you been feeling ok?”

Leon stops what he’s doing, sitting up and looking at you with a quizzical look on his face, “what makes you ask, angel?”

“You just look… I dunno… sick…”

Leon looks down at his bare arms, seemingly acknowledging how pale he looks as he nods his head before standing up from the floor. 

“I suppose I have been pushing myself pretty hard, lately,” he says, walking up to you before sitting next to you on the bed.

“Maybe you should take a break. The Harvest Festival starts tomorrow and goes until this Saturday, Halloween; let’s pick a day and go!”

“That sounds like a wonderful idea, angel,” he says, wrapping his arm around you.

You notice immediately that his skin is cold and clammy, but you chalk that up to his exhaustion from working on the house nonstop. 

The two of you decide to go Wednesday in hopes that it wouldn’t be as crowded. Unfortunately, you were wrong, very wrong. Parking was next to impossible until Leon finally found a spot way in the back of the lot by the forest. It’s late afternoon, the sun hanging low in the sky. The Oakvale fairground is teeming with life, the sounds of people laughing and screaming on carnival rides filling the air. The star attraction, a large ferris wheel, lights up the entire area like a lighthouse, drawing everyone to it like moths to a flame. 

Leon is wearing one of his dark leather jackets, but even with that on you could see that Leon looks even more pale than he had the other day, noting dark veins spreading over his muscular neck.

“Leon, are you sure you’re feeling ok, you look worse than you did the other day.”

“I promise, I’m fine, angel. I just need some fresh air, which I’m sure we’ll get plenty of here.”

“Alright… but if you look worse tomorrow, promise you'll go to a doctor.”

"I will, angel," Leon replies, giving you a reassuring smile before he wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you close.

He suddenly leans down to you, burying his nose in your hair and inhaling deep. You let out a playful giggle at his gesture.

“Leon! What are you doing?”

“You smell irresistible, angel,” he replies, giving you a kiss on the top of your head before he pries his nose from your hair.

It takes several minutes to walk the length of the parking area to the fairground, the setting sun turning everything a brilliant orange as it makes its descent behind the mountains.

“How about we watch the sunset from up there?” Leon suggests, nodding his head towards the ferris wheel.

You feel your cheeks tingle at the idea, “we’ll have to get tickets first, there’s a ticket booth right there next to it.”

“Wait here,” Leon says, planting a kiss on the top of your head before you watch him walk up to the ticket booth.

You watch them exchange words, unable to hear anything they’re saying over the sounds of the crowd and the rides. With tickets in hand, Leon walks back over to you, reaching to take your hand and leading you over to the ferris wheel line. It’s long, but it goes fast; the two of you are next to board before you even know it. Getting into the cart, the two of you sit on one side as the wheel slowly begins to move up. Leon wastes no time pulling you into his embrace.

“So…” you begin resting your head on his chest, “once the B.O.W. is taken care of, you’ll have to leave, won’t you?”

You feel his chin rest on the top of your head, “I should be able to pull some strings to be able to stay here, I wouldn’t be fixing the house up otherwise.”

As the cart makes its ascent to the top, the two of you sit there in silence, but Leon’s gentle rubbing of your upper arm and the occasional kiss he places on the top of your head speaks more than words ever could. The love you feel for him is overwhelming, although for some reason you were hesitant to say it out loud. The cart finally reaches the top, stopping for a few minutes.

“Wow…” you say under your breath.

The sunset is the most beautiful you have ever seen. It looks like the whole sky is set ablaze as the sun slowly creeps behind the mountains. You feel Leon’s nose bury itself back in your hair, feeling him inhale deeply once more.

“Someday soon… I hope to give you something really special,” Leon says suddenly, “a gift.”

You shift in his embrace, looking up at him into his blue eyes, “what kind of gift?”

You can barely contain your excitement at the implication of his words. The first thing that immediately comes to mind is an engagement ring. You watch a smirk cross Leon’s lips as he stares back at you.

“I don’t want to ruin the surprise, you’ll have to wait and see.”

“You’re such a tease,” you say as you playfully punch his shoulder.

“God, I love you,” Leon replies before he pushes you into the side of the cart, kissing you deeply.

His words give you whiplash, you aren’t even given enough time to process them when his tongue dips into your mouth as he practically devours you. He breaks off the kiss for a moment, his lustful gaze locked on yours.

“Do you think anyone would notice if I fucked you up here?” he says with a smug look.

“Pretty sure they’d notice one of the carts moving erratically,” you reply, unable to contain your bashful giggling. 

“Damn,” he replies, the disappointment evident in his voice as he leans back so that you can sit back up in the cart as it begins to make its descent.

You watch his eyes scan the fairgrounds for a moment before you shift back over to him, his arm draping across your shoulders. After a few minutes, your cart descends back to the ground and you’re let off the ride.

“I need to use the bathroom real quick, I think I saw it over there while we were up on the ferris wheel, I’ll meet you back here, ok?” Leon says, leaning down to give you a quick kiss on the lips.

You reply with a quick nod as you watch Leon head into the crowd. You take this opportunity to look around at some of the vendors in the immediate area. A lot of them were selling cheap knockoffs of popular cartoon characters, funny hats and toys, but there are some homemade soaps and other homemade crafts and foods as well. 

15 minutes go by and Leon still hasn’t come back yet. You do your best not to worry, you figure there is probably a large line to use the bathrooms; there always seems to be a line at the festival. You’re at a stall belonging to a lady that made handcrafted signs when all of a sudden you hear a very distinct sound.

Bang. Bang, Bang. Bang…

“Is that gunfire?!” you hear someone say as you hear more banging sounds ring out. 

You quickly realize the sound is coming from the direction of the bathrooms.

“Leon!” you call out as you make a run to the bathrooms.

As you run closer, you can still hear the gunfire, and as you come upon the bathrooms, you realize the gunfire is coming from the woods behind them. You don’t hesitate and run into them, noting that there are several police officers following behind you with their guns drawn. You run about a quarter of a mile when you find Leon standing over a young man; his gun drawn and pointing to the depths of the woods.

“Leon!” you call out to him, the officers quickly catching up to you, “are you ok?! What happened?!”

Leon turns to you and you’re shocked to find his jacket, shirt and face are covered in blood, “when I got over here to use the bathroom, I heard someone calling for help, so I came to investigate. Something was on top of him. I managed to drive the creature off him but it bolted into the woods. I tried to resuscitate him but…”

You watch Leon’s gaze shift to the young man splayed out on the ground. The man had a large gaping wound in his neck, blood still coming out of it and his mouth. That at least explains why Leon has blood all over him, he had tried to perform CPR.

“Sir we’re going to need to see some identification,” one of the officers states, approaching him.

“Of course,” Leon says, pulling his wallet out and flipping it open to show a federal ID, “I’m agent Leon S. Kennedy, Division of Security Operations. I’m stationed here on official classified business.”

The officer nods, looking down at the dead young man, seemingly satisfied with Leon’s response. Chief Bob suddenly approaches, running his hand through his hair, staring down at the dead young man in disbelief. 

“Son of a bitch…” Chief Bob says under his breath as he gently kicks the body with his foot before turning to the other officers, “evacuate the fairground, we need to shut down the festival.”

The ride home is solemn, you zone out looking out the window into the night as Leon drives. All you can smell is the man’s blood that is all over Leon’s clothes; he thankfully managed to clean off his face in the bathroom before leaving the fairground. You suddenly feel Leon’s hand caress your thigh, making you jump a little as you come out of your daze.

“You ok, angel?” Leon asks softly as he glances over at you.

“Yeah… I guess I’m just shaken. What was that guy even doing out there?”

“From what I saw when I first found him, he went out there to smoke a cigarette. Poor guy…”

“Did you see the B.O.W. at all?”

Leon shakes his head, “not really, it was dark, but I could see it had these back claw things and a long tail before it bolted into the forest. I’d never imagined it’d try attacking so close to town like that.”

“We’re never going to hear the end of it from my Dad…”

“Your father can kiss my ass,” Leon says, his voice full of malice.

“Leon… please don’t…”

“He treats you like shit, tries to control everything you do. It’s a miracle he’s even married to be honest.”

“Leon, he's still my Dad.”

“And you’re my mate. So long as I’m around, your father has no power over you.”

You blink a few times, your brain trying to figure out if you heard him correctly, “I’m your… what?”

You see Leon shake his head quickly, correcting himself, “sorry… city slang. My girlfriend. You’re my girlfriend.”

Hearing him refer to you as his girlfriend makes your nerves spark, you lean your head against the passenger side window in an attempt to calm yourself. The Jeep finally pulls into the driveway; Leon parks it on the side of the house and the two of you head inside. Leon makes sure the front door is locked.

“I don’t know about you, but I need a shower,” Leon says, peeling off his blood soaked jacket and shirt, walking over to the washing machine adjacent to the kitchen and tossing them inside.

“I like that idea a lot, actually, “ you reply as your eyes move up and down his naked torso, admiring his physique.

Leon smirks at you, seeing you gawk at him, “I knew you would, angel.”

You watch as Leon goes upstairs, you soon follow close behind him. He goes into the master bathroom, turning on the shower to warm it up before he discards the rest of his clothes. Even from where you stand in the master bathroom threshold, you can see that he’s already starting to get hard, meaning the two of you clearly had the same thing on your minds. The second thing you notice is that his skin looks a thousand times better than it had when you first got to the fairground; full of color and life. He was right; he had just needed the fresh air.

You begin to undress as Leon steps into the shower, joining him once you’re fully unclothed. Leon’s hands are immediately on you once you’re inside the shower with him, pushing you against the shower wall as he leans down to kiss the crook of your neck. You feel his hands grasp at your hips as you feel him kiss, suck and gently bite your neck; there will surely be marks later but in that moment, you don’t care; the only thing on your mind is him and how much you want him.

A soft moan escapes your lips as his own begin to trail down from your neck, to your shoulder, then to the front of your chest where his mouth latches onto one of your breasts. You feel his tongue lap the sensitive nipple, causing shivers to travel down your spine and throughout your entire body. With one of your hands, you caress down his toned chest until you’re greeted by his rock hard member, your hand grasping around it to give him slow, but firm strokes. 

“Oh… fuck…” Leon moans, taking his mouth off your breasts to lean down and kiss you.

His kiss is deep and hungry, his tongue invading your mouth as he has your hips in his vice-like grip. You manage to break away, suddenly getting on your knees, gently holding his throbbing cock by the base as your tongue gently runs up the bottom to the tip. It’s a lovely shade of dark pink, crying pre-cum as you take him into your mouth.

“I get to fuck your pretty mouth?” you hear Leon growl as he thrusts into your mouth, his hand grasping the hair on the back of your head.

You gag as the tip of his cock pushes into the back of your throat at an increasingly fast pace; the sounds coming out of your mouth are borderline pornographic. You feel tears tease the corners of your eyes as Leon relentlessly fucks your mouth and just when it's becoming too much, his hand that’s on the back of your head yanks your mouth free, pulling you up to force you to stand.

Leon pushes the shower door open, aggressively pushing you against the bathroom counter. You manage to catch yourself with your hands, looking up into the mirror to see Leon looming behind you. One of his hands is placed on your back, pushing you forward as you feel his cock prod at your soaked hole. He quickly sheathes himself inside you, eliciting a loud moan out of you when he bottoms out inside you, your walls instinctively squeezing around him as he fills you. 

He wastes no time thrusting into you. The thrusts are slow, but powerful, with purpose. A combination of his name and ‘oh my god’ spilling from your lips as you are fucked dumb on his cock.

“That’s it, taking me so well my pretty angel,” Leon purrs as he picks up the pace on his thrusts.

You lean your head forward, your arms shaking as they struggle to prop you up on the bathroom counter. Suddenly, you once again feel Leon’s hand grasp the hair on the back of your head, pulling you up so that your back is against his chest.

“This pussy is all mine, you hear me, angel?” Leon growls in your ear, “I want you to watch yourself as I breed you.”

His thrusts become aggressive, your mind too cock drunk to protest him cumming inside you. Your eyes threaten to roll into the back of your head as the head of his cock abuses your cervix. A wave of pleasure washes over you as you cum on his length, your walls squeezing him tight as you moan loudly. Letting out an animalistic growl, Leon pushes himself as hard and as deep into you as he possibly can. You suddenly feel a sharp, excruciating pain from deep within your core followed by the warmth of his cum filling you as he pushes himself inside you; you watch as your face contorts in the mirror. Tears stream down your face as Leon’s arms wrap possessively around you while still pushing his throbbing cock inside you.

“L-Leon… it hurts!” you sob out in agony, your body violently trembling.

“Shhhhh… I know, angel, I know. You’re taking my seed so well, baby. I have to make sure it takes. It’s almost over, I promise,” he softly coos in your ear. 

It feels like an eternity before Leon’s member finally stops throbbing inside you. He gives you a gentle kiss on your cheek before he slowly pulls out. You let out a pathetic whimper as you collapse against the bathroom counter, your body still shaking from both the pleasure and the pain. You can feel some of his cum leak out as it runs down the inner side of your leg. You feel Leon’s fingers spread your pussy lips open; you glance up in the mirror to see the look of pure admiration on his face as he stares at your leaking hole.

“So beautiful,” he whispers. 

Saturday morning, Mick’s favorite. His eyes slowly open to see the clock read 7:47am back at him. He rolls onto his back, stretching his arms out to find the space next to him is empty; Sandi is already up. Mick climbs out of bed, sliding his feet into his slippers before he walks into the master bathroom to relieve himself. Afterwards, he goes downstairs into the kitchen, the smell of bacon filling the air as he spots Sandi over the stove making breakfast.

“I grabbed the paper, hun. It’s on the table,” she says as she begins plating their breakfast.

Mick sits down at his chair, unfolding the newspaper to be greeted with large bold text reading:

Trick or Treating Canceled in Oakvale

Wild animal attack during annual Harvest Festival prompts town officials to cancel trick or treating. 

Mick doesn’t bother reading the rest of the article. He flips the page, shaking his head.

“Did you see they canceled trick or treating tonight?” Mick asks Sandi as he reads through the paper. 

“I did,” Sandi says as she brings two plates of bacon and pancakes over to the table, setting one down in front of Mick while she sits in a chair next to him, “what a shame.”

“Why does no one listen to me? I told them having the festival was a bad idea and look what happened.”

Not even mentioning Leon was there when it happened…

On one hand, it makes sense that Leon was there given what Leon had made him privy to when his daughter moved in with him, but there is still a part of him that thinks that Leon is somehow involved; he just can’t prove it. 

“Honey, I know, but the festival is a huge part of this town, you know that.”

“I know…”

“Fish and Game found those two hikers from Plymouth State yesterday, both dead,” Sandi says, eating her breakfast.

Mick lets out a heavy sigh as he sets the newspaper down on the table, digging into his breakfast in silence, his mind wandering. He calls back to the first hiker that went missing, which wasn’t unusual around here. People went hiking in the Notch unprepared all the time. Now that he thought about it, he doesn’t think they ever found that person’s body. 

The rest of the day is uneventful. Not getting trick or treaters is an adjustment. Mick spends his evening in his recliner, mindlessly scrolling through channels on TV. There’s a sudden rap on the door, startling Mick so much that he sits up in the recliner. He looks up at the clock, which reads just after 11:00pm. The knocking continues, insistent and forceful.

“Who the fuck could that be at this hour?” Mick asks himself under his breath as he walks over to the front door, opening it to find Leon, clearly out of breath as he leans up against the door frame with one arm.

“Leon!” Mick says, surprised, “what are you doing here?”

“I need your help, Mick,” Leon begins, “I have the B.O.W. cornered but not for long. I can’t take it down on my own.”

“Why come to me for help? Did you run here?” Mick asks, looking around behind Leon but not finding his Jeep.

“I did…” Leon replies, still winded as he stands up straight, “I came to you because you’re the only other person besides your daughter who knows about the B.O.W. and I am not putting her in danger.”

“Shit hold on, let me get my gun,” Mick says as he turns to walk into the house, but Leon grabs his arm to stop him.

“There’s no time, I have a gun for you right here,” Leon pats the holster strapped to his leg, “we need to go. Now.”

“I need to at least tell my wife--”

“No, don’t tell a soul, if it gets out there’s a B.O.W. here, there will be panic. I can’t let that happen.”

Mick is at war with himself, he doesn’t trust Leon, but on the chance that Leon is being truthful, this is his chance to put an end to this nightmare and things can finally go back to normal around here. 

He looks to Leon, giving him a quick nod in acknowledgement, “let’s go.”

Leon pulls the gun from his hip holster and a flashlight from his pocket, handing them to Mick before he gestures for him to follow him. Mick follows, quietly closing the front door behind him before both of them break out into a run. Mick struggles to keep up with Leon, who’s obviously in much better shape than he is being a government agent and all. Within 10 minutes, they’re at the fairground, unsurprisingly; this is where the creature got its latest meal, of course it would stick around.

Leon and Mick head into the forest, Leon leading the way as they continue to run deeper and deeper into the forest. Eventually, they come upon a small clearing, Leon slowing himself to a stop as Mick runs slightly ahead into the clearing. Mick looks around, not seeing any sign of life in the immediate area.

“Where did it go? Did the fucker take off?” Mick scoffs in frustration as he continues to look around ahead of him into the darkness, the flashlight doing little to penetrate it.

“It’s right here.” Leon growls from behind Mick.

Mick turns around slowly, the flashlight confirming his deepest fears as his breaths become ragged with his racing heart. Leon is standing behind him, shirtless. Black veins sprawl across his skin as Leon stares at Mick with piercing red eyes. Leon’s mouth starts to morph into a sinister grin, revealing two long, sharp canine teeth.

“I fucking knew it! What are you, some kind of vampire?!”

“Oh Mick… I’m so much more than that,” Leon purrs, flexing his fists as he slowly approaches him. 

Mick watches in horror as four long, claw-like black appendages burst from his back, his eyes widening in shock as he stumbles backwards away from Leon’s approach. Then, a long scorpion-like tail snakes out from behind him, curling to the front to reveal a sharp, blade-esque end. 

“Jesus Christ!” Mick cries out, holding the gun up and pulling the trigger.

Click, click, click, says the empty chamber of the gun.

“Tsk, tsk, tsk… you really think I’d be stupid enough to give you a loaded gun, Mick?” Leon taunts, continuing his advance.

In a last ditch effort to defend himself, he chucks the empty handgun at Leon, who catches it with lightning fast reflexes with his hand, putting it back into his hip holster. 

“You certainly had me nervous, Mick, you seem to be the only one who caught on to the fact that there’s something very wrong about me,” Leon says, his voice dripping with venom before he licks his fangs with his tongue. 

“What do you want?!”

“I want what any man wants, to breed with his mate and pass down his bloodline. I’m the last of my kind, you know. I have to do my part to ensure the survival of my species.”

“Your mate? You mean my fucking daughter?!”

Leon lets out a low chuckle, “yes I mean your daughter. You should be proud of her, she’s currently carrying my offspring. She doesn’t know that yet, but she will soon enough, I promise you.”

“You son of a bitch! You won’t get away with this!”

“Oh, but I will Mick,” Leon says, grinning, “you see, the only ones that know what I truly am are you and I. I am quite famished, Mick and lucky for you, I enjoy playing with my food.”

Mick continues to back away from Leon, the light of the flashlight shaking as Leon stalks closer.

Leon chuckles once more before continuing, “I’ll even give you a head start, so I hope you make it fun for me.”

“Shit…” Mick says under his breath as the reality of his situation sinks in, watching Leon grin even wider as he spreads his arms out in a taunting gesture.

“Run.”

Part 6

#leon kennedy #leon s kennedy #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #leon kennedy smut #leon kennedy x reader smut #vampire!leon kennedy #plagas!leon kennedy #gigabyte writes #he #comes alive

[8-dermestid]

it's like as if somebody was gripping my throat

relationship: eyeless jack x reader

word count: 6.2k

links: available to read on ao3

warnings: canon-typical violence

M. Eerie National Park is one of the most boring places to work. You hike the trails to make sure nobody is trying to stay after hours, clean up garbage, and befriend the local cryptid.

Nobody knows about that last part except for you.

(like/reblogs are greatly appreciated, requests are open ✷)

“—Shocking news for M. Eerie National Park. Another victim, twenty-one-year-old Penn State student Ryan Sheppard, discovered on the property��”

You dig into your food, tuning out the broadcast as you scarf down your lunch and prepare for work. You rinse your bowl, toss it into the dishwasher, and move into the bedroom to change out of your pajamas and into your uniform. You pull up your cargo pants and pull on a green collared shirt with the M. Eerie National Park logo embroidered on the pocket. After deodorant, you pull on your hiking boots, grab your jacket and bag, and leave towards your car.

She’s a beat-up old thing, but she gets you to and from work without too much trouble. It’s a short, red, rust-damaged Honda Civic. Your car’s engine is strong, and it, other than the external imperfections and duct-taped-on mirror, has treated you well, and you’ve never felt the need to trade up.

(Nor the want, being a park ranger hardly gives you enough money to keep your head above the water, but you love it, and working an office job sounds worse than pulling all your toenails out at once with rusty pliers.)

The car sputters to life, rumbling beneath you in her comfortable and familiar way. You look down at the radio—the clock reads 14:37—you’ll be on time for the start of your shift. The drive isn’t exciting, and you’d take your boring drive over a three-hour drive to the office any day. Your job is so easy, too, a simple routine you follow every day—go in during the afternoon, hike the trails before closing, watch for lost folks and garbage, and close up the park. It’s easy, so easy that your job is almost dull. You walk into the break room, your lunch in your non-dominant hand, and stumble into a meeting.

“Oh. Hey guys.” You hesitate, creeping over to put your food in the fridge. Usually, the break room was empty, and Leslie, your superior in the standard uniform with her beat-up clipboard, was marching back and forth like a drill sergeant.

In the kindest way possible, you hope she retires. She’s been working here for so long and managing everything that she deserves some R-and-R. Leslie is the backbone of the team, and one would have to pry her position from her cold, dead hands (even then, it would still be a fight), but she should consider passing the job to someone else.

You plop down in one of the three empty chairs. Two of your coworkers transferred to another park (quite suddenly, too, no two-week notice or anything). It’s not good, especially considering they were the only other people working your shift.

“Alright, we can wrap up this meeting with a quick problem,” Leslie begins again, waving quietly to you. “Guests have been reporting stolen items more than usual, lots of jackets, gloves, boots, ooh—food, too,” Leslie jots something down on her clipboard, “To be honest, I think people are just misplacing things and blaming it on the wildlife, but if you see anything, just radio me, and I’ll come to help you sort it out.”

You nod. People leave things where they shouldn’t be all the time—you can't count the number of times families wake up with ransacked coolers because they leave them outside unprotected.

Leslie sighs, “And—look—there have been more than a few teens sneaking off into the woods before we close. Please, I don’t want another 24-hour challenge incident on our record. Keep an eye out for them. I mean it.”

Everyone affirms, whether with a nod or a “Yes, Leslie.”

The team filters out of the break room, and one of your coworkers (with wild, dark hair and stickers nearly smothering the Molly on her nametag) bounds to your side like a deer.

“You think it’s a bear?” She asks. She’s practically bouncing off the walls despite Park Ranger being the least thrilling job on the planet.

You shrug. You don’t carry the same energy that Molly does. She is just a wee sixteen-year-old at your side working her first big girl job, and any excitement at this middle-of-nowhere park is a godsend for her.

“Well, it could be a bear. But, I mean, a bear wouldn’t be stealing men’s jackets or boots.” she suggests, “Maybe not a bear, or maybe it’s those kids again… Remember the kids from a few weeks ago?”

Oh. Oh, of course, you remember those kids. Three of them, two girls and some in-between kid, all seventeen and seniors at the local high school (local being the closest high school, which was thirty miles away) that Leslie caught trying to stay overnight for some silly internet challenge. One of them, the in-between kid with the flattest hair you’ve seen in a while, brought an Ouija board because of some weird internet gossip about your park. It was strange—super, duper weird—because the couple (apparently, maybe? You aren’t sure) ditched the third girl to make out under an abandoned deck. Leslie only caught them because the third (a taller, more heavyset girl with colored hair) was terrified of some tall, slender man who scared her on the internet.

“God, don’t remind me.” You finally say. You still remember the three of them yelling at each other, Leslie dragging them out by the collars of their shirts like scruffed cats after they got caught (because one of the girls was a crybaby, their words, not yours).

Leaving the break room and finally feeling the sun this morning, Molly waves you goodbye and starts jogging down her favorite trail. She’s got energy for miles; if she were older and wiser, she could compete with Leslie.

Speaking of, Leslie pats your shoulder. Her grey hair shimmers in the sun, and she, with wrinkles showcasing her long and fulfilling life, smiles down at you.

“Afternoon, kiddo. You doing alright?”

You nod, more focused on the heavy workload you have in front of you.

Leslie pats your back like a coach would to her favorite player, “I know Josh and Ryan quitting hasn’t been easy on you.” Her voice is too solemn for a work transfer, “I’ll be working tonight, too, if that eases you.”

You perk up, half with relief and half because working with Leslie is the best. It’s comforting to have a superior like her around when people start getting wild in the woods; she’s good at grabbing people by the scruff and dragging them out, kicking and hollering.

“You can take care of the Southern Reach, yeah? You’re a big kid—you can handle it.”

You’re more than just a kid, but between her being near retirement age while you are fresh out of college—you are a kid in her eyes. You nod, already unhooking your heavy flashlight from its carabiner.

“That’s the ticket. I’ll take Northern. We’ll meet back up here for closing.”

“No, no, I’ll handle closing.” You persuade, “Come on, Leslie, I can handle closing a big gate. Just handle Northern and go home.”

She debates it, rolling the idea around in her mind before conceding. “Alright, kiddo. Just this once, though.”

At first, with the sun just touching the horizon, your checks go well, and you clean up a few empty beer cans along the southernmost trails. Your trash bag is light, which is a plus. You don’t need to pull your flashlight out until past seven in the evening when the moon peeks out behind you. You find an empty can of soup (chicken-noodle but with star-shaped pasta instead of noodles). The top looks messily cut, as if with a knife, which isn’t at all uncommon.

Except, well, this can has a pull tab disregarded by the previous user. You turn over the can in your palm, examining the shredded metal and paper label, and toss it into the bag with the rest of the trash.

Further, closer to the center of the trails, there is another disemboweled can. You pick up one, the lid is also ripped off, the pull-tab forgotten about, yet this soup can has more than half of it ripped off into a swirly shape, almost like someone was desperate for something to eat. It’s Campbell’s, not Grandma’s cooking.

There’s another can further into the woods, more shredded than the last, with a deep dent in the center; the can was clean, too clean, which is both weird and disgusting. Dogs shouldn’t eat this stuff concentrated—too much sodium.

Another one; there is a streaky, black substance marbling with some soup still sitting at the bottom of the can; another, and more of that black slime. You carefully pick up each one and add it to the bag. The next can has more of that substance—almost too much. The smell is putrid. It burns inside your nose, and you get a whiff of formaldehyde or something that reeks of death.

You keep traveling into the woods, finding more debris and litter, an old chewed-through sleeve, a jacket, and a glove smattered with that syrup-y oil. There’s something wet beneath your palm, and thank the stars you chose to bring your gloves this morning. It’s red, with a black slime marbled in it. It’s sticky between your fingers, and it smells awful. You follow the trail of red and black with your flashlight.

The source is the mangled carcass of a hiker wearing a high-vis vest. You suck in a breath and reach for your walkie-talkie. It’s sickening, and you can’t stop looking at the body as you radio for your superior.

“Leslie? Leslie, you there?” You plead, hands shaking and mind racing. Of all the people you want to pick up, it’s her. She’s been working here since before you were born—maybe she’s found a mutilated person in her time working the trails.

The silence stretches for an eternity until you hear a familiar voice on the other end.

“Hey, I’m here. What’s going on?” She asks.

“Uhm, I don’t know,” You make the mistake of looking at it, at the remnants of a man, at the carcass before you. “I don’t even know what could do something like this.” God, it makes you sick, but you can’t look away.

“Come on, talk to me,” She barks, her voice firm with years of seniority, “What are you seeing? Talk.”

You swallow. “Some hiker got attacked. They’re not responsive,” You mutter into your little plastic lifeline. “I’m off Trapper’s—I don’t know—Christ, I’m going to be sick.”

“...Okay,” Leslie replies quickly, “Are you safe?”

You don’t know the answer to that question. You swallow a lump in your throat as you look frantically for movement in the dark woods. Leslie says something, but you can’t hear it over the sound of your heart hammering away in your ears. You see movement between the trees, the primal part of your brain attempting to identify any immediate danger. Everything is spinning, it reeks of death, and Leslie’s voice is staticky because of the shitty speakers.

“Answer me! Come on, kiddo, where are you?” She shouted, her voice laced with harsh static.

Your flashlight flickers, and you hope whoever ordered these flashlights has something horrible happen to them. Something rustles in the bush. The only thing you have to protect yourself is a bag of loose garbage and your shitty flashlight. Leslie is shouting so loud you can only hear half of her words. Whatever emerges from that bush will eat you alive—you’re sure of it.

The stench of death gets heavier as a figure crawls out from beneath the foliage, wearing a dark hoodie and a blue mask. There’s blood and guts caked under their fingernails, and they look filthy and smell worse. They lock eyes with you and try to stand, stumbling and letting out a near-inhuman cry. You hold your heavy flashlight like a baton—all it’s useful for, considering the lightbulb works when it wants to—as the masked stranger lets out a wheezy breath and crawls towards you.

You grip the flashlight so hard your hands are shaking, taking careful steps back to maintain some distance between both of you. Their approach doesn’t stop. They reach and grab at your leg and pull you to the ground. Your head is spinning as it collides with the damp earth, and you feel two hands digging into your abdomen, sharp nails scratching and attempting to burrow into your stomach. You shout as their ice-cold hands scrape across your body, their claws raking across tender flesh.

You thrash and try to push them away, but they hold you down with one hand and remove their mask with the other.

You always said you’d know what to do if you were in a slasher flick. You always called the protagonists stupid for freezing up in front of certain death, never thinking about what it felt like, knowing you were probably going to die. You look them in the eye—more so what’s left of them, staring into two tar-filled sockets where their eyes would be—and unable to do anything.

You lay back, each breath barely making it in and out of your lungs. They stop, hands still pressed firmly against you. They crane their neck, probably just as surprised as you for simply giving up. They tug your shirt back down, pressing a palm over it and smoothing the fabric with their palm.

It reignites something in you because before either of you can register what’s happening, they’re squealing in pain as you hit them upside the head with your flashlight. You scramble away, pulling yourself to your feet and running blindly to the main trail.

You don’t stop, even after the demonic cries die out under the sound of the beginning storm. You push and push yourself until you nearly collide with Leslie.

“Stars—! Kid, where the hell were you? What the hell happened to you?”

She shines the light across your face, then brushes a leaf from your coat. It’s hard to think about speaking; Leslie knows you’re trying.

“Hey, it’s okay. Come on, I’ll drive you home, kiddo.”

“But the—”

“Don’t worry about it,” She says as softly as she can, “You’ve done all you can do. Anything about you that I should be worried about?”

You pat your abdomen, a few lines of brown blood staining the front. You shake your head, and Leslie holds off on grilling you for details.

✷𓃞 ✷

She drives you home in her big pickup truck (she even went through a drive-thru and got you something to eat on the way home). She pats your back as you dig through the bottom of the bag for scraps.

“Don’t think about coming back tomorrow—Partly because you’ve been through hell tonight—but also because there’s going to be an investigation. Look—take it easy, maybe go see your doctor, don’t come back until at least next Tuesday.”

Leslie pulls over to the side of your street and pulls out a box of cigarettes. “I mean it, take it easy. You do enough work while you’re on the clock; don’t worry about anything—I have people that can cover your shift if you need more time off.”

You nod, gathering your things and walking towards your house, digging your keys from your jacket to escape the rainy weather. You shut the door behind you, and Leslie walks towards her truck, a thin line of smoke trailing behind her.

You open the door, and a warm puff of air welcomes you home. It’s quiet and dark, leaving you on edge from tonight’s incident. Instead of relaxing—like Leslie practically ordered you to—you drop your bag at the front door and book it to your computer. It hums to life, and you punch in your password and open your web browser. Surprisingly, being attacked by a person-shaped thing did not perturb your furious web-searching.

Creature in the woods near me

Masked creature, person that tried to eat me?

Blue man— you hastily hit backspace as Blue Man Group auto-fills in your search bar.

You keep trying outrageous combinations of words, eventually finding a near-defunct blog with a picture of the freaky humanoid that almost killed you.

EYELESS JACK. Well, the name fits. At least you’ve finally got a name for that face. You read through this article, which recounts this woman—a hiker-slash-rock-climber, to be more specific—coming into contact with a human-ish guy. They had a few photos of deep claw wounds that scarred over pale on her dark skin. You jot down the name, continuing to dig into the incident recounted by this woman.

You pause and close all your curtains and turn off all the lights (and you get yourself a drink to keep yourself awake). Sinking into your chair again, you continue the deep dive into this Eyeless Jack fellow, feeling like a detective from some once-popular show that wasn’t that good. You keep searching—jotting down leads for your search—until the sun is peeking over the horizon, and you can hardly keep your eyes open. Eyeless Jack has been around for longer than you first believed—they’ve probably been terrorizing after-dark visitors of your park for years, right under your nose.

Are there more missing-person cases? Did any of your coworkers who quit unexpectedly actually have a reason? God, this journey to the weirdest parts of the internet has left you with more questions than answers.

You look down at the big sticky-note pad you used for notes. It looks like you fell off the deep end with your feverish scrawling, smeared ink, and lots of quick notes about disembowelment, kidney removal, and even cult activity. You think this may need another night of internet excavation to answer those (and inevitably, come up with more, even crazier, questions). Based on a few accounts of unwanted kidney removal in their sleep, you think about getting something to eat—

—and staying as far from your bed as possible.

✷𓃞 ✷

You can’t even eat breakfast without being tempted by your thirst for knowledge; it’s unbearable. You don’t even want to think of spending more than a few days at home. Hopefully, the police hurry up and finish so you can start your investigation.

You quickly rinse and dry your empty dish, filling a glass of water and flopping onto the couch. Surfing channels and finding something mindlessly entertaining will probably take your mind off things.

The news is boring—talking about the recent storm off the southern coast—and some cooking show. A history documentary—about someone you don’t care for—a jewelry channel, another news channel, and a kids’ show.

(Tempting, but no.)

The local news, though not mindless, is entertaining. There’s an over-top camera view of the park. Dozens of police cruisers and K-9 units are parked—and you can see your car, your old, rusty girl in the lot—Cops are infesting every corner of your TV, some moving into the woods toward Trapper’s, others lingering to talk in the view of the helicopter. It cuts to a news anchor recapping the incident from last night. They think it’s a bear attack. Leslie says it was a bear attack. Your coworkers say it was a bear attack, and Wildlife Removal will deal with it.

They don’t know anything—Jack tore into that hiker like a wild animal—and left the poor guy’s insides all over the forest floor.

You don’t stop watching the news until they start talking about the weather, where you only half-listen. There’s going to be a storm tonight. The teams at your job are probably going to try to recover the body and bring it to the morgue before it starts raining.

You turn off the TV after that. You examine your abdomen, five short lines across your belly where their claws made contact. You decide to go to the bathroom to clean and dress them.

“Better to be safe than sorry.” You tell yourself.

After a few cotton balls soaked in alcohol and big bandaids later, everything is clean enough and about as well-dressed as you can, considering your supplies.

There’s not much to do at home, and trying to take your mind off things with your usual hobbies isn’t working. You even try scrolling mindlessly online, but you can’t stop thinking about last night.

Why did they stop—and so suddenly?

You lift your shirt and brush your thumb over the bandaids on your belly, the skin still too hot and tender. Maybe you were just lucky, stupidly lucky. You pick up your home phone and dial Leslie’s number. She at least deserves a warning about what’s out there.

“...What are you doing?”

“Leslie,” there’s some strain in your tone, “Hey, Leslie. How are things?”

“You’re calling about work? You’re supposed to be on vacation.”

Yes. Yes, you are.

“I know, but—Look, it’s about last night. I know you specifically told me not to do any digging, but—”

“Kid,” She cuts you off. You can picture her frustration as she probably rubs at her temples, “Tell me you did not do that.”

Yes. Yes, you did.

She sighs dramatically. “You work too hard—even when I order you to stop thinking about work, you do it anyway.”

“Look, it wasn’t an animal. It was a guy.”

“...What.”

You pull the phone from your ear. You probably do sound crazy. And you will continue to sound crazy when you talk about what you found online from defunct blogs from 1999. No matter how you try to spin it—every time you start talking—you can not come up with the words to explain that the scary internet creature is real. Leslie will not believe you, and who the hell would?

“...Nevermind. I have to go. I have, uhh, laundry in the dryer.” You mutter.

“Well, feel better, and stop going on the internet—you’ll scare yourself out of your skin with stuff people make up for fun,” Leslie sighs, then her voice goes soft, “I mean it. Take care of yourself. We’re thinking of you, kiddo. Oh, and Molly says hi.”

You swallow a lump in your throat. “...Well, let Molly know I said ‘Hi’ back.”

“Will do. Okay, see you next week.”

You hang up.

✷𓃞 ✷

It’s damp. The fallen leaves are starting to rot and turn mushy under their boots. Jack tears through another can with their claws and downs a mixture of soup and soaked-through chicken. They drink, grinding the sinewy chicken and too-soft between their teeth, swallowing harshly and curling up at the taste. Police swarming the woods like ants to fruit has been awful; Jack is tired. Everything burns, they’re tired of running, and they’re still so hungry.

Other foods are necessary to Jack’s diet—they can’t live off meat. They need carbs and stuff—but if Jack has to spend more time seeing faces, they will start digging for their kidneys. They collapse underneath a fallen tree, curling up like a woodlouse. If the police find them, Jack just hopes it’s quick.

They can hear men shouting somewhere nearby with their big, angry dogs.

Jack falls asleep there, eventually, and they don’t know what time it is when they wake up, just that it’s dark out again, and it’s so quiet.

They survive off stolen clothing and soup cans between stays at the manor. Though their vision is gone, Jack still lives with psychosis (one would figure getting their eyes melted with hot tar would prevent visual hallucinations). Eating human flesh, though a taboo solution to their symptoms, allowed Jack to clear their mind and function.

Jack sunk deeper under the heavy log when they heard footsteps and a whining dog.

“I know, boy.” A man says, coughing as the air smells of cigarettes.

Jack’s nose burns at the smell. The dog sniffs at the earth and knocks aside a pile of leaves with its nose, whining and howling. The officer kicks aside the leaves and sighs.

“...Alright,” He says, the metal bits of the dog’s vest clicking together as the dog grows restless, thrashing against it.

The man hunches down, the sound of a plastic bag crinkling in his palm, muttering something to the canine.

“Atta-boy. Come on, Chester, it’s damn creepy out here.” With the tug of the leash, the officer and his canine retreat out of the woods.

When the two are out of earshot, Jack squeezes out from under the log and feels around in the dirt, sniffing the air and only smelling wet earth. Their chest tugs in a sickened sort of way, and they sink back into their hiding place and curl up into a ball. The rain picks up again. Wind howls and thunder crackles in the sky, rattling the earth.

Their new jacket, which they snatched off an unsuspecting hiker, was Jack’s only protection from hypothermia stealing the heat from their digits. Jack breathes into their palms, hot air flowing across their stiff fingers (which Jack promptly stuffed into their underarms to warm them up).

The wind doesn't hesitate to rob Jack’s already-deprived body of what little it has. Jack can’t stop thinking about how hungry they are—and how they see faces melting in their periphery whenever their mind wanders. They pick at the raw edges of their sockets in a measly attempt to soothe. It doesn't work. Nothing works anymore, even when Jack can consume human meat. After only a few hours, Jack’s skin is already itching with the need to keep consuming, to keep eating, to stave off their psychosis by any means necessary. They tug—and tug, and tug, and tug until they’re shaking—at their raw skin, where hardened pitch meets seared flesh and patchy brows. It’s unbearably cold, it’s so fucking cold, and going back to that hellish manor sounds like paradise right about now.

But that’s not an option.

✷𓃞 ✷

Tuesday finally comes around, and you can return to work.

You pack two lunches today. Your bag is just leftovers in a takeaway container (dinner from yesterday), and the other is a sandwich with a few slices of Swiss cheese and meat (far more meat than you’ve ever used at once). It’s got other things on it; you aren't going to give some hungry person—who’s probably been living alone in the wilderness for who knows how long—a boring sandwich. Too bad if they don’t like mayo (Well, you hope they like mayo, lest they rip you in two for the offense of a condiment on real-people food).

You fill your water bottle, grab your keys, and head out the door.

Leslie’s truck is humming outside. Your car is still in the lot at work. You were not in any condition to drive after, and Leslie would not have let that happen. She moves her bags as you climb into the passenger seat. You set down your things on the floor, trying to conceal the second lunch you made.

“...Glad to have you back, got everything?” Leslie asks.

You nod, jingling your keys.

She flicks her turn signal to the left and drives onto the road, turning right onto the main road.

The car is quiet, except for the radio playing old 80s hits, thick with the tension that you almost died the last time you went to work.

“You can work wherever you want today. Molly’s willing to work with your plans. I can imagine not wanting to do trail walks after, well, you know what.”

“I’ll be okay,” You say, ”I’ll do trails today. Not a problem.”

Leslie grips the steering wheel tight. “You’re sure? After you know what, I figured you would want to quit,” She turns left, “I wouldn’t blame you.”

“No. I’m a little shaken up, but I’m okay.” You say, looking out the window.

Leslie makes some noise like she knows you’re lying. Your brush with death should have turned you off from any outdoorsy work, but here you are, making lunches for the thing that tried to rip you open like an orange. Maybe your too-empathetic and hopeful parts hope this sandwich helps them out. Everything you read about them was far from pleasant—Some of it didn’t seem real.

“A mixture of blood and hot tar poured into the eye sockets.” You recall.

This stuff about Eyeless Jack you read felt like fiction, but what you saw that night was real. God, it sends shivers down your spine, makes you feel ill—you don’t know what you would do if put in that scenario (blinded, abandoned, and left to die in the woods with an insatiable hunger for human flesh? Jack has been active for years, all alone, you think, you’re not sure how you would last even half as long).

“...Did they find anything?”

Leslie sighs. “No. But it’s an animal, so it’ll return next time it’s hungry. We’ve got more people on watch. Hopefully, we can get Wilderness Removal or Animal Control on it, maybe kill it if we have to.”

You hope not. Leave the critter that keeps eating people alone; they should just leave a plate of food out.

“Maybe don’t try to hunt down the wild critter-person like an animal.” You think. The rest of the ride is silent. You pull up to the park and see Molly chatting with a guest. She spots you looking out the window and waves, delighted to see you again.

“I wanted to give you this in case anyone tries giving you trouble.”

She passes you a black cylinder that’s roughly four inches tall. The button on top and the spray nozzle tells you it’s pepper spray.

“...Thanks, Leslie.”

“Anytime.”

You pull on your coat and leave your lunch in the fridge, taking the other out. Then, you jog over to your car and abandon the pepper spray in the cup holder; you hope that this choice won’t get you killed tonight, but you need to start on a good foot.

Your day-to-day rhythm comes back to you. You warmed yourself up on the more populated trails, picking up cans and directing folks about. It’s sparse, only seeing small groups unfazed by the recent killings (perhaps through ignorance or a belief that death is beneath them). The dread is heavier when you walk an empty trail that’s usually lively with people, even during the day, when dangers lurking in the bushes are more visible. As the sun creeps across the sky—and lower towards the horizon—fewer and fewer people choose to risk hiking after dark, lest they get disemboweled like the last guy who tried.

By 19:00, it’s empty. There’s nobody around other than you. But you know they’re still out there, listening to your every movement (and every breath and every hitch).

You scan the edge of the woods where they’re probably hiding, carefully stepping over the foliage while you intentionally stray from the carefully manicured path.

The trails are well-kept. The landscaping crew works diligently and takes pride in their work, keeping them free of debris and roots that would make the footpath a challenging terrain. Beyond the edges of the dirt roads, however, the forest is wild; vines writhe and twist along the floor, every plant fighting for sunlight in the undergrowth, with bigger-than-your-head leaves and trees wearing thick coats of creeping ivy. You witness the cycles of life and death within this delicate ecosystem—young trees climb higher and higher, growing larger and larger; insects feast upon the trees, rely on the trees, live and die by the trees; the trees, after centuries of life, die and rot; the lichen and insects feast on the rotting wood and refresh the cycle anew.

It makes you feel small and insignificant, as the world around you lives and dies without even noticing your existence. It’s like being surrounded by other people’s ideas in a museum, thousands of other people, forgotten by time, remembered by their art, or their shoes, or their stories through other people’s mouths.

Your boot slips on slick earth before you can continue your mental spiral about your insignificance as one among billions. Your boots squeal against pulpy mud and you nearly slip down into a strange recess; the earth is slick with that same slime, though it is more grainy and pus-like in texture. You follow the streaks in the muddy ground, where it slips underneath a large, rotten log.

You shine your light underneath, spotting a shivering, cobalt-blue mask underneath layers of jackets and stolen fabrics.

Maybe they’re sleeping, and waking them up (though with the promise of real people food) may upset them enough to maul you like a bear and eat you for lunch instead.

They shift and wiggle into the recess they carved out for themselves, hearing some shuffling outside of their burrowing. They suck in a deep breath through their nose, and the smell of human sears the insides of their lungs like smoke. They hunch a little bit, curling into a more upward sitting position, sniffing the air, inhaling once, twice, then a third time until they have that scent burned into their hindbrain. They can’t stop drooling, salivating at the thought of finally feeling okay again, having something to cut through the smoky, blurry feeling. They hear shuffling, their prey slinking back as they curled forward. They can’t suppress the growl that rumbles in their throat, teeth licked behind the mask. They don’t move like a person in preparation for a chase. Jack slips out of their nook, their body curled forward and arms hanging limp.

Jack reaches up and peels the mask like a second skin, revealing tar-filled sockets that bore down at your scent.

Jack lurches forward like they’re on a leash, sinking their claws into your arm and digging in, etching out five deep grooves, each weeping a stream of blood that makes Jack’s mind run wild. Without thinking entirely, Jack pulls your arm forward and sinks their teeth into your bicep, leaning their body weight against you, knocking you both to the floor. There’s kicking and screaming, high-pitched whining as Jack’s teeth tear through skin and sinew, coating your arm in blood and spit.

You cry out, trying to pull their steel trap of a jaw out of your arm—managing to loosen their upper jaw, and by shoving them away with the heel of your palm, you manage to rip out their lower jaw, too.

They shiver, licking their teeth over and over again. Feral, animalistic delight rattles their whole body; they’re giddy at the taste of your blood, but they hold some restraint at the sound of their name.

Your breathing is frantic, and your heart is hammering in your throat. Jack’s breathing slows, and they quit licking their teeth. You’re not sure where to start. You hold your breath as Jack’s tar-filled sockets bore down into yours. Their breathing is heavy, and there’s saliva dribbling down their chin. You squeeze your arm, your skin clammy with blood and sweat, while Jack stays still above you.

Your mouth is nailed and twisted shut like you’re at the morgue. Jack doesn’t finch as they, strangely again, don’t tear you to shreds like the last guy. You sigh, which comes out as an exasperated laugh, your chest squirming like a bucket of mealworms as Jack’s warm, blood-soaked breath enters your nose. Their hair is long and matted, greasy and cool-brown in color; their skin is a deep gray like the living dead, bulked up by layers of stolen sweaters and pants to keep warm.

“I, uhh…” You start, “I brought you a sandwich if you want it. I didn't know what you liked, so I just put a little bit of ever—”

Jack’s knee presses into your ribcage as they climb over you, feeling around on the ground for your bag. A wheeze rattles from your throat, and they dump your belongings onto the forest floor unceremoniously, sniffing the contents like a tracker hound.

They pinch the bag between their claws, disemboweling the brown paper bag, the contents hitting the floor with a wet thud.

You watch them eat, tearing through plastic and paper with their teeth, eating with no sensibility nor dignity. The sandwich is shoved into their mouth and swallowed in about fifteen seconds, and a crushed bag of potato chips you forgot at the bottom of your bag perishes, too. They crack open the plastic container full of your dinner and hesitate, neck craned in your direction. It takes a few moments to find them, but Jack finds the metal utensils you packed for yourself, showing the container to you.

“Oh, well, yeah. That’s mine. My dinner, I mean. You can have it if you want.”

They shake their head in a fit.

They push it in your direction, a flatly affective expression on the remainder of their face, but their body language pushes your cold leftovers on you with a lot of force. You gingerly take the container from their claws, crack it open, and eat. Jack listens attentively to you, sockets trained on you, on the sound of metal utensils clinking against your mouth, the sound of you swallowing your meal. Their hands squirm and play with the dirt and leaves, excited to share a meal of leftovers with somebody they nearly killed twice. Your arm is throbbing as you carefully feed yourself, your jacket’s sleeve shredded. Hopefully, your emergency fund can cover a trip to the hospital for however many stitches you’ll need, as well as the antibiotics you’ll be taking (or paying for amputation if this gets infected, but you try not to think about that as this demonic forest creature is enraptured by you eating supper with them). You scrape the bottom of the container, not missing a single morsel.

They move their hand under their chin, and you recognize what Jack is doing. You took a few classes in uni, so you pick up on the ASL as soon as their hand collides with the other in a neat thank you.

“Oh! You’re welcome,” You say, “Was it good? I was worried if you liked mayo or not.”

They grin. It’s small, subtle, and hard to do with the tar seared to their skin, but there’s a quiet peek of teeth as they chuckle at being understood. They like mayo.

You laugh, too, exhausted and relieved. After so many restless nights worrying about getting your organs surgically removed in your sleep, you’re looking forward to a restful night after the day you’ve had. At the hospital, because you’re arm is looking pretty ugly.

“Look, I think I have to go.”

They tense up.

“I won’t tell anyone about you, I promise,” You sigh, trying not to look down at your bloody limb, “They’re still looking for you, though, so be careful. If you need food, I can try to sneak you some from Lost & Found.”

Jack pats at their pocket, pulling out an old, beat-up phone. They pass it to you, and you type out your number and put it into a contact.

“I’ll, hopefully, see you soon?”

They shrug. It’s probably for the best that they don’t make any promises. Jack walks into the treeline, eventually disappearing from view.

#can also be read as: domesticating the feral they/them at your job #mewrites #eyeless jack x you #eyeless jack x reader #eyeless jack #creepypasta eyeless jack #creepypasta fanfic #fanfiction #creepypasta #mecreepy #x reader #reader insert #gender neutral reader

[maximotts]

anything with leigh 😍 perhaps hiking with her and having a little make out sesh

I made it a nature trail walking thing because I don't like hiking lmaooo I'm just a lump bUT uh.. here's an actual full fic instead of a blurb, you're so welcome. This is fully unedited though so if you see typos, no you don't

leigh shaw x reader; the nature walk was your idea, playing hide and seek was Leigh's. Maybe the two of you get a little carried away, but what's important is you left no footprints. words: 2.5k

warnings: 18+ only; smut, make out sesh turned sex in the woods; pet names (princess); fingering (r giving); nipple play; groping; a lot of hickies; really just... loving nature and Leigh

It was the perfect day for an afternoon walk. Autumn was finally settling in California, still warm enough during the day for shorts, but the air could get cold enough to need a sweatshirt— hence Leigh’s current outfit choice of black bike shorts and a light sweatshirt brandishing her gym’s logo. Simple, comfortable, and appropriate for your outdoor activity, there were at least ten other women you’d seen just today wearing the same thing, but Leigh was always the center of your attention. The trees and flowers you’d seen as you walked were beautiful, but each time she turned to you and smiled, excitedly pointing out something she wanted you to see, she eclipsed everything. 

So when Leigh beckoned you over again, you didn’t care that she was leading you slightly off the paved trail, only that she looked oh so happy with her improvised game. “Come find me!” 

She didn’t make herself hard to find, not when you could so clearly hear leaves crunching under her hurried footsteps or her barely muffled giggles behind the thick tree she chose to hide behind. Still you played along, calling out her name and searching around trunks you knew weren’t right. When you finally got to her hiding place, you caged her in quickly, arms planting themselves on either side of her shoulders as she squeaked in surprise, “Caught you.”

Leigh let out a breathy laugh, her wide grin matching yours. “So you did. Good job,” You kissed her forehead, warm from her little run, but as you went to pull away Leigh held onto your shirt. “Wait a second, where are you going?”

Your brow furrowed as you looked around, sure that you were facing the right way back to the path, but Leigh stayed firmly planted against the tree. “Back to finish our walk, where else?”

“Stay here…” Leigh saw confusion flash across your face, even in pulling you back until you’d both be hidden behind the thick trunk to any passersby. She wouldn’t have thought it was your first time sneaking off somewhere, but either way, you were being awfully clueless about it and she thought it was adorable. “You’ve been staring at me.”

She said it like the fact it was; you couldn’t deny you’d had your eyes locked on her since she jogged out of her front door to your car a few hours ago. “I always stare at you.” You didn’t know where she was going with this, but her arms were wrapping around your waist and when she finally got you against her, you could smell the light florals of her perfume. Better than any of the various flowers the two of you had sniffed today, hands down.

“I think it’s cute that you stare, especially when you get that silly little smile on your face. I can practically see the hearts in your eyes sometimes… I like it.” She was biting her lip in the way that always made you want to do it for her instead, but this time she was very clearly staring at your own mouth. “Kiss me.” 

“W-What?” There wasn’t anyone else around, most likely wouldn’t be as the sun started to set a few minutes prior, but it didn’t matter. Suddenly Leigh’s hide and seek plan clicked in your head; she wanted you alone. Here. In the woods. “But we’re outside—”

Leigh ended up closing the distance first, impatience spurring her into action. She’d wanted to kiss you since she first caught you staring at her ass while she bent over a cactus bush; you’d tried to avert your eyes, to pretend like you were looking at something else, but the plain rock on the ground you had your attention on didn’t fool her at all. It took you a second to get over your shock and kiss her back, but once you did, there was no stopping. If it was anyone else, maybe you’d be able to reason your way back to the car or make a case for continuing this at home, but not with Leigh. You had to have her whenever she let you, even if that meant pressing her against rough bark in a public park hidden away as if you two were horny teenagers. 

“You just look so beautiful, I can’t help but stare.” You pulled away to let Leigh breathe, but your mouth continued on, trailing along her jawline until you were sucking a mark in the hollow behind her ear. She moaned something soft, letting her head fall back and exposing her pale neck to your onslaught. Satisfied with your first mark, you ducked your head down and raked your teeth over the column of her throat, beginning a whole new pattern of kisses, only stopping whenever you decided some new space needed a hickey. 

She’d have to cover them eventually; the brunette hadn’t seen them, but she could very well feel that pleasurable sting and was well accustomed to hiding the tiny bruises you insisted on leaving each time you laid a hand on her. Leigh didn’t mind them, not at all, but she hated fielding questions and the deep red splotches that you left always rose some. “Jules is going to laugh at me again if she sees me come home with a bunch of hickeys around my neck…”

You chuckled at that, thinking of the ongoing bet you had with her sister of how many questions it took to make Leigh grumpy; it never took many when she started teasing her older sister about her relationship. “You’re the one who brought me over here, asking me to kiss you. What am I supposed to do?” 

“Just…” Leigh shuddered as she felt your tongue lave over each abused spot, the lingering saliva cooling on her quickly in the chilled air, “Just this.” Your lips collided again, Leigh catching your bottom lip between her teeth to leave a mark of her own. She wouldn’t be the only one walking back to the car with evidence of your make out session. You let her lead for a moment, let her slide her tongue over yours, the rough surface coming to soothe the tiny cut you’d suffered from her teeth. 

Instinct drove your hand under the hem of her sweatshirt, your open palm gliding easily up overheated skin. At first when you felt her sports bra, you were content to grope her over it, pleased with her quickened breaths and tiny moans, but after a while it was no longer enough. The stretchy material gave way with a rough pull, pushing the material higher up her chest and leaving her free to your touch. 

“O-Oh..!” Leigh felt exposed, even with the sweatshirt still covering her; if anyone did spot them they wouldn’t see anything, but the thought of being caught in such a compromising position sent a blush up her cheeks. She’d be lying if she said it wasn’t hot though. Her thighs rubbed together as you toyed with her nipples between your fingers, both of your hands now cupping her full breasts. “Fuck…” 

You could feel her start to squirm against you, hips bucking up as she shifted in place and struggled to stay upright. Deviously you parted her legs with one of your own, pressing your thigh into her pelvis just to have her groan heavily into your mouth. “You have got to stop making those noises.”

“Or what?” Quick fingers pinched her sensitive buds at her cheeky question and Leigh was equally quick to cry out, having stopped caring about any passersby. 

“Or,” This time when you pulled back it was only your mouth, hands still glued to her chest where she pushed up against your palms for more. Her eyes were dark, pupils blown wide as she stared up at you through heavy lids. “I’ll have to fuck you right here in the woods, where anyone can see you.” 

To your surprise, Leigh whined, her hips grinding down on your thigh. She’d never striked you as someone who’d be down for sex in such an open area, but then again, you’d never asked. “Oh, would you like that?” She hesitated just for a second, doing her own sweep back and forth or the surrounding area before nodding, flinging her arms around your neck to drag you back in for another kiss. 

This one was different, hungrier, more insistent, as Leigh settled with her decision. “Please… I don’t want to wait..” She hadn’t expected to be so turned on from such a frivolous side quest, but the more you touched her, the longer the two of you spent out here locked in your passionate embrace, the more Leigh needed you right then. 

“Fuck, Leigh. Okay,” This woman was going to be your downfall; you were content enough to spend the afternoon gazing longingly at her, more than satisfied to kiss her for a while even, but you’d never expected the pure pride you’d feel in Leigh Shaw practically begging you to fuck her right in this moment. Not that your sex life was extremely vanilla, but you never could’ve fathomed her wanting this. You flicked at her nipples as she rocked herself on your thigh insistently, clearly having found some satisfying position with how she gasped and held tight to your shoulders. “You’re so sensitive, baby, and always so responsive… I’ve barely touched you.”

You were right of course, you hadn’t done anything out of the ordinary, but something about today set Leigh off perfectly. She was thankful you didn’t mind how quickly she’d gotten worked up; you always were one to appreciate seemingly all of her, “Well I’d very much like it if you touched me more.” 

“Your wish is my command,” Taking her statement for the push ahead that it was, you let one of your hands drop to her abdomen, blunt nails just lightly scratching over her belly to watch her shiver. “I bet you’re already so wet, aren’t you, princess? Couldn’t wait until we got home because you got so needy over just a few little kisses?” You skirted over the hem of her shorts while you spoke, fingers snapping the elastic back on her as she hid her face in your chest. Your other hand fell and rounded her hips, grabbing at her ass and tugging Leigh up until she got the hint to wrap her legs around you. 

Here she was sandwiched between you and the tree, her sweatshirt protecting her back from any unwelcome scratches. She didn’t mind the position at all, until you guided one of her hands away from you and to the thick fabric, instructing her to pull the front to her sternum and hold it. Now her upper half really was laid bare, but you were too busy staring to notice her worried expression. “I can’t just-”

“‘Course you can.. Just keep your hand right there and let me see you.” The hand that left her backside was already pushing past the barrier of her shorts and underwear, your turn to groan as you found her well and truly soaked. “I thought you didn’t mind being out here where anyone could find us.”

Your mouth descended on her like a woman starved, exploring the newly exposed blank canvas for you to mark up at will— these Leigh was less concerned about because no one but you would ever spot them. A teasing finger rolled over her neglected clit as your tongue captured a cold-hardened nipple and Leigh nearly shouted, the duel sensations sending shocks through every nerve. “Fine.. be quick about it then…”

Leigh felt your grin curl over her goosebumps skin and when she looked down, the pair of mischievous eyes she caught had her regretting what she’d said. “So demanding today, really living up to that princess title! I’ll make you cum in no time, but once I get you home, you’re going to let me take my time with you. Deal?”

Taking your time sounded innocent enough, but Leigh knew better. You’d keep her up for hours, on edge with no hope of relief until you decided you wanted it. She didn’t hate it by any means, but clearly she tended to be impatient and you loved whenever you could force her to wait. But you were circling her entrance now, pushing in just to your first knuckle before pulling out and it was driving her insane. If you were going to make her hold off later, she might as well take what she wanted now. “Deal! Please just make me cum, stop teasing!” 

It was such a desperate little plea from the beautifully disheveled woman currently dripping onto your hand, but Leigh hated sounding whiny so whenever she was you knew she truly couldn’t help it. “Needy little thing…” You pushed two fingers into her with minimal resistance, tight walls welcoming you as she instantly began rocking herself against them. Falling into sync was like clockwork, your thrusts meeting hers each time she pressed down. 

Kissing her again was a necessity, needing to feel each whimper and whine against your tongue. The scratchy material of your t-shirt rubbed over her chest each time she bucked into you, an unexpected stimulation that only added fuel to how naughty this all felt. By the time your thumb started tight circles over her swollen clit, she was panting into your mouth, eyes screwed shut and completely unable to keep up with your dominating lips. “I’m close…” 

“Yeah?” Her admission only had you pistoning your fingers faster, the wet sounds of her cunt just barely covered by the rustling of leaves under your feet. You curled your digits at just the right angle, watching as Leigh relentlessly fucked herself on your hand. “Go on, cum for me, sweetheart.”

She had just enough presence of mind to bury her mouth in the crook of your neck as she let go, muffling her screams as her hips jerked and twisted frantically. You held her secure enough that she wouldn’t fall, fucking her through her high until she finally started to settle. As she caught her breath, you righted her shorts and bra, pulling her sweatshirt back into place until Leigh could pass for someone who’d simply run a long sprint instead of having had a loud orgasm just off a nature path. 

Kissing her this time was soft and innocent, your thumbs smoothing over her pink cheeks until she finally opened her eyes. “You alright? The tree didn’t hurt you?” 

Leigh shook her head no, letting her legs down only to instantly start crumbling. You caught her in a flash, careful to support her even as you pulled her upright. “I feel great, but apparently that means not walking for a bit.” It wasn’t fully dark out, still easy enough to see your surroundings; waiting for a few minutes wouldn’t be a problem, but Leigh had other plans. “Carry me to the car?”

You gave her a once over, all shaky legs and flushed face, wide eyes gazing up at you in hopes of convincing you into another favor. Leigh was a capable individual and there was no reason she couldn’t make it the fairly short distance back to the car; you both knew this. You also knew you couldn’t resist those pretty eyelashes and pouty lips. Rolling your eyes, you turned around, motioning for her to climb on your back. “Hop on, princess. If you think wobbly knees are the worst of your problems, just wait until we’re home. You’ve got a long night ahead of you.”

The brunette hopped on before you could change your mind, plastering herself against you as you started the walk back to the parking lot. “Whatever you say, heart eyes.”

#I have no excuse for this other than I love Leigh and I love writing her #might have a lil problem in which I just go overboard every time I do write a fic about her #whatever leave me alone she's CUTE AND SOFT #leigh shaw x reader #leigh shaw fic #leigh shaw smut #leigh shaw #sorry for your loss fic #sorry for your loss #maximotts #motts writes.

[cinnaminyoons]

ONE BREATH !!

!!   kth x m!reader 

!!   wc | 2.9k

!!   tags | artist!tae, athlete!reader, high-school!au, swearing, talk of death, suggestive

[ event masterlist ]

non-believer soulmates

fake not-dating

“give me your hands. i don’t care. give them to me.”

at the edge of the city, where the thick blue haze of a late spring evening drapes over skyscrapers and bright company logos like a winter coat, kim taehyung kisses a pretty boy. he has a gorgeous laugh, and a slightly too-tight white shirt that rides up to reveal a sliver of hip above a black leather belt, and he's spent so long pressed against taehyung that he smells like him. the boy has the same deep constellation of dark gold freckles on the edge of his knuckles as taehyung does, but does not paint over them with makeup like taehyung.

"you're amazing," you whisper, eyes locked on his as he hovers above you, one hand on your chest and the other arm braced against the cool grass. the picnic blanket exists for a reason, but taehyung doesn't wish to move.

"thanks," he chuckles, tracing the outline of your jaw with a touch as light as air. it tickles. his smile glows in the moonlight. "i could kiss you forever."

"forever sounds like a long, long time. you think they'd find our bodies up here?" you ask.

he smiles and sits up, placing your head on his thigh. "no. this is our place. our secret. above the city, off a hiking trail on a ledge that might crack off and kill both of us without remorse..."

he plays with your hair. "i would jump off a cliff if it meant jumping off with you."

"that's dangerous talk, baby," you murmur, gazing up at him. "if both of us die, how are we supposed to be together?"

he loves with his whole body – he loves with tight muscles wound like springs, with giggles and whispers behind palms, with steady breaths turned wobbly from a glance.

"how do you know we won't be?" he retorts. his gaze flickers to the old wooden fence along one edge of the small clearing, overburdened with vines and wild berries. "if i have to be mentioned, i would like it to be in the same breath as your name. that way, we would be together forever. we come as a package."

you gaze up at him, all bright smiles and wondrous laughter, and catch his hand to place over your heart. "only you can make a vicious death full of shattered bones sound so romantic. wanna make out?"

"absolutely," taehyung replies breathlessly. "but if we do fall, don't let go of me. i won't let go of you. promise me."

artists love like death loves, and you seal the promise with a kiss.

—

"you know, taehyung-ah, you should bring that boy around," his mother suggests idly, reaching across the table to place another dinner roll on his plate. he accepts one, but she tries to give him another, and he protects his plate with an alarmed flash of his hand. she pushes the lightly-golden roll against his knuckles until he caves and she smiles victoriously.

"who?" taehyung ventures. beneath the dinner table, he rubs his palm against the crinkled acrylic smears of colour on his jeans. 

"the one you're daydreaming about right now, of course," she says, so matter-of-fact that taehyung almost forgets to blush. she takes the bread taehyung's younger siblings are squabbling over and breaks it in two without so much as a blink. they quieten and she hums. "he's such a sweetheart. he picks you up every single day, honey, and he's not at all hard on the eyes – you must think so too, or you wouldn’t have painted him like that on your sketchbook. oh, what's his name, again?" she snaps her fingers. "yn! that's it, isn't it? the lovely boy with your freckles on his hand?"

she draws a circle on the side of her hand. taehyung places his under the table, away from her prying gaze, and sighs. "he's just a friend – seriously. you're reading into this way too much. so what if we have similar marks? don't tell me that i have to marry the girl at the grocery store with a freckle on her lip."

she waves her hands, dispelling his arguments like a cloud of cigarette smoke. "that's not the same, dear. you and that boy – when you get married, you come and tell me first, okay? i want to hear all about it!"

"eomma," he whines, "we are friends. please don't make this weird."

"and what should i tell our friends – that my handsome eldest son is an available bachelor? they'll be swarming us – swarming you – with their most compatible daughters, and you will have to tell them that you don't like girls two hundred times. can you keep the smile on your face for so long?"

he sighs, cracking open the bread roll with his knife and buttering its warm inner goodness. "i don't know."

"well, with that attitude, you'll be marrying their daughters in a week." here it comes. "you should really bring him to the party."

"eomma, i told you—"

"just as friends, then!" the inflection on friends twitches slightly, and taehyung wonders if she suspects. "you would look so handsome on his arm, taehyung-ah. i'll come suit-shopping with you – and your father, too, if he can find some time away from work."

he munches on the dinner roll sullenly, teeth ripping at the fluffy white bread and shredded meat. "i'm just arm-candy? smile and wave, let hyung do the talking for me?"

"you must admit, you'd do a fine job at it," she teases, and he scoffs a laugh. her voice softens. "i'm being serious, taehyung. you should bring him to meet us sometime – he's such a big part of your life, yet i haven't exchanged more than a single word with him. at least do your mother this one favour, honey?"

he sets down the stuffed bread, running his thumb over the edge of the scattered freckles. he purses his lips, a transparent play at annoyance.

 "fine," he says, and his mother's face lights up. "on one condition. i won't pretend to date him, and i have no concerns about starting arguments regarding who i might marry."

"that's two conditions," she notes, "but all right. i can work with that. you tell that good-looking friend of yours to match his tie with your suit."

his brow furrows. "why can't my tie match his suit?"

—

"i look like a bitchy ken doll."

"don't be so negative, baby," you whisper in his ear, smiling at a passing elderly man. he strolls by on his walker and grins with missing teeth, lifting a wrinkled hand in a wave. you lean towards taehyung again. "you look stunning."

he rolls his eyes and hides a smile in your bicep, both hands hooked loosely over your forearm. "is that why you insisted on walking behind me?"

"oh, yeah. absolutely ravishing view."

"shameless," he murmurs, straightening up and loosening his grasp. he places them in the pockets of his slim, hot-pink trousers, casting a careless gaze over the sunny mixture of family and friends. your fingers graze the curls at the back of his neck and he knows you feel his shiver – that playful smirk tells it all.

instead of reprimanding you – as he has been for the last thirty minutes for dropping your gaze too low and staring at him lovingly from across the yard – he smiles and steps closer. he fixes the knot of your pink tie and smooths slender fingers over your notched lapels.

his tongue darts out over his lower lip, no more than a tease of rosy pink. his gaze flickers up through his lashes, his hands still on your chest.

"you clean up well," he hums, sliding his hands over your stomach and sides with the guise of smoothing the dark jacket. "but i think you look a thousand times more dashing in your leathers. that helmet, too – makes me surprisingly warm, given that i can't even see your face under the visor."

after a quick glance around, your easy grin drops once into something darker, heavier. you place a hand on the side of his ribs – not too low to be immediately romantic, but intimate all the same.

"really?" you say thoughtfully, though your gaze promises something far more exciting. you run a finger along the collar of his ribbed black turtleneck. "well, we've been here long enough. i'm sure we can get back before your mother notices us – we'll pretend i had a wardrobe malfunction."

taehyung nearly purrs and rakes his nails down the centre of your chest, catching on the buttons of your shirt. his breath is warm on your neck. "oh, after me, you won't have to pretend..."

"taehyung-ah, where are you? i want you to meet my daughters!"

you jump apart just as one of the family friends steps around the door to taehyung's bedroom. the woman glances between you, puzzlement flickering over her features, but taehyung gives her a dazzling smile, stepping away from you and hovering a hand over her shoulder blades.

"of course. i'll be right along with you."

he pauses in the doorway, glancing back with a meaningful eye-widening and a finger pressed to his lips. later, he mouths, before disappearing around the corner and down the stairs.

you sigh and lean against the windowsill, glancing out into the backyard below. taehyung, a sparkling hot-pink star, speaks to two sweet-looking girls while a carousel of children whoops and screams around his ankles. one grabs his belt with surprising speed and force and he keeps one hand gripping his belt ferociously as he pries the child's chubby fingers off.

you watch with a small smile as he bobs down to the boy's level, hands on his small shoulders. his expression is firm but gentle as his mouth moves, and the child slowly shakes his head. they pinky-promise, and taehyung lets him run back to his big sister.

"you're good with children," you comment the next time you find him, huddled away on the veranda with a can of coca-cola in one hand.

he turns with a growing smile. "you think so?"

"of course," you say, coming to stand next to him with your hands in your pockets. he crouches to watch a ladybug shuffle slowly across the step towards a flowering bush. you glance down at him, tilting your head to catch a glimpse of his face.

he's smiling, rather too broadly to be at a simple ladybug. shifting your weight onto the other foot, you rest against the rail and don't mention it, though your chest warms.

"i think my mother knows," taehyung says eventually. the last sliver of red disappears under a leaf and he brushes off his thighs as he stands.

"knows what?"

"about us," he clarifies, swirling his can of cola like a glass of wine. he taps the rim gently, gnawing on his bottom lip. "she always wants to meet you."

"she did, today," you hum. "she's really nice. i don't know why you didn't introduce her to me earlier – she practically glows when she talks about you."

"but she adores the whole 'soulmate' bullshit," he mutters, kicking a pebble with the tip of his glossy black shoe. "she'll obviously point out our hands and say that we were destined to be together."

your smile softens. you nudge his shoulder with your own. "we can always insist we're not dating. i'll go kiss a few people, you'll go kiss a few people, and voila."

"i don't want to kiss other people," he mumbles sulkily. "i wanna kiss you. besides, even if we kiss randoms and then tell everyone we're together, she'll just say 'i told you so' even louder."

he shakes his head and lifts the can to his lips. "i don't want everyone to think we're only dating because we're 'soulmates'." he crooks his fingers in air quotations. "love is a lot more than finding the other end of the red string. it's hard. it's a choice. i can keep loving you, for years and years and years, because i choose to keep going and work things out, but i can't do the same with infatuation – because what do you do when the puppy love fades and the arguments get sharper? stop loving them? break up? be sad forever because your soulmate eats like a camel and you can't stand it anymore? the idea of soulmates is an obstructive crutch."

your arm snakes around his shoulders. he sighs heavily against you, curling into your shoulder. "do you feel better, now?"

he nods, dark-chocolate curls nudging your chin.

"are you talking about me?" you tease. "do i eat like a camel?"

he exhales softly. "no... you have good table manners." his mouth twists. "eomma would love that about you."

the suburban streets are peaceful. the occasional car pulls out of a driveway. someone in shorts and sandals drags their bins up the side of their house.

he hums and stands on his own. your hand slips down to his waist. "thanks for listening to my monologue. you must think i'm crazy, ranting about love like i've lived an entire life full of it."

"you have." you laugh gently at his startled look. "eighteen years is an entire life. your entire life – up to this very second. i don't know about you, but i've been hopelessly in love with you since we were kids."

shyly, he runs his thumb over the cold rim of the can. "i love being in love with you," he whispers, finally glancing up. "is that a weird thing to say? i'm sorry. y'know, seeing you at school, playing soccer and rugby and running track or whatever else... i wondered, sometimes, if i had it all backwards. really – i don't like running. i hate being tackled. why would a greater being put us together when we barely have anything in common?"

it takes a while for you to respond. "we don't. not anymore. but i broke my green crayon and you let me borrow yours, and i still love you for it. you didn't know who i was – i could've broken yours as well, but you still lent it to me."

"you're over-analysing it," he says, but the words are thick in his throat with emotion. he leans into your warmth as a breeze wafts by, placing his can on the railing. "i was four and always taught to share my things."

"i'm happy that you were the one who happened to have a spare." you smile, but it's almost a wince. "ouch. i'm starting to sound like your parents, huh?"

"it's okay, hyung. it... almost sounds good when it comes from you."

his eyes are liquid gold in the sunset. his lips are strawberry clouds. he grabs your lapels and tugs you in – you melt like sugar at the warm sticky sweetness of him, and the summer heat wraps around your bodies as he pulls at his turtleneck.

 "it's so hot in this," he murmurs, tilting his head to the side and loosing a content sigh as your lips trail up to his earlobe. "can we go, please? we'll go to our spot. they won't notice – they've got ten sugar-fuelled children to chase after."

"can i change your mind?" you end your journey at his lips. he hums, fingers hooked in your belt loops. "baby, you can't keep running forever. do you ever want to introduce me to your parents properly? because, yeah, i'll go rock climbing with you, but i also want to kiss you when we reach the top, and you've always said you hate having to hide it. hide us. why don't we just... show them? who cares what they think?"

"'who cares', hyung...?" he turns his temple into yours, closing his eyes. "i want them to know we're more than some stupid matching freckles. i don't want a novelty soulmate relationship where the only thing people talk about is the proof of compatibility. i want people to see us, and i want them to know that i'd love you just as deeply without these marks."

you cup his cheek and he kisses the softness of your palm, pushing into it. "they will, taehyung. i promise – they'll see us and jealousy will grab them by the throat. i swear it."

taehyung lifts his pinky. you grin and hook yours around his, shaking on it with great gravitas.

he inhales deeply and holds out his hands, palms up. he shakes them impatiently. "come on, then – give me your hands. i don't care. give them to me."

you slide your hands into his and he squeezes them, lips tightening with resolute determination. he presses a kiss to your cheek.

"they'll know who we are," he whispers, "and what we are. they'll know our names and how they fit perfectly together – all in the same breath."

you laugh softly, swinging your hands between your bodies. the identical freckles seem to shimmer but all you can think about is the soft, saccharine taste of his lips. he grins, too, reckless and bright. "don't let go of me."

"i won't let go of you," he promises, and the sweet ring of it against the glass echoes deep in the lava-white bones of your souls.

#1k event #taehyung #kim taehyung #taehyung x male reader #kim taehyung x male reader #taehyung x reader #bts x male reader #bts x reader #kpop x male reader #x male reader #male reader #m!reader #bts fanfic

[skyliv]

part two… i don’t have any words other than this one is really self indulgent but hey! everything on this account is!

words: around 2250

It was bright inside Alchemax, like all the fluorescent lights were on a constant state of overdrive. Although there were a few other skyscrapers on the edges of Lumiose city, this one stood out, with an almost entirely glass exterior and its massive nameplate.

Lucielle stepped in almost silently, a familiar Pokémon trailing right at her feet. There was even a security guard right at the door, a tall man built like a boulder. His pale skin seemed grey in the sharp lights, or maybe it was the contrast from his dark suit, and he didn’t move at all when he saw Lucy.

Maybe she got clearance from the higher ups.

The main lobby was gorgeous, some of the walls lined with potted plants, round tables around those, all leading to a welcoming desk, just like a hotel. A well sized, yet comfortable food court fills the space behind it to one side, and a few doors on the other side lead to the elevators.

Tell the worker why you’re there and get the pass to the lower floors, that’s all that runs through Lucielle’s mind as she steps up. Although she was nervous, the faint tug of her skirt by Dewott caused her to look down, and he definitely helped her clear her mind.

The worker seems impressed when Lucy brings up her business with doctor Octavius, they mutter something about good luck under their breath before passing her a temporary keycard, one adorned with the company logo.

She fit into the place quite well, a partner at her side and the fashion sense of someone who would go to a library for fun. Many of the scientists going about their day don’t even pay her a second glance, maybe if they’re confused why she doesn’t have proper gear, but not for anything else. She catches glimpses of many Pokémon as she strolls to the elevator, and even when she exits it. An impressive array of electric and steel types, from simple groups of Magnemite hovering over the shoulders of a group to a massive Electivire powering an odd machine. She calls Dewott back into his Pokéball, just in case… For lab safety.

The bottom third floor, Lucielle didn’t even know that the building stretched that far. A few doors down on her floor, and the place practically goes silent. Each large lab room is built around the halls, fitting perfectly as she attempts to navigate. But thank goodness the doctor’s door is marked. Not by much, two metal octagons hanging on either frosted glass door, but they’re there nonetheless. She could swear she saw shadows inside as well.

Lucielle gently knocked, only twice, before clasping her hands in front of her stomach. She was there on time, a few minutes early actually, but she still felt her stomach in knots. Sycamore said this was important, but by how much?

Her knock is answered in a matter of seconds, by the doctor herself allowing the doors to slide open. Olivia’s movements were already smooth, but she looked like she was going to burst with enthusiasm.

“Miss Lakes!” Olivia exclaimed, outstretching her arms. She’s in a different outfit than the usual dress under her lab coat, a complex, black… Latex suit..? It’s outfitted with light translucent green plates over her chest and shoulders, and other than a metallic corset hooked up with wires and olive shorts, it’s all the same black sheen. The lab behind her was just how anyone would expect her office, cluttered in some places but perfect for her. More sentimental items lined bookshelves on the far side, and tons of equipment found their homes on the other counters against the walls. Other than a few full tables, her glass desk, a large metal chair, and some stools laid about. “Come in!”

The odd thing is that this wasn’t even their second meeting. Lucielle had scheduled everything, from cafe visits to a hike on Route 14, even to an aquarium visit in Ambrette, she had opened up quite a lot. “Doctor! This- This is your lab?!” She exclaimed as she stepped in.

It wasn’t even the place itself that impressed her, it was the few Pokemon that were at some stations in the back. As Olivia moved to nod, Lucielle stepped right past her with a bright grin.

To one side is a Zoroark, clearly not one Lucielle had ever seen. It stands taller than a Unovan one, and its fur is white as snow, with a few violet tufts swaying as it seems to take apart some small device. Behind it, at the far end of the lab, is Olivia’s Pokémon partner, a long Eelektross, asleep in… A big dog bed. A static sound resonates from it, and its body lies coiled around a computer, presumably powering it. Zoroark looked up, and before it can snicker like a hyena, Olivia steps up behind Lucy and recalls it back to a grey and green Pokéball.

“Sorry about her! She’s new,” The doctor exclaims with a nervous laugh, placing a gentle hand on Lucy’s shoulder as she shoves the ball back into her lab coat pocket.

“New? Clearly!” The researcher exclaims, having to hold her hands in front of her mouth. She turns to the Eelektross, before spinning to face Olivia and placing her tote bag on the closest lab table. “Oh we’ll have to have our teams meet each other! Ooh! Maybe a picnic one day! I think your Eelektross would just adore Skarmory, and maybe Zoroark could meet Dewott! Dew’s a bit headstrong, I’m sure Zoroark could teach him a thing or-“

Before Lucielle can ramble on any more, Olivia laughs, unintentionally cutting her off. The younger woman quickly purses her lips, and she feels her face warm up.

Between faint chuckles, Olivia speaks, “Dear, it’s alright! You didn’t have to stop! I didn’t have any plans for this meeting… You could go on for as long as you’d like!” She waves a hand dismissively, gesturing to the large metal chair in the middle of the room before making her way to her desk in front of it. As Lucy moves to sit, Olivia hops up to a spot on the edge of her desk, the only part that’s not cluttered, to sit herself.

“It’s ok, it’s ok! It isn’t a problem, I didn’t mean to ramble,” Lucielle says with a small laugh, shaking her hands a bit to calm herself down.

“It’s nice to hear someone else talk, though, you have no idea how much I’ve been shut down in the middle of presentations of all things! I don’t need you to feel the same.” Olivia states simply. The more they were together, the more of something Lucy noticed: that being just how expressive Olivia could get. Head movements, rolling her shoulders, to even the slightest movement of her hands, all of this helped the doctor keep herself focused on her topic.

It wasn’t the compliment that caught Lucielle off guard, but rather, “You’ve been stopped in your own presentations? That’s so rude! You’re the head scientist!”

Olivia tilts her head, a more concerned look on her face. “You definitely apologize too much,” something Lucielle has heard throughout her entire life, “I’m used to it, twenty years worth more than you too, it’s fine.”

Lucielle shifted in the seat, resting her head on one hand and tapping the other’s fingers on her knee. She keeps her eyes low, trying to think of something, anything. “But I can’t see why- Why would your colleagues look over your work? If I were the one being pushed aside, I could see that, but you..?”

Olivia straightens herself up, leaning back on one arm and nodding thoughtfully. “It’s my methods, they always say. My ideals.. I’ve been called mad more times than I can count!” There’s a split second of silence as she sighs. But, the breath devolves into another chuckle. “Would you agree with them?”

With her intent listening, Lucielle hadn’t noticed the Eelektross waking up. It was practically silent as it moved, save for the barest sound of its skin against the tile floor. Before she knew it, Olivia’s smile had shifted ever so slightly, as she raised her head and looked down upon the other woman with a bare hint of condescension.

In the span of a heartbeat, there’s a hand on Lucy’s shoulder, one that yanks her back and holds her there. She squeaked at the sudden feeling, and after that split second she realized what it belonged to, the very Pokémon she failed to notice. Three of Eelektross’s four claws dig into her collared shirt, threatening to puncture it and sink into her skin if she moved. The center of its “hand” almost feels like a suction cup, just solidifying its hold on her as it brings the other down to her free shoulder. She stiffens in her seat, a chill running up her spine as she freezes.

The eel Pokémon’s face barely enters her field of vision as she chirps out, “Wh- Why’s she awake now..?”

Olivia doesn’t make a move, only raising a brow and leaning forward with her hands together as if to push her last question further on Lucy, who freezes up like a deer in headlights.

“But no! Of course not! I mean, insanity could mean something different to them- And your work definitely doesn’t reach that for me!” She finishes her babbling with a worried little smile.

That may not have done the trick, as the claws on her shoulders sink in a touch deeper, causing her to wince and squirm. She doesn’t dare to say another word, she can’t even hear her own thoughts over the fearful racing of her heart. It’s not even the pain, it’s the panic, as she looks up with wide eyes at the doctor stepping closer. Her stomach feels like it’s in knots, her heart feels like it hit the floor, but in that blur she feels a warm shock of excitement.

“That’s sweet to hear,” Olivia says, quieter now. What’s scary is her change in tone… That there isn’t one- That faint excitement boiling in her voice, under a soothing croon that causes Lucielle to shrink into herself. The doctor rises from her seat on the desk edge, slipping off her large lab coat to lie behind her. She steps forward, and leans close to Lucielle, like one would to a child. She peers down her nose at the younger woman, a sharp smile pulling at her lips. It takes Olivia everything in her power not to reach out a gloved hand and just hold the other woman’s face, to peer into the eyes and memorize everything about the face before her.

It’s like the pure definition of opposites, Olivia staying quiet for a moment with a smug stare, while a soft blush rises to Lucielle’s cheeks as she tries not to provoke Eelektross.

And just like that, it’s over. Olivia bursts back up to being that enthusiastic scientist she was known as, and with her movement Eelektross pulls back, quickly slithering to the doctor’s side around her legs. She ruffles Lucy’s hair, fluffing up her bangs as she practically cackles. “Oh I’m sorry! That was it, that was the method!”

Lucy is understandably taken aback, her breath catches and she shuffles to sit up. “Wh- Huh?! Intimidation?” She blurts out, trying to hide how that made her feel.

“Of course! How else could I secure funding? You’re lucky I haven’t gone into crime,” Yet.. Olivia’s response is bright, as if nothing happened, and even with its jawless mouth her Eelektross seems to express that same excitement.

Lucielle’s gaze darts between the two, she has to stop herself from asking about why Olivia’s suit color mirrors the Pokémon, but she’s able to. “Was that, like, training?! U- Uhm, there’s no way your colleagues will act like I did!”

Olivia just giggled more. “Training, sure, that works. In all honesty I just wanted to see how you’d react.” In all honesty, she found the reaction cute.

Lucielle sighed, and bounced her leg on the tiled floor. “Ok, ok! You got me, it was good.”

“Thank you, thank you,” The doctor mocks an actor’s bow, purposefully getting just a bit too close for comfort, almost causing Lucy to freak out.. Again. “I hope Eelektross didn’t hurt you, she can get a bit excited too.. We learned that with one of my latest devices, based on her. Would you like to see?”

Lucielle perks up, with a nervous grin. “Alright…”

Olivia does a short twirl on the toe of her boots, showing off her corset and the back harness it’s connected to. She never felt more alive, more ready to show off her work to someone. Maybe it was because she knew that this someone would listen. Maybe it was because she found this someone pretty. When she faces Lucielle again, she folds her hands in front of herself.

Before the devices emerge from her back. There’s a slick sound of plastic against metal for a moment, and out rises two arms. They move with an unnatural smoothness, quicker than Eelektross and at least as thick. They’re a much lighter color than the Pokémon, and a similar translucency to parts of Olivia’s suit- Even violet wires can be seen extending inside. At half their full length, they stop, having to curl forward to not hit the ceiling. The tapered ends snap open into a round, four pronged claw, just like Olivia’s partner Pokémon.

“Oh dear Arceus-“

#🪶skyliv🧪 #pokemon au #olivia octavius #selfship #self ship #selfship writing #self ship writing #selfship au #spiderverse au #spiderman au #sealfic

[rotworld]

11: Slither

(previous)

something strange is going on at the university.

->briefly suggestive. contains gore, drugging, mentions of child neglect.

.

.

.

You can still smell it.

Death. Blood and snow. Stiff corpses left in purposeful poses, waiting for you to open your eyes. Bits of brain on the pillow next to yours. Heads like roadkill. You barely eat all day, too sick to your stomach. 

He was in your room. He stood at your bedside, watching you sleep. One by one, he dragged their bodies inside and arranged them like old friends sleeping off a party, close and intimate. And then he just left. Is this how it’s going to be from now on? Rushing from place to place, fleeing the snow? Can you go anywhere? Can you stay with anyone? How many chances do you get before he finishes the job? You wish you’d asked more questions. But if anyone knows anything, you’ll find them at the University. 

You’ve driven for hours without stopping, afraid of the weather changing. You adjust your route, taking the road east. The scenery becomes strange as the sun goes down. A clock tower looms just off the shoulder of the road, red brick and Verlinda-touched by strangling vines. An oak tree grows clumps of green-tinged parking tickets instead of leaves. A patch of wildflowers grows in the shape and colors of a University sweatshirt. This is a good sign; it means you’re close.

Macbride University used to be located in Bevin, a small town torn to shreds by a particularly vicious shift in a time before anchorware. Those disparate pieces still exist throughout the Drift. Several of its hiking trails landed in the Stillwoods back when it was Green Valley, albeit with noticeable spatial and temporal distortion, and the art museum was excavated in the south end of Primsville. None are more remarkable than the University which emerged along the highway, fully intact, still containing a bewildered student body and faculty who were oblivious to the sudden relocation. 

Today, it’s a city of its own. A costly, meticulously maintained perimeter of anchorware has given it an unusual amount of stability—you can almost always find it towards the east of the Drift. Still, the shift that ripped it from its foundations from Bevin left a mark on the fabric of reality and the University has a tendency of shedding like a thick-coated dog, each relocation lodging bits and pieces of town into the surrounding highway. They make for useful landmarks, and you’ve never been quite so relieved to see them as you are now.

Soon, you’re passing beneath streetlights and blending into campus traffic, flanked by stately lecture halls with stone columns and arching doorways. “WELCOME,” the artsy metal sign on the overpass says, “TO MACBRIDE UNIVERSITY.”

[NOW PLAYING ON THE RADIO: PAPAOUTAI BY STROMAE]

You’re familiar with the University. It’s one of your preferred destinations to make deliveries. Navigation is simple. Every building is named and labeled by black stone plaques, every district easily found by following a network of blue road signs. Every section of the city, from the tidy bureaucratic buildings of the Administration District to the picturesque Tudor manors of the Residential District, have reserved courier parking spaces and dedicated exchange offices.

The campus is beautiful. Blushing autumn trees line the cobblestone paths. Cloister gardens are tucked inside the labyrinthine sprawl of college buildings and canopied walkways, quiet corners flush with greenery. You can smell the cloying earthy sweetness of the egg gardens. The College of Medicine stretches across a hilltop overlooking the rest of the campus. You pull into your designated spot outside one of the libraries and pull your deliveries out of the trunk.

The box from Compass Hill is slim but heavy with anchorware, wooden lit stamped with the old textile factory logo. The Stag gave you something the shape of a small glass jar but wrapped in layer after layer of protective coverings; newsprint, bandage wrappings, some kind of thick, glossy leaves.

The library is modern but cozy, earthy colors, tall arch windows and wooden furniture. Students flit through the shelves and crack open thick, dusty tomes beneath warm table lamps. The woman at the reference desk calls Dr. Loyola down to take your delivery. You’re invited to help yourself to tea, coffee, or any of the books while you wait. Most of what’s on the shelves is too dense and dry for you, seventh edition treatises on acute shift sickness and investigations into anomalous anchorware radiation. You sit down with a drink and your map, considering where you’ll go next. You scratch out the motel with a giant X.

“Is that painsilk, by any chance?” 

You look up and find someone leaning over your table, resting one hand on the lid of the wooden box. He—or she, perhaps, beautiful and androgynous in a loose knit sweater and black jeans, wavy brown hair just long enough to tie into a low ponytail with a red ribbon—is young but not as young as some of the others milling about the library. A graduate student, maybe, or a new professor. 

“You can stop guessing. I’m not a man or a woman, and would rather not be referred to as such.” You quickly apologize but they seem unbothered, waving off your tension. “You didn’t know. Now you do.” They pull out the chair across from you and sit casually, an elbow resting on the table, chin set against their hand. “Ah, I haven’t gotten to ask this in a little while. Where are you from? And where will you go after this?”

You hadn’t expected to meet a child of the road here, but there’s no reason why you wouldn’t. People come to the University from all across the Drift. “I’m from somewhere to the northwest. Not sure where I’m headed next, depends what I get to deliver.” 

“Oooh, cryptic,” they say with a grin. “I like that. Mind if I see your map?” You pass it across the table and they flip it around, dragging their finger over your hasty scribbles. “You’re not from any of these, then? Compass Hill? Rivermouth?” You shake your head. They hum thoughtfully. “Have you not marked your ‘home’ due to physical constraints, such as the size of the paper, or is it simply irrelevant information?” 

You don’t like the flippant way they say “home,” like it’s nothing but a mirage. “Does it matter?” you ask. 

They seem surprised by your hostility. “Ah, my turn to apologize,” they say, hands raised in a placating gesture. They slide the map back to you. “I’m asking from a place of genuine curiosity. I’m studying children of the road for a research project. For all the hearsay and rumor, there’s not much reliable information about people like you and I. My current hypothesis draws on the fundamental mechanics of micro-metaspatial alignment, so I’ve been trying to get better geographical distribution data. Physical birthplace versus metaphysical point of origin, the birthplace of parents if applicable…”

“What about you?” you ask. “Where are you from?” 

“Hm? I have no idea.” 

You pause, waiting for elaboration. They offer none. “Okay, but where is it?” you press.

“Now who’s being belligerent?” they say, but they’re grinning as if they’re enjoying the banter. “I just told you, I have no idea. I have no inner compass, no little tugging sensation in my chest. I don’t dream about it.” They shrug, as though they didn’t just tell you the most horrifying thing you’ve ever heard. “Anyway. This is painsilk, right? The Department of Paraphysics is expanding and we need a few specialty construction materials. I don’t suppose I could ask you for a ride that way? The last bus ran an hour ago.” 

“I don’t mind,” you say. “But I can’t leave yet. I’m waiting for someone to pick something up.” 

“I’ll wait with you, then, if you aren’t sick of me yet. I’m Jamie, by the way.” 

After your rocky introduction to one another, you reassess Jamie as blunt but friendly. They introduce themselves in a rapid bullet point list: paraphysicist, avid science fiction reader, tea snob. Their graduate thesis was about the reproductive behaviors and cycles of a coffin shroudweed colony in the Stillwoods. 

“I actually lived with the colony for two years. They were incredibly open with me. Gave a few…hands-on demonstrations,” they add with a wink. “But in all seriousness, I was there in the first place to settle a dispute. The Stillwoods municipal government had come up with this frankly abhorrent development plan for new luxury housing where the shroudweed live. It was fine to bulldoze everything and douse it in pesticides, they said, because shroudweed are aggressive, mindless and invasive.” They scoff. “Aggressive? Not in the least, unless you disturb the mycelial creche where their young grow. Definitely not mindless, either. Communication was difficult but completely possible, we worked out a system of shared symbols. Invasive, then…” They laugh bitterly. “What a useless word in the Drift. You and I are invasive, by that logic. They won’t say it out loud, but they will say it in all sorts of quiet ways.” 

Dr. Loyola is still wearing his University staff lanyard when he arrives, photo ID dangling from his neck. You hand him the jar and tell him it’s from the Stag. He looks understandably alarmed and rushes off with the strange thing cradled in both hands, careful not to shake it. You decide you don’t want to know.

Jamie follows you out to your car, sliding into the passenger seat when you move the egg box on the floor behind you. You notice them looking around with interest, studying the interior, the food you have stashed away, opening your glove box to glance inside, but they don’t disturb anything. “I envy couriers,” they say. “The grass is always greener, I’m sure, but still. Perhaps I do still have some trace of that wanderlust instinct we’re all supposed to have.”

You shrug. “It’s different for everyone. I’ve met children of the road who can’t imagine ever leaving home again, wherever they find it. For those of us who keep moving, it’s the same. I can’t imagine sitting still.”

“Do you remember your parents?” 

The sudden shift in topic makes you pause. “No,” you say. “I might’ve been abandoned. Or maybe they’re the ones who left me in Compass Hill.”

Their gaze softens. “I see. Rejection is unfortunately common. The lucky ones will find new families, but I know that’s not the norm.” 

“Is that why you’re not a courier?” you ask. “You’re one of the lucky ones?” 

Jamie gets quiet. You glance over and their smile has turned stiff, not quite meeting their eyes. “Oh, yes,” they say. “I was very lucky.”

You take a winding path back down the hill, following the signs guiding you to the Paraphysics Department. This isn’t a part of campus you’re familiar with. These buildings are much newer, designed with an unpleasant mix of hard Gothic angles and bizarre alien curves. Cathedral towers curve and twist. Windows are misshapen, squished ovals as though melting in their frames. Halls are joined by spiraling aerial walkways. Jamie directs you to Lyman Hall, a building shaped like a frozen wave. A new section is affixed to one end, skeletal scaffolding that bends and twists in ways that don’t seem possible.

Jamie sets their hand on your shoulder as you take your keys out of the ignition. You’ve noticed in just a short time that they’re very physical, walking close, frequently touching your hand or back to get your attention. “I should warn you before we go in,” they say hesitantly. “A lot of my colleagues are…eccentric.”

You ask, “More than you?”

“A courier and a comedian? Come on.” 

You tuck the box under your arm and follow Jamie through the front doors. Lyman Hall is just as confusing on the inside. You feel like you’ve somehow found yourself in the old, majestic building of another department with grand, ornately framed church-like windows and antique decor, but everything is just ever so slightly off. The angles are strange. The hallway looks lopsided and half-sinking. A spiral staircase rises into nothing, abruptly ending just short of the rounded ceiling.

“They used to run artificial shifts here to study their effects,” Jamie explains. “It’s done some odd things to the architecture.” They gesture for you to follow, leading you down a hallway that’s much longer than it looks. “Do you know much about shifts? What happens during one, and why?” 

“Not really,” you admit. 

Their eyes light up. You get the feeling this is something they don’t get to explain often. “Think of it like this: this is us.” They lift their hand, bent at a ninety-degree angle with their palm facing the floor. “This is our home and all the rules that hold it together. We’re so small and so deep inside that it’s all we know. It’s hard to even imagine that there could be more. But there is.” They raise their other hand parallel. “This is another plane. It might be like ours with similar rules, or it might be completely incomprehensible to us. Now, different planes normally exist at different frequencies. They’re like ghosts to one another, invisible. They would pass right through each other without any interaction, any knowledge of one another whatsoever. But, rarely, those frequencies might change. They might start to harmonize, you could say. And when they do…”

Jamie brings their hands closer, fingers lacing together. 

“They run into each other?” you guess.

“That’s one type of shift, yes. But it’s not always a collision. Sometimes it’s more like a merging. The technical term is a ‘superposition event.’ Two or more cosmic planes occupying the same location, existing at the same frequency, at the same time. In most of the world, this phenomenon is incredibly rare and incredibly brief. Thirty-four have been recorded throughout all of human history, most lasting between one to six seconds.”

“That can’t be right,” you say. “We have one at least once a week. They last hours.” 

“Those numbers only apply outside the Drift. This place has always been especially prone to them. We’re not sure why.” 

You’ve heard that the world outside the Drift is “much more stable” but never truly understood what that meant. Thirty-four, for the whole world, for as long as humans have been writing things down? Does anything change out there? Is it all the same for centuries, for millennia at a time? How do they plan trips if everything is always the same distance away and never any closer? What grows on their trees if not eggs?

Jamie turns suddenly into an open doorway and leads you into what looks like an old laboratory. The floor is scuffed, stained wood, tables and workstations wooden with polished stone counters. A diagram of a fringed, worm-like creature has been partially erased on a blackboard.  Chemicals and labeled specimens in glass jars line the shelves along the walls. Jamie flicks the lightswitch by the door and you realize there are several people huddled around one of the tables near the back of the room, heads lowered, muttering to each other, apparently standing around in the dark prior to your arrival. 

They all look up at the same time, still as statues and staring right at you. A moment passes in tense, terrifying silence, and then they all relax. 

“Silk’s here,” Jamie calls.

“Ah, excellent!” one says. It’s a woman in a lab coat and small, oval glasses, her dark hair cropped short. She regards you with a smile, coming over to take the box. “Oh, you have no idea how much we appreciate this. Superposition-affected structures aren’t easy to repair, or remodel, or really do anything with. This should do just the trick. Ah, where are my manners?” She offers a handshake. “I’m Olivia Higgs.”

You blink. “Higgs? As in…?” 

“Pioneer of modern paraphysics and paraphysical biology? Yeah, that Dr. Higgs,” Jamie says wryly. 

Dr. Higgs is a household name. Your current understanding of the Drift is almost entirely thanks to her. Her approachable, layman-friendly books on shift safety and Drift wildlife are required reading for couriers who want to survive their job. You have an old, dog-eared and partially rain-soaked copy of Drift Eggs and You: A Beginner Forager's Guide in your car. 

“Oh,” is all you can think to say. 

“And I see you’ve already met my…” Dr. Higgs pauses for an uncomfortably long time, her enthusiasm wavering. “My, ah. My child. Jamie.” She tilts her head slightly as though listening to something, her gaze vacant. “My…Jamie? Jamie?” 

Jamie wraps their arm around you quickly, tugging you back a step, closer to the door. “Well, I’ll get them all settled in.” 

“Wh—settled in?” you ask.

They turn their arm, checking their watch. You see three needles moving at three different tempos across the clock’s face, none of which seem to be measuring conventional time. “The next shift hits in a couple hours. You can stay at my place tonight, I have a spare bedroom.” 

Dr. Higgs shiver. “Jamie? What’s—? Oh my god. Oh my god!” She starts to scream. Jamie’s hand tightens on your shoulder and they draw you back another step, urging you to leave the room. Dr. Higgs claws at her own face, nails raking over her eyes and nose, leaving long, bloodied scratch marks all the way to her chin. She shrieks in thoughtless terror, throwing herself to the ground and curling up into a ball. The other researchers rush to her side, keeping her hands pinned far away from her face, but you see a gushing wound where she tore her forehead open, a rough, circular hole she gouged into herself in desperation.

“GET IT OUT!” she screams. “GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT GET IT OUT—”

Jamie slams the door to the lab shut, leans back against it, and lets out a long sigh. You can still hear Dr. Higgs shrieking. “I didn’t want you to see that,” they mutter. 

You nod numbly. You have no idea what to ask, if you should even ask anything. There’s a loud thud, the sound of chairs scraping, sprinting footsteps up to the door and something pounding against it. 

“Open the door, Jamie!” she shrieks. “Open this door right fucking now and HELP ME!”

Jamie stays where they are as the door jolts and rattles against their back. They close their eyes and take another deep breath, letting out slowly. The banging stops and you hear dragging, Dr. Higgs still screaming, still calling Jamie’s name, sobbing and cursing, as she’s pulled away. “My mother has…fits,” Jamie says. You can’t help but notice they say “mother” not unlike the way they said “home” earlier. “It’s some kind of paranoia. She’s amassed a broad body of work over the course of her career, but her specialty is actually Drift parasites.” 

“So she thinks she’s…infected with something?” you say. 

“Something like that.” 

You stand there in silence for a while. The weeping in the lab gradually tapers off. You hear movement. A gentle knock at the door. “Jamie? I’m so sorry. I’m fine now,” Dr. Higgs says. “Is the courier still there? Did you tell them—”

“Yep,” Jamie says. “We’re going to go now. Don’t stay up too late tonight.” 

“Alright. Goodnight.” 

“Goodnight, Mom.” Jamie smiles at you, as if there’s nothing to worry about. When you don’t move, they clear their throat and step away from the door, gesturing back the way you came. “Why don’t we head home? It’s late, I’m tired, I’m sure you’re tired.” They start moving and all but drag you with them, a hand on your back to keep you heading for the exit. 

“Is she okay? Are you okay?” you ask. “Are you sure she’s not—?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” they say, their smile strained. They make you walk a little faster.

Jamie lives in a small cottage in the Residential District. There’s a fence at the front with a latching gate and flowering shrubs growing beneath the windows. The interior is cluttered but cozy. Papers with handwritten margin notes are strewn across the kitchen counter. An unfinished jigsaw puzzle is scattered across the living room table. All the pillows on the couch are pushed into one corner, a tasseled blanket hanging across the back. They make you tea, fragrant and slightly sweet, and some eggs to go with it.

“It’s really good,” you say.

“Rosemary peppermint,” they say proudly, sipping their own generous helping from a University mug. “There’s just a pinch of salt and honey in there, a little bit of milk. I’ve always wanted to show it off to someone, but, ah. I never have company.” They glance at you a few times, tapping their fingers on the counter. 

You’re escorted to a guest room upstairs that looks significantly less lived in, the bed neatly made, the decor sparse save for a house plant on the window sill. Jamie lingers in the doorway while you settle in, going through your backpack. “Would you…” They trail off, not looking you in the eye. “Would you be willing to take me with you in the morning, when you leave?” 

You look up in surprise. “I could,” you say cautiously. “If you’re sure. Where would you wanna go?” 

Jamie leans against the doorframe, smiling bitterly. “Ah, of course. This looks bad, doesn’t it? Like I’m abandoning my mother when she needs me. It’s not like that, I promise. I’ve been planning to do some field research for a while now.” They cross the room quickly, sitting on the edge of the bed beside you. Their hand finds yours, settling on top of it. “Maybe I can explain it better in the morning,” they offer, shifting closer. “I just…don’t want to think right now.”

The kiss takes you by surprise. They’re gentle at first, almost shy. Their lips are soft and their hands are wandering restlessly, one cupping your cheek, the other smoothing down your chest. They swallow your quiet, startled gasp and it seems to embolden them. Quick, fleeting kisses grow longer and hungrier, more forceful. They’re pushing against you, a hand on your shoulder easing you down onto the bed. 

“Jamie?” You barely manage to get the word out with their mouth moving against yours. “Hey, wait—”

You push against their chest and they pull back with obvious reluctance. Their hand lingers under the bottom of your shirt, fingertips ghosting over your bare stomach. “You don’t want to?” 

“That’s not…” You trail off. Suddenly, you don’t feel good. You feel yourself breaking out in a cold sweat. The room is spinning. The room is spinning. You try to sit up but Jamie pushes you back down easily. 

“You’re alright,” they murmur. “Shhhh, you’re alright. Close your eyes. You’re going to sleep really, really well tonight, I promise.” They lean in, pressing a kiss to your forehead, and then their weight lifts from the bed. The lights flick off. You hear gentle humming. The door, gently pulled shut. You fight to stay awake but it’s a losing battle, your limbs too heavy to lift. Jamie’s footsteps go back down the stairs and the noise is distorted as you drift in and out of consciousness, too loud, muddled like you’re hearing them underwater. 

You think you can hear them talking to someone in hushed, excited whispers.

(next)

#rotpeach writes #goretober #the drift

[quaranmine]

The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Ten)

Grian finds something.

Chapter Ten: 8,359 words

<< Chapter Nine | Masterpost | Chapter Eleven >>

Hi! I finished this a few weeks ago but sat on it for a while so I could write ahead and reference it. I meant to have art ready for this chapter, but it never materialized so I'm posting it without. I'd rather have the writing done than the art. If I do art later I will add it, both to this post and the masterpost.

No CW for this chapter. A lot happens though! :D

February 2, 1989

Grian is not the sort of person to say he believes in fate—this idea that something is meant to happen, or that all roads taken converge on the same location, or that a random coincidence is a sign of something more. He’s not even trying to be a cynic. He just doesn’t think the patterns exist. 

Sometimes, though, things do work out like that. Sometimes it’s hard to look at something and not see it for the bright, shining ball of sheer rightness that it is. It’s small, but it’s fate. 

It’s meant to be. 

He’s having a moment like that right now, in a very strange place for it. He’s standing on the kitchen tile in wool socks, holding today’s copy of the newspaper. 

It’s freezing outside, both literally and figuratively. A cold front has moved in this week, bringing with it below 0 temperatures—and that’s Farhenheit, which Grian is still clumsily learning—as well as sleet and snow. The streets are slowly turning white with a thin layer of snow. Grian’s not sure if the temperatures right now are record-breaking or not, but they’re certainly colder than average. The kitchen faucet steadily drip-drips in the background, his effort to keep the pipes from freezing.

He still has work in the morning though, because of course he does. 

Grian doesn’t always read the entire newspaper, but he gets a copy of The Denver Post every day anyway. For the past several months he’s been browsing through the want ads in the back. Does he want to quit his current job and get more peace of mind, or does he want to find a second job so that the bills are easier? It’s hard to say, but looking through the advertisements reminds him that there are other options out there. Maybe one day he’ll find something that will dig him out of the hole he’s currently in. 

Well, this newspaper seems to be handing him a shovel. 

It's the Forest Service logo that catches his eye, with its badge and pine tree in the center. They've taken out a relatively large ad in the bottom quarter of one of the sheets. It says:

Hiring NOW! Seasonal positions in the beautiful Rockies!

There's a list of positions available, along with the GS4 hourly pay rates. Trail crew, concessional employees, interpretative ranger, wildland firefighter, fire line digging, and fire lookout. None of them pay well, but it's all above the minimum wage at least.

And, well, the ad also says No experience necessary.

It's the last one that catches his eye. Fire lookout. He's not 100% what the job entails, but he remembers visiting one with Mumbo a few months after they arrived. Just an hour and a half from Denver, it was located in the Pike National Forest. They'd camped on a roadside spot that weekend and hiked a short trail up a mountain to see the lookout. Grian had been more interested in the view of Pikes Peak than anything else, though. 

The ad lists the Pike National Forest as having seasonal positions open, as well as numerous other locations that Grian assumes are also in Colorado somewhere. He recognizes one as being in Montana. Those fade away in his mind though, because of what he notices next. It's like a beacon on the page. 

Shoshone National Forest. 

There's a plan starting to form in his mind. Is it a crazy one? Almost certainly, but the more he thinks about it the less it seems that way. He's all the way out here, and Mumbo is all the way out there. If he gets a job in the same National Forest, he can close that distance.

If he's there he can search. If he's there he can actually find Mumbo himself and bring him home. 

Grian needs to stop relying on the Forest personnel and start relying on himself. He knows of no plans to restart the search in the spring. Right now in the winter, he couldn't even search if he wanted to—most of the roads in the Forest, save the main highway, are seasonally closed due to snow and ice. 

Nobody's helping him anymore. Nobody cares anymore, but Grian does. He always does. Mumbo’s family cares too. He can't fix what went wrong for his family and he can't turn back time to go with Mumbo instead, but maybe he can do this. 

Fire lookout also just seems like the least strenuous job listed. He certainly doesn't think he's cut out for any firefighting, at least. He also suspects it'll involve less interaction with other people than the others. He's not sure he can take other people anymore. The fire lookout he'd visited with Mumbo was a busy destination, but Grian already knows that the area Mumbo went missing in is nearly pure wilderness.

It's the perfect job. It's everything he needs handed to him in one convenient spot. It's almost like fate.

The ad states to send inquiries to an address listed in Lakewood, Colorado, which is in the Denver area. The first address line identifies this as their Region 2 office. Once they receive inquiries, they'll mail an application for him to fill out. There's also a phone number, with the same area code he has. He thinks that’s probably the fastest way to request an application, short of driving to their office himself. 

Grian reaches for a notepad on the counter and starts copying the information down. 

»»———-　　———-««

July 1989

Grian flees the Ranger’s station as fast as possible, bouncing down that 19 mile road to the Thorofare trail in record time. By the time he reaches it his teeth are nearly rattled out of his head, his backpack is strewn across the floorboard, and his hands are still shaking. When he throws the vehicle in park, he just sits there a minute, looking out the windshield at the trees beyond. 

He’s not the only car in the parking lot this time, but it’s not a busy location by any means. The sun is warm and low in the sky, casting long tree shadows across the gravel. 

The manila folder is in the passenger’s seat. Its contents have shifted throughout the journey, and some of the papers have started to slide out. Grian catches a glimpse of words printed on a page, and even that’s enough to cause his heart to stutter. 

This is real. This is important. 

He takes a deep breath, and then gathers the papers back into their folder neatly. He doesn’t look, not yet. He wants to, but he needs time to examine it. He needs to start back toward his lookout while there’s still enough light to do so. He’s all alone out here. Nobody followed him from the ranger’s station. But he’s still running, in a way. 

Grian gathers his things, and starts back down the trail.

He remembers the first time he hiked this trail, heading toward his lookout for the first time. Last time, he’d nearly lost himself in the quiet repetition and the soft rustle of wind in the trees. This time, his mind races and his steps are fast. Last time, it felt like a beginning. This time, it feels like an ending. 

Will this be the last time he hikes up here, he wonders? He might find himself getting an escort back to his car in the next few days. He’ll probably get fired after being caught stealing the documents. At minimum, he’s in trouble. But will any of it matter if he finds Mumbo? He’ll be gone anyway as soon as that happens. Maybe this will be the last time he hikes up here because it’s the last time he’ll ever need to. 

The shadows continue to lengthen and the trail begins to get dark. The sun sets early in the mountains, and even earlier in the forests where the sky is blocked out. He has to start squinting to even make out the bumps and rocks in the trail so he doesn’t trip. 

“I guess it’s time to stop for the night,” he says to himself. He knew he wouldn’t be able to get back to the lookout by the end of the day anyway. He’d just—he’d just wanted to be on the way home, separated from the chaos he left in his wake and in the relative peace of the forest. His car is a link to the outside world. The trail is just him and his thoughts. He had to put some miles behind him. 

He sets up his tent in a flat clearing, and thinks about Mumbo doing the same last year. He fires up his camp stove and makes something to eat, and thinks about Mumbo doing the same. How many times has he done something out here in the exact way Mumbo has?  

Total darkness falls quickly after that. Soon, the forest is a sea of black, and Grian’s moored only by the single orange light of his lantern. It flickers now and then, casting long shadows. The lighting reminds him of those quintessential campfire ghost stories. He’s solving one on his own right now. 

It’s time to look at the folder. He can’t resist anymore. 

The first thing at the top of the file is a paper with Mumbo’s face on it. His dark eyes stare blankly up at Grian’s, and for a moment Grian just stares back. The rest of the page just has information about the case written on it. It’s formatted like it could be a poster, but there’s too many details for public release. It’s a bit eerie, seeing this all written down again. The sheet lists when Mumbo was reported missing, his height, his weight, his age, his physical features, his vehicle, his planned route, the square miles searched, the search and rescue team involved, everything. 

Grian sets it aside into the darkness, and keeps looking. 

There’s that statement from another hiker who said they saw him on the trail. What were they doing on the closed trail, Grian wonders? Do they realize the way they ensured that everyone thought Mumbo stayed on that trail? It’s dated two days after Mumbo was reported missing. 

There’s several copies of letters printed on official letterhead. The agency seal is at the top. The correspondence is from several offices. The District Ranger’s office in Wapiti. The Shoshone National Forest Supervisor’s Office in Cody. The Region 2 office in Lakewood, Colorado. The Law Enforcement and Investigations Branch in Washington, D.C. 

Grian reads these, but they’re disappointingly dry and full of formal wording. There’s a request for assistance with the case sent to D.C., but everything else in these letters is just reporting. It’s the higher level version of the weather report Grian radios in every morning in his lookout—here’s the situation with the missing person, here’s the actions our office has taken, here’s the results. 

Which are none. There are no results. Mumbo’s still gone. 

Grian wonders if a person from the D.C. investigations office actually came out, or if Mumbo’s case wasn’t deemed important enough for that. 

He flips through more pages. There’s a list of contact information for Mumbo. Grian’s name is first, along with their apartment’s address in Denver and their phone number. Mumbo’s parents are listed next, with their UK address. The page is typewritten but someone has written in pen next to their names to remember the seven hour time difference. Sweet of them. 

He’s looking for a smoking gun, here in the flickering lantern light. 

There has to be one. He knows he’s missing information, and the file is thorough, and there’s a reason they didn’t want to give him the file, so surely, surely, surely. 

There’s correspondence with a search and rescue team that helped out. Grian remembers the matching patches on their jackets. They’d been a volunteer organization. There’s incident command reports in the file too. There’s also a copy of the police report Grian had filed and some correspondence between the Forest Service and the police. It was the Forest’s jurisdiction, in the end. They handled anything that happened on federal land.

There’s minutes and notes from meetings held about the case. There seems to be one from every morning of the search, like a sort of morning goals session. Grian reads over them with interest. They paint an interesting story; it’s a view from the other side. This is what the rangers and search and rescue and the police had thought about Mumbo’s odds. This is where they thought he might have gone, areas he might have hidden, areas he might have gotten hurt, so on. But there’s not a word about Cloud Lake being closed, or any indication of Pinnacles being on the radar at all. 

Why? Aren’t these people professionals? 

The maps are the most interesting part of the file. Grian pores over the page with care, mentally tracing every topo line. He’s got his own map in his backpack still, with him always. It’s very similar to the ones he’s looking at now, but these feel a bit more clinical. They’re put together by professionals who know the land better than him. The extent of the Mink Fire is also mapped, and for the first time Grian can really see how close it was to some of their search areas. 

He’s…glad, almost, that Mumbo wasn’t around there after all when it was burning. 

Eventually, Grian gets to the newer stuff. There’s a note written up of all the details the hikers gave when they reported the bike. It includes when they found it, where they found it, and in what condition. They didn’t see anything else nearby, and didn’t investigate much because the bike looked abandoned and not like someone had left it there recently. 

There’s a memo that a phone call was made to the Investigations Branch again. There’s an authorization for an aerial search. There’s a note that Grian is to be contacted with updates when he is able to be reached, along with Mumbo’s parents. 

Grian reads that, and everything else comes to a screeching halt.

Oh, god. Mumbo’s parents. 

Grian hasn’t called them once all summer. He didn’t tell them about the bike. Some stranger told them about that instead. He hasn’t told them anything about what he’s learned. He sent them a note scribbled on the back of a postcard the day he left to start working at the lookout, and never looked back since. 

What are they thinking right now? How are they holding up? He didn’t even reach out to them on the anniversary of Mumbo’s disappearance back in June. Are they worried about him? They shouldn’t be, they should worry about Mumbo instead, but he knows they’re worried about him anyway. Oh, god, he didn’t even call them. 

He feels sick, but he forces himself to keep going through the folder. It doesn’t matter what Mumbo’s parents think. They’ll be fine if Grian finds their son. 

Nestled into the newer materials is an older paper. It’s a copy of Mumbo’s backcountry permit, issued June 9, 1988. It has the dates for his trip, the campsites he reserved, and the price he paid for them. 

Stapled to it are several more papers. Grian swallows, and flips through them. 

There is an old memo about the Cloud Lake Trail being closed. For the first time, Grian sees more specifics than Scar could give. A rockslide had been triggered over the winter. It wasn’t reported until the spring, when someone first tried to hike the trail after the snow melted. Cloud Lake is an alpine lake, nestled in a bowl surrounded by peaks and inaccessible through other routes. The rockslide had changed the terrain significantly, causing trees to be destroyed and the original trail lost. The trail was to be closed all summer for maintenance. They were going to salvage what parts they could, and reroute others. The new, salvaged trail may no longer be suitable as a mountain biking route given the terrain changes. 

Someone’s underlined the part that says the trail is closed all season. Another report is attached to it. It notes that Mumbo was issued a permit he shouldn’t have been, and that he likely became lost after encountering the rockslide. It’s a record of the decision the search and rescue team made—that there was, apparently, no evidence to suggest Mumbo had done anything but stray off-trail, and that the rockslide actually increased the chances he was in the area.

Increased the chances he was at Cloud Lake? Instead of suggesting he might have gone elsewhere?

The report continues, explaining Mumbo might have become confused in the altered terrain and that searches in that area should be increased since it was the most likely place for him to get lost. They’d actually shifted the focus away from where he was supposed to be. They had the right idea but the wrong answer. Grian’s heart sinks. 

The final document stapled to Mumbo’s backcountry permit is a letter that orders the reinvestigation of the case based on new evidence. The date is recent, from just one month ago when Mumbo’s bike was found by those hikers.

The last paper Grian looks at is another map. This one is also new, issued just a few weeks ago. It denotes the Pinnacles area in minute detail, each and every wrinkle of the topography important. Grian has a map of the Pinnacles area already, but it isn’t this zoomed in at all. There’s a marker placed where Mumbo’s bike was found, along with the trail and other geological features of interest. 

And…that’s it. That’s the entire file. 

He can’t help but feel like there’s something missing. There’s a giant hole at the center of this case. How can this be everything? Where’s the answer, the smoking gun? Where are the puzzle pieces that only Grian is smart enough to piece together? Where’s Mumbo in all of this? 

He was so certain that he would find something here. No, he can still find something here. There’s got to be things here. This is all the information, so that has to mean something right? He rifles through the papers again, looking for anything he’s missed, but no—there isn’t anything. He’s looked at it all. 

It’s just…dry. It’s reports between management chains and records of operation from search and rescue. There’s helicopter authorizations and documentation of search locations that already came up empty. There’s letters and memos and maps and none of it means anything, because Mumbo’s still out there and everybody involved in this case is an idiot, Grian included. 

He sets the folder to the side carefully, even though it’s useless. He presses his face into his hands and doesn’t move for a long time. The shadows flicker. 

»»———-　　———-««

Grian steps out from trees less than a mile from his lookout, and the first thing he sees is a column of smoke. 

He blinks. There’s a ridgeline or two that separates his lookout from the road; it’s part of the reason the hike takes so long. That, along with the canopy of the forest itself, has seemingly obscured this smoke from his view until now, when he’s broken through to the other side. It’s morning, and the sky is otherwise clear and blue today except for the tall smoke that bisects it.

He can tell it’s nearby. A strange mix of dread and adrenaline fills his stomach. 

Grian slings his pack onto the ground and begins to dig through it looking for his radio before realizing it’s still in his side pocket. He turns it on and the light blinks yellow. The battery is low from being off the charger for a few days. He’s never pushed its limits, but it’s not going to die any time soon. 

“Scar,” he says urgently. “I’m nearly back and I see smoke. West of my tower, I think. Do you see it too?”

“G-man?” Scar says a minute later. “You’re back?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m back,” Grian says. He picks his backpack up off the ground and starts rushing down the trail. He needs to get back to the lookout. “Do you see the smoke?”

“What did you do?” Scar asks. 

“The smoke,” Grian insists. 

“I see the smoke, I saw it yesterday,” Scar says. “Called it in. Sorry, I got naming privileges even though it’s definitely in your sector.”

This relieves Grian, but only so much. He grits his teeth a little.  “Okay, so you’re monitoring it. I just wanted to make sure it got called in. I’m nearly at my tower again.” He sighs. “Is it Jonesy Lake? Was it the idiots?”

He knows it’s Jonesy Lake. He knows it’s the idiots. He knows what lies directly west of his tower and he recognizes the directions by the peaks on the horizon. A spark was thrown two days ago, and this is the consequences of it. 

“Yeah, I think it was the idiots,” Scar mutters. “The fire’s on the other side of the lake. They’re sending in a crew for it, I’m surprised you didn’t run into anyone on your way in.”

If it was the idiots’ fault, this fire will be suppressed as quickly as possible. Human-caused fires are in an entirely different category to lightning-caused fires or prescribed burns. With the dryness of July in full force, they’ll have to work hard to keep this one contained. It’s a shame that it had to happen in the first place. Grian should’ve woken up earlier to stop those people. 

“I didn’t see anyone in the parking lot besides a few other cars that belonged to hikers. Maybe they’re running behind me or they’ll helicopter the crew in,” Grian says. “I wouldn’t want to hike carrying that much gear. They could land in the meadow.”

“Some smokejumpers went in yesterday already,” Scar says. “But they’ll need a proper crew to hike in too so the fireline can be established.” He pauses, for what seems like a nearly uncomfortable period of time. The trail has descended back into the trees once more, and pine needles form a springy surface below Grian’s feet as he walks. Finally, Scar adds: “So you’re coming back to the tower?”

“Give me like 15 or 20 minutes and yeah, I’ll be there,” Grian says. 

“I didn’t think you’d be back,” Scar says. 

“Um,” he says. “Not sure why you thought that. I know it's still my time off, but I’m still going to call in smoke I see. I only went into town briefly, I have some places I want to search again.”

“Grian,” Scar says, “you don’t work here anymore.”

He stops dead in the middle of the trail. 

“What?”

“They told me you were fired!” Scar says. “My supervisor called me first thing this morning. You’re not a lookout anymore. I didn’t expect you to come back, I thought they’d like get your stuff for you or whatever. I was worried!”

“What do you mean?” Grian says. “I’m not—nobody told me that, what?”

“Grian,” Scar begs, “what did you do.”

Grian’s heart picks up in pace. It shouldn’t be a surprise, honestly, and yet hearing Scar say it nearly knocks him off his feet. He predicted this for himself yesterday. He’d known that this might be the end. His actions weren’t acceptable in any capacity, outside that of saving Mumbo.

It feels entirely different than it did yesterday, though. It’s entirely different because yesterday he had a smoking gun, and today he doesn’t. It’d be different if there was a big red arrow pointing to where Mumbo was, but there isn’t. He thought it would be fine yesterday, because today he would know what to do, but he doesn’t.

That’s it, isn’t it? All of this for a file that has nothing in it.

“I—I have to get back to my lookout,” he says to Scar. “I’ll tell you more there. I just have to get back first.”

He turns the radio off, slides it into his pocket and sets off down the trail again. His thoughts racing. If he’s fired, then he has to leave. He needs to gather his things back at the tower. Most of his things are already with him in the pack, but he still has things he left in the lookout. He’ll need to get all of that before he leaves. He’ll need to leave because someone will probably come today to make sure he leaves and he doesn’t want to still be here. He’s had too many confrontations already. 

What about the fire? Will they make Scar monitor it, cross referencing with his other neighboring sectors? Will they bring in a volunteer to finish out the rest of the season? 

If he has to leave, where will he go? There’s a map in the folder. It’s the new one, the one that was created after Mumbo’s bike was found. He can follow that. That only gives him a plan for the next day or two, but he can regroup after that. 

And what about after that? And after that and after that? The lookout is his foothold, his plan. The lookout gives him proximity and insight into places to search, and a home base close enough that Grian can work on finding Mumbo every day. 

He’s back to square one now, and it’s all his fault. 

The tower comes into view soon with the frenetic pace Grian is hiking at. It stands tall at the top of the mountain, surrounded by trees. When he looks out the windows, all he sees is sky and mountains and the treetops below him. Now he walks through the trees to its base. He takes the stairs two at a time until he gets to the top, and then pauses at the door. 

He puts his key in slowly. It’ll be the last time he does it. 

The lookout is exactly as he left it a few days ago, and it’s almost exactly as it appeared when he arrived over two months ago. He hasn’t brought many personal effects with him, not any more than he could carry in his original pack. A person like Scar would have accumulated a little more personality in their lookout after working there for 8 seasons. The posters that line the blank parts of the wall were brought in by somebody at some point. The old paperbacks in the bookshelf were, too. 

But Grian? He’s left nothing here. He’s made no impact. 

He sets his pack on the bed and sits down next to it. For a moment, all is still except the twisting smoke to the west. He watches it for a moment. It ranges from brown to tan to grayish—the color smoke is when wood is burning. The volume is disturbing. The Trout Fire didn’t escalate as quickly as this one has appeared to. The Trout Fire smoldered in the damp after-storm undergrowth for a long time, but this one looks large.

He pulls the radio out of the pack’s side pocket once more and turns it on. “Scar,” he says. “I’m back at my lookout now.”

“Are you staying there?” Scar says. 

“I can’t, can I?” he asks. “Won’t they send someone after me? I don’t want to wait for someone to come tell me I’m fired. I’ll just go. I won’t make a fuss.” 

He’s made enough fuss recently. It hardly seems worth it to make more. He doesn’t know if he has it in him to keep fighting this the way he has been.

“Grian,” Scar says, and that’s it. Nothing but his name. 

“I’m sorry,” he confesses. “I think I did do something stupid.”

Scar sighs. “What’d you do? My supervisor didn’t tell me. Believe me, I asked. He just said you were no longer working for the agency and that they’d try to find a volunteer to replace you the rest of the season. I think they would’ve left the tower empty if it weren’t for that new fire they want monitored.”

“What’d you name it, anyway?”

“I’ll trade you the name if you tell me what you did first,” Scar says. He never loses sight of what he wants out of a conversation. It’s something infuriating about him. 

“I took Mumbo’s case file,” he says. “I stole it out of the District Ranger’s desk and got caught. Might have also jumped through a window.”

Scar laughs, a short bright sound that almost startles Grian out of his funk. “A window? Man, I wish I could’ve been there. How’d you manage all of that?”

There’s a ghost of a smile on Grian’s lips. “I turned in the fireworks to him that morning as contraband. He made the mistake of telling me he was taking a half day. Then I just needed an excuse to get back in there while he was gone.”

“Was it a good one?”

“I got caught, didn’t I?” Grian responds drily. “Don’t think I would have chosen a window as an escape route otherwise.”

“Nah,” Scar says. “You might have a heist movie in ya somewhere.” 

“I don’t—I don’t think I had any thought. I just wanted to get that file. I needed to get that file. He told me he couldn’t give it to me, Scar, and I needed that file because I need to know, and I can’t find Mumbo because I don’t know.”

“Do you at least know now?” Scar says quietly. 

“No!” Grian cries. “I don’t know what to do with this information! There’s—there’s no obvious path to follow. I don’t know why they didn’t tell me that the trail was closed, but now I know why they kept searching in the same area. And I know what technical concerns the search and rescue team had about terrain, weather, and wildfires, and I know the name of the investigator who was assigned to the case in D.C., and I know what the National Forest reported to the regional office, and I know when they performed new aerial searches this summer, and I still don’t know where Mumbo is.”

“So there’s nothing in there at all? Are you sure?” Scar asks. “I wish I could look through it.”

“I wish you could too,” Grian responds. 

Scar is quiet for a long moment, and Grian imagines him in his lookout perched on the rocks. What does his little cabin look like? Are there paintings hung on the walls and a cat sleeping on the blanket? Radios and telephones and stacks of papers and Scar’s hiking boots unlaced by the door? He’s never seen it. It has to be more peaceful than Grian’s own place. 

Finally, Scar speaks again. 

“I think you need to stop thinking about the past,” he says. “Who cares about Cloud Lake and all that data in the file? It doesn't matter. We know he isn’t there—we figured that out a while ago! Who cares who’s fault it is, or why someone did or didn’t do something a year ago?”

“I just want it to make sense.”

He tries not to remember the way the District Ranger told him that they’d already given him all the results of the search. He tries not to remember the way incident command had run things by him last year, and the way he finally agreed to end the search once he realized they were going to stop anyway. 

“It never will,” Scar says. “Things are just like that sometimes.”

“I want it to be someone’s fault.”

“Someone other than Mumbo’s fault?”

“It’s not Mumbo’s fault,” Grian says. 

“And it isn’t yours either.”

Grian might have argued about that at some point earlier in the summer. He still isn’t entirely convinced of it. But he’s tired now. He’s so, so tired. Instead he just says, “So it must be their fault.”

“It could be nobody’s fault,” Scar offers tentatively. 

“It has to be their fault,” he replies, doubling down. “It has to be.”

“Did they lie to you?”

“They didn’t tell me about the trail being closed or Mumbo being given a faulty permit,” Grian says. “I consider that a lie.”

“I do too,” Scar says. “Sounds like they fumbled it.”

Grian continues. “But…I don’t think they lied about anything else. Scar, how can that be? I’m supposed to be able to figure it out now. I’m supposed to find all the pieces they didn’t tell me and put them together. They were supposed to be keeping information from me. I don’t—I don’t know how to find him.”

“I’m sorry,” Scar says. “I was…I was really hoping you had something.”

Grian pulls the folder out of his backpack again. He stares at it. “There is a map,” he says. “It’s basically the same as the one I already have, but they’ve actually marked the area where Mumbo’s bike was found instead of me trying to piece it together based on what you told me. I think he must have camped there too. I’m going to follow it.”

“Today?”

“I don’t have anywhere else to go, do I?” Grian stops, and then asks in a small voice: “Are they going to arrest me or something, Scar?”

Scar contemplates this for a moment. Actually, a moment too long to keep Grian balancing his anxiety, if he had anything to say about it. He finally replies, “I don’t think so. I don’t think they’d do that. You didn’t take money or commit fraud or leak confidential information, you just took a file for personal use. It’s not allowed and you might never work here again but I don’t think you’ll get arrested.”

“If I got in trouble they’d just send me right back to England, I guess.”

“Would you hate that?”

“If Mumbo was still here, yeah.”

“If he wasn’t?”

Grian’s silent. 

“Right,” Scar says. “Well, I don’t think you’re going to be arrested.”

“Good,” Grian says quietly. If there’s any good news of the day, that would be it. It’s not that—it’s not that he isn’t willing to get into legal trouble to help Mumbo. It’s that he can’t be of any help at all to Mumbo if that happens.

And, perhaps, he doesn’t want to be in trouble anyway. He’s so tired. He can’t give up on this, not now, not after everything he’s learned and not after all of his setbacks. He can’t give up. But he’s so tired, and he just can’t let anything more get in his way.

He changes the subject,  “I need to go now. I have to get my stuff ready. I can’t stay here anymore.”

“And you’re going to go to Pinnacles again?” Scar asks. 

“Yeah. I’m going to follow the map and try to find his old campsite. I don't know what I’ll do next so don’t ask.”

“Take your radio with you,” Scar says. 

Against his better will, Grian smiles. “Are you encouraging me to steal more government property?”

“I just think you might need it,” Scar says. “I mean, what are they gonna do? Get you fired twice for stealing something? Just take it with you. I’ll keep an eye on things for you. Talk to me. Be careful.”

Grian swallows, suddenly feeling…something. “Thank you,” he says. Then, before he has the chance to turn it off, he remembers: “What did you name the fire?”

“Huh?”

“The fire. You said you’d tell me what name you picked if I told you what I did yesterday.”

“Oh,” Scar says. “I called it the Nitwit fire. You know, because of the idiots.”

Grian smiles a little, despite himself. Yeah, because of the idiots. 

»»———-　　———-««

It’s late afternoon, and Grian is on the Pinnacles trail again. 

The hike isn’t bad at all, but he’s growing weary. He’s been carrying around this pack since this morning, and from yesterday. It’s biting into his shoulders and collarbone. The pack carries basically his entire life at this point; he left as little as possible back in the lookout. He straightened up the place, made it neat, took his things, and left. 

It is also much more obvious now that there is a fire nearby than it was when he was hiking in this morning. The air quality is poor. This trail normally has good views, but right now the good views are only in a specific direction. If Grian faces anywhere in the vicinity of the Nitwit fire, the entire horizon disappears under the blanket of smoke. 

This is not making hiking easier. 

He stops to reexamine the map, and then compare it to the compass he carries. Before Mumbo went missing, he was not experienced at orienteering. Since then, he’s basically taught himself. He falls back on that practice now. It’s not the trail he’s afraid of losing; he knows where he is. It’s where the trail is in relation to where those hikers found Mumbo’s bike. 

He should be close. He’s got to be close. 

This area is mostly forested, except for when the trees break away at points to review a lovely vista that is currently mostly covered in smoke. This is good, because it means it’s sheltered. It’s nicer to camp in a sheltered place than it is an open place—the wind doesn’t mess around on a mountain peak. 

This trail does not have any backcountry campsites on it in this section, but free camping is allowed in Shoshone National Forest. While people need a permit to enter the backcountry, it isn’t required to stay in a designated campsite. If Mumbo followed the rules, then his campsite needs to be 200 feet off the trail. That’s what makes this so difficult; it won’t be right next to the trail. In some places in the wilderness the sightlines are so obscured that he wouldn’t be able to see 200 feet. 

Grian is operating on the assumption that Mumbo did follow the rules. He’s generally too nervous of a person to blatantly break them, so Grian feels safe in this guess. He is also assuming that Mumbo would have chosen his campsite purposefully and not randomly, so he’s looking for spaces that are easy to access. It’s far more likely that there is an already established spot where people have camped before that it is for Mumbo to have bushwhacked his way into a clearing Grian can’t already see. 

Of course, maybe that’s why they haven’t found him. Maybe he is in one of those locations Grian can’t already see. 

Still, Grian focuses on places that look like obvious campsites first. He checks several of these such locations, and comes up empty each time. He can determine pretty quickly whether someone has been camping in the area or not. When he finds Mumbo’s campsite, he’ll know when he sees it. 

He sees it just a few minutes later. 

He's been looking for things that seem out of place, or man-made, in the forest. There, through the trees, he sees what he was looking for: a glimpse of fabric. There’s something red hanging in one of the trees. It’s remarkably well-hidden. If he hadn't looked in just the right direction at the right time, he would have missed it. 

Grian is stepping off the trail before his brain can catch up to his feet. He brushes past bushes, crunches leaves, and steps over a log before he’s there, at the base of this tree. 

There’s a backpack strung up in one of the branches, dangling several feet above Grian’s head. It’s tied in the way that bags are recommended to be tied in bear country—ten feet from the trunk and fifteen feet above the ground. If you are camping for the night and carrying food, this is how you protect your pack in absence of a bear box. 

Grian recognizes this backpack. It’s like the bike all over again. He was with Mumbo when he bought this. 

They’d both gotten backpacks on the same day. Grian’s, the one he’s carrying right now, is dark green and tan. Mumbo’s was red and tan. Mumbo had told Grian that red was really more of his color, but Grian could tell Mumbo secretly liked that color the best. He insisted Mumbo buy that one instead. 

He insisted Mumbo buy the one that is dangling in front of him right now.

He just stares. The bag moves slightly in the breeze.

It’s worn. The color has faded from months of sunlight. The rope that was used to secure it has deteriorated. It seems more brittle than it should be, the material stiff, inflexible, and faded from sunlight. Another winter season and this bag would be on the ground. 

Mumbo’s bag is here, and it clearly hasn’t been moved in a long time. 

Suddenly Grian moves toward the tree, nearly tripping over himself in his haste. He struggles to undo the knot that is securing it—his hands are shaky, why are they so shaky? Just when he’s ready to give up and try to dig through his own pack for a knife he gets it, and instead of letting the pack down gently he misjudges the weight. It lands with a thump on the ground, and Grian stares again. Then he’s rushing over to the bag, slinging his own pack onto the ground, and kneeling next to it. 

He has to open it. It’s Mumbo’s. If he had doubted it before, he can’t now—there’s a name scribbled onto a tag at the back of the bag. This is something that is tangibly his, something that is actually right in front of Grian. It’s heavy. It might have clues in it. But part of Grian hesitates, the same part of him that is fighting to still stay present in the moment. His heart beats in his ears. 

Clearly, the hikers who returned his bike hadn’t been lying. He didn’t realize that he thought they might have been lying until this very moment. Mumbo was in this area. He’d really been on the Pinnacles trail the entire time. But he isn’t here now and hasn’t been for some time. This bag is his, but it’s been abandoned. The bike was rusty and in bad shape, also abandoned. 

This is the second item that belonged to him that has been found in this area. The second item that wasn’t with him. 

Why are his things here, but not him? 

What would make him abandon his things? 

Why did he leave them? 

Why didn’t he come back for them? 

He feels ice cold. Grian opens the bag anyway. There was never an option not to open it, just a moment that he required to steel himself for its contents. 

There’s a lot in the bag. There’s too many things. There’s far too many things. 

He pulls out Mumbo’s camp stove. He pulls out his sleeping bag, and his sleeping pad. He pulls out some of Mumbo’s food—setting the nonperishable things aside and gingerly tossing the very perishable things further away. The bears can eat that now, he doesn’t care anymore. He pulls out some spare bike tools. He pulls out the tent, and some spare clothing. 

There are no water containers in the bag, no lantern or torch, no jacket, no first aid kit, no compass, and no maps. 

Grian sits back on the forest floor, and thinks about what he has found. He has packed his own bags enough times now that he can tell which components are missing. This clearly isn’t everything that Mumbo would have taken with him. Mumbo isn’t here, which means that the remaining things are with him, wherever that is. 

This isn’t Mumbo’s final campsite, either. If Mumbo had been following the guidelines then he strung his bag up 200 feet from where he had slept. Set your camp 200 feet from the trail, and string your food up 200 feet from your campsite. But the material packed in the bag is telling Grian that there is unlikely to be anything left in the spot Mumbo camped. Maybe the campsite is where the hikers had found his bike, the metal sparkling in the sunshine, far enough away that they didn’t notice the bag hanging from the tree. 

He should tell Scar this. He needs to tell anybody this. 

He pulls his radio out again, and flicks it into the on position. “Scar?” Grian calls. “Scar? I found the—I found Mumbo’s campsite, it really is on Pinnacles, I found his bag. It’s here Scar, all of it is here. Scar, I—I need you to be with me.”

Scar is ready on the receiving end, like maybe he’s been waiting this whole time. “Grian?” he responds. “Where are you? You found it?”

“It’s right where it was on the map, right where the hikers said it was. I found his bag.” He can’t take his eyes off it. “Scar, it matches mine but it’s red. We bought it on the same day. It’s his. I know it’s his. His name is on it. We bought it at the same time. I found it. It’s still here. It was hanging in the tree. Like for bears, when you camp, right? It was just hanging there. I found it.”

“I can’t believe you found it. Are you okay?” Scar asks. 

“What’s he going to do without his tent?” Grian says. His voice is rising in pitch. “He needs that, Scar, he needs shelter. He doesn’t have his tent, or his sleeping bag, or his extra clothes, or his food, or, or clearly his bike—it’s all still here.”

“He left it there?” Scar says. “Why did he leave his things?”

Grian knows. He can piece it together by the negative space. What’s missing is what tells the story. That’s the worst part of all of this. He knows. It’s all he’s ever wanted, to know, and it’s carving him inside out. 

He knows. He can’t unknow this. 

“I think he went on a day hike,” he says, speaking fast. “I think he camped here more than one night. I think he left his bike during the day because he wanted to go somewhere he couldn’t ride it. I think he strung up his pack because he didn’t want to carry it with him and needed to keep the food away from the bears. He took his water, he took his maps, he took his flashlight, he took his jacket. He left his sleeping bag and tent.”

“He planned to come back.”

“It’s been over a year,” Grian whispers. 

“I’m sorry,” Scar says. “I’m sorry he didn’t come back.”

“No, no,” Grian says. He’s holding his radio’s call button down with one hand, but the other hand is just gripping the canvas of the backpack. He can’t let go. “This is not it. I still haven’t found him. This is just one more clue.”

“Grian.”

“Stop it,” he says. “Stop it, it’s fine. It’s fine.”

“Grian,” Scar repeats. “You found his campsite, like you wanted. You did that. Can you—can you come back now? What if you came back and searched it more later?”

“There isn’t time,” Grian bites. “I can’t go back anyway. I’m fired. I don’t have any time left. I’ve been waiting too long, this is progress, I can’t—why would I do that? Scar, why would I do that? Why are you asking me to do this?”

“I just don’t think you should be out there anymore right now,” Scar says. “I don’t think it’s really safe right now. I’ve been on the radio all afternoon coordinating for the Nitwit fire. I’m worried about you being out there. Please come back, you found the campsite, you can do this again later.”

“I can’t,” Grian says. 

It has to be now, because this is the most progress he has made in months. It has to be now, because the dominoes are starting to fall and he’s beholden to watch it to its end. He needs to know more than anything else. 

Sometimes, his need to know really is more than anything else. It’s more than his desire to keep a job, it’s more than his desire to please his family and friends, it’s more than his desire to not commit a crime. It might be more than his desire to live. 

“Please,” Scar says. 

“He’s out here. I won’t abandon him.”

“Please,” Scar says. “He isn’t out here, Grian. Not anymore. He hasn’t been for a while.” 

This is a gut punch. Because Grian, in defiance of every personal rule he’s set for himself this past year, actually trusted Scar. 

“Did you ever believe me?” he asks. 

“Of course I did!” Scar says. “I believed in you.”

“But you didn’t believe Mumbo was alive.”

Nobody does. He should have known this, because nobody except Grian does. And Grian, does—does he?

Almost all of Mumbo’s gear is here, and he never came back for it. All of his survival gear is here, and he isn’t. 

“I wanted to help you find him, I wanted to help you figure out what happened to him because you deserved to know. Mumbo deserved to have someone know.  I never—” Scar stops, and doesn’t finish the thought. It’s for the best. There’s a difference between finding someone alive, and finding them dead. There doesn’t have to be a heartbeat attached to unraveling a mystery. Scar only ever claimed to want to help find Mumbo.

 Instead, Scar finishes, “You’re hurting yourself.”

“I’m so close,” he says. “I’m making progress. I’m so close. You can’t stop me, Scar. You aren’t here.”

“I know,” Scar says, and he sounds broken. “I know. Can you just—go back, back to your lookout, back to your car, just anywhere else. We can talk about this later, I’ll talk to you about it later, I’ll help you search more later, I promise I will, but you don’t need to be on this channel anymore. Please switch to the main channel so you can hear everyone’s updates on the fire.”

“You know I can’t,” he says. 

“Then be careful,” Scar pleads. 

“I’m going to find him.”

<< Chapter Nine | Masterpost | Chapter Eleven >>

#grian #goodtimeswithscar #hermitcraft #hermitcraft fanfic #hermitcraft au #quara fanfic #hc_firewatch_au

[headedoutleft]

The long-awaited jobs board for the American Climate Corps, promised early in the Biden administration, will open next month, according to details shared exclusively with Grist.

The program is modeled after President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Civilian Conservation Corps, launched in 1933 to help the country make it through the Great Depression. The positions with the new corps could range across a number of fields including energy-efficiency installations, disaster response preparedness, recycling, and wildfire mitigation.

The White House plans to officially launch an online platform in April. At first, only a couple of hundred jobs will be posted, but eventually up to 20,000 young people are expected to be hired in the program’s first year. Interested candidates can apply to the positions through the portal, and the majority of the positions are not expected to require experience.

“The American Climate Corps is a story of hope and possibilities,” said Maggie Thomas, a special assistant to the president for climate change. “There’s an incredible demand signal from young people who we see as being put on a pathway to good-paying careers.”

That path could include work such as installing wind and solar projects, conserving energy in homes, and restoring ecosystems, such as wetlands, to protect towns from flooding. Thomas announced a logo for the program at the Aspen Ideas climate conference in Miami on Wednesday

…

That demand was evident at a series of public listening sessions held by the White House earlier this year. The events were oversubscribed and ran over time with participants eager to sign up for potential jobs, Thomas said. Given the demand, President Biden promised to triple the size of the corps in a decade at his State of the Union speech last week. His newly proposed budget calls for an $8 billion expansion of the American Climate Corps to employ an additional 50,000 corps members per year by 2031.

Still, that’s nowhere close to the dreams some progressives had for the program: Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York had hoped it would put 1.5 million Americans to work addressing the climate crisis. Nor is it comparable to the original Civilian Conservation Corps, which hired 3 million men to plant billions of trees, fight forest fires, prevent erosion, and build trails you can still hike at national parks today.

“We’ll say this again and again — hundreds [of positions] is not enough,” Levin said. “We’re talking about a country on fire. We’re talking about people not being able to breathe the air outside. So the scale needs to be dramatically ramped up.” He sees the president’s call for billions in funding for the program as a signal that the administration is committed to expanding it.

#climate change #usa news

[joeltheresa]

Late nights

zoinks! I'm late to the party. This isn't proofread or anything but if I keep looking at this, I'm going to lose my mind.

Pairing: Tess x (f)reader

WC: ~1700 words

TWs/Warnings: 18+, fingering, not proofread or edited, I don't think I use any pronouns or anything in the fic, but Reader has a clit so do with that what you will.

Small edit: how embarrassing is it that I wrote “pronounce” instead of pronouns? I love myself

Summary: Tess comes home to you after a run with Joel and helps you relax. | Read it on AO3.

It’s well past midnight when the door opens and she slips inside. Her key clatters when she throws it on the kitchen table and despite her best attempt to stay quiet, the floor creaks under her heavy boots. 

You’ve tried to relax, but it’s always difficult when she’s away. The smuggling in itself is already dangerous (something you know she knows, because she never lets you come), but there’s also a million things that worry you around it. Leaving the QZ? Bullet between the eyes. Being out after curfew? Bullet between the eyes. Illegal trading of cards? Bullet between the eyes. 

The QZ isn’t all it’s made out to be on the outside. Even though the risk of infection is much smaller here, any misstep can easily be your death. Only last week you had seen two lovebirds hanging for meeting after dark.

By the time she slips in behind you, she has taken her boots and jeans off. The flannel still hangs around her shoulders and the tank top underneath has slipped up enough that you can feel the warm skin of her stomach against your back.

“You awake?” she murmurs softly and sometimes that gentleness surprises even yourself. You don’t know her full story, no one ever knows anyone’s full story anymore, but you know the past ten years have been a lot kinder on you than on her. She has aged in a way she wouldn’t have if the world had still been normal. There’s still the normal signs of age, of course. Wrinkles around her eyes when she smiles, the stray gray hair here and there, but it runs deeper than that. She’s exhausted and sometimes she only leaves bed because FEDRA could very well have her head if she didn’t. Every bone in her body hurts and she wears her grief like armor, has built walls so high and thick they’re worse than the ones around the QZ. 

Still, she manages to be kind, gentle. You know what she does on her runs with Joel, you’re not blind or stupid. She has seen more violence than you can ever dream off, and you know she has killed. Not only infected.

You finally hum a reply when her nose bumps against the back of your head. One of her arms wound around your middle and she toys with the hem of your shirt. The worn fabric has hiked up around your waist, and every brush of her finger against your skin burns like fire. 

“I think this used to be one of mine.”

A scoff leaves you, even though it’s entirely true. The band logo has long since been washed away and there’s holes in it, but it reminds you of her. When you’re lucky, it smells just like she does and feels like something akin to one of her hugs. It’s the only thing that gets you through most nights when she’s gone. That and burying your head in her pillow until your head swims with her and the pillow suffocates you enough that you had to pull away for a proper breath of air.

Her fingers linger on the shirt. She doesn’t voice her thoughts, she so rarely does, but you would do just about anything to know what she’s thinking about. The silence stretches into minutes, maybe even hours, and you’re moments from sleep when she slips her hand from the hem of your shirt to your belly. Fingers trail mindless patterns and you wish you could stay in this moment until you die.

Tess moves lower, but so slowly she could chalk it up to your imagination if you asked. A thumb brushes just below your belly button and she nudges you with her other arm until you raise your head and allow her to slip it beneath you. When you settle against her bicep, she’s suddenly so close it feels as if you might morph into her.

“How was the run?” You ask, finally, and your voice sounds too loud in the quiet of the room. The entire building is asleep and one too loud noise could very well wake your next door neighbors. It could result in a complaint, but it rarely does. People have more urgent things to worry about than loud voices in the night. 

“It was fine, sweetheart”, she murmurs, and her lips brush the back of your neck. It sends a shiver down your spine and warmth to the pit of your core, and you can practically feel her smirk against your skin. “I’ve told you not to worry about it.”

Your reply catches in your throat when her fingers reach the edge of your underwear, and whatever you wanted to say is lost.

It takes her a moment before she slips her fingers beneath the hem, and she brushes her fingers just below the fabric. Her lips brush against the back of your ear and hums something. You couldn’t make it out even if you wanted to, not when her nails catch against your skin and scratches softly.

“Tess”, you mumble softly and she chuckles, finally lets her fingers brush lower, through coarse curls until one lithe finger circles your clit. It’s enough to send tiny sparks up your spine.

“Tess”, you repeat when her fingers still and only lingers against the warmth of your skin, and her smirk is more evident now than ever.

Carefully, as if not to disturb her own hand, Tess slides a knee in between your thighs to give her some more space. When she’s satisfied with the new position, two fingers rub against the bud where you need her the most, and a soft sigh leaves you. 

Nothing to take away the tension of the day quite like her hands.

“I’ve told you to relax”, she murmurs, just as she slips her two fingers through your already damp folds. “You never listen.”

A soft chuckle leaves you. If anything, you do listen. More so than she ever does, anyway, but this isn’t anything new. She’ll come marching in and curl up behind you and mutter soft nothings like it doesn’t help her relax as much as it helps you.

When she exhales, the breath of air tickles the baby hairs at the base of your scalp, and the shiver that runs through you isn’t all sex. It’s just as much knowing that she’s safe, and that she’s here and that even now, when it feels as if the world is ending, she’s yours.

One of her fingers brush against your clenching hole, and she huffs another ‘relax’, before she nudges a finger inside you. It’s not enough and too much, all at once. You clench around the intrusion, and glance over your shoulder in an attempt to look at her. She gets the hint and captures your lips before you can say anything, and the kiss is slow and gentle.

Her lips still taste like the liquor she and Joel must’ve shared and there’s a lingering taste of smoke, one you would usually scoff at (it’s like kissing an old ashtray, Tess!), but not today. You’re too tired to pretend to hate it, and melt into her every touch.

When she finally moves her finger, it’s agonizingly slow. She pulls away until nothing is inside you, then pushes it back inside just as slowly. She muffles your soft whimpers with her lips, swallows every sound like she’s starving.

It’s impossible to tell how long it’s been when she adds a second finger. She meets no resistance whatsoever, but you know it doesn’t come as a surprise to either of you. Most of her hand is soaked and your panties are sure to be ruined.

She picks up the pace and grinds the heel of her palm against your clit, moves as if the brush is entirely accidental even though it isn’t. You know that she knows exactly what she’s doing, and it’s driving you mad.

“Fuck”, you mewl softly when you break the slow kiss, and turn away from her. Your head immediately drops to the pillow beneath your head, twists until you can press your face into it to muffle any noise.

Her breathy laugh straight into your ear has you shuddering, and the next time she thrusts a finger into your warm cunt, it’s with a little more drive than before. It goes just a little deeper, and she’s merciless when she brushes the tip of her fingers against the spot inside you that makes you see stars. She massages that spongy spot until your thighs feel weak and your fingers are clutching the sheets so tightly your knuckles must’ve turned white by now. 

“C’mon”, she murmurs, and her voice is the kind of hoarse it only ever gets when she’s tired but refuses to sleep. “C’mon, darling.”

Her voice and the continued movement of her fingers coaxes the orgasm from you. The small cry that leaves you is swallowed by the pillow, as is the shuddering sob that follows.

She keeps her fingers moving, slower now, and her hand brushes against your clit every few moments to make sure you get the most out of your high. You tremble in her arms and whine into the pillow, bucking your hips in an attempt to both get away and get closer at the same time. 

It takes a moment, until you come back to reality. The messy cloud that has made anything unimportant for a moment disappears, and an exhaustion seeps into your bones, as if you haven’t had a proper night’s sleep in years.

The sheets beneath you are damp with sweat, but neither of you care to move. There’s hardly any clean sheets to use, anyway, and the mattress underneath is so disgusting you’re entirely sure not even a stray dog would use it without one. But, it’s the way of the world, these days.

“Now, sleep”, she murmurs. “It’s late.”

When you make yourself comfortable and glance out the small window in the wall, the sky has shifted from a midnight blue to a soft pink. It’s nice. Even if it’s only another two or three hours until the alarm clock shrieks, it almost feels like before. Someone in an apartment close by has put on the radio, and the soft tune of Hungry Heart lulls you to sleep, still in Tess’ soft embrace.

#tlou #the last of us #tess x reader #tess servopoulos x reader #the last of us hbo #tlou hbo #fanfic #fanfiction #fic #mine

[logosai]

@wellscollins Logo Design for Kinetic Trails - a Colorado company founded by a team of industry veterans who specialize in the construction, restoration, and maintenance of soft surface, aggregate, and hard surface trails and pathways. The Kinetic Trails wordmark is a dynamic script with an even mix of sharp angles and rounded, flowing letterforms. The diamond shaped mark is pulled from trail marker signage, and symbolizes an expert level of efficiency and skill. The color palette uses earth tones, but with a hint of speed inspired by the British racing green. #logo #logodesign #wordmark #logotype #brand #branding #branddesign #racinggreen #earthtones #trail #trailbuilder #colorado #coloradotrails #hiking #mountainbiking #denver #denverdesign #type #lettering #handlettering #responsivelogo #dribbble #logobook #logoinspiration

[austerulous]

◈   @ramblingsofamoonwatcher said:  

❛ It was another peaceful morning steeped in solitude, nestled in the deep loneliness of the woods. The air was stagnant with the pungent scent of pine sap, honeyed warmth cooked out of the bark by the summer sun.

There was birdsong, the rustling of the trees, the wooden creak of the old watch tower. Loudest of all was the heavy split of wood each time her axe cracked down upon it. She was dressed in uniform, khaki shorts that reached above her knees, tight around her muscled thighs and backside and cinched at her waist. Upon her feet were tall black hiking boots giving way to white socks, matching the colour of the plain tank top she wore. Her long ebony hair was pulled back in a loose braid, wisps glued to the sweat that beaded down her face.

The gradual crescendo of a quad engine broke through the peace of her morning, only once the machine was parked and the man had stepped off did she cease splitting wood. She slung her axe over her shoulder, wiping her drenched forehead with the back of her tattooed arm.

"Are you the one that they sent out to do the repairs?" She asked, approaching him with little expression upon her pallid face. "I wasn't exactly expecting you to come. A big storm is supposed to roll in late this afternoon, thought they were going to call you off. If the rain comes like they're saying you won't be able to get back to the park office on those trails."

Vibrant emeralds eyes took in the sight of the man. He seemed around her age, perhaps slightly older. He was tall, well muscled- made sense for a welder she supposed. What caught her attention most was his liquid silver eyes, she could not avert her gaze, holding contact to observe all those multifacets. ❜

A twist of the wrist, a turn of the key, killed the engine.  In the aftermath of the ATV’s deep, reverberating rumble, the world seemed impossibly quiet, silent save for the birdsong that drifted down from the pines – and the voice of the fire watcher.  Farkas couldn’t say what he had expected, only that she was not it.  Dressed in sweat that set her tattoos to shine, she made her approach as he dismounted the quad, standing shoulder to shoulder with her axe. Impressive, almost gothic in her beauty.

“The very one.  Name’s Farkas.  I’m with Skyforge Steelworks.”

Tapping the embroidered anvil logo on his polo shirt, he delivered his introduction in a largely flat affect, his voice low in his throat.  Nettle-coloured eyes dragged over him, before boring shamelessly into silver.  There was an intensity to her scrutiny that caught Farkas off-guard, that compelled him to keep talking, to look away.

“I guess they didn’t believe the forecast…”  His gaze tilted upwards, to where dappled sunlight poured like honey from above, its warmth baking into the browning pine needles that spread like carpet beneath their boots.  Civilisation dulled his preternatural senses, making them easier to ignore.  Here, far from the township, in this remote pocket of the forest, the storm’s distant approach felt undeniable.  Air, humid and heavy, pressed up against him with promise.  It made his clothes cling.

“I better get started then, huh?  Try to get back before the sky opens. Just point me in the right direction, and I’ll get the job done.”

#' honeyed warmth cooked out of the bark by the summer sun ' GORGEOUS #i see you mentioning the storm and i must insist farkas gets rained in with hith #i need this for them because of reasons #also the way he looked away #he's shy! #◈ — answered #◈ — ic; farkas #◈ › modern #ramblingsofamoonwatcher

[horse-ever]

feeling lonely & shopping for shoes again

its so stupid how im actually hyperfixating on barefoot shoes but not even in the running/physiological way but in the sense that im obsessed with understanding and typifying the different styles and gaining a broad knowledge of every single available barefoot shoe on the market - mostly bc they are generally so ugly due to the lack of sole, which means that the style must come from the body of the shoe rather than the sole, which is the part of shoes that ive found so attractive in the past. yet barefoot shoes have totally corrected my gait just by my gaining of the sensory feeling of the ground allowing me to have greater awareness of how my foot connects to my overall posture and gait - previously i walked with like zero awareness of my foot, just moving my legs and letting my feet atrophy, squished into shoes which provided a negative kind of sensory feedback, in their tightness allowing a crushing sensation to be my primary feedback that i received from gravity

i have a pair of all-black vivos which are intended for "hiking" potentially but don't have their grippy 7mm sole that their other hiking models have, so its a 5.5mm overall stack + a 2mm thermal insole which ive found feels better overall. they look too unassuming+businesslike for me though, i want a more feminine shoe to accompany them, but other than crocs (not barefoot but close) its been almost impossible to find a colorful, feminine barefoot shoe that is wide enough for me, which also appeals to my style - i used to wear clogs/etc which were feminine bc of their height, but thats obviously out of the question now that my bodys adjusted to barefoot and i dont want to go back, but the available options are so limited

i could get more mens vivos (womens vivos are too narrow for me) bc i like what i have, and they have one colorful model of trail runner, but their branding is so fucking obtrusive and ugly, i hate that they have branding in white accents on the hikers that i have now, at least their dna logo on the side is black and not noticeable, i like their brown hikers in the same style - also want brown boots, as i build my shoe collection again - but the dna thing is so bright white on the brown

i like some of the shoes on mukishoes and magical shoes but they are both based in the EU and returns sound like a nightmare, camper peu is another option but barefoot enough for me, i think they have a stack height of 10mm and i hear they run super narrow, and their mens models are all masculine, i want a warm color like purple, burgundy, pink, or orange with darker accents, i tried some older models of the merrell vapor glove but they were so insanely narrow i had no room for my toes to splay, but i really like that feminine, athletic style - magicalshoes explorer 2.0 is probably the closest i can get but again EU shipping

once i figure out a casual, low top shoe i want maybe a mary jane or a chukka, which get even uglier because theres barely any potential for a charming ugliness, which characterizes most of what i find redeemable in barefoot trail runners

[casspurrjoybell-26]

Too Old For This - Chapter 5 - Part 1

*Warning Adult Content* 

Zachary saw Leroy approach the picket fences long before the man could see him.

He stared at him from the sunroom, sitting in his wheelchair as he cradled one of his many cats on his lap.

He felt his lips twist into a smile as the shorter man climbed over the fence and began to approach the house.

Oftentimes there was a cat just under the stairs of the porch and Zachary assumed that was where Leroy was heading.

Oftentimes Zachary would give the man a few minutes alone with the cat before he took himself to the porch to say hello and sometimes he didn't go out at all and simply took in deep breaths, knowing the young man was somewhere out on his lawn, petting a cat that was away from view.

He didn't want to come off as desperate or stalker-like.

He felt it would be uncomfortable if Leroy felt like he was forced to interact with him on every visit.

Leroy soon disappeared from view but what happened next threw Zachary off guard.

Usually, he would just hear the man muttering to his cat or pacing at the edge of the patio stairs before a cat approached him but this time Zachary heard a knock... on his front door... Leroy was knocking.

The older man felt a lump in his throat as a sudden desire to shrink into his chair and disappear overwhelmed him.

He looked down at the cat in his lap, wondering if there just weren't any cats outside and maybe that was why Leroy was knocking.

There were another series of knocks on the door and Leroy felt the hair on his skin stand up straight.

"Calm down," he mouthed to himself, shaking his head before letting out a sigh.

He looked in the direction of the door, biting his bottom lip before saying...

"Hold on for a minute," in a raspy voice... goodness, he hadn't said anything all day.

The knocking stopped and Zachary looked at the cat on his lap.

He picked it up, cradling it to his chest as he got up himself.

He felt the familiar pain in his knees, that made him wobble a bit and feel like he was out of breath for the briefest moments.

He curled his toes, making them grip onto his slippers until the pain passed.

With some effort, he started to walk, one foot and bone-crushing pain in his joints at a time.

It was weird.

Sometimes he was more than okay with walking.

Sure, his legs would get sore but it didn't feel bad and at other times it felt like the world was asking too much of him to just hold his own weight.

He wobbled over to the front door, opening it to be met with Leroy with a cat cradled on his chest while hoisted with one hand and the other hand holding onto a plastic bag with a 7/11 logo plastered on it.

Zachary blinked for a few seconds.

He was a bit shocked to see even Leroy even though he'd known he was the one behind the door.

The shorter man looked the same as ever, with his expressive, almost cartoonish, eyebrows and deep brown eyes.

His dark hair looked a little shorter than usual... probably a recent haircut.  

"Uh... hello."

Zachary gave himself a mental pat on the back for not simply stuttering, 'what are you doing here?'

Instead.

It still shocked him that Leroy was just standing right in front of him, so much so that the throbbing in his joints felt like a second-thought situation now.      

"Hello," Leroy said, smiling a little.

Zachary felt his breath hike a little.

It was a cute smile that made a ghost of a smile on the younger man's left cheek.

"I got some stuff on my way back from work and thought you'd maybe like some...?" there was a trail at the end of Leroy's sentence that made it sound like a question.

The older man blinked slowly, looking at the bag in the man's hand and back at the man again.

He wondered what this was about... well, it was obvious but also shocking.

Leroy was trying to hang out with him.  

"I..." Zachary said, stopping suddenly.

"I guess I could have some, as long as it doesn't have any meat."

Leroy raised a brow.

"You're vegan?"    

Zachary shook his head.

"Meat's just one of those things deli places can get wrong... at least for me. My stomach's sensitive," he said, remembering a time his sister had gotten him beef samosas and he'd been bedridden for two days, only moving between the bathroom and his bed.  

Yeah, he didn't want to risk anything like that again.  

"One of them is a veggie sandwich," Leroy said.

"That works, right?"      

Zachary chuckled too, nodding his head.

"Yeah," he said, as his lips fixed into a smile.

"You should come in," he said, stepping aside.

At that, a smile broke across the younger man's lips.    

"Don't mind if I do," Leroy said, wandering into the bungalow for the second time.

Zachary watched the younger man from the doorway, just taking in how the man looked.

He was lean but not as lean as Zachary... well, Zachary wasn't sure.

Simply being taller made him look like a bean-pole.

The younger man bent down for a moment, dropping the black cat he'd been hugging in his chest.

The animal protested but scurried through the hall in the direction of the basement.      

Leroy stood up, looking around before turning to Zachary, who was still at the door.

"Do you want yours warmed up or...?" Leroy said, making Zachary blink before looking at where the man was gesturing to.

Ah, the microwave sitting on the kitchen counter.  

"Sure," Zachary said, watching the younger man make himself at him.

Leroy looked through the cabinets before drawing out a ceramic plate and unwrapping the sandwiches.

Zachary took that as his cue to head over to the sofa, wincing in silence before sinking into the softness of the sofa.

He was still cradling the cat and he let it go, watching as it followed after the one Leroy had brought in... the basement... where the others were at.  

Zachary listens to the sound of the microwave turning and all the little noises Leroy was making just moving around.

The younger man hadn't taken off his shoes, so Zachary could hear them clicking with every step on the tiled floor.

Zachary also noted that the younger man seemed to sigh and hum a lot but he wasn't sure if it was just a thing of habit or if it demonstrated frustration or boredom.

Whichever way, it made Zachary's skin jump with nerves.  

He wanted Leroy to be there but there was just something about having somebody that wasn't his sister walking about the house.

It was exciting and it was also a bit scary.  

[anysigns]

Life Is Good Hiking Biking Fishing Camping Logo Outdoor Activities Nature lovers Adventure Vacation Travel Wildlife vinyl sticker 

As the first rays of dawn kiss the horizon, painting the sky in a symphony of pastel hues, you find yourself standing at the brink of an adventure that whispers of romance and wild escapades. The crisp mountain air carries with it a sense of anticipation, igniting a fire within you to explore, discover, and savor every moment of this enchanting journey.

With our Life Is Good vinyl sticker, you’re not just adorning your gear; you’re adorning your soul with the essence of untamed passion and boundless exploration. Imagine placing this sticker on your backpack, a symbol of the love affair between you and the great outdoors – a love affair that leads you down winding hiking trails, through lush forests on your bike, to serene fishing spots, and under the starlit sky of cozy campsites.

#vinyl decals #art #vinyl stickers #vehicle decals #painting #car stickers #business #vinyl sticker decal canada usa #vehicle graphics #adhesive vinyl print application #fishing #camping #hiking #mountains #forest #river #lake

[sagirl769]

Check out this listing I just added to my Poshmark closet: Women Hoka One Trail Code Boots Gore-Tex Blue US 11B.