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angelsworks · 4 months

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Goldilocks and the Four Bears

I haven’t written for the cod fandom yet so all the 141 might be terribly out of character. In fact I haven’t written for a while. I appreciate all the people that still read my work and continue to support me. I hope you’re all doing well :)

Poly!141 x reader

Masterlist -> Here (will be made later :))

Warnings: 18+, mature themes, descriptions of torture, injuries and mistreatment, etc

Summary: After escaping from your last mission that had gone terribly wrong, your stumble through the woods leads you to a log cabin.

It was snowing. Fucking snowing.

Any belief in a deity had been long since crushed after the last few months. Well you thought it had been months. Your captors (a small but deadly terrorist group) had failed to provide you with your own calendar and clock. Much like how they had failed to provide you with new clothes to replace your own, that had been ripped and torn and become tattered to the eye.

It was stolen clothes you now wore as you made your escape. Trudging slowly through the already six inch snow, your thoughts trailed to the fresh snow adding to the existing six inches. The size 12 pair of boots were rubbing at your heels with increasing vigour. Leading you to contemplate if bruised skin could blister or not. The guard you’d killed as part of your escape had been good for one thing. Or three things actually. The ill-fitting boots, a loose pair of combat trousers and long sleeved compression shirt.

As you made your way through the terrain you felt a cold chill steadily working it’s way up your trouser leg. Slowly, spreading across the flesh, affecting any skin that wasn’t in direct contact with the trouser material. It made you wish you’d waited for a guard more similar to your stature. While the compression shirt was better than nothing, it was still thin. The flimsy seeming material now doing little to ward off the cold.

Maybe the sudden awareness of the less than ideal weather conditions wasn’t down to your stolen clothes, but the sudden loss of adrenaline. How long had you been running now? Well trudging desperately through the snow, making your way further and further into the thick forrest and fauna.

It was hard to try and map where you’d been, what direction you’d walked in and where you’d come from. It was all white. Every tree looked the same. Every incline became and decline and you’d become disoriented.

Months of abuse, of torture, ofpain. All ignored for a few short hours as you willed your aching body forward. Through trees and snow and stone. Through anything that would put you at a greater distance from them, from Miasma.

They hadn’t transported you. At least you were mostly sure. When you blacked out, you woke in the same dingy cell, on the same dingy floor. Only covered in more bruises or cuts. So you hoped you were where this all started. In Slovenia.

You’d done solo missions before. It was easier that way. One man in, one man out. No one to turn on you or leak information. With Gunner in your ear, nothing ever went wrong. Until it did.

Your objective was to gather intel. To stay under the radar before formulating the next attack. While sneaking around you’d learned just how large their operation was. In turn you’d also learned just how large their base was.

The small outpost hid underground levels. That became clear after your covert operation was blown and you were dragged down to the very heart of the multi-storey building.

Each day (if that’s what you could call them) gave you no indication of the time of day or how much time had passed. They made sure of that. In fact it was the first time in months you’d seen the light of day.

The light that you noticed was now fading apparently, as you looked desperately up into the sky. Grey clouds had rolled in, covering the majority of the sky. The sun was still peaking out from the dense overcast that was rolling further forward. Soon the sky would be covered and the snow fall would quicken.

A few miles back you were struck that no one from Miasma had followed you. You’d expected armed guards to be shooting at you and angry dogs to be tearing at your ankles. Yet you’d had no chase.

Maybe they knew you would get nowhere in the climate. That you’d be weakened by the terrain and from the violence you’d endured. They were right of course. But you didn’t let it stop you.

Even now as you’d gone further, you still felt the burning desire to survive. Granted it dwindled under the ache of your body and the never ending valley of white before you. But you wanted to live. You wanted your revenge.

The final rays of the sun had been clouded and the snow started to pick up. At least your footprints would be covered under the fresh snow. Not that it mattered if all your footprints lead to was a frozen corpse.

Flexing your fingers, you found yourself wishing for gloves. Your toes were long past numb and every injury you’d endured felt like it was waking up. Old cuts that had turned to scars felt fresh, bruises that had yellowed felt like they’d returned to their starting purple colour. Your felt heavy. You felt dense. You felt tired.

Your desire to drive on had dwindled now. The once raging fire was now only a candle. A candle that was down to its wick. The wax around it long since melted and now it was to its edge. Trying to burn the glue that chained it in place. The image made you crave warmth even more.

Was this it?

All the work you’d put in over the years. From a child you had trained for a mission you didn’t fully understand. A mission that belonged to someone else, to Gunner. He’d turned you into a soldier, his perfect soldier.

Is this how his perfect soldier died?

No it wasn’t.

So despite your blue fingers, numb toes and foggy mind, you push on. Just a little further, you tell yourself. Past these trees, past this stream, past more trees.

Your doubts evaporate when you come upon a clearing. You find a decent space boarded by snow dusted trees from all sides. They stand tall, seemingly acting as natural walls to protect those inside. The grass is covered in undisturbed snow. It’s thick and white and makes you smile.

None of it matter though because sitting in the middle of it all if your salvation.

A log cabin.

You consider the sight to be a mirage. Created from and low blood sugar, dehydration and desperation. But you trudge on, almost to a stumble speed, as you reach for the door handle.

It’s unlocked.

Despite any moral compass telling you that breaking and entering or trespassing is wrong, you ignore it. You’re hurt, aching and this is a last resort.

You close the thick wooden door behind you. Taking note of the copious locks it has. When you move inside the cabin you find that no one’s home. As quietly as you can on stiff legs, you sneak around the house. Trying to wake up the instincts you’d been trained on.

Enter a room, check your surroundings, check again. Don’t assume anywhere is empty. Threats could be hiding around any corner.

So for each room of the ground floor you do just that. Open door, check the rooms, move on. From your searching you’ve found a large living room, a kitchen, a dining room, a toilet some sort of office/drawing room. The decor gives you no clue as to who’s house you’ve invaded. There are no pictures of people, no personal possessions. It feels surreal. And wrong.

To start with you go back to the living room. Using the large fireplace, stockpile of logs and matches, you start a fire.

Again, better sense would tell you to avoid such an action. To avoid alerting anyone of your presence here. But you decide to put sense aside in a bid for survival. If you didn’t get warm soon you were sure you’d be frozen soon.

Next you go to the kitchen. You rifle through the cupboard in an attempt to find something edible. To your surprise you find the place to be well stocked. Even going as far as having fresh milk in the fridge. The sight confuses you. Send alarm bells ringing in your ears.

There are products in the fridge that are in date. Fresh products. Yet no one is home. It doesn’t make sense.

As you empty a can of soup into a pan you realise, it doesn’t need to. You’re happy to play stupid and see this as all some sort of blessing, some miracle.

While the soup cooks you fill a glass with clean, cold water. Relishing in the taste of something fresh. When you’ve downed the first glass you refill it again. This time with an intention to make it last longer.

After the first spoonful you find that you like vegetable soup very much. Almost burning your mouth as you devour it in a few minutes. Immediately it feels as though you’ve been recharged. The warmth from the fire has spread throughout the ground floor, your fingers have warmed around the bowl of soup and your body no longer feels related to a glacier.

The sky only darkens as you sit by the fire. Basking in the warmth and taking a moment to rest for the first time in months. You don’t imagine ever leaving your spot on the floor. But the promise of a bed upstairs has you moving your legs in that direction.

Before your ascent to the second floor, you strip your clothes and hang them on a drying rack you found to the side of the fire. Now left in the nude.

Upstairs you find multiple bedrooms. All almost identical, except for one at the end of the hall. You assume this is the Cabin’s master bedroom as it’s slightly larger than the others. Inside there’s a wardrobe full of clothes, a full length mirror, a TV, some sort of game station, and of course the larger than most bed.

In the mirror you catch sight of yourself. The cuts of course stand out first. From the slight turn you can muster in your neck, you can see large welts and thin cuts, bruises and scrapes, all littering the previously plain skin. From the front and behind, your legs look like a Jackson Pollock original piece.

Capturing various purple and blues surrounded by smaller splodges of green and brown. With the occasional black blob or two to really contrast the overall tone of the piece.

As a child you had a strange infatuation with your bruises. Likening them to a sticker or badge of achievement. They were easy to come by during training. A strange part of you liked the way they looked on your skin. They acted as a log book of the hits you’d taken, the falls you’d taken, any sort of impacts you’d had. They made you feel strong, maybe even proud too.

Staring into the mirror at your body again, it all seems worthless. You knew you were strong before. You didn’t need months as a prisoner to prove it.

You take a few steps forward to properly look at your face. Who stares back must be a stranger. You haven’t let your eyebrows be this out of shape since you were thirteen. You didn’t have that scar above under your chin before. Your eyes were always so bright and vivid. Not lifeless or hollow or so lost.

With newfound energy you take yourself to the nearest bathroom. That just so happens to be the en-suite in the bedroom. It doesn’t surprise you. Nothing about this abandoned, well stocked cabin does anymore.

Instead you shower in one of the nicest bathrooms you’ve been to in a long time.

At first the water has you freezing. Not due to the temperature but because of the fire it lights on your back. Every scrape, every cut, every burn now being cleaned. The cleanse sets your body alight. In a way you feel the heat is helping you to heal. Granted, all you have to show for it is a mixture of blood and grime, floating slowly down the drain. But it’s more than that.

It’s the last few months being scrubbed off your skin. Your wounds and ailments being shown that this is the end. They can heal in peace. You can heal in peace.

So you take your time. Using any products you can find; shampoos, conditioners, body wash, face wash. You’ve acquired a new razor, fresh from the packet. It’s amazing what a difference shaving your legs and various other places can do to your mood. You’ve always preferred removing the body hair. Afterwards the feeling of smooth legs under a thick duvet made all the work worth it.

The final step, bar drying yourself, was brushing tour yellowing and plaque ridden teeth. The minty taste in your mouth feels unfamiliar but it welcomed nonetheless. Wiping your tongue across the now almost pearly-whites you’re happy with how smooth they feel.

Now showered, shaved and dried, you make you way into the bedroom. Finding the wardrobe and drawers to be filled wit strictly masculine clothes. You pick out a pair of boxers and one of the large white t-shirts to sleep in. The shirt dwarfs you in size, looking more like a dress. Not one that you would wear outside though. Not with the black boxers showering through the material, or your hardened nipples making an appearance.

With your towel back in the bathroom and the lights off, you crawl into bed. Letting out the loudest sigh your sore throat could muster. Then quickly falling asleep on the linen.

It was snowing. In fact it was a fucking blizzard.

A barrage of white, dagger-like snowflakes pelted against the four men. The lack of light and the dense haze of the storm made it impossible to see where they were going. They were all thankful for the less than modern compass. Hidden away at the bottom of Jonny’s bag. When he acquired it was unknown. But the four were grateful nonetheless that the Scott had the dated equipment in is kit.

After their week long training they were ready to fall asleep on the nearest surface. The blizzard they now faced was an unexpected one. Nothing on Price’s radar Gad alerted them to such a storm.

They’d just finished their survival training in the mountains when the first snowflake formed. During the rest of their descent it had only worsened.

As the snow around them thickened they trudged on. Becoming more aware of the weight of their kit, ache of their muscles and chill in their bones. These men were tired, hungry and cold.

After more miles and more words of encouragement from Price, Gaz was sure they were close to the safe house now.

Laswell had been kind enough to let them use the safe house after a particularly gruelling training exercise. It would be the closest thing to a holiday the 141 would get this year. Before the worst of the storm it had the Scotsman joking that he would build a snowman outside. An idea quickly shot down by Ghost in the interest of remaining vigilant to an enemies surrounding the house.

While snowmen were out of the question, snowballs were not. Something Ghost found out, twice, in the back of the head. Turning to see an innocent looking Gaz and Soap.

“You’ll regret that when we’re back on base and you two are on shit duty” the balaclava wearing Brit grumbles.

Soap sighs dramatically, “Oh come on Lt. Dinnae be like that, it was only a joke”.

The threat prompts Kyle to add, “It was all Soaps idea, think he should get shit duties on his own.”

Soap gasps feigning offence, “You bleeding clipe, don’t come knocking on my door when you want someone to warm your bed tonight.”

The comment causes the younger man’s face to heat up and laughs to come from the others.

“That if we get there in this blizzard” the captain quips. Trying to keep morale, but refusing to ignore the sinking feeling that they’ve missed the safe house completely.

“How far now?” Gaz asks, determined not to start pestering like an insolent child. Yet equally determined to have a proper meal and get out of his cold clothes.

“Two klicks north, then we should be there.” Soap tells him, loud enough for the others to hear in the now whipping winds.

“It was two klicks north last time someone asked Soap, are you sure you’re reading that right lad?” Price finds himself asking. Despite his rank, his military expertise and all his training agains the elements, it doesn’t make him immune to the cold. Immune to looking forward to sitting by a fire with a cup of tea in his hands.

Laswell wasn’t one to be stingy with safe house stock. From previous safe houses he’d been to that she had set up, they’d been a home away from home. Proper bedrooms, running water, stocked shelves. Price found himself ready to welcome anything that had four walls, a roof and could shelter him and his men from the storm.

“Two klicks north Captain, I’m sure”. Jonny confirms.

Sure enough, through the dense curtain of blizzard, light emerges. A gentle glow against the black nights sky. The closer they get, the clearer the house becomes.

A log cabin.

A big one at that. The sight is inviting enough to bring a smile to the men’s faces.

“Laswell’s outdone herself this time, fuckin yaldy” soap practically exclaims. Pushing forward to the front of the pack, in an effort to get in first.

“Hold it Jonny,” Simons voice is quiet through the mask, but harsh enough that the others can hear.

Ghost points to the chimney, “someone’s here”.

Sure enough as the others look up, they too see the plumes of smoke, gently rising from the brick chimney.

“Another team captain?” Gaz finds himself asking, while reaching for the know hidden in his thigh holster.

Price finds himself doing the same, “No, we’re the only ones in the country.”

The tension in the air is thick, rivals the thick snow pelting down on them. The four of them stand motionless, a short distance from the front door. Covered head to toe in winter gear, a layer of the snowstorm attached to anything it can stick to.

“Right, there’s only one door. I’ll lead. We’ll secure the ground floor first. Stay silent, we do this quietly.” Price commands. The men nod, moving to grasp their various knives. Following their captain as he moves to the front of the cabin.

With an almost inaudible creek, Price turns the handle of the door. Pushing the oak forward, grateful that it seems to glide over the wooden floors. Allowing him and his men to breach the property without alerting its inhabitants.

Price enters the living room first, signalling for the others to spread out and search the rest of the floor. He does indeed find a crackling fire, yet no one man’s it. The warmth is welcomed, but for the time being he ignores any desire to sit near it and warm himself.

His attention moves to the drying rack set up beside the fire. Upon further inspection of the items he finds combat trousers, a compression t shirt and a pair of large boots, size 12 he gathers from the label on the tongue. The clothes are still damp to the touch, leading him to infer that the intruder arrived a short time ago.

The badge on the arm of the shirt catches his eye. He rips it off the Velcro and examines it up close. An unknown insignia, contractor perhaps? Some new found terrorist group? Price doesn’t know. It’s not one he’s come across before.

Simon searches the kitchen. The space is a decent size, dark too. He blends into the shadows as he checks the space for any sign of life. He finds a empty soup can on one of the worktops. Turning to the sink he notices a single glass and pan siting there.

Once finished in his search he creeps back to the living room. Finding his captain there, along with a stoic looking soap and serious looking Gaz.

Price raises his hand to Simon, showcasing the fabric insignia to him. With cold eyes Ghost runs over the stitchwork. Mind running through the possible groups it could be associated with.

“Any ideas?” Price asks in a hushed voice.

Ghosts silence is a loud enough answer for the group. No

“Whoever they are haven’t been here long. Their clothes are still damp. Large boots, size 12.” Price goes through the details he’s uncovered.

“Men’s?” Gaz asks.

“Most likely”.

“There’s a pan in the kitchen. They’ve had soup. Only one glass.” Ghost reels off.

“We don’t know who we’re dealing with, could be anyone. Stay vigilant. Be prepared for a fight. I’ll take the lead upstairs. Shout if you find anything.” Price commands.

The team follow him single file up the stairs. Weapons at the ready as the sneak up the steps. Footsteps light on the wooden floor.

Price takes the first door, Gaz the second, Ghost the third and Soap the last door at the end of the hallway.

While three of the 141 find their rooms to be empty, Soap stops in the doorway. After almost silently twisting the door handle and letting it slide open, he stands in silence. What he didn’t expect to find was a girl sleep in the master bed, a pretty girl to be exact.

The Scotsman finds himself lost for words. He expected to have to fight someone of his stature. Maybe larger. He expected to walk away with a bruise or two. He feels lost on what to do. Should he wake her? Should he leave her?

Meanwhile the others have gathered in the hallway. Sharing a concerned glance at their teammate.

“What is it soap?” Ghost asked quietly.

“It’s a lass. A bonnie lass at that.” He tells them. Wonder in his tone as he stares at the sleeping girl. Watching as her chest rises and falls at a steady rate. Completely unaware of the four men that have entered the house.

The men collectively frown, walking further to investigate themselves. Sure enough, after they pass the threshold of the master bedroom, they too stand frozen. A girl. Not a man, or group of men. A girl, sleeping in their bed, in their log cabin.

Completely unaware.

#angelsworks post #dark #cod mwii #cod mw2 #cod modern warfare #cod men #ghost cod #cod x reader #cod mw3 #soap cod #cod gaz #cod price #cod kyle gaz garrick #cod simon riley #cod john mactavish #cod john price #poly!141 x reader #poly!141 #dark!141

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xxnghtclls · 5 months

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Permission

Chapter 48

(Chapter 47)

True Form Sukuna x Reader

Rating: Explicit

Warning: Graphic Depiction Of Violence

Please see Chapter 1 for tags!

Epilogue

Leaves and twigs crack under your feet, leaving trails and patterns on the snowy forest floor.

It’s night. Darkness interrupted by red, little sparks flying through the air. The stinging smell of smoke creeps into your nose. Remnants of the moonlight, far away, quietly shine through the branches of the trees, painting creepy shadows on the white canvas you’re walking on. The further you walk, the more those shadows dance on an orange tint, that starts to coat the snow, coming from a source, that you’ve set up not far away. Carefully, listening to the sounds of the forest, you walk back to that source.

A flame, a campfire. Right here, in the middle of the woods.

Step by step, you’re approaching that fire, holding wood in your arms to keep it burning. The sound of munching echoes in your ear, the sound of feasting, devouring.

It’s been years, since he liberated you. Unintentionally freed you from a miserable life in a miserable village.

Not knowing, what you were destined to become.

A destiny that no one foresaw.

Not even the King of Curses.

Coming closer, you can see the silhouette of your King, sitting on the very same tree he did a year ago.

When he waited night for night, waited for you to go back with him.

You start humming his melody, as your feet carry you back to the fireplace. The fireplace that made you fall in love with this monster, before you put the new wood down onto the ground.

And then, quietly, you turn to him, watching how he’s gnawing some meat off a bone, occasionally humming in satisfaction.

It’s been months, since you completed the ritual.

Since you’ve been killed and reborn and marked with a sign on the skin that covers your heart.

Months of being his and him being yours.

In the shrine you can now call home.

You look at him and smile softly to yourself, finding it cute how invested he is not to waste any meat that’s on that bone, although you have plenty left.

Sitting down on the log to the left of your King, you feel the warmth of his body on your skin and hear his gentle munching in your ear.

And you feel your love for him, still, despite putting you through all this. You lost your heart to him and, no matter what he did, you don’t want it back.

Ever again.

Asshole.

It’s been days since the both of you came back to this place.

A place you cherish in your heart.

And maybe, you hope, Sukuna cherishes it, too.

The crackling of the fire becomes louder and his noises quiet, making you both just sit there in silence, next to each other. He flicks the bare bone into the flames, before you gently lean against his shoulder, let your head quietly bump against him to be closer, feeling his calm breath beneath your soul.

And both of you just watch the fire in front of you, like you did so many times a year ago, when neither of you could express what’s going on.

Heartache.

It’s been seconds, since he let you know how he feels about you.

Although he never says them out loud, those three words that you’ve told him over and over again and still do.

But he doesn’t has to. Because, you know.

This curse.

So overwhelming, so consuming. Tying your souls together so tightly.

And some words don’t need to be spoken to be true.

Sukuna grabs another piece of meat and holds it under your nose. You cooked it yourself, with fresh herbs that you found earlier in the nearby bushes. It smells delicious. You lean back and sit straight again, before you grab the meat and take a bite.

It’s hot, warming you from the inside. You keep blowing and carefully gnawing and nibbling, until you finally can rip off a bigger piece. Feeling his bottom pair of eyes watching you constantly, you peek over to him quickly.

“What?” you ask with your mouth full, making him smirk, as he musters your stuffed cheeks and big eyes.

“Nothing.”

You pause your chewing, pondering.

“Is it how I eat?” you ask, already knowing the answer.

And he doesn’t respond, just keeps focusing on the fire, a hint of his smirk still decorating the corners of his mouth. The flames flicker in his red eyes, the orange light dances on his face and wrinkles. You can’t help to take them in, over and over again, although you already know his features so well, as if they’ve been imprinted on your eyelids.

So beautiful.

You smile to yourself, before you focus back on your meal, until you throw the remaining bone into the fire. Satisfied, you sigh, until you swallow the last bite you took.

Suddenly, something cold gently falls upon on your forehead and you look up. Delicate flakes of fresh snow are illuminated against the dark canvas of the night, falling down right upon you and Sukuna.

You smile softly, before you turn your head to look at him. He’s looking up into the sky, too and you witness, just in time, how a small flake lands on the tip of his nose, melting in an instant. You huff lovingly, before you gently touch that very spot with your finger. More flakes follow, landing on his mask, his eyebrows and lashes, before he opens his mouth, trying to bite your finger that’s resting on his nose.

Clack.

His teeth close around nothing and you quickly retrieve your hand to poke him into his shoulder instead.

Hard.

It makes his lip twitch, before he leans down to you, close to your face, cocking his eyebrow.

“Harder.” he whispers with a smirk, with this… undertone.

And you blush, remembering it’s what you moaned into his ear last night.

When you felt cold and the fire was not enough to warm your moving bodies.

When your skins and limbs and lips were intertwined, like those of lovers are.

When you kissed each other and hold each other dearly, when your hearts started to miss each other and their embrace.

“Are you sure?” you mumble, trying to keep composure. His gentle eyes roam over your face, scan how your delicate skin rushes full of extra heat.

And then he nods, almost unnoticeable, almost hypnotised, as his gaze falls down to your lips.

The string on your heart pulls you in, let your breaths collide and mingle, until they merge, as you start kissing him on his soft lips while feeling small, freezing flakes fall upon your faces. He quietly sighs against your face and keeps squeezing on your beating heart, before you gently lick and suck on his tongue and bottom lip.

“Okay.” you breathe against his pretty mouth, your breath and heartbeat quickened. “Wait here.”

His pupils are blown, already drowning in your being, before you stand up and walk into the snow.

You feel his needy eyes bore into your back, the string on your heart pulling harshly.

To make you walk back to him, to devour your flesh once again. Like last night, like lovers do.

But first, you crouch down, shove some snow between your hands and form a ball. Then, with all your strength, you turn around and throw it at him. Sukuna leans back to dodge but-

Bam!

The snowball hits his shoulder with a wet impact, shattering in a million pieces.

And you gasp in victory, as you throw your arms up in the air.

“Ahhh hahahah!” you exclaim, before a wide grin spreads onto his lips and he flashes his teeth. A sadistic, aroused chuckle escapes his throat, as his eyes flicker right at you, as he slowly rises to his feet, cracking his neck and knuckles, before he growls in excitement.

“So, you wanna play?”

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rise-my-angel · 9 months

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Heart of the Great Wolf

13 - Dragged Through the Violence

Paring: Jon Snow x F!Baratheon!Reader (Slow Burn), Robb Stark x F!Baratheon!Reader (Past)

Length: 9.5k

Warnings: angst/hurt comfort, slow burn, reference/allusions to rape, physical violence, torture, nonconsensual sexual language, consensual smut in flashback, consensual orgasm denial in flashback, talk of forced marriage and pregnancy

Notes: The nightmare train just keeps chugging along. Previous Chapter Here, Series Masterlist Here.

Reunions were an odd thing, many spoke of them in reverence and happiness, of joy and relief to find yourself finding people or place that felt long and lost to you. Coming together in a place that give you back a sense of identity, or reminds you of how far you’ve come since the last time. Some found a deep happiness in their reunion, whereas some were the exact opposite.

The dark of the night, snow lightly falling onto the ground now covered in wreck and blood in the aftermath of a fight was where the first was found. The mutineers of Craster’s Keep lay dead as their aloof attitudes made it easy for Jon and the others to sneak up on them and end the fight before it had any true chance of getting off the ground.

Much had been lost to him now. The North that was his home lay in the hands of the Boltons under the Lannister control, ripped away from the brother who meant the world to him as well the one person who Jon felt empty without. It was as if he could always sense you before, but now there was a dark space in his heart that was not willing to find any reason to mend.

Even though it seemed all he once called family was gone, there was one he knew for sure of their fate, now was somewhere out in this same frozen north beyond the Wall he stood currently, but what he was doing out here Jon didn’t know or where to even look. Bran was somewhere in this very North but Jon knew he would never find him in it. Just like another, only this wasn’t Jons brother. This missing one, was like part of his own identity he lost.

Jon had to send Ghost away that day in the cave. Ghost could understand what was inside Jon’s head sometimes better then himself, and not for a moment would the direwolf had let any of it happen. But he had to, he had come too far to get his eyes inside Mance Rayder’s camp and to fail to complete this now would only mean death awaited him. Prove your worth or die, and proving his worth meant sending his one last means to protect himself away.

He hadn’t seen Ghost since, and maybe that is what made Jon trick himself. If he pretended he wanted it, if he pretended he wanted her and cared about her it meant that he wasn’t forced into it. Without Ghost to remind him of a truth outside the complicated mess of inside his mind, Jon found no other way to cope with what he was being forced to do then pretend he liked it and he wanted all of this. But then he couldn’t anymore.

The lies too much, and the warnings of who Ygritte truly was kept coming until then the arrows did as well. Ending the facade and in his dreams is when he found you in a pool of blood fading away only to wake up and be told it was real. He lost his family, his home, his brother, and the woman he actually loved. And what was left to Jon? Nothing but the Watch. Not even Ghost, the only thing he had left that understood him.

That was, until in the bloody aftermath, his attention was dragged over as Grenn called his name. Looking over to the small open path inside of Craster’s Keep from the Northern entrance came a white four legged figure that as soon as their red eyes found Jon’s grey ones, he felt a bit of himself return enough that he saw nothing else around him.

Ghost had not been seen since that day, but here he was walking right into the Keep towards him. “Where in Seven Hells? ��Come here,” A grin forming on his face as he beckoned his direwolf over, crouching down to meet where his head would be.

The sight off to many, this pure white and large Direwolf walking up to Jon Snow with a small little whine in the back of his throat as he leaned into the gentle brushing of Jon’s hand against his fur. A creature that many dismissed as a beast, but as Ghost and Jon looked to the other there was nothing else around for that moment.

He had enough lying to himself about what and who he was or wanted, but as he looked so gently at Ghost? Jon felt more of himself. “I missed you, boy.” Jon smiled in a way he hadn’t since before he left Winterfell. He didn’t have much, hardly any family left, he didn’t even have you left in this world to dream of outside his nightmares of your blood, but Jon did have a duty to do. And with his direwolf back at his side, maybe that would be enough to get Jon through this.

Little hope was in is life, but you had told Ghost to look out for him. Said that if you ever saw him again, Ghost better have kept him safe. Jon could still see, you knelt down in front of the then smaller direwolf with a gentle touch and affection that none but Jon treated Ghost with. You told Ghost to keep him safe, and Jon wouldn’t dishonour your last wish by sending him away ever again.

The gods saw fit to reunite Jon with the only last mark of his real identity and he wouldn’t let go of it.

Other reunions weren’t with people though, but places that once which meant something to you. For you though, the conditions weren’t all the dissimilar but vastly opposite of that further north beyond the wall.

The snow falling to the ground draped the now barren lands in a gorgeous blanket of white, winter had arrived as you arrived yourself, in Winterfell. The last time had been still in the summer, with the royal brigade in toe as you were to marry the man you now had failed. You too were surrounded by blood but not that of others. Your clothes were that of bloody rags hardly resembling the dress you had worn to match Robb at the Twins.

It was still stained with blood, and there was fresh scars of blood on your skin. Snow and violence proceeded your reunion, but yours was not walking into something of good, but to strip you further of your humanity. Your lip was no longer swollen, but the cut across your bottom lip was scarred red from how difficult it was to heal over. How little it was left to heal, and the scratches and bruises on your face were not large and ugly, but small and subtle.

Gifts from Ramsay Bolton to remind you of what you would get in larger quantities when his mood struck. Your small cuts stung in the wind, but it was the agony of being on a horse as long as you were with the new other injuries.

Multiple times as you approached Winterfell, you could feel Theon sneaking glances at you. The dispondant look in your eye and the new wounds that he knew came from one man. You knew there was such little hope left in your eyes as you all came into the main courtyard.

Years ago, you sat atop a horse in this very place. Looking stern and serious as the King greeted his old friend, “You got fat.” And in this very spot your eyes met Jon’s beautiful grey ones like you were destined by the gods to always drawn to each other no matter what the situation was. Both of you trying to hide away a smirk that was difficult to do as long as you looked at each other. Nothing was like that now, just pain, stares from those who could see your state was unseemly, and your hands tied once more together only in front of you, so you could at least grasp the reins of your own horse.

Parts of it were run down, the remains of what was lit on fire as a final insult but there too was no welcome here. None who remained in Winterfell accepted the Boltons with anything but a fear for their lives should they do or say anything against them. They all knew what Roose Bolton had done, and no one felt safe now.

Some you think, may have recognized you. It was difficult, you were clearly unwell, weak, partially tied up and clearly covered in grime, blood, and scattered wounds all over. And your position only spoke to them more as guards all but dragged you onto the ground, shoving you harshly when you stumbled. It made you wince to do so, walking hurt a bit still. He had made sure it would.

“Fucking all those big, strong wolves made you a fighter, hasn’t it? Unfortunately for you, my lady, but very good for me, I like it when a girl fights back.”

You had almost given yourself once to a man you always loved, then when you finally did, it was with a husband you grew to love. But now all that remains for you here was being dragged through the violence that left you bleeding and your head in a fog. Both how hard Ramsay liked to slam into the ground, but also from the chaos inside from what came after.

The Boltons had returned to the Dreadfort from Moat Cailin and the bastard son had been decreed a legitimate son and heir under the word of the now King Tommen. And it all came to you as you dragged yourself up off the ground once he finally saw fit to leave you alone that first night he visited for something more then to speak. Just how truly bleak your life was to be.

The man himself walking over to you, as you refused to look him in his callous pale blue eyes. “A lovely homecoming for you, my lady. Of course, there must be just a few people missing then you remember, but worry not. We will make sure to give you a fitting reminder of your new life here. Reek,”

Theon turning to him with a quick startle, his own eyes which had been trying very hard not to look around and see what he too used to have here. Allowing him the small chance to be Theon Greyjoy, letting him see you, something in him was stirring but he couldn’t figure out what and neither could you see it.

“Prepare a hot bath for the lady, and bring her some fresh clothes. I can’t have my bride walking around in filth as if she’s just a thing like you. That wouldn’t be right, would it?”

You bit your tongue as your eyes stared hard into the ground. If they thought there was a chance you would allow them to dangle you in front of the north and pretend to be something they all know you aren’t? Then Roose and Ramsay were less clever then they saw themselves as. There was no chance of that.

They had no idea how much you’d been thinking about how that will never happen, if it was the only thing you ever did again. You wanted to throw up as you were eventually led down the halls of the castle. It looked just the same but like that of a stranger too now. So much emptier, colder and more grim with people who had no right to call it their own and no one that belonged there occupy it.

You had been in these halls so often that you could give a grand tour with your eyes closed, but these halls felt as foreign as those in the Dreadfort to you. The rooms that seemed to be the ones you would all occupy, were not the right ones. Not the main ones. If you were a little more in your right mind, you would have realized there were many places in the castle you would never be allowed to step anywhere near now.

Passing a hall where you knew to find each Stark once, to a different set of corridors until arriving at a partially open door. The guard roughly turned you to him, cutting the restrains free before nodding for you to go in. Bracing a hand slowly on the door frame, you stepped inside with a narrow brow and confused tilt of your head at the sight. One of guest rooms made for such a task, a strong wooden bath sat right in the middle, water steaming from the tops and just at the wardrobe behind it was Walda.

A cheery little smile on her face as she turned to see you before glancing to the guards behind, “I trust you gentleman know it isn’t proper to watch a lady bathe?” As the door closed behind you, it left you and her alone in the room. Walda turning to you with a sigh, “Honestly, they think keep an eye on her means they can never stop looking, no matter how creepy it is.”

Stepping closer, you could see soaps and small vials laid out. The cold Northern air meshing with the water in front of you, but such kindness felt like a trap. It was too many times a trap. You were a little more blunt then you intended the tone to be as you asked, “What are you doing here?”

Walda took no notice of it, just coming towards you like it was not a strange sight at all for you both to be here. “Roose told me you’ve been through the ringer, and you do look it. He suggested you may want a helping hand getting settled into your new home and we’ve spent no time together haven’t we?” You hesitantly let her grab your arm and bring you over to the other side of the room as she continued to talk. “We’re going to be Boltons together one day after all. And I know you’re older then myself, but I’ll still be like a mother to you when you marry Ramsay so I may as well start getting used to that now.”

You were quiet as Walda moved to undo the laces at the back of your dress, your eyes strained to the fire in the background of the room as you fought to keep your pounding heart from exploding at such a thought. She went on but you heard but muffled sounds in the fog of your head.

Kill the King in the North and his Queen, but when you had survived Roose Bolton came up with a new use for you. Legitimize his own monster of a son, and have him marry the once Queen in the North when he is ready to strike to seize the Kingdom as his own. Keep you dead until he was ready to flex his new power by publically dangling an heir to them and thus creating a stronger foothold in the North then the very Lannisters who gave it to him.

You didn’t die beside Robb, and yet now the gods thought you would stand by and marry into the family who ruined everything? Marry a vile man who had...you didn’t think further. If you pretended it never happened, pretended that it was not real as it was to continue to happen then you didn’t need to say or think of the words at all.

Ramsay would not marry you yet, but he didn’t let that stop him to show you what married life would be like with him. The door opened, bringing you from your thoughts once more as Theon came in, with a bundle in his hands. Walda paused her movements just as she was helping pull the long sleeves down, “Sit them over there.”

Theon putting what looked like a fresh set of clothes down before placing himself against the wall, hands clasped in front of him as he tried to look as if he was not there. Walda thought nothing as she pulled the fabric off your skin, certain places needing a good tug as the dried blood stuck to your skin. “The guards following you everywhere might get tiresome, Ramsay suggested giving you Reek to watch over you. Make sure you don’t accidentally walk into trouble, take care of things for you.”

She seemed to treat it like Theon wasn’t a person, but an object to obey orders as she thought not of how much she was pulling off you. She also said nothing of the extend of wounds and scars on your skin as she did so. Not the arrow wound in your upper arm-

You had tried desperately to hit him with a blade but an array of arrows shot into you to knock you back to the ground. Your stomach soaked in dried blood as she uncovered that too without a care.

Theon however, you knew was seeing a different story. The cuts on your face were one thing, but purples and yellows and greens along with red welts and cuts sat across various parts of your body that were not there before. From your chest and back with longer slashes, down to your hips and lower, around your upper thighs and leading to between them as there was the truth of what Theon had been trying to figure out on the journey here.

To Walda your bare state was just something to get scrubbed down, to you it was an agony you would kill not just others to stop, and to Theon? It was a horror as your bare frame was littered in the evidence of what Ramsay was really doing in the darkness.

“I can do this myself, you don’t need to help me.”

Climbing into the water, your face gave away the sting of the heat washing over your body and hitting any sensitive mark or open wound. The one on your stomach the only one noticed you couldn’t feel the pain from as you settled. Walda moved by you, and part of your mind wondered if she was used to this sort of thing with the sheer amount of people in her family. “No, of course you can. But it’s always nice to have someone help you now and again. And if we’re going to be family, it can’t be too early to start treating each other like it.”

Oh how you felt sick. How you couldn’t physically see that scenario play out and you knew you would never find out. You have a family- had a family. Had more then one, was ready to bring new life into that family with Robb, but now that was all gone. And if no one but these people knew you were even alive, maybe you really didn’t have any family now. “Suppose so.”

Voice but a mutter from you, starting to weakly scrub away at your skin with every pass over a bruise making you wince. Walda had added something to the water around you, the scent passing your face and hitting you with a sweetness. It was very sweet, too much so it made you take pause to readjust to the overwhelming smell. “I always add a little something, try to impress. Though I suppose I’m married, not really needing to do much of that now.” She gently nudged at you, your eyes flying up to nothing with a sharp look as you tried not to flinch away. “You on the other hand, can’t hurt to give you a little something extra to impress your husband to be.”

Robb’s soft smile and gentle hands that would run over your stomach flashed by your eyes as it constricted your heart and lungs. “I already was married.”

A sigh leaving her, it wasn’t a fake tone Walda spoke with but one that felt naive almost. “I know it must hurt, but sometimes things happen for a reason. Who knows, maybe the gods were just putting you on the path to meet the one you’re supposed to be with.”

You didn’t want to lash out at her, but the one you were supposed to be with wasn’t anything these people said. You stood by the Weirwood tree outside these castle walls and the old gods recognized your life with Robb together. You were supposed to come back here with him, with your son and find a life as the ones to rule the North together.

Ramsay’s eyes weren’t even grey.

She continued to fill the space of your silence. “At least Ramsay is a handsome lad, and you’re rather pretty underneath all of this.” Her hands prodded at your skin and still grimy hair as she begun to move to stand behind you. “Losing your husband must be awful, but you’ll have little Northern dark haired babies to love before you know it.”

As Walda reached up to run her hands through your knotted hair, you remembered a dream that wasn’t bound in blood. It was a baby, a tiny son with a fierce attitude and curls that were dark enough to verge on black. The dream that night had them with your own eyes, but a face that radiated like his fathers like the sun against the water. You thought you knew who that child looked like, but when your mind tried to find that dream again, it wasn’t your eyes. Nor shining blue.

No, this one as you saw him in your mind, dark almost black haired curls and face all the same, but now looking up at you were beautiful grey eyes. But right as you saw it, you could feel Walda’s hands gently running through your hair and those dark curls suddenly were older, different as they leaned over your shoulder to press a kiss to the free skin there.

Large hands, rough against the fingertips but careful in strength ran through your hair like they did many times. Untangling the mess as he did it behind you in a looser braid, always making it feel like a massage and you’d lean back into him. His deep rasp chuckling into your ear before telling you to sit straight.

You flinched that time. Moving from her touch right away as the water sloshed along the sides and onto the stone below. Theon’s eyes followed with their usual unsettled wide eyes but now with a concern that was not of the name they gave him. Moving to the middle out of her grasp your voice raised with a stammer to it.

“Stop- I’m sorry, I just would rather do this myself. Okay?” A look of genuine regret in her eyes, Walda backed away apologizing. You huffed, relaxing a but from your protective curl into yourself. “I appreciate the effort, but I would rather do this alone. Please.”

Relenting, you felt bad for your harsh attitude towards the girl but you couldn’t sit there with that feeling in your hair and the images in your head and pretend you were okay. She begun to leave, “I’ll come get you later, walk to have our first meal as a family together if you’d like?”

You bit your tongue, hardly looked at her face but nodded. Walda was trying, and it wasn’t her fault you hated every second of it. Leaving you alone as if the other person in the room was not supposed to be acknowledged as there. Only he was, and in the few seconds of quiet you wondered if he himself remembered that.

Slowly moving to grasp at the cloth draped over the side you honestly realized there was no point in trying to cover from him, what was the point of modesty when the underneath was as unattractive as it was painful. Who would want you looking like this but the one who did it to you? And maybe that was part of the idea. Escape and who would be out there who wants you?

“I don’t know who he’s trying to torment more with this, you or me.”

You didn’t look at him as you had spoke, you weren’t sure you wanted to in that moment. The people in this room were so far away from yourself and Theon Greyjoy. They didn’t even allow Theon his own name, and you? A good part of you felt like it didn’t follow you from the Twins. Theon’s voice was quiet from his corner of the room. Barley heard over the light sloshing of the water. “It only gets worse. The more you fight him.”

Hands pausing before your face twisted in an exhausted anger as you moved to scrub the grime off you harder. “Good.” Betraying yourself, you let your eyes flicker to him who was trying not to react with any emotion, but Theon’s eyes now it seemed gave every bit of him away. “Roose Bolton took everything from me, and didn’t even have the courtesy to let me die beside Robb. They want anything else, then let them work for it.”

Wincing the more you washed lower, the sting in your eyes had you choking it all back. Even in private, even only in front of Theon you couldn’t let yourself cry. It would just be another thing they got from you, your tears. In an instant you sunk under the water, letting it soak into your hair. The feeling was something relieving, the muffled quiet and complete isolation keeping you under for longer then you should have been. By the time you rose back up, you breathed in heavily before running the cloth over your eyes.

Theon had stepped forward a few feet, his arm partially outstretched like he wasn’t sure which side of him should win out as you looked at him. Almost like he could tell what you wanted to do, what your solution to escape really was becoming and couldn’t let it happen. You still saw him as a person, you still saw him as Theon. If you were gone what was left of him but Reek?

You gently nodded to some of the vials on a dresser with a small voice, “Would you bring me those, please?” His dark eyes trained intensely on you with hands threatening to shake. As you opened one, once more hit with the overwhelmingly sweet scent, you begun running it through your hands and down your hair. Theon, had not moved from his spot near the dresser. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to, but...what did he do to you, Theon?”

He fought with himself as you watched him, a good minute he did so. Eyes far away as he looked to nothing before nodding to himself. Tentatively, he looked to you before sitting down facing the opposite direction on the outside of the water. He wouldn’t look at you as he spoke, and you wouldn’t ask him too.

Ramsay had tortured him in any way that amused his sick mind, cut at him in some ways and sliced on him in others. But then he described the girls. The girls who came in all pretty and seductive until Ramsay interrupted the game he set up. Your hands wrapped around your legs and you never once looked the other in the eye.

It was your fault, you let Roose send Ramsay his way to handle it. You were right there helping to send this man a hellish nightmare that cut off more then you could have imaged. There was nothing you could say, but force back small tears wishing to roll down in the quiet. Theon didn’t deserve this, no one did. The man you had known for over a decade, someone who was a good friend and had become someone belonging in the North as you had.

He betrayed you and Robb, but this was a punishment that went beyond any semblance of justice, this was beyond anything either of you had ever thought of to him. It was cruel and so severely inhumane and yet both of you sat there as the Bolton’s playthings. Too weak and tormented to find any way to escape beyond your wishes of death.

“You’re still Theon.” Meeting his eyes, your hearts both felt too heavy. “As long as I’m here, I’m still me and you’re still Theon. Even if it’s just when it’s us, don’t let him take that away too.” The pains were both still to real and too raw, but the small distance between your hands as they both rested beside the other on the edge of the wooden tub stayed there for a while until the water was cold.

Moving to stand, Theon on instinct jumped up to wrap a towel around you making you almost flinch away on instinct in return. Turning to him, you both looked like the kids you were when you first met, not the adults, the leaders you had once grown to become. Only then you might have both made some joke about the oddness of this exact situation, but in this day there was no laughter or reason for to be found.

“They want me to marry him.” You looked up at him with a darker look in your eye. “Ramsay. When they have a better hold on the North, they want me to marry him and so our son would have some claim to rule. If there’s some part of you that still wants to atone for what you’ve done, you’ll just slit my throat in my sleep before that day comes.”

Neither of you spoke after that. There was no joke in your eyes or the certainty in your voice. You meant it. If there was no one left in the world who would look for you, cared, or even knew you were alive? Then the world would be no worse off if you found a permanent way out.

“Ah, there she is. I knew there was a pretty bride under all that filth.”

Every inch of his voice you hated, the fake sincerity that fooled not a single soul. It was coated in a maliciousness designed to poke at the worst parts of you. No doubt a coincidence that he used terms and sweetness that Robb used towards you, but you hated how tainted it made it. You loved the gentle way Robb would describe you with, and now those same words you wanted to tear up and feed to those vicious hounds chained up outside.

They took Robb from you, your son, and now the very memory of your intimate moments together were being replaced with a terrorizing pain both on your body and in your heart. What more of him was to be stripped away from you?

Ramsay pulling a seat out for you that made you close up, his hand brushing your shoulder as he tucked you politely into the table and you found no desire to consume anything that had been placed in front of you. Roose finding it in himself to speak. “I hope you find your new accommodations adequate, my lady.”

Eyes peeling up to find Roose’s as he and Walda sat in front of you, he seemed to just continue on as if you being here was normal, as if this was a family dinner, as if he had any right to be in this place and pretend like you were as new to it as they were. “I do, thank you.”

It was not the tone of the woman who Roose had served with for three years, and that was the way he wanted it. “This isn’t your first time in Winterfell, if I’m not mistaken?” Oh you wanted to take the plate in front of you and smash it down his throat, but you nodded. “Good, I was hoping you could take the time tomorrow to show Walda around. It is a big castle, and I’m sure she would appreciate a female friend at her side.”

Looking to her, Walda played the part of the kind wife with ease. Like who these men were, and who you were and why you were here did not get taken into account. “You don’t need to show me the woods or anything, I’m not much of an outside girl if you hadn’t guessed.” The little laugh light on her lips that you wished you could find amusement in.

Maybe in another life, you would have liked the girl. You nodded though, raising your glass to your lips but finding the wine thick and bitter as it went down your throat before speaking. “I would love to.”

Were there not guards to keep you under their watchful eyes, you had a few places you would want to go see for your own sanity. But Roose and Ramsay knew where to let you go, and none of them included spaces that would let you simmer in the remnants of the last home you knew, and the family you had joined with so much love.

The noise in your head was loud, blocking out the truth and the pain of where the glass had smashed against your cheek. Theon said you would be making it worse for yourself, and indeed that was the truth. A glass thrown in defence, only to have your face smashed right up against where it lay and scratch deeper at your cheek.

At least you could be thankful this was one of the rare times Ramsay didn’t speak much to you directly. His focus on cruelty and not whatever vile he could spit from his mouth in your ear. He too focused on another after he dragged Theon into the room with the intentions of making him watch, “Maybe once upon a time, I would have made you do this part Reek, have you bond with my bride,” Having dragged you back to speak into your ear in a loud whisper by a painful grip on your hair. “But he doesn’t have the right equipment anymore, now does he?”

Claiming to him, as he shoved your face against the glass you tried throwing into his own face, “You see Reek, the best part about my bride being a sad little widow, is that I have no reason to preserve her innocence do I? She’s already been well broken in by the wolves, hasn’t she.”

It wasn’t the physical pain that you couldn’t handle, it was being so in the moment. You couldn’t think about what was happening and be forced to endure it at the same time, he could watch you bleed and wince but he would not see you cry over it.

Instead, you coped almost in a way that should’ve made you feel even more guilty. It was Robb and your son together you were dragged away from, but it wasn’t his touch or warm soothing voice you drifted away too. You didn’t mean to, but it was the only thing your mind could desperately cling onto that had sent you far enough away that you couldn’t remember where you were.

It was in the outside you weren’t allowed to go to. The summer late in it’s years but still warm enough that snow didn’t often touch the North so heavily yet. It was a small cliff you were on, overlooking a denser part of the wolfswood hidden away from people who didn’t traverse far too long to get there. It was a place to be alone, and a place that didn’t need to hide what you were doing.

Truly you were cursed to have fallen in love Jon Snow of all men, you had thought in that memory. You both were sat atop a rock once looking out to the woods and making jokes with him. Only when you had admitted something, in complete passing, it turned the air. Now, you were living the reason why to come to that place.

Still sitting on the rock yourself, but Jon was now on his feet standing between your legs as he had pulled your face up to press his lips to yours. His kiss spoke so much of what he struggled to ever say, hardly giving you space to breathe before he would pull you right back in. One hand drifting downwards to bunch the skirt of your dress up tightly in his fist before yanking it up. His other gently raked through your hair.

Your hands had grasped his shoulders as you whined into his lips, rough calloused hand running flat across your thigh before running on it’s innermost side and upwards. He smiled as he gently deepened the kiss, coaxing your tongue to follow his guide and brush against his. He had no more experience then you did, but you still hated how he so easily found every way to tease and overwhelm your senses.

Fingers finally brushed between your legs, and even through the fabric hiding you from him, you jumped at the spark. Jon’s tender assurance was deep as he pulled from your lips enough to gently run them across your jaw, hand running along the back of your hair soothingly. “You’re alright. Not here to rush you, just let me explore a bit?”

You nodded eagerly, both the nerves running through you but desperate to let him do exactly what he wanted. You should never have admitted you didn’t know what an orgasm felt like, because now he was determined to show you but in a way you didn’t expect.

Spent so much time working you up with his kiss alone, and now he didn’t even get to the one thing he said he wanted to do, show you what it would feel like. Jon was so quick to get riled up over your comment but so damned slow at doing anything about it. And worse, he enjoyed it, it seemed. A hum in his throat as his lips brushed against your neck everytime you shook slightly.

Fingers running up and down your covered entrance until he let out his own shaking breathe, feeling the fabric grow wet under his touch. He pulled you into another kiss at that, moving suddenly to dance his fingertips under the fabric and run just along the top of your mound. Your nails digging into his shoulders as you let him take your breathe away once more.

When Jon pulled back, his eyes were so dark, his lips parted as he breathed heavy pants trying to reign himself in. “I want you to tell me, do you want this?” Leaning down slightly to make sure he caught your direct eyeline. “I want to make you feel good, but only if you tell me you want it too.”

You paused, the need between your legs so close to where he was touching burned and you wondered how not normal this might be. One of your hands slid up to gently run through his long curls, “Please, Jon. Please show me.”

The smile on his lips was so genuine and gentle that it surprised you with how harsh it was when he actually kissed you once more. A kiss that distracted you as his hand slipped underneath to lightly run his fingers along your wetness. You seized in his touch as he moved to kiss your cheek, “Hey, hey, relax for me.”

Nudging you to look up at him, his fingers still gently running along your slit and up to your clit and back with as light a touch as he could manage. “I’m sorry-”

Shaking his head he used his free hand to run along the cup the back of your neck and pull you close, “I don’t want you to be sorry, I want you to tell me if you need me to stop.” You said no, many times over like you couldn’t figure out why you felt so out of your mind but Jon kissed you again and you relaxed a bit.

Finally, he pressed more firmly against your clit as you cried into his mouth, your body arching into his chest as your hands wrapped around the back of his neck. Had you asked Jon in that moment he would’ve told you how difficult you had made it to control himself. How much he wanted to sink those same fingers deep inside you just to hear the kind of sounds you’d make then, to know just what it felt like inside you, even just with this.

Not too much pressure or too fast, he rubbed tight circles against you. A changing pattern as he carefully figured out what worked you up the most it seemed. Your core insides were spinning like an iron coil twisting so tight it could snap as it burned. You moaned his name as he ran his fingertips over it like he would when he’d stand behind you some moments alone, running his hands down the front of your dress and teasing your breasts, just to hear your breathe stutter. And you had thought that made you feel worked up.

Quickly you felt that tightening inside of you strengthen, your hands holding onto his hair tighter as you arched into his chest completely. And just as something inside you was about to break, it faded away in a painful quickness just as his touch did.

Pulling back to look at him with a breathless needy confusion, “Wha-why did you-” Jon just grabbed your cheeks and kissed you deeply once more. Keeping you pressed tightly against him before his hand slid back down as he felt you relax again. A small groan of his own into the kiss as he could feel you tense up as he returned. This time his touch a little firmer and rhythm a little faster that had you moan much more freely.

Once more he build you up before pulling back, nuzzling your cheek despite your annoyed whine. “Jon, fuck, why won’t you let me-”

He kissed your cheek and spoke deeply with his thick rasp in your ear. “I thought you didn’t know what it feels like, maybe that’s exactly it.”

You narrowed your eyes to pull back and look at him, his touch against your clit but stopped moving entirely. “I don’t, I’m sorry please just..I need you, so much, please.” Jon kissed you gently once more. A hint of a dark tint in his grey eyes when he pulled back, told you that he just might be enjoying keeping you so on an edge.

Keeping you pressed close, his tone was much softer then before. “I know, but I’m not doing this to torment you, I just want you to remember this. Will you trust me?”

You did, you told him yes and just as his touch grew more against what you needed, your mind begun to spin. The man in front no longer Jon, but the rougher and more greedy touch of Robb. His blue eyes finding yours before a hand ran across your stomach. Looking down though, it was soaked in blood and as you looked back up to Robb his face was fading fast.

Heart racing at how you only just got him and now you bled out in front of him as his eyes were fading in front of your and you couldn’t stop him from leaving first. But he did, Robb’s image burned away and all that was left was where you were now.

This wasn’t anything like your memory, it wasn’t anything like the man this family took away from you either. Your stomach twisted and burned when there was nothing to aggravate it and all you could see as you stared to nothing was the fading of Robb’s eyes before you and how disgusting you were for not following him in it. Not even a son was left behind, just a wife who outlived a promise you made to him and forced at the no mercy of Ramsay Bolton and his father only using you for the gain of power.

Theon was made to watch the whole time. Many nights he was made to watch. Some nights were brutal, the further you tried to drift away into your mind, Ramsay would order you to look up, look at Theon and him you. Watch the other as it happened and there was simply no words to describe how that felt for either of you.

It was supposed to be a torture for his mind as much as it was a physical one for you, but all he could see was his failing. He betrayed Robb, he betrayed the Starks and the North that treated him as much as one of their own. Robb wanted his head no doubt, but as he was forced to watch what his captor did to you, to the woman Robb loved and let it happen?

Reek was watching, but Theon was angry. He betrayed his brother enough and he died thinking Theon murdered Bran and Rickon too. Reek would do as ordered, but Theon could think and Ramsay wouldn’t know. He couldn’t know, but he was not the man Theon swore his sword too and maybe he should find a way to do right by the last person Robb left behind.

He knew you wouldn’t marry Ramsay, never would allow yourself to even have a child with him. You had both of those things, and you felt desperate on the inside to not let the things that come after Robb be this. You were stolen your chance to stay with him, and you would rather die then let Ramsay take Robb’s place. And Theon knew that you were willing to take that action on your own, the closer the Boltons would get to marrying you.

As you were left, your eyes found Theon’s, and when they were dragged away from you and left alone on the floor of your room, you wished you could tell Robb it’s okay. He’s been through enough, it’s okay to forgive him and that it’s you he should be ashamed and angry with. You loved Robb and you betrayed him by letting any of this happen.

Jon wondered if he should be ashamed for what he wasn’t actually feeling, but he didn’t. If he had actually loved her, then her loss would be devastating to him, but it wasn’t. He lost his brothers, men like Grenn and Pyp. Those hurt so much deeper then her death did. Far more. He had listened to Olly’s story of what had been done to his village, his family, and he knew that was an Ygritte that Jon tried to pretend he didn’t know.

That was a woman who had forced Jon into that cave, sent away the last companion he had and forced him into fucking her to prove he wasn’t a crow anymore. That was who died in Castle Black that night and Jon couldn’t pretend like it was someone he loved, or ever loved. Leave that false version of himself behind too.

Instead, as he had gone to Mance Rayder he knew getting out of there alive might be impossible. Jon had dreamt of the horrors he’s seen and the blood around your body every single night and if there was no one left out in the world to care about him, then he would do one last thing for the only family he had left. The brothers who fought and died beside him, and had looked to him in the darkest part of the night.

If he did one thing right, maybe it would be this. Only, that didn’t happen either.

What did happen, was an attack none suspected. What did happen, was men riding into the camp north of the wall dressed in armours Jon knew not to be from the free folk. Men with skills that he’d seen as soldiers use, and banners that he didn’t recognize but hit something strange inside him.

The day they found the direwolves, the group had come across a Stag lying dead in the grass, it’s stomach opened up and spilled out from whatever killed it. And for a long time Jon only remembered that image as he could see you, laying out on your side bleeding from the stomach. Like the Stag was a warning to Jon of what would happen to you.

Only the Stag on these banners, weren’t the Baratheon ones he knew. This stag sat in a heart that was set on fire. The men with such a sigil were coordinated, well timed and took the remainder of Mance’s army by total suprise and forced the King Beyond the Wall to end the fight before it could slaughter what remained.

Jon had managed to hold off the onslaught at Castle Black, but as the leader of the men in this charge came into view he realized he knew what happened. Sam and Maester Aemon had sent out pleas, begs for help from the leaders of the Seven Kingdoms, the Kings that remained for help in a battle beyond the wars they fought each other for.

He didn’t need to have met him before to know who it was who had come to their aid. Older, much more rough and serious in every way but he could see it clear as day. He knew what was coming, yet still wasn’t prepared for it. Still too raw, as the second man spoke.

“This is Stannis Baratheon, the one true King of the Seven Kingdoms.” And suddenly Jon’s heart weighed more in his chest at such a truth then anything else. The King who had answered their call for aid, was a man his father died for, the father of the very woman Jon would never let go of again.

Everything he had heard made sense as he met the man, and yet there was something intimidating about him. Something of his confidence and skill that was not often found in Jon’s life anymore. Mance beside Jon, who clearly felt none of the strangeness in his heart as he spoke. “We’re not in the Seven Kingdom’s and you’re not dressed for this weather.”

It was a such strange time to think it, but what came into his head was, so it wasn’t just a you thing. The amount of times in Winterfell Jon would spend forcing you to wear anything warmer, wasn’t you being stubborn alone. He wondered just how many traits he would find you shared with this man, and if all of them hurt as much as such a tiny one already did.

The conversation it seemed, continued around him. “I’m not here to slaughter beat dogs. Their fate depends on their King.” Jon had no understanding of why, as he thought to himself that Mance wouldn’t break, he saw you. In a place that he didn’t know, and you stood just like Mance did now. Sure of yourself, and brave in your actions knowing they were the right ones.

As the remaining free folk were taken away, and his direction turned to Jon, he had a strange feeling the look in Stannis’s eyes were that of recognition.

The one next to him, older and more grey and white in his hair spoke with a much different cadence then that of the King next to him. Quick spoken, and something he recognized as less refined and more of something like a common tongue. “What’s a man of the Night’s Watch doing in a wildling camp?”

It was the truth, only perhaps with a few details left out that were too complicated to explain Jon’s state of mind. “I was sent to discuss terms with the King Beyond the Wall.”

The man spoke to him further as the King only watched him with a curious eye. “You’re speaking to the one true King, boy. You will address him as Your Grace.”

Oh he knew all too well this was the King, he knew painfully. This was the King that got his father’s head chopped off and begun the very wars that left his family destroyed by now. His voice was rough, more tense then he should’ve been but there was no stopping it once he opened his mouth.

“I know he’s the King. My father died for him.” Looking to the man, he tried not to think about how much of you he could see in the way the King watched him. A curious look that wasn’t marred in a judgment but a trust in his words. “My name is Jon Snow, your grace. I’m-”

But Stannis finished the introduction himself, much to Jon’s and the man beside him’s suprise. “I know who you are. You’re Ned Stark’s son. Your father was an honourable man.”

How you managed to keep so calm and collected as often as you did in your life must have been a skill you inherited from Stannis, because it took all of Jon’s remaining will power to keep himself even remotely together. Thinking about his father was painful enough without seeing the man he had died for.

“He was, your grace.”

No doubt he had come here with a plan, a plan Jon was curious as to how it landed them surprising in an attack beyond the wall of all places. But he was genuine in his ask to Jon of, “What do you think he’d have done with him?” Looking to Mance beside him still, watching with a strange curiosity himself.

He could only hope he knew his father well enough, and his head and heart too cloudy to realize that as much as Jon saw you in Stannis Baratheon as they stood there, Stannis could easily see Eddard Stark in Jon as he spoke honestly. “I was this man’s prisoner once. He could have tortured me, he could have killed me, but he spared my life. I think my father would have taken him prisoner, listened to what he had to say.”

But with one last detail, he suspected that this was a man who would believe what was coming, Jon also told him, “If my father had seen the things that I’ve seen, he’d also tell you to burn the bodies before nightfall. All of them.”

As he looked at Stannis, Jon had too many questions to ask about you, and none of the heart to speak a single one of them. He barley spoke about you since your death, it was something that only made him fall deeper into a darkness that made him hate himself for ever pretending someone could replace you.

It was later with Tormund that Jon had told him he didn’t love her. He never did and he won’t stand here and lie about it, or let others lie about him anymore. “It was be with her, lay with her, say I loved her or I’d be long dead. If she loved me, it was only someone I was pretending to be. That’s all there was to it. I can’t be sorry when the woman I really loved was slaughtered like an animal, while I was pretending to love Ygritte just to save my own life.”

The wild orange bearded man didn’t speak of it, but there was something in the crow’s painful honesty that caught his attention. And he had plenty of time to think on it. “He your King now?” Tormund had later asked him.

And Jon was honest, the life he held outside of the Night’s Watch no longer existed. Everyone in it was dead and gone, and he didn’t have a clue how to feel about it. “I don’t have a King.” He paused, and spoke the truth to only the second person in his life before he left Tormund down in the cells. His back turned and his voice rough as ever. “But, it was his daughter I loved.”

He gave the man no time to have a response. Only Sam had known that. Samwell Tarley and Tormund Giantsbane, a strange duo for Jon to confess his heart too, they were. But the longer he thought about it, Jon had a strange, unsettled feeling that the King himself, already knows it too.

Stannis Baratheon watched the man carefully. Much of Eddard Stark was in him in values and appearance, it was that which made it easy for him to know this wasn’t just any man of the Night’s Watch. Then he begun to talk, and it all pieced itself together before he ever had to ask.

He recognized Jon Snow because he was clearly a younger image of Eddard Stark but with black hair and a dark look beyond his eyes. One that Stannis knew came from the horrors, both of them were aware was the true threat. But he also recognized Jon Snow, because he was exactly as you described him as over the years.

There was a pain in his eyes though as he looked at Stannis, and it only made him wonder. That was a pain he knew was lost to more then just someone who was his friend. And the way despite what he knew was a deep closeness, that Jon not a single time ever came close to bringing you up. He could tell that there was more beyond that emotion then Jon wanted people to see.

What it was Melisendre was seeing, he did not know and Stannis was losing the patience to let her find out. Something had been bothering him ever since learning of your death. She would claim she could see the same visions in the flames, but he knew all too well his daughter and the wolf she spoke of were long dead.

She would speak of you, but Stannis only felt the reminder of how broken they had parted ways. It was Davos who had to remind him in the end of what truly mattered, that his hubris to take the Throne had blinded him for too long and by the time he recognized it, you and Robb Stark both were dead.

Slaughtered by the rumours sounded. You and Robb had come to Stannis and his ambition to his rights had left both of you vulnerable to the cursed traitors who killed you. If he had done things differently, then you may have lived, both of you and then he wouldn’t have a new fight on his hands just to take the North from the Boltons who killed you.

It was as Stannis watched Jon in the yard, training the new recruits, did something else click. The way he guided them through things, some of the basics, and the specific movements that were unique to only one other person he’d seen use, a more graceful style. It was different, he was larger, older, and stronger but the foundations of that style were there that first day Stannis started to pick up the task himself to keep you on track.

You never said who it was who started you on it, afraid that somehow it would get them into trouble, but you already begun and Stannis felt it would be a waste not to continue. And as he watched more now, it was the first time he had any kind of a real smile in a very long time. It seemed fitting to him that after all these years, in this place, in these events, did the answer finally reveal itself.

The person who first taught you to use a sword he realized, was Jon Snow.

#jon snow x reader #robb stark x reader #jon snow #robb stark #game of thrones #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #jon snow x you #robb stark x you #jon snow imagine #robb stark imagine

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lum13 · 1 year

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Ghostly confessions

Last part of the mute series

“You can talk– why aren't you talking to me?”

Wednesday x fem! Reader

It was the coldest day of the year.

Even with the fluffiest blankets wrapped around you, it seemed as though you could never get enough. Frosty winds ripped through the naked branches of the woods, and the snow that once felt soft like cotton had turned hard and unforgiving, piling up until everything was covered in white carpets.

It felt as if the world had shut down. No traces of life could be found in the woods– the ruthless temperature coaxing everyone into a long, sweet pause of their life.

Your back against the wall, you grip on the blanket tightened, biting your rough, deserted lips as the cold crawled into your skin. Your breath shook as you breathed it out, and your limbs grew stiff by the chilly air.

The cold seemed to shut you down, too.

For the last few days, you spent the day skipping class, huddled up against the wall, crying until you couldn’t.

You tried to find comfort in your arms around yourself, tried to bury yourself in the forgetful snow. Usually, silence would calm your disordered thoughts– but this one didn’t.

It threw you into a stormy ocean, and you had no idea where to go without a compass leading you.

You were lost in the vast field of nothing.

“You can’t stay in there forever!” A muffled voice called out from the other side of the door, making you roll your eyes. It was your friend, again.

You pretended you were sleeping– again.

“I know you’re awake.” She sighed, then waited for your reply, only to get silence for an answer.

“Well, You have tons of assignments you have to make up. Don’t ask for my notes” you could hear her running out of patience, and winced at the bitterness in her tone. Perhaps you pushed it too far?

With that, you could hear her turning away, her footsteps fading out. You let out a sigh– your friend finally left you alone.

However, a knock at your door interrupted your short-lived celebration. You ignored it, as always. But when the person knocked again, and again, your patience ran out, making you shout,

“Go away!”

You figured it was your friend playing with you, but paused once you realized that she wasn’t the type to prank you like this.

So who was this mysterious person?

Thumping over to the door, you swung the door open– rather aggressively. A soft gasp escaped your lips when your eyes locked with hers.

Her. The one who broke your heart, but who was also your hero. Her who threw you in the middle of the ocean– her who left with the stolen compass.

After the momentary silence, your lips finally cracked open, and you found your voice again.

“..What are you doing here?”

There was something in your voice– though you couldn't pinpoint what. So many mixed feelings swirled in your chest, and it was colored with red, purple, green, with every hue of the spectrum.

She didn’t say anything. Why wasn’t she saying anything?

“You can talk– why aren't you talking to me?”

A wave of frustration and slight anger washed over you. You heard how she talked to other people, so why not you?

Why?

The anger turned into sorrow, and sorrow turned into insecurities. You were being dramatic, you knew. But the waves of emotions opened your mouth, and you were rambling without thinking.

“Do you hate me that much?” You whispered, your head now hanging low as your eyes tinted red again. You really thought you were done crying for the week.

“Did I do something wrong? Why are you like this to me?”

“I tried so hard, and you didn’t–” You breathed in.

This conversation is going nowhere, you realized.

“I loved you, Wednesday.” You said, your hands forming a fist. “If you didn’t like me, you could’ve just told me so. I know you knew about my feelings way back.”

You didn’t dare look at her. You probably looked like a mess, and you were afraid that if you stole a glance of her, your feelings would come crashing down, making you regret all the things you said.

But then, Wednesday brought her hands up to your chin, forcing your eyes on hers. Your eyes widened at the sudden motion.

Your assumptions were correct; because yes, your feelings did come crashing down, and you did regret all the things you spewed out.

With a matter of seconds, you stepped back, freeing yourself from her grip, and turned to run. Run– leave all the problems behind, running away like a loser you were.

And just as your fingers touched the door handle, a voice pierced through the silence, and it rang,

“I love you.”

Immediately, you froze in your tracks, slowly turning around to face the raven haired girl.

Seeing your round eyes, she cleared her throat, looking away. “Our feelings are mutual.”

The waves of the ocean stilled– and, what?

“What?” You managed to let out. You watched as the girl clenched her jaw, actively avoiding your gaze.

“You heard me the first time.”

It wasn’t just her confession, it was something else. Like a burst of emotions that came with her words– and it suddenly clicked– she was your soulmate.

She was your soulmate– of course she is!

“You’re–” You stumbled over your words, too shocked to say anything.

“Your soulmate.” She finished for you, “Yes, I’m your soulmate– and you are mine.”

Ah, yes. Wednesday Addams, the girl who broke your heart, the girl who saved you, was your soulmate.

“I’m not.. good with these kinds of things. I wasn’t aware of what I should do until last week happened.”

The unfortunate accident in the coffee shop. Yes, you remember.

“No one’s going to touch you like that anymore.”

With starry eyes, you met her eyes— her awfully deep, black eyes. When her gaze softened on yours, you couldn’t help holding your breath. Oh.

Oh, you’re falling in love again.

Your eyes subconsciously flicked over to her plump lips, before traveling back to her eyes.

“I’m not letting them.”

Oh no, you’re falling in love again.

when you’re in a rush to finish this series bc I’m literally gonna be in a dorm in 45 min..:)

so sorry for the rushed ending, I wish I had more time to finish this.

Cant believe it’s over :( I’m gonna miss these two.

see you in a month everyone! I love you all <33

Don’t forget to check out the epilogue too :)

Taglist: @kaitlynroseb @idkjustliving2 @angel-luv-04 @left-and-right-up-and-down @reginassweetheart @thekid4466 @engenelxver @rainbow-love4ever @thenextdawn @sanguis-lupus95 @an-incompetent-writer @alexkolax @ognenniyvolk @tundra1029 @smromanoff

#Wednesday x reader #Wednesday addams #Wednesday Addams x you #wednesday Addams x reader #wednesday series #jenna Ortega x reader

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oohnotvery · 2 days

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Edges of the Night (Chapter 19) - FINISHED!

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I have received so much support along this journey, and I hope that you’ve enjoyed these final few chapters. I admit this isn’t an “ideal” or perfect ending. Being on the run isn’t justice and it isn’t peace, and it leaves Mulder and Scully to a lonely existence. But I think they’re strong enough for it.

Alright. Final chapter. I know Alan wasn’t anyone’s favorite character, but he was actually a pretty good guy, and I thought he deserved a happy ending. Don’t skip over this chapter even if you decide you don’t care about Alan’s POV. I think all you MSR lovers will appreciate what you learn in these final few paragraphs :)

Alan

Alan steps out of the house to a cold, blustery morning. There’s a snowstorm coming, which brings a half-smile to his face. Alice and Kiera will love that. He remembers the girls’ first snow, just a few years after they moved to Virginia from California. They’d been enamored of the white, fluffy stuff falling from the sky. They’re older now, both in grade school, but he has a feeling they’ll still be pleased as punch to have a white Christmas.

Frankly, though, he’s not thinking too hard about the snow, or his daughters. This day always has a tendency of putting him on edge, and this year is no different. He’s just never quite sure what to expect when he walks down the long driveway towards his mailbox. Will this be the year the mailbox is empty? Will this be the year he doesn’t get any news?

There was that one year, back when they still lived in San Diego, when the mail didn’t arrive like usual. He spent the entire holiday season worked up with anxiety. Even Laura hadn’t been able to calm him down, and Laura has always been the gentlest, calmest presence since he married her eight years ago. Six days later, he nearly collapsed with relief to find a package tucked into the back corner of his mailbox. Apparently, flooding in parts of the state had delayed mail service by a few days.

This year, it’s no surprise to see his fingers trembling as he raises the door to the mailbox. With bated breath, he sticks his hand in and nearly crumples with relief when his hand touches something.

It’s a small parcel, just like it always is. Discreet brown packaging. No return address. There never is.

Eagerly, he rips it open. What will he find this year?

He remembers the shock and joy of receiving an unexpected package that first Christmas after Dana left. He remembers his astonishment upon seeing her precise, familiar handwriting on an unsigned letter.

Thank you for giving me the freedom to choose, that note had said.

With even more fondness, he recalls several years later—the same year Kiera was born—getting that one special parcel, the one with a pair of baby blue shoes tucked underneath her annual letter. Infant-sized shoes.

That year, she had only written a few words.

We named him William.

This year, like every year, the package holds another piece of paper, a familiar letter with familiar handwriting. No details, no signature, no letterhead. Nothing traceable, nothing obvious. Just a few simple words.

But this year, there’s something else inside. He turns over the letter and a smile slowly blooms on his face.

It is a tiny, pale pink bow, just the right size for a little girl’s head. He scans the letter quickly, his heart beating gratefully in his chest.

We named her Joy.

When he makes it back inside the house, he instantly dials a number he only calls once a year.

“You get it too?” he asks breathlessly.

A gruff, no-nonsense voice replies with surprising warmth. “It was a good year for them,” Skinner says sensibly, though he detects a hint of fondness in the man’s voice.

He knows Skinner will check in on the others after this call. He knows that across the country, more packages are arriving. A grandmother is receiving the glad news of her granddaughter’s arrival. Three strange but kindhearted men are reveling in the knowledge that their dearest friends have made it safely through another year.

Alan walks up to his office and opens a drawer that he only opens once a year. Reverently, he places this package inside with the ten others he’s received since Dana and Mulder went on the run.

Maybe one day, things will be safe enough for them to reunite in person. Maybe one day, they’ll meet each other’s children. But for now, he is content to know that she is safe, and happy, and free.

#mulder x scully #dana scully #x files #the x files #msr fanfic #fox mulder #x files fanfic #txf #xfiles fanfic #msr #fox mulder my beloved

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forgedroyalseal · 27 days

Text

Hellhound

Part One

Hellhound.

That’s what the townsfolk had called the beast that lurked in the shadows of Seacliff. The innkeeper claimed that it could imitate the cry of a baby, a tactic it used to lure people from the safety of their homes and into its waiting jaws. Several farmers told him that it didn’t just pray on sheep and goats, but on foals and calves as well. Will had overheard a group of schoolchildren whispering stories about the demon dog that stalked the shoreline once the sun set. Half wolf, half devil. A monster with glowing red eyes and blood stained teeth. Will had always chalked it up as an overgrown superstition. A ghost story. Until he hear the howl.

Will couldn’t sleep. But these days, he almost never could. Seacliff’s winters were milder than Redmont’s but instead of snow, winter brought violet, booming storms. Waves crashed against the cliffs like stones, shaking the island itself. Rain poured from the heavens so hard, that in the morning, after the storm had passed, the earth would be torn up, branches ripped from trees and thrown across fields. And while Will was grateful that it rarely became cold enough for the rain to turn to ice, the thunderous noise of the storms echoed in Will’s mind, rummaging around until it found the memories he so desperately tried to drown. Memories of teetering on waves so tall they made him feel as though he was floating on a child’s bath toy rather than a massive Skandian ship. Memories of relentless rain, of being soaked to the bone, of forgetting what it felt like to be dry and warm and safe. Even now, years later, the mere sound of crashing waves made his stomach roll and flip, just as it had on the journey to Skandia.

So on nights like tonight, with it raining so heavy Will was certain it would never stop, he tossed and turned in his sheets like that ship in that storm. The sound of the wind and rain was deafening, only interrupted by the roaring thunder that preceded each shock of lightning. Will had laid awake through each and every storm since his arrival in Seacliff, and he was well versed in the crashing symphony that was playing. So when he heard a deep, desperate howl break through, he noticed. He sat up in his bed, white sheets pooling around his waist. There it was again, a howl so loud it somehow cut through the storm. His first thought was wolves, not that he’d ever seen one in Seacliff, but there was something distinctly different to this howl than that of the ones he’s heard from wolves. It was haunting and lonely and with a pathetic realization, it occurred to Will that it was what he imagined his heart would sound like on nights like this if it could speak.

Will shook his head at the thought. He’d spent too many nights awake and alone, it was making him morose. He pulled himself out of bed, covering his bare torso with the shirt that had been discarded on the floor earlier in the evening. Opening the door, he looked out into the black night, eyes searching for the source of the howl. The last thing he wanted to do was to leave the safety and relative warmth of his cabin, but Will could only assumed that whatever poor creature was out there, also didn’t want to be where it was.

“Right then, come on out.” He shouted into the storm. Another howl. “I bet you don’t want to be out here any more than I do,” He yelled, the wind swallowing his words, “so just take cover on the porch.”

He waited, questioning whether or not this was proof that he’s officially lost it. Wasn’t this a sign of madness? Shouting out to the wind and expecting a response. Just as he was about to give up, a pair of shining eyes appeared in the darkness. “Hi there.” Will said gently, praying he wasn’t about to be mauled to death by whatever mysterious beast roamed the cliffs. Gilan would never let him live it down, dead or not.

A flash of lightning illuminated sky, and Will got his first look at the animal in front of him. It was far more dog than beast, though it’s skinny legs seemed endless. It wore a matted cloak of wiry, soot gray fur, a dirty patch on its chest that at one point was probably white. Another rumble of thunder drew out a pitiful whimper from dog, who cowered its head and trembled.

“Oh you poor thing. Come on, it’s ok.” Will crouched down and slowly extended his hand. After a bit of cooing and soft words, the dog finally nudged its head against his palm.

“You’re freezing, buddy. Let’s get you warmed up.” Will shifts back, still crouching, until he’s past the doorway of the cabin. The dog hesitantly follows, its tail tucked firmly between its legs.

Once inside, Will made quick work of finding water and some scraps to feed the dog, then set them down beside the fire in the dishes he had used for Shadow. The dog however, stayed shaking by the door, eyes darting nervously back and forth.

“Right, let’s get you warm first then.” Will grabbed the quilt from the back of the sofa and carefully placed it over the dog. He rubbed down its back, drying it the best he could. In his effort to help bring some warmth back to the dog, he examined it for any injuries, but found none. He did a quick check and patted the dog on its head, who responded with a slight wag of its whip-like tail.

“That’s a good boy. You’ll need a proper bath, but that can wait.” Will stepped back, and decide it was best to let the dog set the pace of the evening. Will walked over and collapsed on the sofa, the cold and lack of sleep crashing into him all at once. He let his eyes droop, but stayed awake. Seconds later there was a quiet clicking of nails from the door the dishes on the floor. Will smiled to himself and kept his eyes shut. Soon enough, he heard more shuffling, then a cold, wet nose was pressing itself against his cheek. He cracked an eye open and smiled at the dog that was face to face with him. He patted at the space beside him on the couch.

“I think we should both try and get some sleep. Dawn will be here before we know it.”

The dog gingerly stepped onto the sofa, circled twice, then plopped down, resting its massive head onto Will’s chest, right above his heart. Will began rubbing patterns into the fur between the dog’s eyes, and soon the calming motion had lulled them both to sleep.

A/N: inspiration for the dog below (yes, it’s an Irish Wolfhound)

#rangers apprentice #ranger's apprentice #will treaty #ranger’s apprentice fanfiction #rangers apprentice fanfiction #hellhound

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rpstartersinc · 10 months

Text

* 𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔 𝐑𝐔𝐍.

feel free to change pronouns / wording!

“ don't be merciful, don't come back like snow white and the huntsman. ”

“ i've never been to a funeral, i wouldn't have come to this one if i'd known there'd be a dead person. ”

“ i know how emotional occasions like this can be. ”

“ i think we'll manage. ”

“ as soon as he clicks his fingers, you come running. ”

“ is this actually your car? ”

“ i don't make the rules. ”

“ what do you remember? ”

“ i really thought she was my soulmate. ”

“ he might've tied her up and now he's using us as bait. ”

“ we're hansel and fucking gretel. ”

“ i told you not to come in here. ”

“ i've been lied to all my life. ”

“ a jellyfish has no heart and no brain, yet it lives. what could be scarier than that? ”

“ i told you, you can't smoke it straight from the plants! ”

“ women seem to keep drifting away from me. ”

“ you look very cold. ”

“ driving slow in this kind of car is more suspicious. ”

“ who is sitting next to me right now? who, fucking... pablo escobar? ”

“ if you're going to do something ridiculous, i don't want to miss it. ”

“ you saw the blood on the laptop, right? ”

“ why do i have to wait in the car? ”

“ two types of people wear sunglasses in the dark, blind musicians, and cunts. ”

“ not who you were expecting? ”

“ if that sequence of events does not transpire exactly as described, i will murder you, slowly. ”

“ this is your fault. ”

“ if we stay here, we're fucked. ”

“ i can't leave him there, looks like... i killed him. ”

“ don't be sorry, just be helpful. ”

“ why did they do that? why did they shoot him? ”

“ i don't let personal matters get in the way of business. ”

“ did i say to stop? ”

“ can you just... can you stop disappointing me? ”

“ don't shoot anyone until i tell you to. ”

“ i just like it. what's that called? when you can't stop picturing bullets ripping through human flesh. ”

“ i don't wanna kill anyone. ”

“ none of that's secret, it's private. ”

“ what tracker? there's no tracker, this isn't james bond! ”

“ i'm keeping us alive. ”

“ you are the reason that we are running for our lives right now! ”

“ excuse me for taking an opportunity when i saw one. ”

“ no one's ever given me shit. ”

“ we're supposed to be keeping a low profile! ”

“ i used to have a terrible appetite for destruction on me. ”

“ do you think we're safe? ”

“ a great artist knows when to stop. ”

“ i should have known it was you. ”

“ you love a grand entrance. ”

“ your body count shouldn't define you. ”

“ can we just stop talking about death? ”

“ how is love going to make you strong? ”

“ i just fucking killed someone! ”

“ i hear nothing but empty words from everyone. please, i need you to say something real. ”

“ people have died. it just needs to stop, doesn't it? ”

“ breaking and entering is a crime, you know. ”

“ i know you're withholding information. ”

“ i bet they're fucking terrified of you. ”

“ there's no one who will help you out there. ”

“ people respect me, they listen to me. ”

“ you're ruthless, i like that. ”

“ what do you do on a day like this? ”

“ i don't think i can handle prison. ”

“ you shot my fucking phone! ”

“ you don't shoot friends! ”

“ you better not have broken my nose. ”

“ will you shut the fuck up! i'm trying to hear a bird. ”

“ i have a code. ”

“ bit of fun, never mind the consequences to yourself or anybody else. ”

“ you're gonna lecture me? you murder people for money! ”

“ i put up barriers between myself and the world, and there is, there's an isolation. ”

“ for the first time in my life, i'm making an actual choice. ”

“ i am not your friend. ”

“ could i come with you? ”

“ that wasn't part of the arrangement. ”

“ you have no idea what i'm capable of. ”

“ you shouldn't mess with friendship. ”

“ everywhere the awe-inspiring landscapes, i like to be the one inspiring awe. ”

“ you can be driven to do extraordinary things, things you didn't even know were inside of you, that no one understands.. ”

“ some of the things i've done... it's like i'm infected. ”

“ you can act tough all you want... ”

“ there's no reason for violence. ”

“ you're just making it worse. ”

“ i'm sorry i disappointed you, but you disappointed me too. ”

“ i'm sick of pretending i'm something i'm not. ”

“ get away from me, get back! ”

“ you tried to fucking kill me! ”

“ you said you wanted us to get to know each other. ”

“ it's me, i'm getting you out of here. ”

“ that's my fucking sore leg! ”

“ because i said to, now do it and shut up. ”

“ people like me don't get to be in that world. ”

“ my body, my do-whatever-the-fuck-i-feel-like. ”

“ friends for life? fucking bollocks. ”

“ you think i would join you? ”

“ do not sit there waiting for him to find you! ”

“ people get hallucinations, there's like treatment for that shit. ”

“ people see death, they all have the same thought. don't be next, be the survivor. ”

“ you don't just get something because you say you want it. ”

“ be someone people want to be around. ”

“ why is there dead bodies everywhere? ”

“ you came back. ”

“ we look out for each other, that's the rule. ”

#( sentence. )#sentence starters #sentence meme #rp starters #rp meme #then you run #tv series #crime #drama

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rotworld · 8 months

Text

5: Bitter Cold

(previous)

trouble follows your unwanted passenger.

->suggestive but not explicit. contains gore, body horror, child in peril, descriptions of a car accident, mentions of human trafficking.

The Drift is not kind to time. Its cruelties depend on local attitudes. There are stretches of highway that stutter and repeat themselves, cities that are occasionally shunted into another week. There are ways to adapt and compensate. Most municipal governments have an anchorware budget, constantly constructing, updating and repairing temperamental shielding technologies to keep reality stable for another day. That’s why the shifts juggle whole cities instead of ripping them apart, limb from steel and concrete limb.

Like most children of the road, your circadian rhythm follows an alien tempo. The gloom is perpetual, day only ever so slightly lighter than night through the eternal fog of the road. Time is slippery. If the digital clock in your car didn’t have anchorware components, you would struggle to know whether you should be looking for somewhere to rest. Even still, the sudden deepening of the shadows catches you by surprise. The sky darkens, a chilled haze hanging in the air.

Your unwanted passenger digs his fingers into your headrest. He’s eaten everything you had, two boxes of eggs and your entire stash of snack food, and now he’s eyeing you hungrily. Talking to him, telling him about yourself, your interests, your favorite places you’ve been, has not softened him. Those are, of course, human strategies. Ways to elicit consideration from a human. It doesn’t help when he’s only wearing one.

“We’ll have to stop eventually,” you tell him. “For gas, or for food.”

You see that slender, spiny appendage squirming in his eye socket. The thing is big, whatever it is. Parts of it press up against his skin from beneath all around his eyes and temples, undulating in his throat. You noticed it in his hands earlier; long tendrils threaded over the sinew, pulling and pushing each finger like a puppet’s strings. “Not yet,” he says.

“We can’t keep going forever.”

He clicks rapidly. It’s not a sound produced with a tongue but something sharper. Stridulation. Chitinous limbs rubbing against each other. “When we stop,” he growls, “I’m going. To leave this shell. And take yours instead.” The clench of your jaw seems to amuse him. “Hhhhaaaahgh. But. We’re not stopping yet. Are we?”

“No, we’re not,” you say quietly.

The girl has managed to slowly scoot away from him, pressing herself against the window. She slumps against it, her breath fogging up the glass. You try to catch her eye in the rearview mirror sometimes. “We’re going to get through this,” you want to say, but she looks at you less and less.

Something catches her eye that makes her sit up slowly. She’s staring outside intently. You see all four of her eyes widen, mouth open in a little, startled circle. “Ooooh,” she whispers. You look out the window and don’t see anything, but then—

It’s only one at first. Small, stark white, fluttering into your windshield and melting away just as quickly. Then another, just as fleeting. Then more. You can hardly believe your eyes. You’ve read about it, of course. You’ve seen it in movies. But not once in your entire life have you seen real snow in the Drift. Here it is, silent and silvery, falling soundlessly to earth. You watch in quiet awe and delight.

But the wind picks up. The snow comes slowly at first and then faster, thicker, gathering at the roadside and crunching beneath your tires. Your windshield wipers struggle with the weight of it. Blowing sheets of it, solid white and howling, erase the lane markings and solid yellow dividing line. Your headlights shine uselessly into the storm, engulfed in endless white. Your heart pounds with newfound fear.

You think they call this a blizzard.

[NOW PLAYING ON THE RADIO: DESTROYER BY RUBY HAUNT]

“You need. To drive faster.”

It’s difficult to ignore the thing breathing down your neck, but you do your best. The road is gone. You wouldn’t recognize the edge if the trees weren’t there to catch you, and even their dark trunks are sometimes swallowed by a rippling veil of snow. A sharp chill seeps inside and cranking the heat does little to thaw it. Your fingers are getting stiff and numb. Your breath comes from your lips in shaky puffs of smoky vapor.

The girl is curled up and shaking. You shrug off your jacket the best you can, looping the sleeves out from underneath your seatbelt, and pass it into the backseat. She takes it from you, her small fingers freezing when they brush against your hand. You hear her crying very quietly.

“It’s okay,” you whisper. “It’s okay. We’re going to be okay.”

The hitchhiker’s throat rattles. There’s a flash of something sharp in his mouth, a curved hook peeking out at the corner before it slithers back inside. He’s getting agitated again, glancing restlessly from you to the back window as if there’s anything to see. You get the feeling that this tenuous peace you’ve managed so far is about to fall apart. “Not fast enough,” he hisses.

“You can see this, right?” you ask, gesturing ahead where the road used to be. The wind screams and there’s a moment where everything, sky and earth and even the treeline, vanishes into bright, blinding white. When you slow the car to a steady trudge, he lets out a guttural hiss. “I can go this speed, or I can get in a wreck and then we won’t be going anywhere.”

The cold is worse now. Deeper, more biting. Numbness shivers up your spine and you can’t feel your toes. Ice crystals snake and spiral across the inside of the windshield. There’s a soft, golden glow behind you like headlights, steady and constant. You can hardly believe someone else is trying to drive in this.

There’s a scuffle in the backseat, clicks and chitters and the girl whimpering. You look back and he has the knife at her throat again. His chest heaves and shudders, not with deep breaths but with the squirming motion of something too big to fit behind his ribs, churning restlessly. His jaw cracks and that thing, thin and segmented with a needle-sharp point, comes snaking out of an eye socket. It unspools like thread, pricking her shoulder. “I’ll kill her,” he threatens, head twitching, thick, vein-like protrusions bulging in his neck. “Kill you both—”

The girl makes a keening noise so shrill your ears ring, flailing and kicking and slamming her small fists against him. He isn’t expecting it, so stunned that he drops the knife in the scuffle, and you yank on his hood to drag him halfway into the front seat. You have no plan, no room to work with, wincing when more of those thorny pincers slip out of his eyes and mouth, ripping at your hands.

It’s at that moment, half-twisted around in your seat, arms up to protect yourself, the thing snapping and screeching and all over you, that your foot slips and slams on the gas. The car lurches. The tires slip. You hit the brakes and then you’re veering hard left, screeching too far right when you try to straighten out. The world spins, a blur of snow banks and half-buried trees streaking by the windows, your heart in your throat and a scream caught behind your teeth, and then—

a crunching, violent stop. Something rams into you, or do you ram into it? Your head slams into the driver’s side window and you feel like you’re moving even when everything stops, dizzy and floating. There’s a tree, you can see it, brown bark speckled with snow. Close, too close. You must have hit it. Spun in a circle, slammed into it sideways. Blood trickles down the side of your face and smears on the glass. You don’t know where you are, why you’re here.

There’s a wheeze. Pitter-pattering. Click-click-click-click in your ear. A hand seizes your arm, turns you in your chair. Your vision swims but you see him, the man. No eyes. Little things coming out of the empty spaces, twig-thin and dexterous. They scrape your chin and pull you closer. They chitter, pricking your lips.

A door opens somewhere. The cold howls. There’s wordless animal screaming, thoughtless terror, and scratching-scraping-squeezing, something trying not to let you go. But it’s gone, and the snow fills its place, sparkling flakes melting on your cheeks. You blink them out of your lashes. The screaming is outside now, echoing in the open air. There’s lights—headlights. Blinking brake lights. Someone pulled over. To help?

You try to speak but all you do is groan. Your vision swims, doubles, slowly adjusts. Your blink away the fog and you see red, a trail of it, something heavy dragged kicking and screaming through the snow. The man is outside, lying on the ground between your car and a silver SUV, nearly invisible in the blowing snow. Someone is there with him. Someone is standing over him. A red padded coat and bristling fur-lined hood. Ski goggles. Black pants, bright yellow snow boots. A large, bulky silhouette. A man? He grips a tire iron in one of his gloved hands.

The voice of your instincts screams in the back of your mind. This is wrong. There is danger. You lean over, fumbling for the passenger side door. Keep the cold out, that primal survival urge tells you. Keep the cold out. Stay safe. Your hand is numb and prickly all at once. It feels like you’re groping at the door handle for an hour, for an eternity, sore and light-headed, wanting to shut your eyes, but you manage to slam it shut. The man struggles to his knees and tries to get up, tries to run.

You see the stranger raise the tire iron over his head and bring it down. Swift. Merciless. The sound it makes is muffled through the car but the wet crunch of fractured skull is unmistakable. There’s a pause then, long enough for your sluggish mind to start again and start to understand what you’re seeing. The man makes a strangled sound. The stranger hits him again. And again. And again. Blood and paler, pink fluid streak the snow. Gummy, pulverized tissue coats the tire iron. You see an oozing gash, a dent in the side of the man’s head. He falls face-first into the snow, twitching, limbs all twisted up. The thing under his skin lurches away from the wound. The stranger stops again for a moment as if to watch.

“Go,” comes a miserable whimper from behind you. The girl is wearing your jacket, clinging to it. Tears dribble down her chin from her primary eyes, the secondary ones scrunched shut. “Go! Go!”

You’re in full agreement, but it takes you a second longer to remember what you need to do. Reverse. Hands on the wheel. You close your eyes—home is northeast. The world makes sense again. You push the gas and the tires spin, catch, just barely make it over a mound of snow. In front of you, the stranger is beating the man again and you hear the awful sounds of bones breaking and flesh splitting and something that isn’t human let out a warbling cry.

The stranger kneels. Sticks his hands in the yawning maw of split scalp and ground meat insides and impacted skull, more of a bruised lump of meat than a human head. Straining and pulling, snapping vertebrae, pulling stringy muscle fiber and tissue taut until it snaps, ripping and shredding and splitting the body open like he’s cracking an oyster. You see the thing inside the man for only a moment, coiled tight and contorted into the cramped insides of a corpse, smooth, slick and shiny, uncountable long limbs and segmented body squirming, terrified, screaming and screaming and screaming—

Your tires find asphalt somewhere beneath the snow and you screech backwards, lunging away from the gruesome scene. For the briefest of moments, barely a heartbeat, you saw the stranger bathed in your headlights and fresh, steaming gore and you truly believed that he paused again, that his attention was briefly torn from his prey. That he lifted his gaze and looked back at you.

You drive and you do not look back, clutching the steering wheel with shaking hands. It could be minutes or hours that pass in tense, anticipating silence. You say nothing, listening to the wind and the gravelly churn of snow. The girl sniffles and whimpers. She cries quietly at first and then she wails, head thrown back against the seat. “It’s okay,” you say hoarsely. “We’re…okay.” There’s an exit sign you can’t read, frozen solid and covered in snow, but you take it anyway, needing to stop.

You’re mere minutes from the highway when the snow stops. No slow, trickling fall, no gentling wind; it all just stops. The haze clears. The roads are dry. The oppressive darkness of the storm scatters into softer twilight. The temperature shoots back up and suddenly you’re sweltering, flicking the heat off. Your windshield wipers scrape off a sheet of snow that’s gone light and powdery in the warm air. The first thing you see is a tall red sign for a roadside diner. You take a parking spot around back.

The girl throws herself at you when you open the door, sobbing into your shirt. You sit on the concrete with her, rocking gently back and forth. You feel her palms pushing at you like a kitten, bunching up the folds of your shirt. She cries until she’s got nothing left, her voice hoarse and her sobs turned to little hiccups. “I think it’s time for some food,” you say. She nods wordlessly. There’s no courier sign on the door, but you’ll wash dishes or trade something if you have to.

You’re greeted by the smell of food frying. It’s busy, maybe dinnertime. Most of the booths are occupied but there are a few red leather stools open at the counter. You notice missing tiles interrupting the checkerboard floor pattern, small tufts of greenery growing in the dirt underneath. There’s an orange tree growing out of the floor in the corner and climbing ivy snaking up the wall.

A cheerful waitress comes over with menus, a little notepad tucked into the pocket of her apron. She smiles, then blinks, her expression slowly morphing into one of apprehension. You remember the blood smeared down the side of your face, but it’s not you she’s looking at. The girl stares back at her, frowning. The waitress looks at you and smiles tightly. “I’ll be with you in just a minute,” she says, rushing off. There’s a man a few seats down without food or drink in front of him. The waitress whispers something that makes him sit up straight and glance over at you. The next thing you know, he’s sauntering closer, taking the stool on the girl’s other side.

“How’re you folks doing tonight?” he says conversationally. His shirt is unbuttoned halfway, showing off distinct clavicles and a necklace of bone fragments. Wavy red hair, long enough to tie in a ponytail, drapes over his shoulder.

“Is there a problem?” you ask.

He grins. He’s got jagged teeth. “Well, that depends. You headed west with the little one? Compass Hill, by any chance?” He hooks his thumb under her chin and turns her head from side to side, inspecting. “What kinda silk does she make?”

You grab his wrist. The girl scurries onto the stool behind you, glaring at the man. “That’s her business. Not yours or mine,” you tell him.

He surprises you when he smiles, warm and gentle. “Good answer,” he says. “Get whatever you want, I’ll pay.” The stunned look on your face makes him snicker and sling an arm around your shoulder, opening your menu across the counter. “C’mon, sweetpea, whaddya like? They do breakfast for dinner here, best pancakes you’ll ever have.”

The waitress comes back looking sheepish, setting a glass of water down in front of you. “I’m real sorry about that,” she says. “I always assume the worst. But it happens, more often than you think. We’re not always close to Compass Hill, but whenever we are, people come through here all the time with kids that aren’t theirs.” She slides a chocolate bar across the counter and the girl stares at it suspiciously. It clicks for you then.

“You thought I was selling her,” you say. “But they don’t…things changed there, didn’t they?” Your voice wavers. They must have. You were there when it happened.

The man nods. “Changed a while back. But news goes slow around here. Some folks haven’t heard.” He smiles. “They’re in for a surprise if they make it all the way out there, but we like to nip it in the bud if we can.”

The girl tugs on your shirt, looking at you nervously. You nod at her, smiling. No danger here after all. She nods and starts looking at the menu, noticeably intrigued by pictures of cherry-topped milkshakes.

The man holds out his hand. “Let’s start fresh, yeah? I’m Glenn.” He’s warm, small but muscular with an athletic build, the veins on his bony hands prominent. “You come from very far away?”

“Prismville. Wasn’t that far, but it’s been a long day.” You glance back and the girl is nibbling at the chocolate bar. All four of her eyes go wide and she makes a delighted sound. “I’m taking her home. I figured it’d be Compass Hill, but I wasn’t sure. She’s never been.”

“You’ve got a day’s drive ahead of you,” Glenn says. “Might as well stay the night.”

“If I can find a place—”

His thigh brushes against yours. You feel his hand graze your thigh just lightly before he moves it away. He looks almost embarrassed, clearing his throat. “I’ve got room at my place, if you’d like. It’s no five star hotel or anything. I’ve got a few kits of my own about her age. Just…don’t want you driving around all night. Better to stay off the roads after dark around here.” You know the look he’s giving you. You’re not entirely opposed, you decide. “We’ll send you off with home-cooked breakfast,” he adds, grinning. “Or, well, my husband will. I’d burn water if I tried.”

“Your husband?” you echo, raising a brow. “He wouldn’t mind?”

Glenn’s gaze wanders down to your hips, your ass and thighs, before wandering slowly back up to your face. He licks his lips. “Nope. Not at all.”

(next)

#rotpeach writes #goretober #the drift

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simply-eno · 3 days

Text

There may be a chance that I will get to stop by the grave of the man I called father, the first time being back by his side in nineteen years. My younger brother said to wear my uniform to show him who I have become, but, while I know the sentiment that my brother is aiming for, I want nothing more than to be that man’s little girl once again. The dog tags are packed in my backpack, his gold wedding band is there as well, and the sweater will be packed into a box as my husband and I make our official move.

I don’t want to be a sailor for just a moment, I want to be a daughter grieving the loss of her father. I don’t want to be HM3 Garcia, I want to be little Emmy-loo. I don’t want to worry about getting mud or dirt on my dress whites, I want to kneel before the tombstone with my fists digging into the earth. I don’t want to keep my military bearing, I want to be small and sad.

I want to have a conversation with responding silence; whether there is an afterlife and my father is watching, I want to say all the things I have held, stabbing into my heart, and say them with no worry of keeping the mask. I want to show my husband the man that raised me for a brief eight years. I want to be the child he held, slept on the couch with, played in the yard with, taught to ride a bike. I want to be the child that I was before the man I called my father, was ripped out of my life.

I don’t want to be a sailor when I go see his grave, I want to be the little girl that has dreamed of returning to see her daddy. The little girl didn’t have the words or emotional comprehension or full confidence of understanding, the last time she was there, but the sailor I am now, does. And I don’t want to be the sailor.

There may be a chance I will get to stop by the grave of the man I called father, the first time in nineteen years. The day we laid him in the ground, I wore a black dress, with little pumps that made my toes numb in the Colorado snow. This time, despite the little girl within my heart screaming, I will wear my dress whites, with my dress shoes shining like the sun on water, in the warm Colorado spring.

#personal bullshit #thoughts from the fleet #untitled #poetry #spilled ink #spilled thoughts #prose

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bookoftheironfist · 4 months

Note

hihi!!!

what do you think of an asian danny (comics) ? i know we have pei (whom i adore) but how do you think danny as a character would change? (personally i feel like danny would feel less isolated in kun lun, maybe only dimensional differences, but would face more racism back in america. i think white danny is a better concept, to be torn in half between your nature(america) vs nurture(kun lun) yknow)

Hihi! Thank you for asking!

A few key points, just to start off:

I am not Asian myself, therefore I feel like my opinion on this topic doesn't really matter. (I also don't work for Marvel, so my opinion really doesn't matter.)

At the end of the day, this conversation comes down to the desire for more and better Asian representation across the Marvel Universe, which is obviously something we should all want.

Okay, now, on to the in-universe, Danny-specific stuff:

I would be perfectly happy with an Asian Danny, and I understand the arguments for making that change. I don't personally feel like it's a necessary change in this case, but I do get it, and I do think that the introduction of the Iron Fist legacy was very important; back when he was the first and only person to have defeated Shou-Lao, it was certainly much more uncomfortable that he was an outsider. (I will also point out that the feeling of being pulled in two directions--America and K'un-Lun--is something that he would still experience if he were Asian. Probably even moreso due, as you mentioned, to anti-Asian racism and anti-immigrant sentiments in the US.)

For me, the question is more about whether Danny should be of K'un-Lun descent specifically. Just making him Asian wouldn't make him not an outsider there, and that was the main cause of his alienation as a child. The thing that baffled me about Lin Lie being chosen as the next Iron Fist to presumably "fix" the "problem" of Danny's non-native status was that Lin isn't from K'un-Lun either. He's just as much of an outworlder as Danny, and at least Danny grew up in the city and had family there. (And obviously, that's not even touching on the fact that we already had Pei, who was born K'un-Lun.)

Tucos: "You dare aspire to join the ranks of the immortals of K'un-Lun--!?!" Danny: "I dare nothing, Tucos--I merely am. If I am Iron Fist, it is because the gods--thru Yu-Ti--will it so...and if I become an immortal--it is because they will that as well!" Merrin: "Is that so, outworlder--? How pleasant to see an Earther mortal adopt our ways so...fervently." Iron Fist vol. 1 #2 by Chris Claremont, John Byrne, Michele W., F. Chiarmonte, and Joe Rosen

Kheng: "Stupid orphan couldn't stop a bunch of dogs from turning his mother into breakfast...how were you ever going to face an immortal?" Iron Fist: The Living Weapon #3 by Kaare Kyle Andrews and Joe Caramagna

Yang Yi: "The next Iron Fist should have been one of us. Any of us--even Mei Min. It should have been me." Lin: "I--I didn't call Shou-Lao to me on purpose." Yang Yi: "That's even worse! You stole something that belongs to K'un-Lun and you don't even know its worth. The last Iron Fist was an outsider. So was the one before him. Special enough that the dragon chose them...or callous enough to rip its heart out without respect." Iron Fist vol. 6 #2 by Alyssa Wong, Michael Yg, Sean Chen, Victor Olazaba, and Jay David Ramos

If Danny had been Asian but not from K'un-Lun, the bullying might have focused less on his appearance (he gets called "Snow Pea" and "Snowflake" in Living Weapon), but he still would have been an outsider, an Earther mortal freak, and his bullies would still have been angry that he became the Iron Fist instead of them. If Danny had been of K'un-Lun descent...honestly, I still think he would have struggled to fit in, since he wasn't raised in the culture. Wendell as we know him didn't teach Danny anything about K'un-Lun, and unless we considered the idea of changing Wendell's personality or past experiences, I can imagine that would still be the case if he had blood ties to the city. It would still have been something Wendell spent most of Danny's life trying to put behind him, and Danny would still have been arriving massively traumatized, and even with the knowledge that his ancestors had been from K'un-Lun, I'm not sure how much that would have fixed for him, or for his peers' perception of him. This is a dimension that is extremely difficult to access, and thus a very insular society. They don't get a lot of outworlders, regardless of their race or ancestry.

For the record, it would be easy to give Danny blood ties to K'un-Lun without changing a single thing about his backstory, due to the simple fact that we have no idea where Wendell came from. He was just some random orphan Orson stumbled upon in the Himalayas. It would be very easy for a writer to do a story arc in which Danny found out that his father (possibly even unbeknownst to Wendell) was born in K'un-Lun. Rather than retconning Danny's backstory to make him aware of this from the beginning, I feel like it would be a more interesting approach to have Danny discover a blood connection later on, in the present day. I am always a big fan of explorations of Danny's relationship to K'un-Lun, and this would certainly present new territory in that regard.

Ultimately, though, I agree with you in that I don't feel like this change is needed, or even that it would change much about Danny's character or journey (which I suppose could be an argument either for or against). He would still be that same guy caught between two worlds and not fully at home in either. My personal feeling is that I would rather see characters like Colleen Wing, Pei, Sparrow, Miranda...heck, even Steel Serpent...given more of a spotlight. As I mentioned at the top, what's most important is having strong Asian representation throughout the Marvel Universe, and there are a ton of fantastic, under-used Asian characters within the Iron Fist sphere who I hate to see buried under ongoing debates about this one guy's ethnicity, especially when those debates too often seem to contain incorrect information from people who haven't actually read many of the comics.

Again, thanks for the question! Obviously, this is a very layered and sensitive topic, and having lived through the heated conversations surrounding the Netflix show, it's something that is always on my mind.

#Long post #finnflynn #Iron Fist #Danny Rand #Messages #Commentary #ID in alt text

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rallamajoop · 1 year

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Mother Miranda and Snow White's Evil Queen

I've long had RE8's Miranda mentally filed under "basically just a knockoff of the Evil Queen from Disney's Snow White," but given the dearth of google hits comparing the two, maybe it does fall to me to point out the obvious.

See it's not just their imperious attitudes, or their dedication to black robes and medieval-style hair-coverings. It's not just their mutual habits of shapeshifting into an elderly hag when they want to sneak around incognito either.

It's not just the fact that one goes after Snow White while the other has it in for Ethan and Rosemary Winters. It's not even just the fact that they're both such horrible step/adoptive mothers to all their children.

Oh no, we're just getting started on everything these two fairy-tale witches have in common.

There's the thing with hearts for one, even if they differ in the fine details. Where the Evil Queen sends out a hunter to rip out Snow White's heart and bring it back in a nice little box (see top pic), Miranda prefers to cut out the middle man and rip out poor Ethan Winters' heart herself (surprisingly, this does not produce more definitive results).

Similarly, Miranda likes to wear a gold mask, whereas the Evil Queen just tends to see a mask in her mirror.

Fashion-wise, they both favour black, white and gold, and they're both big on feathers and halos ‒ but Miranda works more of those elements directly into her outfit, whereas the Evil Queen just hangs out on a throne capped with a big circle of gold peacock feathers.

Mind you, even Miranda was supposed to have a big throne of her own in some early concept art ‒ admittedly it's more game-of-thrones than Disney.

As well-to-do witches, they've both got their sinister underground laboratories to do their dirty work in.

Then there's the crow theme. Miranda can transform into a flock of crows, whereas the Evil Queen just has the one raven pal she hangs out with in her lab.

Need I go on?

Now, if you'd ask me to pick a Disney villain as the basis for a new Resident Evil Big Bad, Snow White is admittedly not the film I'd have gone for. The Evil Queen is so heavily overshadowed by later Disney villains in both style and substance that I spent a number of years assuming she was just Maleficent in a different hat. Heck, the original film doesn't even give her a proper name ‒ wikis are still stuck calling her 'The Evil Queen' to this day.

And it's hard to say Miranda makes much impression herself, overshadowed as she is in popularity by every one of her children and the guy running the merchandise stand out the front, and largely coming across as just a watered-down Dimitrescu. She gets the job done, but she's hardly the one who's going to stay with you.

All that said, if you're going for the original, ur-example of the fairy-tale villainess ‒ the evil stepmother who is also a witch ‒ then Snow White is very much the tale you're looking for. Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty will give you one of the two, but Snow White hits both with one swing. And say what you like about Disney, they've founded an empire on redefining the modern image of fairy tales ‒ 1937's Snow White being where it all began.

Whether the creators of Resident Evil Village were consciously referencing referencing Disney's version of Snow White, or whether they were just drawing from generic fairy tale archtypes isn't terribly important. Separating Disney's influence out of the broader popular imagery associated with fairy tales these days may be impossible anyway.

But if it was deliberate, well, it's pretty hard to fault their choice of sources.

#Resident Evil Village #Mother Miranda #Disney #Snow White #Evil Queen #Resident Evil #meta

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crownoflillies1 · 4 months

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For Your Pleasure: Part 3- Warmth

Pairing: unnamed male/female

Word Count: 2.1k

Summary: Two friends find some deeper feelings during a winter gathering.

Tags: 18+, hair pulling, fluff (if you squint), slight dom

A white puff of frozen air trailed the long slow breath he released. It was colder now than it was just a few hours ago, slow falling snow a testament to the observation. Dark spread across the sky taking what little warmth the setting sun held with it. He sucked in another long, searing breath, burning his lungs with the frigid air. His hands clenched in his jacket pocket while he shifted from foot to foot to get warm. Oh he could kill someone with how cold he was.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were cold.” He turned to look at the girl walking up to him. Mentally he cursed her lightly for being so bundled up. She must’ve known how cold this excursion would become. A near violent shiver ripped through his body just looking at her bulky coat and thick scarf.

“Oh yeah? What gave that away?” He cringed, hoping his teeth didn’t chatter loud enough for her hear.

A smile pulled at her lips, “It definitely wasn’t you hopping back and forth like a penguin.”

He scoffed but stopped shuffling back and forth. She finished closing the distance between them and perched herself next to him.

“Why didn’t you wear a coat? You’re shivering pretty bad.”

“I thought this was a drive through show, not a walking trail.”

Her eyebrows lifted, scrunching the edge of her hat up with it, “The invite literally said ‘outdoor walk’. And you could tell by the pictures it’s a walking trail!”

“Yeah yeah, I didn’t read it-“

“Or look at the pictures apparently.”

He shot her a quick playful glare. The shivers increased with a gust of wind whipping against them.

“Alright we get it, I didn’t read it all like you do. Do you always read fine print?”

She rolled her eyes back at him, “I read all the important information. Where is everyone else? Are we the only two who showed?”

As though on cue the rest of the friends gathered around them. He thanked them silently when they blocked the wind, affording him some peace from shivering. After greetings were all passed around, they moved to the ticket booth.

Once through the line and turnstiles, he found himself looking for her. Not even the whole group, just her. He asked a few from the group if they saw her and while they did, they didn’t know where she went. Before he could look over the crowd once more, his own friends swept him off down the trail. Cliques formed rather quickly. Ones that would undoubtedly stay the same the entire night with some intermingling.

When he heard his name called, he stopped and spun left, then right until her saw her coming towards him once again. Two cups occupied her hands.

“Here. It’s the biggest size they had. You’ll have to just sip on it to last the whole trail. There isn’t another drink shack till the end of the trail, which would be this one because it loops around.”

He couldn’t tell if the red in her cheeks came from the cold or a blush. She only rambled on with pointless information when she was nervous. Did he make her nervous? He didn’t dwell on it too long. Instead taking the medium sized cup she held out to him.

“Thanks. You didn’t have to-“

“I wanted to. It makes me happy caring for people.” One of her shoulders lifted in a one sided shrug. He smiled down at her. Hugging the cup close to his chest they turned down the path.

Sometime through the walk they became separated from the rest of the group. Although the hot chocolate was long gone, the warmth still spread through his body. Also somehow, her scarf ended up around his neck.

They stopped off the edge of the ended trail, faithfully back at the beginning. A small gazebo sheltered them from both the wind and other people. Her eyes fixed above him widening slightly. He followed her gaze, his heart beating wildly in his chest: Mistletoe. Plain as day above them. He looked back down at her.

“Well,” she chuckled nervously, “look at that.” She avoided his gaze.

A daring smirk crossed his face. He untucked a hand from his jacket pocket and curled a finger under her chin. Her head lifted with little effort. Dipping low, he drew close to her face. Just a few inches from her lips.

“Your move,” he whispered. Her half-lidded eyes stared at him for just a moment before closing the gap. He swallowed a gasp when her freezing cold lips crashed against his own frozen mouth. Warmth crept into the kiss, allowing their lips to move against one another.

He vaguely felt her gloved hand plunge into his hood to cup the back of his neck. A low guttural groan escaped his throat when her fingers caught and tugged his hair. Her lips curved into a smirk within the kiss. She gave another gentle tug at his hair. Rewarded with yet another groan deep in his throat.

He pulled back, eyes boring into her own. “Keep that up and I’ll absolutely fucking ruin you.”

Another smirk crossed her face, “My place or yours?”

****

She had on too many layers. A mental growl ruminated within him. His chilled fingers moved sluggish as he tried to tear each piece of clothing off her. Not fast enough. He fisted her jacket in big handfuls and yanked it off her arms. Her arms slinked around his neck. Bare fingers toying with the ends of his hair. Heat rushed through his stomach. Fuck.

“Off. Now.” He growled. Her eyes sparkled a dangerous glint. A smirk curved her lips. Before he could command her again, she tugged. His head tipped back. The moan vibrated in his chest, hips bucking slightly.

“Please,” He whimpered. Instead of releasing her grip she pulled harder. Heavy breathes heaved his chest, filling his lungs with charged air. Her lips attached to his bared throat. A thick swallow bobbed his Adam’s apple.

She caressed the soft skin where is neck met his shoulder. Tongue swirling back and forth, and then in circles. Her lips pressed hard into the abused spot creating a seal when she sucked. His hips bucked against her. Not enough friction. In a fatal mistake her gripped loosened. Lost in her attempt to mark him.

Finally free he wrapped his own hand in her hair. A satisfying pop rang out as she detached from his neck. Guiding her back he pinned her against the wall in the entryway.

“Think you have control, hmm?”

Her eyes blazed up at him. “Seems like I did.”

Before her hand could grapple his hair again, he pinned it above her head. “Not for long, baby girl. Now, take. Your. Shirt. Off.” With each word he inched closer to her face. She whimpered pushing her hips into his leg. He released the hold he had on her. Quickly she pulled the shirt off and dropped it to the floor. Her breasts heaved up and each with her breath she took.

He forced her back to arch off the wall when he slid his hand behind her to unsnap the bra. The fabric fell down her arms and her plump breasts bounced when released from their confines.

“Fuck,” he muttered. Though his place was warm, it was cooler than the heat of her body, causing her nipples to harden. He slithered a hand up her torso and rolled her left nipple with the pad of his thumb. She sucked in a deep breath. His free hand braced himself against the wall behind her and he leaned forward to capture her nipple in his mouth. She panted above him.

His hand cupped her breast, lifting it higher. His tongue pressed flat against her while he sucked. He began to swirl his tongue around in circles.

“Bite.” She breathed, panted, barely audible. He did and she cried out, pushing her hips hard into his leg. While keeping it clenched gently between his teeth, he pulled back, stretching her nipple out and releasing it. Her breast bobbed once free. Coming back up to face her, he kissed her deeply.

He’d shed his jacket earlier but now, while keeping her in a kiss, his hands fumbled with the hem of his shirt. Breaking away just enough he pulled his shirt over his head and swooped back to retake her mouth. Her skin felt like fire against his own. Warm and beginning to slick with sweat.

She pulled her head back and he too pulled away. Their eyes locked. A dark fire of desire clouded her half lidded eyes. “Fuck me.”

Nimble and now warmed fingers fumbled with his belt. She undid it and worked quick on his jeans. As soon as the zipper slid down he pushed at his jeans and boxers. By the time he stepped out of them, her own pants and panties were gone too.

Fuck. His eyes drug up and down her body. Each inch of skin better than the last. Her hips held such a gentle feminine curve. Perfectly proportioned to her ample breasts. His trance broke when she shuffled to her knees in front of him.

A sharp inhale shook his chest as her mouth slid his length into her throat. A moan of disappointment echoed across the room when she pulled off nearly instantly and laid back on to the carpet, legs spread, slick glistening in the light.

Fuck, not even patient enough to fuck in his bed. He dropped to his knees. With his hand lazily stroking himself, he leaned forward to press his tongue to her clit.

Her hand shot out and fisted his hair. He froze, at her mercy. He panted like a dog. Watching her with glazed eyes. Goddamn it, she learned fast how to control him.

“Fuck. Me.” Each word was pointed. Once the grip on his hair slackened, he obediently shuffled forward. Rocking back he took his length and swiped it a few times up and down her slit. Once slick, he pushed his tip between her folds and into her. He inhaled sharply while she moaned. Deeper he sank until he fully seated himself in her.

He held steady, relishing the warmth and feel of her. His trance broke when her hips rolled. Instinctively he rolled his own. A soft moan graced his ears and he repeated the action. His heart sped up with each little noise that came from her.

He leaned back and readjusted his knees. Hands wrapping around her thighs, laying them over his hips. He thrust hard into her. The bite of cold which held him so tightly earlier replaced with a burning heat. Her burning heat. It warmed him. Sweat began to bead on his body.

His pace faltered when she launched upwards. Her arms snaked around his should and he fell forwards as she fell back against the floor again. A dull burn radiated from his palm as it slammed hard into the carpet. He paid no mind to it. Lost in the kiss she pulled him into.

Faster than his mind could process, he was on his back. She straddled him, knees on either side of his hips. She sat, pressing his cock between her slick folds and his stomach. Her head lolled forward, eyes closed. Each breath hitched when she rolled her hips back, bumping her clit with the tip of his cock.

“Please…” he whimpered. His hips rolled when her came forward, aching to slip back in her. She didn’t heed his plea.

“Baby please..” he cried again. Her glazed gaze met his own staring down at him and ceasing all movement. A fire erupted behind her eyes. With one perfect motion, her hips rolled back and once again he sank all the way into her. His hands came up and gripped her hips. He helped guide her movements. And then down. Back and forth.

Leaning back her pace quickened. The telltale clench in his stomach grew. Fuck. She didn’t slow down. Fuck.

Without hardly breaking pace, she leaned forward and gripped a handful of his hair and pulled. The build up snapped in that instant. Even as he came she didn’t stop. Moving up and down over his cock, milking him. His fingers pressed hard into her hips no doubt leaving red prints in their wake.

He sucked in a breath as she pulled herself off him and released his hair. She lay next to him on the floor. Propping himself on his elbow he kissed her gently.

“As much as this is comfy, I’m sure the bed would be better.” His palm began to burn as the adrenaline filtered out of him. The carpet would not be as comfortable as his sheets. Especially now she’ll be in them too.

“Mm, I agree.”

He helped her stand and they ambled to his bed. Holding her close beneath the comforter her heat seeped deeper into him, lulling him into a peaceful sleep.

#smut #original character #christmas #winter #mistletoe #friends to lovers

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dazzle-art · 5 months

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Ashe/M!Shez wip for day 1 of fe rarepair week because life got in the way before I could finish so take this and go 💙💜

700 words

Prompt: Snow

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

Oh, snow.

Cold, glorious snow.

Painting the whole of Faerghus in beautiful white.

Tree tops, fields of flowers, the roofs of buildings.

Faerghus loved to snow all year round, but particularly, this was a truly beautiful late Ethereal moon.

Almost the end of the moon. It would be a new year quite soon the dawn of something brand new.

Ashe would have more to do at the start of the year, especially since he had been shirking his duties as of late.

But how could he help it? Special guests didn’t come around this often!

Even if they’ve been in Gaspard territory for quite a few moons now, lodging within his own manor.

But as as the new (ish) Lord, Ashe had an obligation to help his citizens and those in need.

Especially one that he served in war with.

War time, it is never pleasant. Painting the world in blood instead of sunlight, ripping life from flesh, tearing family from family, taking sons and daughters from fathers and mothers. A horrid time where soldiers are thrown at each other as “necessary sacrifices” for the “greater good”.

The death Ashe had seen just a few short years ago. It would live on with him forever, carved into his heart, etched in his mind, with him, always.

He would carry their names, carry their words, carry their breaths, always, with him, and until the very end.

Ashe was sure he would have lost his mind had it not been for the allies that had helped him along the way, friends he probably would not had met if life had gone differently when he was young.

But where was the use of dwelling on the ifs, the hows, the whats?

What was important was the here, and the now.

And the now?

Garreg Mach Founding Day.

Ashe hadn’t planned to do much. After all, he had only spent a few short weeks there years ago. But a certain violet haired man sleeping in one of the many rooms had urged that they should do something together.

Maybe a feast? Maybe a party?

Who knew?

Only Shez would.

And he was sure to keep Ashe waiting, sitting on the soft couch in his room, gazing out into the midmorning through the window, adoring the falling snow.

He remembered when snow fell like this, soft and careful. When a free moment was scarce, and had to be treasured. When worrying about what to do with your free time ate into it, devoured it whole. When war ran the people of the world ragged.

A large hilltop of snow, a single tree at the top of it. Running, leaving fresh prints behind in untouched white. Laughter from not just one, but two people.

“Come on!” Shez had called, gripping hard onto Ashe’s hand, his warmth seeping through Ashe’s gloves like sea water. “It’s just up here!”

“What is it you wanted to show me?” Ashe had gasped, trailing just behind his closest friend and ally. The man had come barreling into his tent just a few minutes beforehand, urging him outside at the beck of something beautiful to see. “Is it far?”

“It’s not much further now!” Shez had assured him, holding his free hand up to cover his eyes from the then-falling snow. “Look! That’s the hill!”

It was only one moment later when the pair came to a halt, causing Ashe to almost bowl over and fall into the snow. When he had situated himself he followed Shez’s gaze off into the forest.

“Whoa…”

Oh, the sight of it.

A clearing that they had once picnicked in, blanketed in perfectly untouched snow, undisturbed from people or wildlife, lacing the trees, freezing the river, laying of grass-blades, frosting the petals of flowers.

A sight that made Shez smile so brightly, bright enough to rival the reflections of pure white into is eyes.

“Let’s go make snow angels!” Shez laughed, taking a step forward, and bringing the silver-gray haired man with him. The snow was cold, frigid, freezing, but the warmth inside of him at the sight of his closest friend being so excited kept him warm.

How long ago was that now?

Too long.

#no beta we die like glenn fraldarius #razz writes #fe rarepair week #ship tag #ashe ubert #ashe duran #shez #m!shez #ashez #wipperoni

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blueroses789 · 2 years

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From Green to Blue

Chapter 9: Darkness

Next chapter: Indifference

Warnings:

Angst

Smut

Mental health crisis

MDNI: 18 plus

The holidays started with a blizzard. It swept without warning through Shiganshina, soon covering the city in a sheet of white snow. You look out and watch the snow pile outside your new apartment. Armin and Biannca had been helping you set up. You were relieved to be out of Armin’s hair, and didn't want to be dead weight.

So it was a relief to be moving out. You remembered when you were five, your mother crashed on a friend's couch. It ended with that friend kicking her out because she refused to get a job.

But the second Armin closed the door, a loneliness so dense settled over you. For a moment you had the urge to run after him. Fighting down the urge, the only thing you could do was simply sit in your new, lonely apartment.

The white walls were closing in on you. Like the resident of a psych ward, you simply stared at the white ceiling. Heart hammering in your chest. Boxes were left half unpacked around the apartment. There was something deja vu about this. Your mothers old apartment had been this colour. Plain white walls were what you grew up with, closing in. From seven to fifteen you lived in a shitty apartment with your even shittier mother. In those days, you spent hours sitting And now you were back. Alone, surrounded by suffocating white walls.

Puke splattered the sides of your toilet. A horrible burning feeling ripped through your throat. After flushing and washing your mouth, you made a phone call. The throwing up had been non stop and your whole body hurt. You just wanted it to stop. After scheduling an appointment, you showered, changed and got ready for work. Your freelance work as a journalist had been so so hard. But by burying your emotions deep down, you somehow made it. Today, you had to meet with your editor. All you wanted to do was just lay down. Not that it was an option.

Another day. You’d been living in your apartment for maybe a week by now. As the cold water rained down on you the snowed storm outside, like a hurricane. You felt like that storm. Cold, confused, unending. You hadn’t cried all week. There was no energy left for that anymore. You didnèt think it was possible to cry anymore. Air bit your skin as you stepped out of the bathtub. It felt nice. It reminded you that there was still something to be felt. Cliche, yes. But it was something, and infinitely better than emotional pain. Well, there was one other emotion.

Shame.

You didn’t feel like a woman. How could someone so unappealing be considered a woman?

A burning in your core seemed to burn you. During those rare moments when your mother wasn’t pissed at something or someone (mainly you), she cried. In those rare moments you sometimes sat beside her. It was the hope that she might for once act like she cared for you. She would cry on your shoulder and ask where everything went wrong. Your father had not been involved, taking off as soon as he found out about your mothers pregnancy. You had searched for him on facebook and every social media platform known to man. It hadn’t been a good idea. Since he had left, your father had married, and had three kids with his wife. After that, you decided it was best to pretend he never existed.

“It’’ll be quick.” Carefully, the doctor pushed the needle in. Blood trickled down the tube as you held your breath. Once the sample of blood was taken, she cleaned where the needle had been and placed a bandaid over it. Even with such a small amount of blood taken, you still felt drained.

“Test results will be back in about two weeks.”

“ Thanks.” You trudged through the snow on your way back. Once home, you collapsed onto the bed. Finally, all you wanted to do was sleep.

Ringing dragged you out of your sleep. Jerking awake, you sleepily answered. It was Armin.

“Hey.” You yawned sleepily.

“Hey! How are you?”

“Okay. Just really tired.” An unpleasant feeling was starting in the pit of your stomach. Shit.

“But you’ve been sleeping well?”

“Better than before.” The feeling was getting worse. You closed your eyes.

“That's good. I was just wondering if you were still up for hanging out at my cottage.”

“Sure. I have a week off.” For the first time in a while you were actually excited for something. It would be good to get away from the city. Biannca was going to visit her family over the winter break. So she’d be okay. Just as you were about to thank Armin, nausea reached its peak and you ran. For the millionth time you turned into the toilet. Armin’s voice could be faintly heard from your bedroom. After quickly rinsing out your mouth, you rushed back.

“Y/n?” Armin sounded worried.

“Sorry. Upset stomach.” You sighed leaning back into the fluffy covers.

“Are you sure you're okay?”

“Yeh. I saw my doctor.”

“Y/n… do you want me to come over?” He sounded like there was something at the back of his throat. Like the words were being forced out of him.

“Armin, I'm okay.” You said softly. You didn’t want him to see you like this. As Armin said goodbye you hung up. Lying on your side you watched just the tip of the sun rise.

And just for a bit, you watched the sun. In that short time, just for a moment, you felt okay.

Armin would be arriving in just half an hour and you had barely any packing done. Two shirts and one pair of nightwear sat forlornly in your trunk.

“Shit.” You sighed. It was hard to summon the energy to do anything these days. Much less something as meticulous as picking out what clothes you would be wearing for the next week and a half. Deciding to get this task done, you just picked out what appealed to you. Your hands grappled with the clothes hanging on hangers.

And then your hand closed around a bright green fabric.

A green dress.

“Oh.” You said to yourself. Letting it fall off the hanger, it fluttered to the ground. It lay there, crumpled and weary looking. Once, that dress had meant everything to you. Now it was like staring into a void. You didn’t want it.

Walking into the kitchen you pulled out a garbage bag. In the dress went. As the black bag closed, you felt a finality as the dress disappeared from sight forever.

A knock at the door startled you. Armin was here. In a panic you shoved some more clothes into your backpack.

“Coming!” The door flew open, revealing Armin on the doorstep.

“Hey! Ready to go?” It was odd. You looked at his beaming face and felt guilt. In all honesty, you couldn’t feel excitement. You would have been happy to just lay in bed and do nothing. But a promise was a promise.

“Yeh. Just let me get my things.” Quickly, you checked over your apartment. Armin helped your get your luggage to his care. Once in, he started to drive. And you were off. As you entered the highway, the gray, bleak city slowly disappeared. You looked ahead to the rising sun. Armin faces you, his blue eyes catching the light.

With a yawn you stretched out on the white sheets. Like a cat you stretched your back, mouth open showing all teeth. The sun blinded you for a moment. But once your eyes settled, you could see a vast landscape of snow covered trees. It sparked a flicker of wonder in you. It was beautiful.

You smelt something sweet in the air. Attention turning to our door, you walked out into the kitchen. There was Armin by the stove, wearing a pink apron with frills on it. A laugh escaped your mouth. You had given it to him as a birthday present last year as a joke. Cooking had been a hobby for him. At the sound of your laugh he blushed.

“Looks cute on you.” A smile flitted across your face. His eyes drifted to the ground, cheeks red.

“Stop smiling.” But it seemed not even Armin could take his own advice seriously. A smile was present on his face.

A pancake landed on the plate.

The snow was up to your knees. Armin had suggested going for a walk. Bullying yourself into being a good guest, you went along. The cottage was on a hill overlooking the woods. If you walked out onto the balcony, one would see the vast wilderness. Tall trees, an ice covered lake, and mountains in the distance. You trudged through the snow covered back.

Quietness surrounds you. Except for your breathing and footsteps, with the occasional animal, you two were the only people in the world. Shiganshina was far from any real forest. There was the occasional hiking trail. But nothing like this. The snow was lush and fluffy.

On instinct, you picked up a clump and blew on it. Snowflakes were tossed into the air. As they caught the sunlight, it looked like little crystals, just floating on thin air. Armin let out a gust of air so that the snowflakes burst apart like fireworks.

“Wow.” You whispered.

“It’s nice out here. You know Dauper has over 200 species. There's one of them!” You and Armin darted off the path, behind a tree. Peaking into the forest, you saw a fluffy white rabbit.

“It’s enormous! And beautiful!” You were in aw. Never had you seen a rabbit in the wild. It was the most gorgeous thing you had seen. Its large black eyes caught yours. Armin’s hand grabbed your. It seemed he was just as enamored with the rabbit as you. For a good while you watched it. Eventually another white rabbit hopped up to it. Their snouts nuzzled towards one another. Then, as quickly as you saw them, they took off.

This was hard. So damn hard.

There was no way you could beat this feeling. Because how the fuck could you beat Armin at chess. Every time you thought there might be a chance, he found a way to stay on top. You had tried looking at his face. Maybe he would give himself away by a look in his eyes. But all that would happen is a smile and a cheeky glint of the eyes.

“Can you please try losing.” You batted your eyelashes.

“Nope.” He popped the “p”. You stuck out your tongue. Armin responded in kind. With a snort you rolled onto your back. Outside was pitch black. The kind that was impossible to see a thing.

Armin laid down beside you.

“What are you thinking?”

“Honestly, I don’t even know at this point.”

“Numb?”

“Couldn’t even tell you.” You rolled over on your side.

“I guess I’m just so use to feeling….like shit. And now that I’m not it’s weird.”

“That's how I felt when Annie left me.” Tears rolled down your face.

“I want to feel normal.” A sob ripped out of your chest. Armin pulled you to him.

That night you fell asleep on his chest. Lulled to sleep by the beating of his heart.

For the first time you didn’t have a nightmare. It was peaceful, surrene. You lay in the bedroom once shared by Eren. It didn’t look like your memories from recent times. More like memories from a far off time. Before this whole mess began. Your hands lay on someone's chest. His eyes were closed, soft brown hair framing his face. Your hand came up to gently touch his face. Like someone recalling something long forgotten. With a flutter opened his eyes. They were a light green. It was almost foreigen to you.

A memory, murky and hard to recall.

It was all a dream. The second you woke up this would all disappear.

“You know none of this is real.”

“I know.” A sun was rising.

“I just wish you’d say sorry.” His lips traced your hairline.

“I’m sorry.” You shock your head.

“This isn’t you. I’ll just have to come to terms with it.” Eren seemed to become translucent.

“Goodbye Eren”. You were met with silence. But that no longer mattered. He was gone. It was a confirmation of something that had been certain for a while.

Waking up was like being reborn. You realized Armin must have brought you here. Tossing off the bed sheets, you got up. Every step you took to the window felt lighter than the last. A sun was rising in the east. As you walked out into the cold, the sun rose.

EKK! I'm so excited to get this chapter out! Thank you so much for being patient with me. I hope that this chapter makes up for it. Schedule is back on track with a chapter out every week.

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@bluebeomz

@xngelsau

@peachtreexoxo

@chscklvr

@somethingstranges-blog

@0ddpsychxox

@mahbeanz

@littlemochi

#eren yeager x reader angst #eren yeager x reader #armin arlert x reader #armin arlert #eren yeager #eren jeager #eren x you #armin x you #armin arlert x y/n #eren yeager x y/n #eren angst #eren yeager angst #smut #aot smut #snk smut #eren yeager x reader smut #eren yeager x oc #armin arlert x reader smut

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