#read: glacier's edge | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

peachesofteal · 5 months

Text

The Pit

COD masterlist Part 1/2 - Part 2

Ghost/Soap/female reader 6.3k words - AO3 Warnings-tags: 18+ MDNI, dub con, kidnapping, manipulative hurt/comfort, whump, the guys shave you, humiliation, forced orgasm, predator/prey, medical inaccuracies. Clothed males/naked female. The Pit by Silversun Pickups. Horror-ish. Misery inspired.

Winter in the mountains can be cruel.

This is something you’ve always known, even as a child. You were raised with it. Chose to return to it after school, decided to make a go of it, of a life here, as an adult. You knew what you were getting yourself into, long cold winters that felt both bleak and promising, unblemished blankets of snow possessing the ability to be stunning, while also lethal. Winters were dangerous, silent killers that left corpses in their wake and no amount of lupine or paintbrushes, glacier fed lakes or springtime moose calves could make up for the hell that winter wrought. Winter brings most living things to the knife’s edge of survival, forcing most to bow beneath the weight of its fury, backs breaking with the burden of just existing in an environment that truly acts, and feels, inhospitable.

Although, there are those who do more than survive the cold, violent stretch of winter.

There are predators who thrive.

“You closin’?” Your coworker, the new one, asks from where she’s settled across the dark wood bar, two amber Budweiser bottles empty in front her idle hands, eyes wandering to guys posted up by the loneliest pool table in fifty square miles.

“I am.” She casts the only window in the entire place a surreptitious glance, fingers peeling away at a label. It’s snowing, has been for hours, flakes fat and wet, fluffy enough that the density of the snow on the ground is light, but dangerous, as it hides the real risk underneath; packed snow sitting with a slick sheen of ice on top.

“You still trying to make it over Fall River pass tonight?” You nod.

“Yeah. Supposed to see my brother and his new place this weekend.”

“Fall River? Is that even open right now?” Andy, a regular who lives a few streets over from you, chimes in, twisting an empty rocks glass in his fist. You pull the bottle of Jameson from the rail and tip it vertical, honey brown liquid sloshing like a wave until his glass is halfway full, and he gives you a flirty kind of smile, the same one he’s been giving you for a year now. Yeeesh.

“It is. I could go around, but it just takes too long. And it’s Friday. I’m not trying to be stuck on the highway with weekend traffic.” You complain, and they both commiserate your opinion. The traffic is brutal, especially in the winter. Driving in hazardous conditions is considered to be a talent more than an innate ability here, and people often overestimate their aptitude for it, causing crashes and delays that get the highway shut down for hours, or even days, at times. You shrug. “I’ve had my snow tires on for weeks. Might as well get some use out of them.” Andy snorts.

“Like you haven’t been gettin’ good use out of them? First real snow was before Halloween this year.” You nod. He’s not wrong. You did get dumped on two weeks before the end of October, twenty-three inches piling up within two days, before half the area was even ready for it. You throw him a polite smile, one that you hope reads like ‘okay thanks for the concern, we’re done now’ and he sighs. “Well, drive safe.”

Fall River pass, it turns out, is not open. It’s closed by the time you split off from the interstate and start the windy, switch-backed trek in your jeep, flashing orange and yellow lights dotting the top of a barricade just barely visible through the speckled snow flying by in your headlights.

Fuck. You could have sworn the DOT website said it was open. You take a deep breath, quelling the anxiety that roils your stomach. Okay. Not the end of the world. There’s another road. A less maintained option, but… you’ll be fine. You’ve driven in worse.

The other road, a sharp, narrow, desolate path that cuts through a large swath of unmanaged forest just outside the national park, is easy at first. You’ve been driving the same jeep for years, a 2007 two door Wrangler, and you know how it handles like the back of your hand. With snow tires, it could pretty much cut through anything, even unplowed, fire watch roads like this one.

Which is why, after the first few miles, your nerves fully settle, and you allow yourself to relax a little bit behind the wheel, easing the jeep across the dips and slicks in the road as you cautiously build speed, snow falling fast through night, growing thicker the higher you travel into wilderness territory, and the farther you left modern civilization behind.

An hour creeps by, and then two. Long enough that you’ve now realized you’re the only one using this road, fresh snow blanketing the woods around you, topography and vegetation starting to change as you encroach on what you assume must be eleven thousand feet. You’ve seen this road on google maps once, or twice maybe, having noted it for future travel just in case of a situation like this. It runs perpendicular to Fall River, and eventually meets another, one that must be similar, on the other side of the range. The secondary road is one that takes you along the ridge, and then down, you’re pretty sure, although you can’t be one hundred percent certain, because you lost cell reception before you even turned off from Fall River.

Still, won’t hurt to check and see if you have this area downloaded.

You pull your phone from the center console, thumbing at the screen, allowing your eyes to linger too long without looking back up through the windshield. No one else is out here. It’s not like you need to worry about oncoming traffic. The little SOS insignia blinks at the top corner, and you tap on the map icon, hoping it will bring up your geo location so you can glance at the satellite image of the area.

You’re so fixated watching the little circle of death try to load, that by the time you look up and see the tree laying across the road, it’s far too late. You do the first thing you were always taught not to do in winter conditions, and slam on the brake, shoving the pedal to floor, heart rate sky rocketing as you panic and lose total control of the jeep. You spin, shoulders and chest jamming against the seatbelt, headlights flashing off into the woods, illuminating an endlessly dark web of trees, bark and branch scratching across the paint as you careen off the road, tipping too precariously onto two wheels and then rolling.

Time, your life, stands completely still for a moment. You see every individual fiber of the pine needles, every uniquely designed snowflake, every single droplet of blood that floats away from your face and through midair as you crash through the forest, your grasp on consciousness slipping farther and farther away, the jeep finally coming to a stop on its side, your head cracked against the driver’s window, stars and streaks spawning out across your vision, headlights finally blinking out completely, leaving you alone in the dark. Your head spins like you’re still rolling, and the only sound in the dead silent snow is your harsh breathing, frantic terror bubbling up through your throat as pain surges through your body.

It's freezing, but you feel surprisingly warm.

You’re going to die out here. No one knows you took this road, you don’t have service, by the time they find you, it’ll be too late. You’ll be a bled out, frozen corpse, long gone and-

You lose your train of thought quickly. Everything starts to fracture, fissures forming in your consciousness, part of you already losing the battle to the inevitable, darkness pulling over your eyes like a knit hat, lungs heaving just a little harder with each breath.

You could just close your eyes. Just for a moment.

Light sweeps across the ground, flashing across your face. You think, if you were truly with it, in your right mind, you’d think it was too bright. You’d say it was blinding.

But you can’t formulate anything of the sort, mind too busy slipping away, falling into an inky black depth, just barely on the verge when you feel a gloved hand on your skin, the lilt of an accent on the wind.

Sleep.

You’re drifting. Falling through a stardusted, molasses filled haze, your mind ebbs and flows with consciousness; soft and warm feelings contrasted with sharp pain that bites through your body as if it’s slowly trying to eat you, chipping away piece by piece.

There are words, voices. There are hands too, fingers walking across your skin, limbs being moved, arranged, always with pain that’s followed by a hushed whisper of apology, a confusing sentiment in the dark. Your eyes won’t open. Your mouth won’t work. Your head is stuffed with cotton, wispy strands of connections that can’t quite get there, scrounging along the walls of your skull, trying to meet in the middle. You’re drowning, sinking to the bottom of a macabre pool, the one that’s infected your synapses and kept you just inside the shelter of delirium.

You try to call for help, but you can’t.

You try to swim to the surface, but the grisly black of your mind is never ending.

You’re dying, the tiny sliver of rational thought assures. Or you’re already dead.

Despair swells, and if you could feel your face, you’d think you were crying, lost to the sweeping desolation of your pain. It steals your breathe. Your sense. Everything becomes secondary to the obliterating agony that you feel.

Something touches your cheek. Your eyes fight to open, straining against the heaviness that weighs on them, just barely blinking wide enough to let some light in, your vision fuzzily trying to focus.

Wood beams come into view. A ceiling? Where-

You try to turn your head but an electric shock rattles through your brain, forcing you to slam your eyes shut again, world spinning on an uneven axis as something on the edge of your sight shifts. A monster. A man?

Something is said, whispered, and then everything fades away, your mind and body slipping beneath the waves of darkness.

The next time you surface, you manage to cling to consciousness long enough to take stock of your surroundings, realizing you’re tucked into a soft, warm bed almost immediately, something hot near your feet, pillows fluffed beneath you. A hand stitched quilt is spread across the top of copious other blankets and sheets, and your fingertips scratch against the fabric. Flannel.

You’re also awake long enough to truly experience the pain you’re in.

One thousand tiny knives rattle around in your skull, slicing into the soft matter of your brain, tearing you apart piece by piece, everything in you unmoored and off balance. Searing pain radiates up your leg, through your arm and wrist to your head and neck, and when your instinct urges you to try to move, your body screams in protest, the pain so intense that you cry out.

That’s when you see him.

A man steps towards you from the edge of your peripheral, and you freeze in terror.

“Shhh. We’re not goin’ hurt ye. Ye had a terrible accident. Pure luck we found ye when we did, dove. Ye would’ve died out there.” He coos in an accent, inching closer, and you manage to get a better look at him, recognition failing immediately. An accident? An accident… memories come flooding back, broken clips of the jeep spinning, rolling, the woods, the fear. Who is he? Where are you? Brilliant blue eyes look down at you with concern, handsome face tweaked into worry, furrow in his brow partially covered by the long strands of an overgrown mohawk. He’s pretty. “Can ye follow my finger?” He presents one in front of your nose, but it splits into two, and then three, just the attempt to focus enough to make your head throb, and a whimper escapes from your throat. “I know, I know.” There’s a ceramic mug in his hand, and he carefully lifts it to your lips, encouraging you as he tips it back, warm, sweet liquid washing down your throat. You can’t even move your arms to push him away, and when he seems to be satisfied, his thumb wipes the corner of your mouth. “Good love. Well done.” You feel woozy all of the sudden, maybe even a little nauseous, and you think you could be hallucinating when another man appears at the foot of the bed, handsome, but in a rugged way, watching you with honeyed brown eyes, the broadest, biggest thing you’ve ever seen.

“Those bones need setting.” He says, and the pretty one grimaces, fingertips trailing along your cheek.

“Maybe tomorrow. I’m still worried about the concussion.” His thumb cards across your brow.

“It’s been three days, Johnny. Can’t put it off too much longer.” Three days? Your brain latches onto the time. Three days of what? Since when? You’re starting to fade, trying to focus on what they’re saying but losing the battle horrendously when the blankets shift, warmth tucking down around your waist and shoulders, unable to react or even speak when they both press a kiss to your forehead, affectionate and longing touch that startles you until you’re losing the battle to sleep.

It's snowing.

You don’t have to see to know. There’s something about how it hangs in the air, how the world sounds during a snowfall that blankets everything: houses, trees, mountains… your mind.

You love the snow. Even as a child, winter was your favorite. Winter brought you a sense of calm, of peace. It’s what brought you back here, kept you here, even amidst the perils. The feeling of a forest, lying still beneath the soft spun expanse of white, the crisp smell of the air the morning of a big snow, the eternal quiet that exists in the night when everything is dampened by the weight of a million, billion, uniquely crystalized webs of frozen water.

This snow feels different. It doesn’t feel like a velvety white, candy-coated dream world; but a nightmare… one filled with pain, anxiety. Where are you? What’s happened?

And why do you hurt so fucking bad?

“You’re awake.” A deep voice says from your side, and you flinch on instinct, immediately wishing you hadn’t as lightning sharp pain zings through you, your voice breaking with a cry. “Easy.” He cautions, and your head stops swimming long enough for you to realize it’s the brown eyed man, the bigger one. He’s sitting in a chair that looks far too small for his width, watching you with an intensity that makes you feel exposed.

“Where… am I?” You manage to choke out through stiff lips, your head spinning and the world tilting at the same time. It sours your stomach, more than you thought possible, and you try to swallow the burn of bile that’s racing up your throat.

“Are you going to be sick?” He strokes your face, the touch nearly sweet, but confusing, and you hold your tongue, unsure. He sighs, expression shifting into disapproval, and then a frown. “Tell me.”

“N-no, I don’t-“ You can’t even finish your denial before your stomach is heaving and he’s springing into action, shifting you onto your side where a clean bucket sits right next to the bed. You wail in misery, pain shooting through your leg and arm, your ribs, bile and spit leaking from your mouth.

“It’s alright, that’s it.” A hand soothes up and down your back as you dry heave, sputtering on nothing, tears dripping to the wooden floorboards with a splash.

“Nnrgh-“

“I know, I know. Poor thing.” He coos, and it sounds… endearing, so sweet yet… frightening, like the poison of a predatory, a pretty display meant to draw you in before it snaps a set of jaws shut around your face.

Somewhere, nestled inside the last shards of your sanity, an alarm bell whistles, but the intensity of your pain quickly drowns it out, and you cry aloud.

“Hurts.” He rolls you back to your original position, arranging you like a doll. “It hurts.”

“I know it does, sweet girl, I know. We’re going to fix it.” A cloth dabs at your forehead and then down to clean your mouth, just as the man with the mohawk appears on the bed, one knee down, leaning over you, worry rife in his features.

“Poor baby. Were ye sick again?” Again? You blink up at him. What is going on? He presses a glass to your lips, urging you to drink, and then pulling it away after you’ve had a few sips with a gentle “not too much.”

“Who are you?” The water is cold, refreshing, but a ting acidic, and you wonder if it’s well water, maybe?

“I’m Johnny.” He’s setting up something beside you, organizing it, but you can’t turn your head to look, and can’t quite catch it from your peripheral. “An’ this is Simon. Or Si, but ye probably willnae be callin’ him that quite yet.” Quite yet? What? Did they find you? Did they rescue you? Why can’t you remember?

“What happened.” You try again, gritting your teeth.

“Ye had an accident, remember? We talked about it yesterday. Ye rolled off the road, ended up nearly down the mountain, in the thick of the trees. Ye’re lucky the one didnae impale ye.” Impale?

“And you found me?” You're starting to feel tired again, all the sudden, woozy and weird, exhaustion pulling at your limbs. Shouldn't you be in a hospital? Why haven't they taken you to a doctor?

“Aye, we did. Pulled ye out, brought ye home.” Home?

“You don’t have to worry.” Simon, the bigger one, tells you. “We’re going to take care of you.” Take care of who? Everything is foggy, clouded, and you try to shake your head in confusion.

“I don’t… why-“

“Storm is pretty bad. One of those, once in a lifetime types. Pass is closed.” You close your eyes. Of course. The pass is closed. You guess you’re lucky. They could have left you to die, and you could have never been found. You could have frozen to death. Bled out.

“Thank… thank you.” Johnny hums, and then you ripple in shock as he leans forward and brushes his lips against your mouth in a kiss. This… this is not normal? Are Scottish people just… more affectionate?

“Want ye to know, if we didnae have to do this, we woudnae.” What?

“Do what?” Simon casts you a mournful glance, rising from the chair. He’s got piece of leather in his hand, like a cut from a belt, and your eyes dart between them, fear freezing solid inside your pores. Do what?

“Bite down on this, precious.” Simon instructs, placing the swatch against your bottom lip, and you jerk away in protest, pain burning through your body.

“Do what?” You try to sound strong, demanding, but it comes out a little less than timid, and he gives you a sad smile.

“Your femur is broken.” A warm hand rests on your leg, over the covers, and you try to click the pieces together. “And I suspect your radius is, too. We need to set them.”

Oh. Oh no.

“N-no, no, you… you ca-can’t.” You stutter. They can’t. A doctor should be doing that, shouldn’t they? Johnny hovers over you, placing his palm on your belly, stroking upwards to the middle of your chest, the other holding firm across your collarbone. His touch is gentle, but strong, and his thumb rubs in a cautious motion against your skin, lightly grazing the underside of your breast. It feels weird, and wrong… intimate in a way that makes you shiver. “Please. Please, please… don’t-“

“It’s alright.” He shushes you, and the pressure increases against your body as Simon wedges a thick finger between your teeth, slipping the worn leather in your mouth, bracing around your wrist, his other hand holding your elbow. You gasp for air, adrenaline fueled by pain and fear coursing through you, and Johnny coos, telling you ye’ll be alright, that ye’re with them now, and they’ll take such good care of ye.

“Take a deep breath.” Simon urges, and you stare at him, wide eyed, pulse thundering in your ears.

“Ye’ll probably pass out, bonnie. We’ll get the second one done while ye’re down, and I already gave ye somethin’ for the pain.” He assures, like it’s supposed to relieve you, and your nostrils flare as something tightens against your arm. Simon’s grip.

This can’t be happening. This has to be a nightmare. How can this happen? No, nononono-

There’s a crack. A crunch. Burning, obliterating torture rockets up your arm, exploding inside you like a shot. You scream and bite down at the same time, raw misery trying to claw it’s way out of your throat. You think you’re crying, hallucinating from the pain, having a heart attack, fucking dying, all at once. It hurts, it hurts so bad, stop, please-

“We’re sorry, we’re sorry.” Simon soothes, thumb wiping your cheek, but you can hardly hear him, your brain starting to sever itself from reality, floating away as you slip inside the dark tomb of your mind, losing yourself to the fog as they both stare down at you, sickeningly saccharine concern layered overtop the faces of wolves, predators licking their maws in preparation for a meal.

You sleep and wake in a haze.

You sleep. Your dreams are torments, visions of being chased through the mountains by monsters, being pinned to the ground, teeth tearing into your throat with no preamble, or nightmares of drowning, being swallowed by the ocean, lungs sputtering with concrete laden sea water.

You wake. Your vision blurs, mind scrambled by pain, vaguely aware of being moved, carried to the bathroom, held upright over a toilet, gentle touch soothing up and down your back, heavy palm cupping curve of your skull when your head is tipped back and something is dribbled past your lips. You blink blearily with stone weighted lids, taking in the room bit by bit, the wrought iron bed frame, crackling flames sparking in a fireplace, mountain of pillows sagging with the imprint of your body. Your limbs are wrapped and unwrapped, immobilized, and shifted, and the pain is enough to make you gasp for air, tipping you over into the decaying depths of unconsciousness again and again.

You sleep. Restless, chilled. Ice spreads from the nerves in the tip of your nose to your brain, your fingers, and you try to burrow it deeper, seeking the comfort of the pillows, but finding warm skin and muscle instead. In your sleep, it’s lovely. It’s comforting. Even when you’re rolled to your side, something sticking under your tongue, you chase the heady thick heat that seems to roll off the limbs around you.

You wake. There are voices, deep and rumbling, bouncing through the room. Warm water dabbing down your neck, your belly, your legs. You’re too hot, uncomfortable and smothered until you hear a sharp pitched snarl accompanied by a yank, and then there’s a void of emptiness around you.

You sleep.

You wake. The pain starts to change, melting into something that’s consistent, throbbing, but a little less sharp, unless you move, and then it shrieks through your nerves like an electrical shock, vibrating your jaw shut.

You sleep.

You wake. They’re there. Simon is dabbing a cool washcloth across your forehead. You try to flex away on instinct, but firm hands stop you, holding you in place.

“Hey there, dove.” Johnny whispers, smiling. It’s a shy kind of smile, sweet, and the world spins. You grapple with reality, trying to remind yourself where you are, what happened. The fire snaps and pops behind Simon, who stands at his side, massive hand on his shoulder. “Made ye some breakfast. Think ye can eat somethin’?” Breakfast? A steaming bowl of oats sits cradled in his hand, spoon at the ready. Nausea roars, enflamed by the pain in your bones, and you shake your head. “Ye need to eat. Been givin’ ye soup for the past few days, but ye need more carbs.”

“I- I don’t understand.” You try to explain your confusion, hundreds of questions brewing on your tongue, trying to spill out.

“You’ve been in and out consciousness for the last week.” Simon explains, and your eyes widen.

“What?” Panic knots, twisting you up tight, heart fluttering in your chest.

“We had to sedate you. Needed to keep you still through the first part of the healing process.”

“You… you drugged me?” You stammer, and Simon smiles, but it’s not sweet like Johnny’s. It’s severe. It’s dangerous.

“Soft calluses form around fractures, after they’ve been set.” He sits down on the other side of the bed, across your hips from Johnny. “Your breaks aren’t in casts, so we needed to minimize your movement until the calluses could strengthen.”

“Ye willnae be able to walk on the leg, or lift anything with that arm, but we’ll help ye.” Johnny assures. “We’ll be here for ye, as ye get better.” The words don’t compute, and you look at both of their faces, sweeping back and forth, blue eyes to brown, brown to blue, until the only thing that you can think of blurts out of your mouth:

“Where’s my phone?” There’s a flash of discontent in Johnny’s features, but it’s quickly smoothed away, and you wonder if it even there in the first place.

“I imagine it’s somewhere near where your jeep rolled. We weren’t exactly concerned with finding it, considering we were trying to save your life.” Simon’s hands flex in the sheets, and then relax, serious look on his face, and guilt swamps you. Right. They saved your life. You could have died. And the pass is closed. Maybe this is all… as normal as it can be, given the situation. Calm down.

Still…

Didn’t Johnny kiss you?

The spoon clinks against the bowl, jolting you back to the moment, eyeing the scoop of oats as it drifts closer to your mouth, lips parting on instinct.

The first bite is difficult, an insipid, unsavory lump sliding down into your stomach, toothy grin stretching across Johnny’s face as you swallow. The second bite is easier. So is the third, and you manage a few more after that until you start to feel wooly, head fuzzy and stomach sick. “I can’t.” You bleat, and he nods sympathetically.

“Alright, ye did good.” Sleep tugs, insistent again, strong surge of fog pulling at your eyes, and you yawn.

“Tired?” Simon’s already moving, hovering, patiently adjusting your pillows and lazily urging you into them. “You should rest.” You’re too weak, too miserable to argue, so you let yourself fade to black, easily falling back into the webbed slush of sleep.

You drift in and out for days after that. A bright spot of consciousness here and there before it dissipates and you fall into oblivion, and you find yourself embracing it as often as possible, trying to escape into yourself, away from wooden beams and potential predators that flank you.

You’re content to let it stay that way, hiding away behind closed lids for as long as possible, until the morning you feel the washcloth.

“Sh-sh-shhh.” Johnny hums when you garble out a distressed question, tipping a glass to your mouth. Cold liquid rushes across your tongue, and you have no choice but to swallow, confusion webbing across your thoughts. Simon has the blankets pulled away, chilled air nipping and your skin, and you moan. It’s strange, like you’re exposed, half floating like you’re high, and half spiraling through your pain.

“It’s okay, we’ve got you.” They’re repositioning you, arms and legs like a little doll, and you frown. “Jus’ need to get you clean.” Clean? The washcloth coasts across your neck and down to your chest, warm water soaking a trail down your breasts. You’re naked, fully, a hot palm against your hip, skin on skin contact registering as you blink fuzzily, watching the way Johnny focuses on you, concentration shining in his stunning blue eyes.

Water sloshes. Squeezing and dripping, and then the warm, nearly hot cloth is being pressed against you, stroking over your nipples, washing the underside of your breasts. It feels nice, and you whine a little when it pulls away. Simon chuckles.

“Do ye like that?” Johnny coos, reapplying the cloth to your belly. “Does that feel good?” Does it? Is it supposed to? Your vision doubles then realigns, and you stare at the underside of Simon’s jaw, mesmerized by the scar on his chin, the width of his neck. He readjusts you, again, slowly moving your knees apart, spreading your legs, and heat climbs through your bones to your cheeks.

You’re naked. They’re fully clothed.

“We’re goin’ clean this up a bit.” Simon murmurs, a thick finger tracing along your slit, through the soft curls between your legs, and you balk. Clean what? How?

“My… my-“ you can’t even get the words out, too embarrassed, and he nods, sliver flash of a razor twinkling in his hand. The air in your chest sputters.

“Your hair.” Johnny works the washcloth back and forth, water dripping down your skin to the towel that’s been placed under your hips, you can only lay there in mortification when you feel yourself getting wet, tepid arousal roaring to life between your legs. “If you’re a good girl for us,” Simon continues, spraying a big glob of shaving cream into Johnny’s palm, “we’ll give you a treat afterwards. How’s that sound?”

“A treat?” You squeak, and then whimper, Johnny’s fingers creeping down your slit, rubbing the cream across your pubis and labia, heel brushing against your clit. You make a noise of a protest, but it falls on deaf ears.

“Ye’re alright.” He coos, bumping against the swollen bud again, and you try to stop the moan that builds in your chest with no success, slamming your eyes shut and trying to disappear into the pillows. “It’s natural, dove. Ye dinnae need to feel embarrassed.” He leans forward, slotting his mouth against yours, lips soft and fragrant in a pillowy sweet kiss that lasts too long, his eyes blissfully closed in front of your almost crossed ones.

“Please…” you whisper, but you’re not sure what you’re asking for, and Johnny coos at you, bending at the waist to get a better vantage point between your legs. You shake your head, eyes wide with disbelief, with fear, your mind trying to catch up, trying to rationalize what’s happening at the same time as your body is betraying you, slicking the cream that’s lathered between your thighs, clit pulsing with desperate need.

“I- I don’t want you to… shave me.” You whisper. You don’t want them to touch you… there, and the panic that’s pulsing between your ears continues to rise as your protests go unnoticed. Just saying it out loud makes you want to die of embarrassment, and Simon clucks.

“We have to take care of you, sweet girl.” Simon grips your thigh, fingers pressing into flesh, and the cool blade of the razor moves against the grain with a flick of his wrist, drawing back to a bucket for a rinse before a repeat, breath frozen in your chest as he slowly eliminates the curls of your pubic hair. “It will be easier to do that, to see what you need without all this.” He hums, the smile of a wolf coy on his face. “Stay nice and still for us.” They work in tandem, perfectly synchronized, and your unwanted arousal starts to overpower the pain that’s radiating from your broken bones. It’s been so, so long since you’ve been touched by anyone, and your body does not care that you didn’t want this, or agree to it, too eager to be satisfied, to be touched in anyway it can get, and it gets worse, more intense the longer it goes on, the precise movements of their hands, the slow and methodical approach to your cunt. “Almost done.” Simon tells you, and the side of his finger passes over your clit unintentionally, and you whine. “I know, I know. You’re bein’ so good. Such a good girl.” Your good hand is shaking, gripping the sheets, and when he finishes, Johnny wipes you down with a clean cloth, passing over your clit again and again, electric shocks sparking in your belly. You’re paralyzed, helpless, and yet… soaked. Desperate. The warring emotions tear at you, shame and fear and desire rendering you speechless.

“I think ye need some relief, dove.” Johnny hums, looking from your pussy to Simon, both of them tilting their heads to stare between your legs. “Poor thing is so swollen, Si.”

“Do you want to touch her, Johnny? Give her a reward?” Simon asks him, so sweetly, and Johnny shimmies down to be eye level with your pussy, tongue darting out to lick his lips.

Half of you screams no. Half of you shouts yes.

All you can do is watch, helplessly, as they settle themselves between your legs, Simon over Johnny’s shoulder, tempering his frenzied excitement with assured patience.

“Will ye show me how?” He’s eager, and you frown, confused.

“Johnny’s never made a girl come before,” Simon tells you gently. “You’ll be his first.” Oh my god. “Will you help him? Tell him what feels good?” Your brain melts. You don’t know what to say, mouth half open, staring at the both of them, and after a few seconds, Simon sighs like he’s exasperated with you, before ducking back down next to Johnny and murmuring softly to him, probing along your cunt, finger dipping into your hole, swirling in the wetness gathered there and then moving up to your slit. You gasp, eyes nearly rolling back in your head.

“She likes that.” Johnny groans, breath blowing over your exposed flesh, and Simon takes his hand, thumb over thumb, guiding him in small circles around your clit.

“Nice an’ slow at first, when you’re rubbin’ her clit. Feel how hard it is?” He instructs, pressing a kiss to the side of Johnny’s head, and he nods enthusiastically, looking up at Simon with wide, puppy dog eyes, sappy and saturated with love. It’s sweet, and affectionate, like they’re the only ones in the room, in the world… and you’re intruding on a private moment between these two men and your body. Like you’re a bystander. Or a doll. It’s confusing, your brain trying to sort everything that’s happening into neat little boxes that keep overflowing or falling apart, fracturing under the weight of your helplessness, the shock and fear that’s nearly made you dizzy. “See how her little hole is clenchin’ like that? It’s ‘cause she’s empty, needs to be filled up. When she comes, she’ll get real tight.” He explains, your body enflaming in mortified heat. They’re pushing you closer and closer to an orgasm, and Simon increases the speed as your hips jolt.

“Fuck.” You hiss.

“That’s it.” Simon coaches. “Are you close, sweet girl? Gonna come for us?” You shake your head, but even if you wanted to close your legs, you couldn’t. You’re trapped, lost in a sea of wild waves that break directly over your head, one after another until you’re drowning, gasping, muscles so tight they burn, pain in your arm and leg a secondary concern behind the pressure in your belly, the zap of your clit as they drag you too easily to the bottom, before sending you breaking through the surface.

You come with a distressed moan, hips jerking, and then a raspy plea for them to stop, telling them it’s too much, you’re too sensitive, to which Simon wraps his hand around Johnny’s wrist and pulls his hand away.

“We can’t overwhelm her just yet. Gotta wait until she’s healed up, hm?” He murmurs, reaching for the cloth. You blink at the ceiling, drifting, floating away, little boxes in your mind broken up into gnarled pieces that don’t make sense.

What just happened?

You stay silent, blank, as they settle you, cloth cleaning between your legs, blankets being fussed with around your body, pillows plumped. Simon curls some of your unruly hair behind your ear, swooping down until the breadth of his body blocks out all the light in the room, lips brushing over your ear. “What a good girl you are, dove. Did so well, letting Johnny give you an orgasm. So sweet for him.” He tucks you in a little tighter, and Johnny ducks around him, kissing you gently, like you’re made of glass, thrilled smile tugging at his cheeks, unfettered joy the last thing you see before your eyes slip shut.

The next time you wake, Johnny is in bed with you. It’s dark, a flickering orange glow casting shadow across the room, and you startle at the weight of his arm stretched across your chest, cradling you close, half curled around you like a cat. You turn, face to face, his mouth slightly agape, breath blowing over your cheek. You can’t get enough leverage on one leg to slide out from under him, and when you squirm, he only tightens his grip, pinning you to the bed. You’re overheated, and when you peek over his shoulder to get a look at the fire, you see Simon instead, sitting upright in a chair, fully awake, watching you. White hot fear shocks your system, forcing your eyes down in disbelief, surprise, his chair creaking in the night. Your breath stops in your chest, and then there’s a hand smoothing over your forehead, as he leans past you to brush his lips against Johnny’s, and then rough stubble presses against your cheek with a jagged whisper.

“Sweet dreams, little dove.”

#peaches writes #dub con #ghost x soap x reader #soap x ghost x reader #ghoap x reader #john soap mactavish #ghost x reader x soap #simon riley #simon riley x reader #john soap mactavish x reader #Ghoap #soap x reader

1K notes · View notes

dcxdpdabbles · 11 months

Text

The bakery is a front!...Right? Part 5

Danny opens his eyes to the sight of a potent magical barrier glowing around him. It would have held off many of his subjects but did nothing against his court, much less the king.

Then, he noticed he was in some sort of cave, strapped down to a fluffy bed. There isn't much he can see besides the various machines hooked up throughout the place, various cars, two planes, what appeared to be a training ground, and a.... dinosaur?

Where the hell am I? He thinks, trying to recall what happened to lead him here. But all he can clearly remember is fighting with Phantom over going to the park. Everything after that was a blur.

He tries to move, frowning at the very little give of his restraints. One around each of his four limbs, three large belts over his knees, stomach, and upper chest.

After a few minutes of struggling as a human, he slumps in place.

His blue eyes fly over the runes that shine along the barrier's side, noting three magical signatures. This was a group effort. Strange. Who would put Danny here?

Phantom remains silent but watchful from their shared eyes as Danny scans his surroundings again to ensure no one is around before shifting. As soon as his ghost forms, the barrier flairs, indicating an alarm has been tripped.

Danny sighs tiredly, allowing his body to pass through the restraints. Phantom reaches out to push his hand through the barrier, wiggling his fingers on the other side. Just as they thought, it's not going to keep Danny inside.

Feels like water. Phantom says, and Danny agrees. Whoever put him in here either overestimated their strength or underestimated Danny. He hopes it's not another death cult. Those always left him feeling sick after dealing with them.

It's then Danny realizes another fact. Phantom does not feel like his body trying to split in half; Phantom feels like himself again, another part of who makes up Danny.

Like the inner voice when you read in your head, just as his ghost half had always been since he was fourteen. Danny had been in this creepy cave for over a week because his mating season had finally ended.

That also meant that Danny was missing a full week of memories.

He is going to have some words with whoever is responsible. Danny rechecks the barrier, realizing it's still flaring, and decides to wait for them to approach him. He can pretend he's trapped inside, hopefully creating a false sense of security and getting answers from his kidnappers.

He crosses his legs under him just as a portal rips open a few feet away from his barrier and out rushes a blond man in a trench coat. Behind the man is a woman in a magician outfit and a teenage girl in a purple cape. Danny scans each person, noting the barrier's magical signature matches them all, and knows they are responsible.

Trench coat falls to one knee, bowing his head in respect. "Your majesty."

The other two follow suit after he speaks, repeating his greeting. It seems Trench Coat is the leader. The ghost king leans back on his hands, frost slowly spreading over the blankets under his palms.

It crawls to the edges, slowly falling down the legs of the bed and around the floor. Danny stops it right at the lines of the barrier, knowing the blond man is watching it. The blond man's shoulder relaxes when the frost fails to go over the drawn lines.

So they did underestimate Danny. Well, it made things easier, at least.

"Where am I?" Knowing Phantom's voice echoes and unsettles the three kneeing magic users, he asks. Sam had once told him it sounded like the cracking of ice glaciers from within the giant ice caves after his friend returned from a trip to the artic with her parents.

Danny wasn't exactly sure what that sounded like, but he had always thought it made him more intimidating, especially when he kept his voice a regal calm. Tucker said the calm made it extra creepy, and he wanted to watch these three sweat right now.

"The Batcave, your Highness." Trench Coat responds. Danny's jaw drops.

"The what cave!?" He gasps, springing up from the bed to spin around and look at his surrounding better. He knows he just shattered the illusion but come on! It's the Batcave! This place was a legend among his customers! "Batcave as in Batman!?"

"Indeed." A new voice calls and Danny's head snaps toward a man hiding within a shadow. He's good for a human, but although the shadows open their arms to him, they are not part of him, and Danny can trace every inch of him as easily as though a spotlight had been shined on him.

"Batman" He whispers in awe. The Dark Knight steps out into the line of sight of the other three, ignoring Trench Coat when the blond man starts to hiss at him to kneel. "I got kidnapped by Batman. That's so metal."

Batman, to his credit, doesn't even flinch at the accusation. "You were deemed a danger to the public."

Danny snorts. "Been there. Done that. Got a cookie on the way back."

The mask man's eyes narrow. "Are you aware of the damage you have caused? The lives you have potentially ruined since arriving in my city?"

"Dude, I have no idea what you're talking about. All I did was open a bakery." Danny glances down at the magic users before waving a hand. "You three can stand now, by the way."

The three stand as Batman steps up against the barrier. He looms over Danny in a poor attempt at intimation. Even with having to tilt his head back to keep eye contact and the glowing yellow stip of magic, Danny finds himself on equal footing with the human.

"Batman, bugger off. Now." Trench Coat hisses, yanking the other back a few steps. "We do not need a war with one of the most powerful beings in the multiverse."

"A being that tried to steal my sons." The other man growls, and Danny blinks.

"First of all, I didn't even know you had kids. Second, I have never met them in my life, much less steal-"

"Red Robin will not be going with you, no matter what you say!" Batman interrupts. "If I have to keep you here until the contract is neutralized, I will."

"This is not helping B." The woman dressed like a magician says. She was beyond nervous, a slight tremble ranking her frame. "We're supposed to be negotiating the terms of the engagement."

"The engagement?" Danny mouths, confused.

"We have his sister, Jassmin Fenton. That's a good enough starting point-" The girl in the cape starts, and Danny snaps to attention at his sister's name. Her neck is in his hand, cutting off her words with a chock gasp. He sneers in her face even as the other three scream at the speed he crosses the barrier.

"Where. Is. Jazz."

"Raven!" The other woman screams. "Prat eht gnik ni a egac!"

Her magic washes over him but freezes as Danny's power overtakes it. The spell lands on the ground as a sparkling clump of ice.

The girl claws at his hands, trying to pry him off even when a bear tazer slams into his side, sending electricity throughout his body. If he had been fourteen that would have been enough to have scared him enough into letting go.

He's not a little kid anymore, though. He backhands Batman away from him, catching the tazer he drops as he is flung and throwing it at Trench Coat.

It slams against the man, knocking him on his ass. "I didn't even do anything!"

Danny raises the girl, wondering if he should squeeze more- it's not choking her. He just wanted to scare her.- when Ellie came flying from the direction of a large stone stairway. It seems the Batcave was underneath something. "Danny, stop! Let her go!"

"They kidnapped Jazz!" He yells, eyes blazing in an angry green. Raven's eyes widened at the color. She chants a spell, but her magic is frozen like Zatanna's was before it could even form. She looks stricken.

Not surprising since magic is supposed to be one thing to never fail against the paranormal. Too bad for her Danny is the king and thus far more powerful than the average ghost.

"No, they didn't! She literally upstairs flirting with Jason!"

Danny lets Raven go to swing his head in Ellie's direction. "Who the fuck is Jason!?"

"A really buff book nerd."

"Of course he is."

"Yeah, he's also Peter Draper." Ellie continues with a What can you do shrug.

"Oh, word?" Danny tries to imagine Jazz and Peter, but his employee is so short-tempered that he finds it odd his sister would ever look his way twice. Then again, Peter was only short-tempered because he was trying to keep Alvin safe from Phantom's charm, so....maybe that's what got her attention?

"Your Highness," Trench Coat clears his throat. "We really need to discuss the engagement."

"What engagement?"

Ellie flies over to drape herself across his shoulders like a floating scarf. "The one between you and Timothy Drake."

"The Wayne CEO?" Danny never met the guy; how was he engaged to him?

"Yeah, but you know him as Alvin Draper or Red Robin." Ellie shrugs at his Godsmack expression. "The Bats thought you were selling drugs, using kids as carriers, and using the bakery as a front to cover up your crimes."

"Drugs? Child endangerment!? Why would they think I would do something so terrible?! My bakery is a lovely place!"

"Cause you're kind of shady, Danny. Fruitloop shady."

"I'm disowning you." Danny turns his attention back to the four - heroes? If they were with Batman, they had to be right?- and frown. "I love Gotham. I was just trying to sell pastries and help my community."

"Yeah, but you're still shady." Ellie laughs, ignoring the disownment like every other time Danny threatened her. "They sent in spies to figure you out."

"Spies? In my bakery?" Danny repeats, horrified. He snaps his fingers at his sister, narrowing his eyes. "You can never tell Andres he was right."

She bares her teeth in response, and he knows his store manager will be unbearable come Monday. Danny covers his face wanting to scream, until Batman steps to growl at him. "Tim isn't going anywhere with you."

Danny squints at him. "You're making it sound like I'm taking him by force."

"You are." And another voice jumps in, but this one is familiar. Danny twists around to see Alvin-er Tim calmly walk down the large stairway wearing only white pants. Along the sides of the pants are runes that make Danny's stomach drop.

They're the marking of a human sacrifice in the ghost zone.

"I won't resist." Tim continues stopping before a horrified Danny and clasping his hands tightly. Tim's gaze rests on his feet, every inch of him portraying submission. A group of people quickly come down the stairs, each trying to talk over the other, but Danny can't take his eyes off the human, giving himself up.

Phantom's core weeps. When a human is made into a sacrifice, there is nothing other ghosts can do to intervene. It's one of the Rules within the zone, like Truce Day. There was nothing he could do to save his employee.

"Who?" He whispers his ghostly glow highlighting the youth in Tim's face. Only nineteen. "Who do you belong to?"

Tim's hands twitch, but it's the only sign of discomfort as he lowers his gaze even more. "To you, your highness."

"Wha-"

"Oh, for goodness sake!" Jazz yells, walking over to whack him on the head. Ellie moves so her hand can reach his skull and punches the back of his head. Several people gasp, scandalized, but she does seem to care as she starts nagging. "Daniel Fenton! You let this boy out of his human sacrifice engagement with you right now!"

"His what with what?!" Danny screams back, only to have Sam walk around a blond woman and stomp on his foot. "Ow!"

"This a dick move, Danny! Tucker, come over here and tell him!"

His best friend appears only to punch him in the gut. "It's mess up, man! Tim didn't even know he was walking into a fae circle when he went to your apartment!"

"Stop hitting me! I don't even know what the hell is going on!" He yells, rubbing his bruised stomach.

Jazz crosses her arms and taps her foot. "Five. Four."

"Why are you counting?"

" Three. Two"

"Jazz, seriously, stop it."

"One. Zer-"

"I, High King Phantom, release Timothy Drake with no conditions!" He screams, cowering away. The runes on Tim's pants snap like broken chains. "Just please don't say zero!"

"That's what I thought." She says, nodding her head and then laughing. "I can't believe that still works on you. I'm sorry we didn't explain, but I wanted to get Tim out of danger as soon as possible. Tim was the first to find you when the Bats raided your house a week ago, looking for non-existing drugs. Phantom took over in a mate craze and tried to keep him along with Damian- er Robin- prisoners. "

"We all had to join forces to free them, but you were too powerful. You ripped a portal into the ghost zone and took them." Sam takes over giving Danny a stink eye. She always does hate when Danny slips away to the zone to avoid them. "Tim struck a deal with Phantom agreeing to be his human sacrifice/ husband in exchange for his brother's freedom while the rest of us tried to get to the zone."

Danny doesn't know what to say but feels his mouth moving. It's Phantom who answers. "Again, from the bottom of my heart. My bad. Really. I just wanted a baby."

Ellie chirps, "Baby fever is a medical condition Phantom. Don't sweat it."

"Maybe sweat it a little." A man shouts from beside the frozen Tim. The teenager is staring at Danny with a kind of worship looking upon a saint. And a lover. Danny blushes slightly. "You stole my baby brothers."

"Richard. I can not have this conversation again with you." Phantom rolls his eyes and fades back into Fenton as he powers down. "All I did to Tim was try to cover him in blankets, feed him and make him sleep. My human side wasn't even aware of things."

"Still not cool, Phantom. I thought Danny was going to retake him after this visit," Richard responds, pressing Tim into his side. "Even if it was just due to your mating season, don't repeat it."

Danny takes over with a raised brow. "Don't go into my lair during my mating season, then. Who had you snooping?"

"We did what we had to." Batman is notably less hostile now that the contract between Tim and Danny is broken. Danny considers his words and then nods. He gets that. He would have done the same if he thought some creep was luring the street kids into something dangerous.

"Danny," Tim says, approaching the halfa "Will you go on a date with me?"

"Drake! No!" A child screams from the crowd, but Danny can only see those gorgeous blue eyes, and something deep within him uncoils. Phantom settles in Danny's soul with a content sigh. It's found its mate, after all.

"Yes, I'll go on a date with you." Danny pauses. "You won't work at the bakery anymore, right? I can't date my employees. That's a power imbalance."

Tim laughs leaning in to press his lips against Danny's. The other human's outraged cries fade away as Danny melts against him. "How could I ever think I could resist you. You're too perfect. "

"Wait- what?" Danny blinks, but Tim shushes him with another kiss. Both ignore how the Bats leap in to pull them apart, or Team Phantom rushes to protect Danny and fight them off.

John Constante watches the two groups with a frown "So...no war?"

"I don't think so?" Zatanna responds, confused, while Raven watches impassively.

Danny was right. Come Monday, Andres is unbearable, but Tim comes over for lunch and a quick make-out session, so it's worth it. Manolo returns later that day to invite Danny to his school band performance. His mother is now on her way to recovery, finally allowing him to learn the flute.

All is well in Phantom Bakes.

(Part 1), (Part 2), (Part 3), (Part 4)

#dc x dp crossover #dcxdpdabbles #dead tired #The bakery is a front!...right?#Part 5 #End #Tim sort of fell in love with Phantom #and with Danny #Danny wake up babe- a new Phantom lore dropped

2K notes · View notes

worstjourney · 7 months

Text

The Millennials' Polar Expedition

A year ago today (23 Nov 2022), I launched Worst Journey Vol.1 at the Scott Polar Research Institute. This is the text of the speech I gave to the lovely people who turned up to celebrate.

As many of you know, my interest in the Terra Nova Expedition was sparked by Radio 4’s dramatisation of The Worst Journey in the World, now 14 years ago. The story is an incredible story, and it got its claws into me, but what kept me coming back again and again were the people. I couldn’t believe anyone so wonderful had ever really existed. So when I finally succumbed to obsession and started reading all the books, it was the expedition members’ own words which I most cherished. These were not always easy to come by, though, so plenty of popular histories were consumed as well. Reading both in tandem, it soon became clear that, while there were some good books out there, there was a lot of sloppy research in the polar echo chamber as well.

I also discovered that no adaptation had attempted to get across the full scope of the expedition. There has never been a full and fair dramatic retelling, all having been limited by time, budget, or ideology from telling the whole story truthfully. I was determined that my adaptation would be both complete and accurate, and be as accountable as possible to those precious primary documents and the people who wrote them.

So the years of research began. I moved to Cambridge to be able to drop in at SPRI and make the most of the archives. Getting to Antarctica seemed impossible, but I went to New Zealand to get at least that much right, and on the way back stayed with relatives in Alberta, the most Antarctic place I could realistically visit. I gathered reference for objects wherever I could. Because Vol.1 takes place mainly on the Terra Nova, which is now a patch of sludge on the seabed off Greenland, I cobbled together a Franken-Nova in my mind, between the Discovery up in Dundee and the Star of India in San Diego. I spent a week on a Jubilee Sailing Trust ship in order to depict tall-ship sailing correctly. I’m sure I’ve still got loads of things wrong, but I did all I could, to get as much as I could, right.

But still, everyone I met who had been to Antarctica said, “you can’t understand Antarctica until you’ve been there, and you can’t tell the story without understanding Antarctica; you have to go.” So I applied to the USAP’s Antarctic Artists and Writers Program, with faint hope, as they do “Ahrt” and I draw cartoons. But I must have blagged a good grant proposal, because a year after applying, I was stepping out of a C-17 onto the Ross Ice Shelf. The whole trip would have been worth it just to stand there, turn in a circle, and see how all the familiar photographs fit together. But the USAP’s generosity didn’t stop there, and in the next month I saw Hut Point, Arrival Heights, the Beardmore Glacier (including the moraine on which the Polar Party stopped to “geologise”), and Cape Crozier, and made three visits to the Cape Evans hut. Three! On top of the visual reference I got priceless qualitative data. The hardness of the sound. The surprising warmth of the sun. The sugary texture of the snow. The keen edge on a slight breeze. The way your fingertips and toes can start to go when the rest of you is perfectly warm. The SHEER INSANITY of Cape Crozier. The veterans were right – I couldn’t have drawn it without having been there, but now I have, and can, and I am more grateful than I can ever adequately express. With all these resources laid so copiously at my feet, all I had to do was sit down and draw the darn thing. Luckily I have some very sound training to back me up on that.

Now, this is all very well for the how of making the book, and, I hope, interesting enough. But why? Why am I putting so much effort into telling this story, and why now?

Well, it means a lot to me personally. To begin to understand why, you need to know that I grew up in the 80s and 90s, at the height of individualist, goal-oriented, success-driven, dog-eat-dog, devil-take-the-hindmost neoliberalism. It was just assumed that humans, when you get right down to it, were basically self-interested jerks, and I saw plenty of them around so I had no reason to question this assumption. The idea was that if you did everything right, and worked really hard, you could retire at 45 to a yacht in the Bahamas, and if you didn’t retire to a yacht, well, you just hadn’t tried hard enough. Character, in the sense of rigorous personal virtue, was for schmucks. What mattered was success. Even as my politics evolved, I still took it as a given that this was how the world worked, and that was how people generally were – after all, there was no lack of corroborating evidence. So: I worked really hard. I single-mindedly pursued my self-interest. I made sacrifices, and put in the time, and fought my way into my dream job and all the success I could have asked for.

And then I met the Terra Nova guys.

What struck me most about them was that even when everything was going wrong, when their expectations were shattered and they had to face the cruellest reality, they were still kind. Not backbiting, recriminating, blame-throwing, defensive, or mean, as one would expect – they were lovely to each other, patient, supportive, self-sacrificing; in fact the worse things got, the better they were. They still treated each other as friends even when it wasn’t in their self-interest, was even contrary to their self-interest. I didn’t know people could be like that. But there they were, in plain writing, being thoroughly, bafflingly, decent. Not just the Polar Party – everyone had to face their own brutal realities at some point, and they all did so with a grace I never thought possible.

It presented a very important question:

When everything goes belly-up, and you’re facing the worst, what sort of person will you be?

Or perhaps more acutely: What sort of person would you rather be with?

It was so contrary to the world I lived in, to the reality I knew – it was a peek into an alternate dimension, populated entirely with lovely, lovely people, who really, genuinely believed that “it’s not whether you win or lose, but how you play the game,” and behaved accordingly. It couldn’t be real. There had to be a deeper, unpleasant truth: that was how the world worked, after all. I kept digging, expecting to hit bottom at some point, but I only found more gold, all the way down. How could I not spend my life on this?

Mythology exists to pass on a culture’s values, moral code, and survival information – how to face challenges and prevail. Scott’s story entered the British mythology, and had staying power, because it exemplified those things so profoundly for the culture that created and received it. But the culture changed, and there were new values; Scott’s legacy was first inverted and then cast aside. The new culture needed a new epic hero. You’d think it would be Amundsen, the epitome of ruthless success, but “Make Plan – Execute Plan – Go Home” has no mythic value, so he didn’t stick. The hero needed challenges, he needed setbacks, and he needed to win, on our terms.

Shackleton! Shackleton was a winner! Shackleton told us what we knew to be true and wanted to hear at epic volume: that if you want something badly enough, and try really hard, you will succeed! (Especially if you can control the narrative.) Scott, on the other hand, tells us that if you want something badly enough, and try really hard . . . you may nevertheless die horribly in the snow. Nobody wants to hear that! What a downer! I think it’s no coincidence that Shackleton exploded into popular culture in the late 90s and has dominated it ever since: he is the mythic hero of the zeitgeist. I am always being asked if I’ll be doing Shackleton next. He has six graphic novels already! That is plenty! But people still want to tell and be told his story, because it’s a heroic myth that validates our worldview.

That’s why I am so determined to tell the Scott story, because Scott is who we don’t realise we need right now – and Wilson, and Bowers, and Cherry, and Atch, and all the rest. The Terra Nova Expedition is the Millennials’ polar expedition. We’ve worked really hard, we’ve done everything we were supposed to, we made what appeared to be the right decisions at the time, and we’re still losing. Nothing in the mythology we’ve been fed has prepared us for this. No amount of positive attitude is going to change it. We have all the aphorisms in the world, but what we need is an example of how to behave when the chips are down, when the Boss is not sailing into the tempest to rescue us, when the Yelcho is not on the horizon. When circumstances are beyond your power to change, how do you make the best of your bad situation? What does that look like? Even if you can’t fix anything, how do you make it better for the people around you – or at the very least, not worse? Scott tells us: you can be patient, supportive, and humble; see who needs help and offer it; be realistic but don’t give in to despair; and if you’re up against a wall with no hope of rescue, go out in a blaze of kindness. We learn by imitation: it’s easy to say these things, but to see them in action, in much harder circumstances than we will ever face, is a far greater help. And to see them exemplified by real, flawed, complicated people like us is better still; they are not fairy-tale ideals, they are achievable. Real people achieved them.

My upbringing in the 80s milieu of selfishness, which set me up to receive the Scott story so gratefully, is hardly unique. There are millions of us who are hungry for a counter-narrative. My generation is desperate for demonstrations of caring, whether it’s activism or social justice or government policies that don’t abandon the vulnerable. We’ve seen selfishness poison the world, and we want an alternative. The time for competition is past; we must cooperate or perish, but we don’t know how to do it because our mythology is founded on competition. The Scott story, if told properly, explodes the Just World Fallacy, and liberates us from the lie that has ruled our lives: that you make your own luck. What happens, happens: what matters is how you respond to it. My obsession with accuracy is in part to honour the men, and in part because Cherry was the ultimate stickler and he’d give me a hard time if I didn’t, but also because, if I’m telling the story to a new generation, I’m damn well going to make sure we get that much RIGHT. It’s been really interesting to see, online, how my generation and the next have glommed onto polar exploration narratives, not as thrilling feats of derring-do, but as emotional explorations of found family and cooperative resilience. We love them because they love each other, and loving each other helps get them through, and we want – we need – to see how that’s done. It’s time to give them the Terra Nova story, and to tell it fully, fairly, and honestly, in all its complexity, because that is how their example is most useful to us. Not as gods, and not as fools, but as real human beings who were excellent to each other in the face of disaster. I only hope that I, a latecomer to their ways, can do them justice.

#scott expedition #terra nova expedition #the worst journey in the world #captain scott #polar party #robert falcon scott #birdie bowers #edward adrian wilson #bill wilson #character #millennials #polar exploration #heroic age #adventure #sociology #neoliberalism

196 notes · View notes

feiandart · 12 days

Text

"Azriel?" "Yes, Anthony?" "I will bring you happy flowers from the mountains, bluebells, dark hazels, and rustic baskets of kisses." Anthony reads. He closes the book, lets it slide over the edge of the pool as Aziraphale searches for his eyes and quickly finds them, two lakes of liquid honey and ambrosia in glaciers that yearn for just a little warmth and relief. His left hand rests in the crook of his neck and the Lord's arms gently wrap around him. "I want to do with you what spring does with cherry trees."

#good omens #good omens art #ineffable husbands #good omens au #gomens #crowley #good omens crowley #anthony j crowley #long hair crowley #good omens fanart #aziracrow #aziraphale #good omens fanfiction #good omens fanfic #good omens fic #good omens human au #sugar

59 notes · View notes

startrekfangirl2233-writes · 4 months

Text

Sickles, Snowflakes, & Sharks

Robert 'Bob' Floyd x Reader

Description: When you find yourself in the hospital fretting over a friend, the last thing you expect is a chance at love. One handsome doctor, some shitty hospital coffee, sickles, snowflakes, and a shark is apparently all you need.

Warnings: Hospitals, Doctors, Mentioned injury to the arm, Mentions of blood

Word Count: 3712

Author Note: Hiya everyone! This is from a request submitted by @emma8895eb. They sent in a gorgeous picture set of Lewis Pullman from Lessons in Chemistry and requested an AU of Bob being a doctor. The gifs of the scene were indeed soft and fluffy, so of course, I had to write a soft and fluffy little fic to accompany them!

Thanks to @horseshoegirl for beta-reading this fic for me!

My Masterlist

AO3: Cross-posted Here!

Wattpad: Cross-posted Here!

You haven’t been in a hospital since you were very young. So, it figures your return is due to the fact one of your friends decided to be completely idiotic and stupid in the middle of the night. Who in the world thought it was a good idea to drink in the middle of a snowstorm in a barn?

It's a rhetorical question, of course. Only your friends, your roommates, would choose to do that. As if that wasn't stupid enough, they also decided to jump from the hayloft into the colossal pile of fragrant hay. One of them, Jake, because of course it was him, ended up impaling himself on a still sharp sickle. You were the only sober member of the party, so the consequences had been up to you to handle.

At least you managed to keep him from yanking the blade out of his forearm. You'd run out to the main house in the snow, swathed his arm in towels, and loaded him into your truck. The next step involved booking it to the hospital, of course, but that is easier said than done when it feels like an entire glacier was raining down over your head. The temperature on the dash was edging towards -15°F, and even with the heat blasting, you could hear Jake’s teeth chatter. Something told you he's going into shock. e His eyes were fever-bright, and he hadn't spoken in nearly twenty minutes. If you knew anything about Jake Seresin, the man couldn't shut up if he tried.

So your face is pinched, and it feels like you've got an elephant sitting on your chest when you roar into the Emergency Room drop-off loop with a squeal of brakes and rocket yourself out of the vehicle. You slam the driver's door shut and call for a couple of the nurses in scrubs nearby to help you get Jake out of the truck. Unsurprisingly, maneuvering Jake out of his seat, all six feet of him, is far harder than you think. Also unsurprising is how Jake is laid on a gurney and taken straight away to get some painkillers and X-rays done. Shortly after, while you're pacing the hallway outside the waiting room, a very nice ER Doctor comes out to tell you Jake needs surgery and is being carted away to the OR at that very moment. You can't help but feel a little like a marionette with its strings cut at the news.

When you slump, finally, into a hard-backed chair outside of a surgical suite, you're so tired you could cry. With adrenaline coursing through your system, your hands shake, and you're shivering, too. Of course, given your panic, you also completely forgot to grab a coat or gloves. So you’re sitting in the hospital with snow melting into your hair and soaking into the hem of your jeans. Your feet feel like ice, and you’re so worried you can’t sit still.

“Hey.”

“Hey!”

You blink, and all of a sudden, someone is crouching in front of you. He’s wearing scrubs and a white doctor’s coat. There are wire-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and his blue eyes seem to twinkle in the sterile lights.

“Are you okay?” His voice is soft but warm.

When you look at your shaking hands, they are coated in rust, the color staining your skin in streaks.

“I, I don’t know.” Your voice sounds strangled as you choke the words out.

“Do you want to get cleaned up a little?” You nod, a little jerky bobble of your head up and down. His hands are warm as they cover yours, stalling the shivers as they pull you up.

“Truth be told,” He ducks in closer, murmuring into your ear in a way that should not be as sexy as it is, “I'm not supposed to be doing this.”

“But,” His voice makes sparks light up in your chest as he leads you into an elevator and up two floors. He keeps his hand hovering at the small of your back, close enough that you can feel the heat of his skin through your thin t-shirt. “What are the rules for if you can't break them every once in a while?”

The door he opens leads you to a locker room. You’re tongue-tied standing in such close quarters with this beautiful stranger. He turns, and the look of concentration on his face as he tugs out a spare set of scrubs takes your breath away.

“If I didn't know any better, I'd think you made a habit of doing this to unsuspecting girls covered in blood.”

“I, uh… I don't.”

“So why me? You don't even know my name. Nor do I know yours, for that matter.”

“Oh!” His laugh feels like champagne bubbles bursting across your tongue. “I’m Bob. Bob Floyd, I'm a trauma surgeon here at the hospital.”

“Well, Dr. Floyd.” You smile at the slight blush on the apples of his cheeks and introduce yourself. “You seem awfully familiar with breaking the rules for a man of your stature.”

“A man of my stature?”

“Yeah, sweet and kind. Bespectacled.”

“Bespectacled?”

“Yeah.”

His eyes crinkle with the force of his laugh as he tips his head back. A curl hangs over his forehead, and if your hands weren’t covered in blood you’d push it off his forehead for him.

“C’mon, silly girl. Get cleaned up. I’d love to continue this conversation when you don’t look like Carrie.”

Is it wrong to lay the moves on the hot trauma surgeon when one of your friends is in surgery? Your conscious mind is telling you it’s probably not the most moral of things to do. But the other part of you, the part routinely indulging in romances and squealing at the thought of a meet-cute, is begging you to hold onto the opportunity with both hands. You'd truly be stupid not to, you rationalize as you soap up your skin using the bottle of ginger and orange soap Doctor Bob gave you. It smells amazingly, mouth-wateringly delicious, and a part of you wonders if it smells as good on his skin as it does on yours. But you derail the thought before it goes any further and step out of the shower, shivering a little in the cold hospital air.

Goosebumps rise on your arms as you pull on the scrubs before bunching up your soiled clothes. What’s the likelihood Bob’s still out there? He’s probably gotten a call or something and needs to prep for surgery, right? There are probably a million better things he could be doing. You should return to the surgical suites and see if you can coax some information about Jake from a nice-looking nurse.

When you peek around the door, you're surprised to find Dr. Floyd is still there, arms crossed against the broad expanse of his chest, blue eyes narrowed in thought. Your eyes widen, taking in just how handsome this man is. With long legs, made even longer by the slim-fitting scrubs, muscular arms, broad chest, and slim waist, it feels like you're on a roller coaster ride because a flirty stranger shouldn't be this alluring. Of course, your favorite part of him has to be his eyes, navy blue and mercurial, the color seeming to shift depending on his mood and the atmosphere around him. They sparkle in the sterile lights when you step through the door, absolutely dwarfed by the scrubs on your body.

“Thank you for this, truly.” The words trip off your tongue in a futile attempt to stop the awkwardly shy way you've been staring at him.

“I was happy to.” Your breath catches as he steps forward, handing you soft, dark fabric. “Wear this, you look cold.”

Looking at the fine hairs rising on your arms and how your skin textures from the drafty, antiseptic-smelling breeze, it’s an offer you’re only too glad to accept from this sweet doctor.

“Would you, um…” When he drags his fingers through his perfectly coiffed hair, dislodging a curl that falls across his brow, you itch to push it back into place. “Would you like to grab a cup of coffee with me? You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I’m sure you’d rather check on your friend.”

He’s babbling, and you feel bad as you toe at the pristine tile, murmuring, “I should probably check on Jake.”

It’s his turn to toe at the tile. A part of you is tickled to see he has a charm on his crocs in the shape of the blue shark from that Korean baby shark song.

“What would you say, sweetheart, if I told you I set it up so my colleagues would page me when your friend’s procedure is done?”

You’ve got bubbles crawling up your esophagus, popping blithely in your mind as you look up at this tall, broad man with the countenance of a puppy.

“I'd ask if the coffee in the cafeteria was any better than the cups dispensed out of the machine down the hall.”

“It's a little bit better than the machine, yeah.” There's something like a smile on his face as he looks down at you, blue eyes crinkling in joy.

“Then lead the way, Dr. Floyd.” Your cocked eyebrow and broad grin make him smile more, the curve of his lips growing as he tugs you in the other direction when you start walking the wrong way.

He makes you feel a little giddy as he walks you down to the cafeteria with his hand against the small of your back. When there are two cups of coffee in front of you, your confidence falls completely flat. It’s like you’re no longer sure what to say anymore. Dr. Floyd seems to be just as stymied for words as you are.

You sip on the bitter coffee because your hands are fidgeting and restless. He’s right about the coffee. It’s better than the machine coffee, but not by much. You fish for something to say because it’s awkward sitting in silence while staring at your coffee. If you’re not looking at your cup, you’re staring at your fingers, with nails clipped short and calloused with your work around the ranch. You can’t bring yourself to look your fill at Dr. Floyd, so you sneak looks at him as you fidget.

“So,” you smile, the gesture feeling awkward as your muscles contort. “How’d you get the baby shark charm on your Crocs, Dr. Floyd?”

He chuckles, eyes flashing behind his glasses as he sips his coffee.

“Would you believe it if I told you I’ve only been at this hospital for a few months now?”

You grin softly at him. It looks like he’s thinking about how to describe the shark charm best, brow furrowed and lips pursed. All you want is to know what’s going on in his head. So you’re content to sit in silence.

“My first rotation here was in the pediatric surgery ward. This adorable little girl was going in for open heart surgery. She was heart-breakingly beautiful, with the prettiest smile, despite how sick she was.”

“Is she okay now?” The words trip out of your mouth without your permission.

“Yeah, she’s perfect.” He’s smiling. “I kept her calm before she went under and greeted her when she woke up with a big stuffed shark from the toy store.” He grins conspiratorially at you. “They didn’t have any sharks in the hospital gift shop. She was so happy to see me that it nearly made me cry. She begged her mom and dad to get me a shark charm for my Crocs before she was released to go home. I’ve been wearing it ever since.”

You’re smiling now in total, and when you shyly glance up at him, he’s smiling a smile that mirrors yours. “You sound like you love what you do, Doctor.”

“Call me Bob. Please.” He grins, and you shudder when you feel his feet tangle with yours beneath the plastic table. “Dr. Floyd is my dad. I still recoil and fight this urge to turn around to see if he’s behind me when I hear that name.”

“Bob, it is.” You giggle a little as you sip on your coffee. “So, you don’t swoop in like a knight in shining armor for any old catatonic girl covered in blood sitting in the waiting area?”

“I don’t.” He cards his fingers through his hair, “You’re special, believe it or not.”

You giggle a little uncomfortably. “How so?”

“You looked like you could use some help. It’s true what I said earlier. I rarely find pretty girls in the waiting room and show them places to get cleaned up. That seems to be something I only do for you.”

His smile fades a little then, brow furrowing again. If you were bolder you’d reach out to brush the wrinkled skin smooth again.

“You looked so lost. It’s weird because I didn’t even know your name.” When he says it, it feels like he’s tasting it on his tongue - and it looks like he likes your name in his mouth, too.

“I just wanted to make you smile and flirt a little bit, too.” When he lifts his eyes back up to meet yours, he’s smiling shyly. “So, is it working?”

You grin back and slide your hand out until you can take his hand. If anything, it stops his fidgeting.

“What’s the likelihood of a girl getting a nice piece of cake here?

“I hate to break it to you, Sugar, but we’re in a hospital. The only dessert we’ve got in Jello.”

“Sugar?”

He smiles. “Yeah, you’re sweet like sugar, especially when you smile at me like that. Give me a second. Let me see what I can get for you.”

When Bob stands up from the chair and strides over to the long counter, he gives you a little bit of room to breathe. It shouldn’t be this easy to fall for a man you barely know. There’s a reason why you were goofing around with your friends in an abandoned barn in the middle of a snowstorm, after all. You don’t have a lot of time for fun anymore.

You haven’t since inheriting the ranch from your great-aunt three years ago. There just hadn’t been enough time. In between getting the ranch running again and taking care of all of the animals, you’ve barely been sleeping. There was always something you needed to take care of, whether it was patrolling around the herds to make sure the coyotes hadn’t gotten them or spending hours going over the accounts to make sure there was enough money for food and medicine - for the humans and the animals.

The first calving season had brought you Jake and Natasha in the middle of a rainstorm. They’d originally stayed just to help with a breech calf, and you’d asked them to stay permanently when you saw how the herd responded to Jake’s soft Texan burr and how at home Natasha had been on horseback under the cornflower blue sky, the wind teasing her hair out from its ponytail. Since then, it’s been the three of you and more animals than each of you know how to handle.

You don’t know for sure, but sometimes you think there’s something between your two friends. It’s easy to notice when you spend most of your day only with the two of them or with the animals on the farm. Maybe you should have let Nat drive Jake to the hospital. But with Betsie foaling soon and Nat one of the only people she trusted, you had no choice. You fumble for your phone, digging it out of your bag, and make sure you haven’t missed any calls or messages from your friend.

Betsie’s in labor. I’ve called Doc McCoy. I don’t know if he’ll make it out to the ranch in time, but don’t worry. You take care of Jake. I’ve got Betsie. Let me know when he’s okay.

She sounds angry or maybe stressed; her words sound clipped even over the phone. Either you’ll have to do a lot of groveling or plan to get her some time alone with Jake.

“Is everything okay?”

Your smile feels like it’s disappeared into thin air - like you couldn’t find it if you tried. Your light, easy demeanor is gone, and the burdens of your day-to-day life are back. But you still try to curve your lips up in Bob’s direction.

“Yeah, yeah.” You accept the plate of jiggling multi-colored Jello from him. “One of our mares is foaling back on the ranch. When it rains, it pours, I guess.”

“Is everything alright? Do you need to run back there?”

You poke lacklusterly at the jiggling sweet as you ponder how to respond to his earnest query. “No. Nat’s the only person the mare in question, Betsie, trusts.”

He blinks gently at you before nudging the Jello closer. “C’mon. You’ll feel better if you eat something.” His tone is quietly wheedling, and his blue eyes sear into you as you scoop a bite of the jiggling sweet into your mouth.

For several moments, it’s quiet. You can taste the artificial fruit as the Jello melts on your tongue. Inexplicably, it calms you as the sugar hits your stomach and dissipates the shadows brought on by stress.

“How long have you had the ranch?” Bob’s gently warm voice feels like being wrapped in blankets.

It feels like you’re wrapped in a dream, you and this handsome doctor, as you let the story spill into the quiet midnight atmosphere. There’s nobody else in the cafeteria with you, and it feels like there’s nobody else in the world. Maybe you shouldn’t share your struggles, things you haven’t told another soul, with a man you’ve only just met. But the stories spill off your tongue sweetly.

“The ranch is beautiful on winter mornings,” your voice is quiet as you intermittently sip your coffee. “It almost feels like a completely different universe.”

“What’s your favorite part of those winter mornings?”

Before you can respond, his phone rings. In an instant, it’s like the man you’ve been talking to for so long is a completely different person. His face shutters, his smiling mouth going flat as he listens to the voice spilling down the line. He hums and nods, all those little noises people make when they’re listening, spilling out in his rich, lush voice. You find yourself liking this side of Bob too - the doctor side.

When he hangs up the call and stands up, you scramble to join him in collecting the mugs of long-cold coffee and empty plates.

“Your friend, Jake?” Your head snaps up so fast you nearly give yourself whiplash. “He’s coming out of surgery now. They’re moving him into one of the Post-Anesthesia Care Units. My colleagues on the surgical team say he’s going to be fine. He’ll have to stay at the hospital for another couple of days. He’ll also have to be careful of his arm and not lift anything heavy for the next little while. But he’s going to heal up perfectly.”

You nearly crumple with relief as you follow Bob to the recovery rooms and take your spot next to Jake. The first thing you do when you see Jake again is text Natasha. Between phone calls with Natasha and talking to Jake’s doctors, you lose sight of Bob. As the days pass in trips between the ranch and the hospital, in talking to Natasha, in crying when you see your best friend finally open his eyes when the anesthesia wears away, you’re not sure you’ll ever see Dr. Floyd again.

Was he just a figment of your imagination in the dark hours of night?

You’re signing the last discharge forms two days later when you finally see him again.

“Hey.” He looks sheepish, a small grin curling the corners of his mouth up as he tries valiantly to ignore Jake and Natasha, bickering off to the side.

“Hey.”

“They’re discharging him today, huh?”

You grin at him. “Yeah. I’m glad he’s alright.”

“W-would you maybe want to have coffee sometime, again? Or maybe dinner?” Your heart stutters in its steady beat as you process the words. There’s something like hope growing in your chest before reality rears its ugly head.

“I’d love to. But with the ranch, I’m not sure how feasible it would be to drive an hour into town to have coffee.”

The light in his beautiful blue eyes dims. “Oh.”

“Maybe I can come down to the ranch, then?”

You smile and nod. Jake and Natasha have stopped talking in the background, which means they’ve noticed your conversation with this all too handsome doctor who is wholly out of your league.

“I’d love that.”

“Here,” He hands you his phone. “Put your number in, Sugar.”

When you hand the phone back with clammy palms, he wraps his arms around you in a gentle embrace. You think you can feel the brush of his lips across your forehead.

You’ve got a giddy smile on your face all the way home. Nat and Jake are anything but silent, taking turns asking you what happened in the hospital the night you tore into the Emergency Room drop off. Nat’s a little bolder than Jake is, asking,“So, who’s the cute doctor?” as soon as you’re on the road.

You barely manage to avoid their insistent attempts at wheedling the story out of you until you’ve gotten Jake settled into his room with Nat fluttering about fussing over him. You pull your phone out again in the confines of your bedroom, far away from prying eyes and people who know you too well and can read your every facial expression. There’s a message waiting for you.

Hey, this is Bob. I’d love to come by the ranch when I’m free. Just let me know, Sugar. Hopefully, the winter view you told me about is better than my dreams. I think it will be because it’s got you in it. You have to give me my sweater and scrubs back anyway, doll. So I’ll see you soon.

I DO NOT CONSENT TO HAVE MY WORK POSTED, TRANSLATED, OR PUBLISHED ON ANY SITES OTHER THAN ON AO3, ON WATTPAD, OR ON TUMBLR BY ME. IF YOU SEE MY WORKS ANYWHERE OTHER THAN AO3, ON WATTPAD, OR TUMBLR, THEN THEY HAVE BEEN POSTED WITHOUT MY PERMISSION AND I WILL BE WORKING TO TAKE THEM DOWN.

Taglist:

@desert-fern @horseshoegirl @dakotakazansky @teacupsandtopgun @callsignspitfire @roosterforme @beyondthesefourwalls @mak-32 @thedroneranger @cherrycola27 @kmc1989 @chaoticassidy @shanimallina87

#star writes #top gun fanfic #top gun fanfiction #top gun maverick fanfic #top gun maverick fanfiction #top gun imagine #robert bob floyd x reader #robert floyd x reader #bob x reader #bob imagine #robert bob floyd imagin #robert floyd imagine

76 notes · View notes

webanglikethat · 2 days

Text

an aftermath of episode 8, a life for a life. (a Devi and Ram oneshot)

also available to read here: ao3 published: 2024-06-06 words: 5,123 btw if you read this and don’t leave a comment a fairy will lose her wings

Devi held herself high, walking towards the garden, almost as if hiding behind dirt and leaves could alleviate her anxiety. she couldn't wrap her head around what had just happened, but she couldn’t let anyone know, she couldn’t let the truth slip … how ironic, how could she demand the truth, if she herself was a vessel overflowing with falsity? and yet she ran, for she knew how to do that the best after all. she had come out of the meeting with Mr Vaish, a meeting whose ending she could not have fathomed, not even in the wildest vision of her most ardent migranes. a meeting in which she had discovered a truth that had been eluding her for five years, a truth hiding right in front of her, a mindgame one might say.

Deviya Sharma was meant to die,and it was a fate she could not escape, for it had been demanded and forged by the Goddess herself.

Devi was going to die when she married Ian.

Devi was going to die, and it was going to be soon.

the prophecy had been clear and crystalline. the stars aligned to seal her destiny, perhaps even long before she drew her first breath, a victim of an inevitability that had haunted her before knowing it. this cruel revelation hung in the air like a haunting melody, echoing through the chambers of her mind, a symphony that could never cease to play from now on. tick tock, tick tock, so the clock laughed in her face, as time went on but she felt frozen in it, trapped in a glacier of her doing. the world seemed to shift beneath her feet, as if the dirth beneath the garden was stairs, and each step was an interminable reminder of the weight of the knowledge she now carried, opening and daring her to fall into the pit of her new reality. the truth, elusive and spectral, had finally unveiled itself. for half a decade, she had wandered through a labyrinth of uncertainty, her heart traveling alongside unanswered questions. but now she knew — and life would never be the same. so what was worse, she wondered, the not knowing or the knowing? which was more haunting, knowing she had been laughing and kissing her lover with an expiration date on her body, or now knowing the expiration date of not only herself, but their relationship too? how could she have not known? even a pig to slaughter would notice. the knowing was a double-edged sword. sure, it provided clarity, putting an end to the endless speculation and anxiety that had lingered in the back of her mind. but on the other hand, it brought a firm finality. the path ahead was now clear, but it was a path she had no desire to walk.

in those five years, she had seen it all; she had experienced deaths, some closer than she could process. she was lacerated with disappointment and she combatted grief, a companion that had accompanied her throughout it all, a constant reminder of that fateful night — the night her brother was taken from her and the flames of arson devoured their joint world, leaving behind an existence bereft of him and all the love she had ever known. her throat closed up as the memories surged back with a visceral force, just another force to add to the list of which she couldn't control nor possess. it was as if she were back in that burning mansion, on that damned mountain, that summer night. she could perceive it all again; from the heat searing her skin to the acrid smoke clawing at her lungs like a tiger approaching his victim. she could hear the crackling of the fire, feel the oppressive heat pushing her towards the brink of suffocation as panic gripped her chest and her heart pounded in her ears as the flames danced in her vision, a relentless specter from her past, an interminable hologram that repeated the same movie every. single. time. so welcome to the manuscript of grief, she said quietly to herself.

act one began, the lights dimmed and the flames rose. Devi could almost hear his voice, her beloved brother, beckoning her to Kamal, demanding of her to run, to just run and not look back, to hide in a safe place because it would be okay. but it wasn't okay, it surely hadn't been okay. Devi could almost smell the charred remains of their life, taste the bitterness of the loss that had settled in her mouth that night. the overwhelming dread, the frantic desperation, the helplessness, the screams, the pair of arms holding her back, scratches of nails as she fought, the clang of jewelry as she shook her face, rain mixing with tears —it was as if she were reliving the nightmare all over again.

but this time it was her life that was meant to flatline, and not his heart. (what a cruel twist, it seems the Sharma family is forever meant to star in a tragedy.)

losing her brother had felt like losing herself, as if a fragment of her soul had been cut away, shattered like their dream of a future in which they could live together in happy bliss. the taste of loss was more than a metaphor; it was a physical presence, a bitter, metallic tang that coated her mouth and refused to leave like a distant relative trying to claim what was hers. sometimes, in the middle of the night, she could swear she would sense it again — that smell of rotting flesh, the blaring and deafening gun, denying her brother of one last wish, an honorable death. and instead of running to him, she ran away, like she had promised him to, but that, my dearest goddess, didn't mean she was able to outrun the guilt. she knew it had been the right thing, the only route to ensuring her family legacy and her own safety, but it gnawed at her like a child tugging at his mother's skirt. she should've been with him that night. she should've protected him, she should've gotten him outside before anyone else, and she shouldn't have let Ram lead her away. this was her brother, half of her soul, the vessel of her blood, the echo of her existence, and she left him. and perhaps, she could have saved him, but the lasting fact is she will never know. and once again, she doesn't know what's worse: the not knowing, the guilt, or the what if, or the knowdlege that his presence had been forgotten, as she escaped the mansion with Ram. he hand't even been a thought in the back of her mind. and what is a sibling, if not the first to love you boundlessly, and the first to leave you shamelessly?

as she reached the end of the garden, hidden away from any gaze that would drown her with snotty remarks, Devi’s thoughts swirled like leaves caught in a tempest, and honestly, she thought to herself, comparing her life to a tempest was an understatement. it was a litote where each one was a fragment of the revelation of her path in life, or more accurately perhaps, the path to her death. the reality she had known, the life she had lived, now seemed like a mere fragile illusion, a puppet show designed for the immortals’ joys. how could she reconcile the world she knew with the truth that had just been unmasked? she couldn't hide it, not to herself at least. tomorrow she would wake up, raise her head proudly, wear her Sharma ring, adorn her body with jewelry others could only dream of wearing in the afterlife, participate in the Dozen's meeting, smirk and hold her foot down as she quickly remarked every word or action from the others, and she would smile as if nothing had happened, as if her life hadn't turned out to be a slaughtering transaction. she couldn't let them know and she wouldn't let them know — because any sign of weakness would be seized upon, a chink in her armor that could quickly unravel the balance of respect and authority she had fought so hard to attain along with the place she had so forcefully carved for herself in society. her presence was no longer personal, it was political. and she would do everything to not lose it, even if it meant losing herself first.

but that is the funny thing about attaching your existence to a role so strongly. the very armor you wear can become your prison. and sure, it gave Devi power and respect along with strength, but it subsequently isolated her from her own humanity. and yet, despite it all, she couldn't fraud herself into forgetting or into pretending this truth wasn't a ghost now living in her room and her mind, occupying every land and surface of her existence, as the British had done with her homeland.

and … how different truly, were the British from her destiny, she wondered. she knew it was a foolish comparison, one that could have her even imprisoned and exiled from the Dozen, because how could one compare the brutality of the invaders to the path forged by the merciful goddess herself? the British, with their seemingly insatiable hunger for power and domination, had carved a path of destruction through her land, leaving blood and hope behind every one of their footsteps. they had plundered and pillaged, leaving nothing but devastation in their wake. and the goddess — she was her creator. Devi was her child, but mothers often give birth to victims and not lovers, and Devi felt like a pawn in a game she hadn’t agreed to. so how different truly was the act of the British demolishing her country to the act of the Maharani demolishing her existence as she had known it? how difference is brutality truly, for isn’t it the same, regardless of names, status and history? the essence of brutality lies in its capacity to dehumanize and dominate, to destroy and relish in the chaos, to lead astray and drown the blindly faithful. power, whether human or divine, can be equally merciless. names and faces might change, but even a blind woman would agree that the suffering remains the same.

Devi had always been a fighter as her spirit was unbroken even by the worst trials she had faced. she hadn’t always been like this, but the death of her brother and the crowd of people beneath her, who urged her to give up her place in the Dozen, had turned her into a calculating woman. she had been a gentle and laughing child before, but she had to ice her heart because in a war between compassion and intellect, the winner was clear. “so this was no different”, she told herself. she could swim against the current, forging a new way forward. surely she could undo the reins of destiny, unstitch the tapestry of fate, and redo the prophecy. she has done this before, hadn’t she? she had showed everyone who told her a woman couldn’t possibly lead a family’s legacy that she in fact could. she could manage the finances, she could close a deal with the British Lord, she could gain the respect of Vaish, she could take part in meetings on her own without a guardian. she was Devi Sharma, head of her family, the last one remaining, a legacy standing longer than her grief so she would face whatever challenges came her way with the same stubborn determination that had carried her family through centuries. only time would tell whenever the manuscript of premeditated divine revelation would crumble first, or if it would be her stubborn heart.

as immersed as she was in her thoughts, she didn’t hear his footsteps, but she felt his presence and knew immediately who it was. she could’ve recognized him blindly, deafly even perhaps, though she wasn’t sure how that would work. after all, you do need ears to hear footsteps. she smiled to herself at her own joke. he hadn’t even approached her yet, and she was already joking around, if that wasn’t the premise of their relationship, then she didn’t know what it was. a lighthearted back and forth of teasing, of kissing between droplets of wine, of hiding behind curtains and dancing in front of thousands, of chase and run, of passion and a joy she wouldn’t have ever imagine.

Ram stood a few paces away, his expression a mix of concern and quiet determination, a mix she hadn’t seen before. his face used to be a shrine of teasing, of smirks and small smiles, which never truly left his face when she was around, but this time it was different. «Deviya», he said softly, his voice breaking through her reverie. he rarely called her by her full name, it had always been either Devi or Rakhasi — so called man-eaters monsters, his stupid yet loving nickname for her. but what better setting to use her name? so she turned to face him, her smile fading as the weight of the prophecy settled back on her shoulders. his fingers grazed her cheeks, as he often adored to do. that was the thing with Ram — he would always find an excuse to touch Devi; whether it was holding her hand to lead her somewhere, brushing his fingers over her cheek, cupping her face, putting a hand on her waist to surprise her, “trapping” her against the wall to kiss her, putting his finger on her lips, tracing words in her hair. it had always been a game of push and pull, of hide and seek. but it seemed now, they had been found and couldn’t hide, not from destiny, not from Ram’s duties as the goddess’s will’s interpreter, not from Devi’s imminent death. just uttering those words aloud asphyxiated the teasing out of Ram.

«Ram», she replied, trying to keep her voice steady. but Ram could see the turmoil in her eyes, the fear and uncertainty that had taken root — for it was a twin to the one in his own eyes. for how much she could try and hide it, Ram wasn't called a seer for nothing. he put his hand around her waist, bringing their bodies closer, as if the warmth of his body could ease the coldness of this reality, their new reality. «we can change this», he reassured her, but his eyelashes betrayed his calmness as they were shaking.

Devi let out a shaky breath, her eyes searching his, analyzing the face she had gone from finding annoying to being her only anchor in her slowly unraveling madness. «change this?» she echoed, a hint of her usual defiance creeping into her voice, the one he had learned to poke and to adore. "and how exactly do you plan to defy destiny, Ram? by charming the goddess with your smile? because that’s too egoistical even by your standards” she arched an eyebrow, looking directly at him with that signature smirk he had learned to trace even with his eyes closed at night, when he missed her the most.

Ram chuckled softly, the sound vibrating through his chest and into her, a sound she wishes she could trap into a bottle, perhaps a box, so wherever she went, she could have him with her. «if only it were that simple, my dearest demon. it might have worked with you, but I don’t think it will with her» he murmured, his hand sliding up her back to cradle her head. «but I’m serious. together, we are stronger than any prophecy. we will find a way. there is no way we were connected by Mahakali, if not because there is a way, an escape. nothing she does is ever a mistake, our connection is inescapable» his fingers grazed her lips and she leaned into his touch, her fingers gripping his shirt as if holding on to him could anchor her in this storm. «always the optimist„ she teased him, «you know, despite all the fun you make of my rule breaking streak and finding trouble even with eyes closed .. if this were a game, you'd be the one breaking all the rules». «and you'd be right there beside me», he countered, his lips brushing against her forehead, letting out a barely audible sigh. «my partner in crime, my rakhasi.» Devi's smile widened, her heart lifting slightly at his words. «well, someone has to keep you in check», she quipped. «we can’t have you, Mr Doobay, running off and getting us into more trouble than we are already in.» he laughed again, a rich, warm sound that made her momentarily forget the prophecy, as she wanted to just drown in it. Devi knew how to play many instruments, knew many dances, but she had never came across a tune she liked so much that she wanted to replay it and replay it until she went deaf from it. «I wouldn't have it any other way, miss Sharma», he said, his eyes locking onto hers with a determination that sent a shiver down her spine. «we will face this together, Devi. no matter what comes. I will be by your side, even if it means abandoning everyone else’s.»

Devi shook her head slightly, as if he just told her a joke, «how can you be by my side, when we are akin to spies in the shadows? we can’t shine in the daylight. you can’t be seen with me, I can’t be seen with you .. well not like this. we are both heirs to different legacies, so how can you promise me this?» she said, her voice shaking on the word promise. what were promises, if not meant to be broken? her brother had promised her it would be alright, but it hadn’t been. it hadn’t been, not since, not ever again. so how could she trust another promise, from another man, once again? but what she didn’t say was how she deeply dreamed to shine in the light, to raise her head proudly, him beside her, and shape her own destiny so whatever they had wouldn’t be a secret but kept akin to a prayer. for what distinction exists between the tender caress of a beloved upon her visage and the heavenly benediction bestowed upon the devout? what semblance does religion bear if not the tender embrace of her lover in the nocturnal hours? and what is prayer is not if not the fervent plea of "remain with me" uttered in the hushed dawn's embrace? what is love, if not the first religion you put your faith in?

«what are promises worth, Ram?». she continued, her tone filled with a bitter edge, shaking away her thoughts. «my brother promised to protect me, to keep our family safe, and look where that got us. promises are just words, easily broken and forgotten when the weight of the world comes crashing down. why should I believe that your promise is any different?», she asked him, almost immediately regretting the vulnerability she had let slip, like a secret she couldn’t contain. but it was alright, for she knew he would keep this moment their secret, as they already did with their relationship. it seemed they were both amazing liars and thieves of truths, just how ironic.

Ram didn’t hesitate for a single moment and pulled her closer, his embrace a fortress against the world, as if the weight of his body against her could calm her turmoil, as if that nearness could be healing. (to him it was). his gaze softened, as it often did when his thoughts traced back to her. «I can’t promise that it will be easy, or that we won’t face more challenges. we both are too smart to believe that. we could die trying, our names could be dragged into the mud if this was ever revealed, but I can promise that I will stand by you, fight for us, and never let you face anything alone. I know that together we have the power to redefine what our legacies mean and rewrite the story. lion and falcon, remember? we can take both the earth and the sky.»

Ram couldn’t believe his own words, since when had he become so sentimental? since when did he began thinking of offering himself to bear her weight? when had his mindless teasing turned into emotions he couldn’t put a label on? all his life Ram had known one thing; relationships weren’t meant to amuse or to revere. they were to carry their surname, carry the weight of their household, carry their legacy. relationships weren’t personal, they were political. an alliance, a partnership, a confederation of sorts, an union for a greater good — a good that was never considerate of his own.

but with Devi, everything was different. her laughter, her fiery spirit, her unwavering determination, her endless teasing, that raised eyebrows accompanied with her smirk, her eyes when she felt passionate about something, her quick remarks around him — she had so quickly become more than just a fleeting companion in his hidden world. he always joked that she was caught in his trap, but he now realized that if she was flame, he was the moth. the more he tried to distance himself, the more irresistibly he was drawn to her light. that was why he always searched for her in a herd of people, that was why he searched for her condescending smile during the Dozen’s meetings. Ram had always prided himself on his control and his ability to navigate the dance of duty and expectation with precision. but with Devi, all of that seemed to fall away. her presence ignited something within him, a longing he had never known, a longing he couldn’t put a name on. or maybe he could, but he wouldn’t admit it to himself. Ram had always believed that his life was predetermined, a series of obligations and roles he had to fulfill. it wasn’t a matter or if or when. it was a clear road ahead, made of stones he couldn’t turn around and demolish. he had to carry their name, get married, have an heir, and watch the story repeat, unfold in front of his eyes for decades to come. yet here he was, offering promises he never thought he’d make, driven by an impulse he couldn’t ignore, standing in front of a woman he shouldn’t pursue. now he knew; being trapped by her was more freedom than he had ever known.

Devi looked up at him, taking in the scent of lavender and sandalwood, a scent that already felt like her own when he pulled her towards him, «those in charge bend the rules to their will. you are my equal, and .. don’t you dare laugh», she interrupted her sentence, thinking Ram would make fun of her, of little miss Sharma comparing herself to a Doobay, but he didn’t tease her so she continued «we have enough power to change rule to suit ourselves.» Ram's eyes softened as he listened. there she was, the Devi he knew, the one who was able to find escapes in the darkness, solutions to problems no one else could. that was his girl, but for how much longer he wondered. «Devi, I've never doubted your strength or intelligence. you’re not just my equal; you're my partner in every sense.» Devi smirked, raising an eyebrow. «in every sense, huh? so does that mean you'll finally start taking my advice instead of just pretending to listen?» Ram chuckled, a teasing glint in his eye, «only if you promise to stop 'accidentally' forgetting our religious rituals.» and what he didn’t tell her was how often he found himself thinking of her during those, how his eyes searched for hers, just to catch a glimpse of her walking past him. in those moments of chanting and solemn tradition, Ram’s mind often wandered to her, more often than he’d probably admit to anyone, himself at the top of the list. while others were lost in prayer, he found himself lost in thoughts of Devi. (and what is love, if not a prayer? what is a prayer, if not thinking of the one you love?). he would remember the way her eyes sparkled with defiance and mischief, how her laughter could light up even the darkest of days. he would remember how she awkwardly flirted with him when she lost the bet with the Basu twins and how he enjoyed teasing her and seeing the pink in her cheeks, a shade of roseate he could wear everyday. he remembered hearing the wildest stories about her; of her running away riding a horse and getting injured, of closing a deal along with the British Lord, of creating trouble when she couldn’t find any. so he sough her out, lingered between doors to catch a glimpse of her, pretending forgetfulness had put roots in his mind just so he could turn back and linger in her presence again. catching her had become quite a challenge, one he was willingly participating in. in his almost thirty years of life Ram had never known a sentiment even coming close to this. he had always deprived himself of feelings, for he knew he was but a pawn in a game out of his reach, and he had accepted it. as a Seer, he was expected to support Mahakali’s will, under any circumstances or situation, but here he was, defying this one simple rule for a girl he knew he couldn’t have. but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t die trying. after all, Doobays are known for being stubborn. (so in a way, he is carrying the legacy by being stubborn, isn’t he?)

Devi chuckled and nodded, «I suppose I’ll attend, as long as you’re there too» and what she omitted was how grateful she was for him. she knew he was a mere mortal like her, but sometimes it felt like he possessed a healing power in addition to his Seer skills. a power that she could feel flow in her vein whenever he reassured her, a power as intoxicating as his words were, and she was but a drunk girl, hanging onto every word, the way a spider hangs onto its web.

Devi flashed a mischievous grin, and added «you know, Ram, for someone who's supposed to be the great interpreter of the goddess's will, you're looking a bit too serious today. did you forget to consult the stars this morning, or did they just refuse to cooperate with your grand plans?» she chuckled softly, her teasing tone a welcome relief amidst the weight of their conversation. «or perhaps I’ve been spending too much time daydreaming instead of focusing on my duties», he countered, a playful glint in his eyes, leaning in closer to her. «who needs duty when I can have the thrill of chasing after you instead?» he replied, watching the pink glow on her cheeks reappear and gods, he swore he’d love to die in a sea of that same shade. Devi arched an eyebrow, a smirk tugging at the corners of her lips. «well, in that case, you better keep up, Mr. Doobay. because this rakhasi isn't one to be caught so easily», she declared, her voice lowering, as she challenged him.

and so he took the challenge, as he finally kissed her, her lips on his, her arms around his neck, anchoring themselves to each other like doomed lovers drowning. their lips met with an urgency born of desperation, of “stay with me” hidden on their eyelashes, of “I will” on their noses grazing axis. Ram’s lips, soft and inviting, were a sanctuary that Devi sought refuge in, her own lips a testament to the depth of his longing. how could they kiss like this, if their relationship was a mere fleeting teasing object of foolish affection? they held onto each other as if they were dissipating colors and it was okay, as long as their shadows were inked together, imprinted on an immortal book of their story. each movement was a silent plea for their love to defy the cruel hand of fate. and as she felt his smile against her lips, his fingers tightening their grip on her waist as he could transcribe his fear of losing her in that simple act, Devi knew that whatever happened, it would be alright. if her past was engulfed in flames, he was the soothing stream, quenching the fires of uncertainty. if all she had ever known was a lie, the shadows of them in this moment were the only truth she believed in. «it will be alright», she told herself, and she didn’t realize she had said it aloud until she heard Ram whisper «it will be» back.

and so, at her soon to-be-grave they stood. they knew better than to beg or fall on their knees, pleading to the sky, to their creator. but that wouldn’t stop them from trying to redo the prophecy. destiny after all is just a tapestry made of stitches, and even the greatest pieces can be undone. and if not, if the threads refused to be shattered, at least they would live with the certainty that they, in this exact moment, had existed. Deviya Sharma and Raj Doobay had existed on this day, on the day where life and death had swirled into one. they had existed on this day, and they had tried, for love is trying, trying and trying, until your last dying breath. even as the threads of their existence began to unravel like cards, they knew they would have had each other on this day. and though the threads may never break, and their love may fade into a non existence, lingering between expiration and life, in this moment of certainty, they knew they'd never be bereft of love, even if they refused to utter those four letters — those two vowels and two consonants they weren’t ready to concede and confess. all came in pair of twos — vowels, consonants, mouths, eyes, hands, promises; Deviya and Ram.

falcon and lion, sky and earth, wings and roar — Deviya and Ram. the game has just began for in death one learns life, in drowning you learn the shore, in a trap you learn resilience. their fight had just started. but for now, they would hold onto each other, for their embrace was a temple of their crafting, a religion they wouldn’t let crumble. if their destinies were anything but not each other, the pen was in their hand and they’d craft another.

38 notes · View notes

oohnotvery · 2 months

Text

Edges of the Night (Chapter 10)

Read here on AO3.

Someone’s gone missing in Glacier National Park, Scully tells herself. That’s why the helicopters are out. It’s the only possible explanation.

It couldn’t be—there’s no way—it can’t be that those helicopters are for them. No one’s tracking them anymore. Mulder ditched the ring back in Utah. It flew out of his hands and landed in six feet of snow. Right? Right?

“We can’t stay in this house,” Mulder mutters, dragging her by the shoulders to the front door.

She stumbles in the dark, her brain spinning. “Wait, wait, stop,” she says, laying a hand on his chest. His heart is racing. “Mulder, stop a minute.” She draws in a long breath, trying to collect her thoughts. “Why can’t we stay here? We won’t fare much better if we try to take the car out. They know what vehicle we’re driving. They’ll spot us the minute we get on the roads.”

Even though it’s dark, she can sense the moment Mulder pauses to consider it. For a time, everything goes still and silent. Even the beat of the helicopter blades grows quieter.

And then he starts pacing.

“We’re sitting ducks in this damn house, Scully,” he grumbles angrily. “No weapons, nowhere to run. They’ll find us. It might take a few days, but if they were able to track us to this area, they’re eventually going to figure out we’re in this cabin.”

She swallows hard, nodding in agreement. As he walks by her, he reaches out to squeeze her waist.

“So,” she says after a long minute, “I guess the ring wasn’t tracking us after all.” She rubs subconsciously at her empty ring finger.

Mulder doesn’t respond.

When she contemplates the fact that her engagement ring is gone forever because of Mulder’s mistaken assumptions, she feels a pang of regret. But other thoughts and feelings quickly overshadow the pain of that particular loss. Finding out that Alan was planted in her life; questioning whether his feelings for her were real; wondering what things will look like when she gets back to that life.

A keen sense of self-pity ripples through her as she recalls her life in California, how she believed she was happy, how she believed in her feelings for Alan. But as usual, being around Mulder has thoroughly disrupted her belief system.

She shakes her head to clear her mind. Now isn’t the time to think about these things.

As the minutes pass by, their tentative decision to stand their ground and hunker down in the house starts to seem less and less appealing. If they don’t run, they’ll almost certainly be found here. But if they do run, there’s a chance they’ll be caught sooner. Right?

“Can you please stop pacing?” she finally barks. “You’re making me nervous.”

He ignores her and she scowls irritably. He’s a caged lion, a ticking time bomb.

“Do you have any idea how they’ve found us again?” she asks after a few minutes, wringing her hands.

He grumbles a no.

She’s hesitant to even speak again, but she has to give voice to her thoughts. “Do you think—is it possible—” He glances at her through the darkness. “Did someone we know give us away?”

The caged lion goes deathly still.

“Frohike would die before doing that,” he breathes with conviction, and he sounds so sure of it, she nods too.

“Skinner?” she whispers hesitantly, hating herself even for the suggestion. But her logical mind demands she consider all the possibilities—no matter how unlikely.

“I don’t—” he sighs, his shoulders crumpling. “I don’t think he would give us up either.”

She purses her lips and nods. There’s a dark, chilling thought niggling at the back of her mind. It’s been there on and off during this entire escapade of theirs, but she’s vehemently refused to consider it, has continually denied it access to her conscious mind. Because if she takes it out and examines it, the results will feel devastating. Horrific. Life-altering.

With the distant beat of helicopter blades nearby, though, she really has no other choice but to face the unthinkable. She licks her lips unsteadily.

“Mulder,” she murmurs, and she feels his body turn to face hers. He must be able to hear the panic in her voice because he takes two steps into her, his hands falling to her waist. She tips her forehead to his chest and his hands travel up her spine to cup the back of her neck. She huffs a painful laugh. It’s like he already knows what she’s going to say. “Mulder, the chip . . . the chip in my neck.”

He swipes a tender finger across the raised bump above her spine. “It’s not that,” he says decidedly, and she instantly knows he’s already considered it too.

She scoffs, pulling away. “And how do you know that? They found us without the ring. Clearly it wasn’t that, so this is the next most logical explanation we have.”

He shakes his head vehemently. “It’s not your chip, Scully. It can’t be—”

“But what if it is?” she exclaims, pushing against his chest. “Mulder, we could be running forever and they’d still always find us!” She sucks in a lungful of air. “We need—we need to split up. You need to get away from me. If they catch me, so—so what? They’ll dangle me as bait for you, they wouldn’t hurt me as long as you’re still running—”

He grabs her wrists so hard she flinches. “No,” he growls. “That’s not happening. I’m not leaving you.”

“Then we cut the chip out of me,” she says confidently.

His hands dig more painfully into her skin and she cries out. “Mulder—”

He releases her with an apology on his tongue, crushing her head to his chest. “That is not an option, Scully. We’re not even sure if they’re using the chip to track us. Get that out of your mind, because I’m sure as hell not removing that chip from you. It saved your life.” She grabs at his shirt, bunching it up in her fists. “We can fight this, Scully. We can—we can keep running. We just have to stay one step ahead of them.”

She huffs exasperatedly. “We can’t run forever, Mulder. It’s only been a few days and we’re already—we’re exhausted, emotionally wrecked. We—this running—this isn’t a life. It’s barely even survival.”

“Bullshit,” he says, and she glances up from his chest. His eyes blaze with conviction through the darkness. “I’ve learned a lot these past nine months. Most importantly, that what I’ve been living isn’t a life. Not without you. It’s only a life if I get to spend it with you, Scully.”

Her mouth falls open, but before she can respond, he’s dipping his head down to press his lips to hers. She moans into his mouth and pushes her hands beneath his shirt. All her earlier uncertainty slips away. With time pressing in on them at every angle, she’s realizing that this may be her last chance to experience anything good. Forget Alan, forget fidelity, forget her life back in California. Those don’t exist, not in this space, not when there’s helicopters hunting them down and a chip in her neck and Mulder’s desperate confessions whispered against her lips.

He peels off her shirt and she yanks his off too, stretching on tiptoes to reach above his head. Her hands tremble as they touch smooth skin and firm muscle, and she wishes they could turn the lights on so she could look and feast.

His hands don’t hesitate to roam to her pants, releasing the zipper and shoving them down her legs. She shivers in the cold air and he draws her in, slipping his hands over her ass to pull her close. And then he’s hooking his hands under her thighs and lifting her off the ground, and she scrambles to link her arms around his shoulders and her legs around his waist.

He tilts his mouth to trail down her jaw and neck as he stumbles in the dark to find the couch. She laughs in surprise when they tumble onto the cushions together, her hands flying out to brace herself against his chest. In his lap, she lifts her hips and fumbles inelegantly at his jeans, breathless when he finally swats her hands away and does it himself. They shimmy his pants off together and then she’s sitting half-naked on his boxers, which leave no room for imagination. She can feel everything, and it’s delicious. She wraps her arms around his neck and grinds down into him, enjoying the way his head falls back against the couch at her movements.

She’s about to drag his head back up for another kiss when she feels it.

Right there, along the top of his spine.

A rough line of raised skin. It’s thin and small. Very small. Blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-small.

Small, thin, raised . . .

It’s a scar.

For the second time today, she freezes in his lap. And for the second time today, Mulder begs her not to stop.

“Please,” he whispers, and it’s so desperate that she can almost convince herself to keep going. Just put it out of your mind until you’ve done this one thing, she thinks. Just wait a little bit longer to unravel the true horrors of tonight. Let yourself enjoy him for just these next few moments.

“Mulder, stop,” her higher logic demands, and it’s authoritative enough that he immediately retracts his hands from her thighs.

“You okay?” he asks nervously, running his fingertips across her biceps. She still has her arms around his neck.

His featherlight touches distract her momentarily, and she again convinces herself that she could just keep going right now. With unwavering self-control, she drags her focus back to the more pressing issue.

“There’s something in your neck,” she says, and he too goes still.

“What?” he whispers incredulously. Slowly, his hand rises to meet hers, which is poking and prodding the top of his spine. Gently, she guides his finger over the place where she feels it, the very slight, very unremarkable protrusion right under his skin. An incision scar, just like hers.

He flies off the couch, sending her lurching to her feet. He grabs her hand and drags her towards the bathroom, where he shuts the door, turns on the lamp, and stuffs a towel in the door crack to block out the light.

They blink at each other for a long second, two sets of eyes dragging lustfully across half-naked bodies. God, he looks gorgeous. Tousled, muscular, clearly aroused.

They snap out of it and she motions for him to turn around. He stoops low and she stretches to her toes, fingers quickly finding the place on his neck.

Sure enough, there it is. A very small incision, just like hers.

“Oh my god,” she breathes, her hands falling away.

He turns around slowly, eyeing her meaningfully. “You’ve got to cut it out of me.”

She starts to nod, because that is the next logical step. Take out the tracker in his neck, then flee.

“Scully?” he says urgently, motioning for her to leave the room, probably to get her medical bag.

She shakes her head. “No, Mulder.”

His eyes widen. “What do you mean no? This is obviously what’s been tracking us this whole time—”

She holds up a hand to interrupt him. “Would you let me take it out of my neck?”

He scoffs. “Are you kidding? If it was just a—a tracking device? Of course I would. It’s tracking us, for Christ’s sake—”

“How do you know removing it won’t kill you? How do we know what it really is?” she says softly. “How do we know it’s not like mine?”

His expression falters. “It’s just a tracking device,” he repeats, but he sounds less sure of himself.

She shrugs. “We don’t know that. For all we know, it could—it could release some toxin into your body the moment you remove it. It could—it could be a slower-acting agent, like cancer, like what I was given—”

“We’re taking it out,” he says decisively, pushing past her to shove open the door.

Apparently, all thoughts of keeping the place dark have gone out the window. He rushes to the bedroom and grabs her medical kit, yanking it open and rifling through it until he produces a sharp tool. It’s the wrong one for this job, but she doesn’t bother correcting him.

He turns on her with a madman’s eyes. “You’re taking it out of me, Scully.”

“Let’s just think—”

“Stop,” he yells, thrusting the tool into her hands.

Her hand trembles in a way she’s not used to while holding surgical instruments, and she can see the conviction in his eyes.

“You’re taking that goddamn chip out of me or so help me God, Scully, I’ll—” he pauses, unable to continue his toothless threat.

She almost laughs at the absurdity of it. “It might kill you,” she argues quietly.

He reaches forward and squeezes her shoulders, his eyes burning into hers. “If that thing doesn’t kill me, they will, someway or somehow. Either way, I very well may die. But there’s another possibility, Scully, don’t you see?” His eyes crease wistfully. “There’s a chance it’s just a stupid tracking device, nothing more. And that gives us the chance to run, to get away from here.”

“But where do we go? The car—”

He shrugs. “Into the woods. Get lost in that national park.”

“But the bears,” she protests weakly.

He laughs and she sees hope rising in his gaze. This is really it, she realizes. This truly is their biggest chance for survival.

“I can’t lose you,” she whispers, not stopping to marvel at how quickly he’s once again become the only person she can’t live without.

He grimaces. “Take out the fucking chip, Scully.”

Mulder doesn’t burst into flames or ooze green jelly or die from a fast-releasing toxin. In fact, the chip removal is relatively unremarkable. He flinches at the initial cut and Scully hides her nerves by teasing him about his pain intolerance. And then she removes the little fucker from his neck.

“How long do you think you’ve had this in?” she asks as she cleans the wound.

He grits his teeth. “I was conscious the whole time I was in San Diego, even after they found me at the airport,” he muses. “So it must have been before that. I would have known they put something in me, right?”

She nods. “This incision is well-healed. I’d say it’s been months at least.”

He turns to face her and she tosses a cotton pad into the trash. His eyebrows crease. “At the hospital, then. When I was in the psych ward.”

She swallows, dropping his gaze. “They must have known, then,” she says.

He hums a question.

“They must have known that they wanted to continue using you. Destroying the files was never enough, not even from the very beginning. What they’ve always wanted—”

“Was me,” he interrupts, smoothing his hand across her waist. Her lips part at the warmth of his palm against her bare skin. He squeezes her hipbone and briefly, she remembers what they were about to do right before she discovered the tracker. She shivers. “They always planned for me to die in disgrace. So they stuck a chip in my neck in case I ever did anything they didn’t like, like follow you to San Diego, or run away with you to Utah. That way, they could always drag me back and bend me to their will.”

“And me?” she asks, cupping his elbow and drawing him closer. “Just a pawn to get you to cooperate?”

His eyes darken. “I’ve said it before. You’re my Achilles heel, Scully. Everyone knows it.”

She bites her lip, flushing. “Do you think they were ever really planning to ship me off to run more experiments? Or was that all bluff?”

He eyes her carefully but doesn’t answer.

“I haven’t forgotten, Mulder,” she says meaningfully. “You still owe me the contents of that letter.”

His eyes close briefly, and then he steps forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “Later,” he promises.

After dressing, they gather their modest supplies in a bag and then start arguing about the car. Mulder insists they risk driving; Scully fears it will be the death of them.

In the end, Mulder wins again, convincing her that if they don’t take the car, they’ll just inevitably end up lost, starving, and exposed to the elements smack-dab in the middle of grizzly territory. It’s the threat of bears that eventually convinces her.

It takes Mulder five tries before he manages to get the car up the hill without headlights on. The vehicle bump-bump-bumps over terrain it was never meant to climb and Scully clings to the dashboard with a dizzying lack of optimism.

Once they reach the road, though, they both heave a sigh of relief. They’ve agreed to avoid driving into the park—it will be manned by park rangers, who may or may not be keeping watch for two FBI agents on the run. Instead, they head west towards another set of mountains, the plan being to bunker down in northern Washington’s remote Cascade Range until they’ve determined whether they’re still being tracked. They still haven’t worked out a plan for getting basic supplies or accommodations; by now, their faces are probably plastered over every news outlet in every town. They can’t just walk right into a gas station or motel.

On the road, they are completely silent as they fly through dense forest, headlights still off. The driving is treacherous—a mixture of snow and ice still covers the roads and without light for guidance, Mulder is barely keeping them on the asphalt. Scully keeps looking in the rearview, waiting for the inevitable moment when a car flies up behind them, or a helicopter drops out of the sky. But nothing happens. Eventually, they pass a sign for a national forest and without hesitation, they pull off the main road to head deeper into the wilderness. It is nearing dawn when they decide to stop and hunker down in a vacant campground.

Mulder mumbles something about needing to get gas and Scully shoves that concern to the back of her brain. They’ll worry about filling the car later. Right now, they need rest.

She climbs into the back while Mulder reclines his seat as far as it’ll go. They make eye contact as the sun starts to rise, flooding their car with light.

He reaches back to take her hand and she loops her fingers loosely with his.

“If anything happens,” he tells her solemnly, “you run. Leave me. Get as far away from me as you can.”

She frowns. “Not gonna happen, Mulder.”

He cracks a wistful smile, squeezes her fingers, and leans back in his seat. She shuts her eyes, listens for the sound of helicopters. But the forest is silent, save for the singsong of birds and the hum of insects.

She sleeps.

Scully wakes with an unbelievable urge to pee. Groggy, disoriented, and crick-necked, she rises from the backseat. Mulder is sleeping peacefully, his arms crossed over his chest. She smiles fondly. He looks for all the world like the version of Mulder who spent every night falling asleep on his couch in front of the T.V. She resists the urge to reach over and push his hair off his forehead.

Instead, as quietly as she can, she opens the car door and sneaks outside, silently cursing the fierce chill in the air. She hunkers down behind a tree to relieve herself, eyes scanning the quiet morning for signs of trouble.

Sensing nothing out of the ordinary, she rises to her feet. Ten feet away, she sees Mulder stirring in the front seat. He glances in the backseat and startles at her absence, then flings open the door.

“Mulder!” she calls quietly, and his eyes race to find hers across the forest. She smiles as relief crosses his face.

Sunlight warms her skin and she is suddenly filled with an incredible sense of optimism. The tracking device is gone. They escaped the cabin without notice. They seem to have reconciled, mostly.

And perhaps most thrillingly, Mulder wants to get her naked.

She takes a step towards him.

There’s a pop, a distant echo.

Something strikes her shoulder so hard she falls backward, the breath forced from her lungs.

She opens her mouth to call for Mulder’s help, but the pain hits her. Fire—raging, burning, roaring fire—races down her body and she screams in agony.

She hears Mulder shout, distantly notices the sound of footsteps approaching, but all she really knows is extreme, acute, blinding pain.

Against her will, her eyes flutter closed, and she realizes she’s losing consciousness. Her screams turn weak, then faint, and then she can barely open her mouth at all.

Someone’s hands reach roughly under her armpits and she is momentarily comforted by the thought that Mulder is saving her. He knows how to treat gunshot wounds. This is a gunshot wound, right?

Wait—why the hell was she shot?

As she’s lifted to her feet, her eyes blink slowly open, and in that brief moment, she realizes that the arms around her don’t belong to Mulder.

Because he is writhing on the ground in front of her, two men wrestling to keep him pinned to the earth. His eyes are glued frantically to hers and she realizes, even through the agony, that this is it. They’ve been caught.

A sob escapes her throat and the person holding her tosses her violently over his shoulder. She cries weakly at the renewed pain, her eyes tearing away from Mulder’s.

She strains to hear his shouts, but her hearing is starting to fade. Her vision goes in and out. Her attacker jostles her on his shoulder and another wave of pain jolts down her body.

She faints.

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

30 notes · View notes

baldursyourgate · 4 months

Text

Beefy drow women awooga

Anyway I love Dinin(ae)'s thought process here. Scary tall beefy women...😵 Scary tall beefy women who can protect me... 🤔

#lol. ended up re reading the book I guess #read: glacier's edge #drow practicality my beloved lmfao

11 notes · View notes

lesbiandinin · 3 months

Text

Kimmuriel growth from exploding a random woman in the street to not wanting to torture azzudonna or subject her to the hivemind

Gromph meanwhile: you never let me torture anymore ://

#lod read #i am rocking with glaciers edge btw

3 notes · View notes

thepinklink · 8 months

Text

I wrote this is a continuation of @skyloftian-nutcase’s fic Numb. It isn’t everything that I wanted it to be at all, but it’s still okay and even I don’t like it, there’s someone out there who will so I still want to post it. See the reblogs for all the reasons I think this could be improved. I recommend having read Numb first (*sweats in I only sort of read Numb before I wrote this*), but if you don’t feel like doing that, pretend Sky held in all his hurt until it burst out one day and now Legend, who understands, is telling him that he’s got his back, okay? Good. Thank you. And without further ado, I present to you,

Pins and Needles.

"Where's Legend?"

The question prompts Sky to look up from his carving, and he remarks internally that he hadn’t realized the hero was missing.

"I saw him head towards the cliffside," Wind says, "He said something about wanting to see the lake.”

Sky frowns at this. Realistically, nothing is wrong with it, and he hasn’t seen any concerning behavior from the Veteran lately, but it still stirs worry in his chest.

"I'll go check on him, " He offers, putting away his carving as he stands.

“Alright. But drag him back here when you find him; it’s almost suppertime!” Wild calls after him, and he assures the cook that he will before picking up a jog towards the cliffs. The cliffs overlook a valley, cupped by mountains, carved out and filled with water by some long forgotten glacier. The lake is massive and majestic, so Sky doesn’t wonder why Legend chose there to find isolation.

He sees the Veteran sitting on the edge, ocarina to his lips, and the tune he plays makes Sky's heart ache. Not wanting to startle him nor disrupt his tune, Sky stops a few yards back from the Veteran, listening do him play. Several minutes pass before the song ends (or maybe it is before Legend stops repeating the song), and the last notes echo through the valley. When they’ve faded, silence settles over the landscape, heavy and suffocating. Sky is surprised when he is not the one to break it.

“Hard not to dwell on it." Legend's voice is hollow, lacking inflection and he looks over his shoulder at Sky with bloodshot eyes. Sky feels squirmy inside when he sees tears slip down the Veteran's cheeks, unchecked. He sighs and steels himself, nodding as he makes his way forward and sits down next to the Veteran.

“Yeah.”

Legend laughs bitterly, and looks up at the evening sky.

"Goddesses, I was so stupid." He runs a hand through his hair and sniffles. He wipes his eyes, although new tears replace the ones he wipes away almost immediately.

"You want to talk about it? " Sky asks gently. He's never seen the Veteran cry; his eyes welled up in the uncertain moments while Twilight was ill, but he never really outright cried. And, as Legend seemed to be the most emotionally stable of the Links (considering everything he'd been through), Sky figured it wasn't a good sign if he was crying. Legend gave another watery laugh.

"No, " he says, “I’ve already cried, that's enough emotional processing for right now. I'll just...I'll just hold the rest in until I can’t anymore, as usual.”

Sky frowns. That sounds—

"Sounds really unhealthy, and I shouldn't do that because we’re not meant to hold things in like that. It will hurt hurt me, and the people around me.”

And suddenly there's no trace of pain or sorrow in Legend’s face. The Veteran glares at Sky, ice blue eyes piercing into the Skyloftian’s soul.

"That's what you were about to say. " Legend's tone is strong, almost scolding. Sky blinks dumbly, and Legend continues.

"Well, you're right. It is unhealthy, in more ways than one, it will hurt you more than any weapon ever could—and sometimes, the damage is irreversible."

The words almost sting, but Sky isn’t entirely sure if it’s because Legend is being harsh.

“Sky.” His tone changes, and Sky is reminded of Sun when she tells him she loves him after she’s been angry about something. Gentle, apologetic, but sincere, said straight from the heart. “I'm here for you.”

That's the part that surprises Sky. He expected to hear "you need to tell someone" or “I’m your friend, why didn't you talk to me?"

"I don't expect you to tell me anything. " Legend continues, “But I'm here, I always am. If you ever need to look over your shoulder just to see if someone is there, I'll be there. If you need someone to make sure you don’t end up dead in a ditch somewhere after you've tried to drink the pain away, I’ll be there. I’ll also be there in the morning to help you when you realize it didn’t actually work, it just gave you a migraine. Hell, I'm here if you just need someone to yell at to go away." Legend meets Sky’s eyes again.

"I cant fix you, I won’t try. But I'll help however you want me to. I'm here.”

Legend holds his gaze for another minute before he raises the ocarina to his lips once again, and another tune fills the valley, this one more hopeful and soothing than the last. Sky remains silent through the entirety of the song. When he finishes playing, Legend stands up.

“Well, we ought to head back. Cook’ll kill us if we're too late to supper." He offers a hand to help Sky up, which the latter takes. Once he's on his feet, Legend surprises him for the second time in twenty minutes by pulling him into a hug. It’s strong and warm, made even more so by the fact that Legend is not a very cuddly person.

Legend surprises a third time by letting Sky determine the length of the hug, which Sky makes maybe a little longer then was needed, just because he could.

Dinner is a lot more cheerful that that evening, the first in a long time where Sky notices now warm and bright the fire is and how delicious Wild's food is. He sees anew how funny his friends all are, how close and caring they all are. The numbness doesn’t go away. But it is a moment where Sky feels hopeful that one day, it will.

#linked universe #linkeduniverse #lu legend #lu sky #plink writes

75 notes · View notes

peachesofteal · 6 months

Text

Who wants to read the first like 1.4k of the winter ghoap fic even though it has absolutely no ghoap in it?

Winter in the mountains can be cruel.

Although, there are some who do more than survive the cold, violent stretch of winter. There are predators who thrive.

“I am.” She casts the one window in the entire place a surreptitious glance, fingers peeling away at a label. It’s snowing, has been for hours, flakes fat and wet, fluffy enough that the density of the snow on the ground is light, but dangerous, as it hides the real risk underneath; packed snow sitting with a slick sheen of ice on top.

“You still trying to make it over Fall River pass tonight?” You nod.

“Yeah. Supposed to see my brother and his new baby this weekend.”

“It is. I could go around, but it just takes too long. And it’s Friday. I’m not trying to be stuck on the highway with ski traffic and the tourists in their rental cars.” You complain, and they both commiserate your opinion. Weekend traffic is brutal, especially in the winter. Driving in hazardous conditions is considered to be a talent more than an innate ability here, and people often overestimate their aptitude for it, causing crashes and delays that get the highway shut down for hours, or even days, at times. You shrug. “I’ve had my snow tires on for weeks. Might as well get some use out of them.” Andy snorts.

Fuck. You could have sworn the DOT website said it was open. You take a deep breath, quelling the anxiety that roils your stomach. Okay. Not the end of the world. There’s another road. A less maintained road, but… you’ll be fine. You’ve driven in worse.

An hour creeps by, and then two. Long enough that you’ve now realized you’re the only one using this road, fresh snow blanketing the woods around you, topography and vegetation starting to change as you encroach on what you assume must be eleven thousand feet. You’ve seen this road on google maps once, or twice maybe, having noted it for future travel just in case of a situation like this. It travels perpendicular to Fall River, and eventually meets another, one that must be similar, on the other side of the range. The secondary road is one that takes you along the ridge, and then down, you’re pretty sure, although you can’t be one hundred percent certain, because you lost cell reception before you even turned off from Fall River.

Still, won’t hurt to check and see if you have this area downloaded.

You’re so fixated watching the little circle of death try to load, that by the time you look up and see the tree laying across the road, it’s far too late. You do the first thing you were always taught not to do in winter conditions, and slam on the brake, slamming the pedal to floor, heart rate sky rocketing as you panic and lose total control of the jeep. You spin, shoulders and chest jamming against the seatbelt, headlights flashing off into the woods, illuminating an endlessly dark web of trees, bark and branch scratching across the paint as you careen off the road, tipping too precariously onto two wheels and then rolling.

Time, your life, stands completely still for a moment. You see every individual fiber of the pine needles, every uniquely designed snowflake, every single droplet of blood that floats away from your face and through midair as you crash through the forest, your grasp on consciousness slipping farther and farther away as you’re jostled around, the jeep finally coming to a stop on its side, your head cracked against the driver’s window, stars and lights spawning out across your vision, headlights finally blinking out completely, leaving you in the dark. Your head spins like you’re still rolling, and the only sound in the dead silent snow is your harsh breathing, frantic terror bubbling up through your throat as pain surges through your body.

It's freezing, but you feel surprisingly warm.

You’re going to die out here. No one knows you took this road, you don’t have service, by the time they find you, it’ll be too late. You’ll be a bled out, frozen corpse, long gone and-

You lose your train of thought quickly. Everything starts to fracture, fissures forming in your consciousness, part of you already losing the battle to the inevitable, black pulling over your eyes like a knit hat, lungs heaving just a little harder with each breath.

Sleep. You could just close your eyes. Close your eyes, and sleep.

Light sweeps across the ground, flashing across your face. You think, if you were truly with it, in your right mind, you’d think it was too bright. You’d say it was blinding.

But you can’t formulate anything of the sort, mind too busy slipping away, falling into an inky black pool, just barely on the verge when you feel a gloved hand on your skin, the lilt of an accent on the wind.

Sleep.

#peaches writes

139 notes · View notes

sprout-fics · 1 year

Text

Woodsmoke (Joel Miller x F! Reader x Joe 'Bear' Graves)

Chapter One: Kindling

Read (Here) on AO3

Masterlist

Rating: Mature (Rating will change) Word Count: 6.6k Warnings: Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault (Non-explicit) Tags: Character Study, Angst (Literally so much angst), AU- Canon divergence, Sheep Farmer Joel Miller, Patrolman Joe 'Bear' Graves, Domesticity, PTSD, Night Terror, Love confessions, Rejection, Mutual Pining A/N: So this started off as me wanting to write PWP with Joel and Bear, and then it became smut with context, and now we're here at a three part chracter study that also includes porn, thank you for witnessing my descent into madness. Also a huge shoutout to @soapskneebrace @guyfieriii and @writeforfandoms for listening to my absolutely unhinged raving and ranting about this series. I don't know how I could have done this without you all

Summary:

When spring comes, it melts away the frost, blooms lilac and pink in the hills, and in your heart as well. Like the slow, steady drip of thawing glacier, the interior of your soul at last becomes revealed to you once more. Vivid and bright like forsythia, like jonquils and the first flowers of spring, it unfurls its delicate petals, turns towards the sun.

It's Joel, your heart reveals to you with a tender whisper. Joel, with his steadying and unflinching gaze, his brown eyes the same color of your coffee, his hands that speak of experience, of raw ability. It's Joel, who knocks on your door as you get ready for bed and murmurs a quiet goodnight, his eyes always resting on yours with words he doesn't speak. Joel, with his deep voice like raw timber, his presence a towering, gnarled oak tree that refuses to be felled.

You think you love him.

You don't think you can have him.

How it starts, you don't know. How it begins, however is with you.

With you, with the first time you see the sheep ranch nestled at the very edge of Jackson’s territory, at a distance. Atop the hill that descends into the valley below, your eyes trace across the grey and white bits of fluff that dot the hilly pasture. The cold autumn wind rakes through your hair, bites against your cheeks, freezes against your chapped lips. The reins in your hand feel like steel, tough, clutched tightly in your nervous, anxious grip.

Beside you, Tommy eyes you as you take in the sight before you. A few pastures. A barn, a chicken house, a garden, and atop the other side of the valley- a house. Quaint, quiet, a watchtower of the farm below.

Tommy breathes through his nose, his mare shifting with a little chuff that seems to match her rider's contemplation. He's been quiet for most of the journey, offering only small conversation in response to your quiet inquiries about your destination.

"He's a loner." Tommy tells you, and his eyes are soft, a little broken when he speaks of his brother, the man who would be your employer. There's bitterness there that you recognize, even if you don't really understand.

"He's not...mean." He goes on, even though he hesitates over his elaboration. "He just prefers the quiet is all."

You nod, voice silent. It took months for you to learn how to speak again, and even now the simple act feels too heavy, too awkward.

It had been the better part of a year since you'd arrived at Jackson

It had been Tommy who had found you, out on patrol with the other riders, stumbling upon your form half-buried by snow, curled into the ground. Starving, confused, injured, scared, waiting to die so the earth would swallow you whole. Yet instead of letting you succumb to frost, Tommy had taken you back, allowed the doctors in Jackson to nurse you back to health.

In body, at least. Maybe not in soul.

Tommy leads the way down the steep slope ahead of you, leaning back in his saddle as his mare picks along the barest hint of a path down towards the ranch. You follow him, feeling your breath fog across your face, a warm puff before it dissipates into steam. All the while you steal glances away from the trail ahead of you and towards the livestock dotting the hillside, the grass turning an ashen green as the season inexorably change once more.

Tommy leads you not to the house atop the hill, but rather to a cabin at the bottom of the valley. It's braced against the edge of a tree line that trickles into the dip between the hills, and if you listen above the wind you think you hear a brook there. Yet your attention is drawn to the cabin itself, with its wood walls and stone chimney, from which woodsmoke pours forth. You can smell it, the scent obscured by the raw, frigid taste of oncoming frost. It lingers across your tongue even as Tommy dismounts, ascends the steps, fist raised to knock on the door.

It opens before he gets the chance.

The man that answers the door looks older, worn. Greys dot his temples, his short beard. There's lines across his face that speak less of age and more of grief, a time spent witnessing horrors you yourself have not yet seen. Yet his eyes glint with a keen awareness, a clarity bred by experience. Wary. Ready.

He stands occupying the broad space of the doorway, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, grease caught across his knuckles. There's a furrow in his brow, as if he's annoyed by the interruption to whatever project he has occupied himself with. Yet when his eyes take in Tommy his face relaxes into something vaguely resembling a smile, and he manages to smear the majority of grease away from his palm before clasping it to his brother's.

"Tommy." Is all he says in greeting, but there's a warmth there, a familiarity that briefly has your heart threaten to crack, wishing selfishly someone would regard you that way too.

"Joel." Tommy replies, his tone light, pleased before he turns to reveal you, standing a ways away with the horses. "Brought you a visitor. Meet your new farmhand."

You shift a little where you stand, not making any motion to venture closer, instead offering a timid 'Hello' that seems to be swallowed by the wind.

Joel regards you silently, continuing to wipe his hands on his rag, eyes taking you in silently, cataloguing the uneasiness in your stance, your darting eyes, tense shoulders. yet he doesn't remark on it, doesn't offer so much as a greeting, instead seeming to mull your very presence over in his mind. Contemplating, considering.

"It's cold." Is all he says after moments that seem like hours. "Fire's warm."

With that he turns inside in a silent gesture for you to follow, offering little else in the strangest introduction you've yet to encounter. Absent of expectations or forced niceties, his words saying all that need to be said, and yet somehow containing multitudes.

It is, you come to learn, very much like him.

----

Joel puts you to work immediately, and you quickly learn just how desperately he needed another pair of hands on the ranch.

Your chores begins before dawn most days, the cold of the misty mornings clinging to your skin as you warm yourself by the stove as it crackles to life under Joel's care. You dress by the scant sunlight that seeps over the hilly horizon, step outside into the dewy air and watch your breath fog up and away into the dove grey sky.

The day starts with collecting eggs from the hen house, feeding the chickens, ensuring no creatures have made it past the wire fencing that protects them from predators lurking in the woods. Breakfast is simple fare, quick, not meant to be lingered upon before the work of the day begins in earnest.

There's few words spoken between you and Joel as the sun rises. You understand quickly he's not typically one for conversation unless prompted. He doesn't mince words, prefers to say what needs to be said and then to follow through with whatever he's spoken. It's a gruff, curt personality that might grind with a more extroverted, conversational person. For you, with your quiet, contemplative demeanor, it suits you well. You, like Joel, prefer to speak through actions rather than words, let your hands occupy your thoughts and chase away the memories that linger there.

So you do just that, involving yourself in the momentum that carries the weight away. You toss down hay from the hayloft, herd the sheep out of the barn in the morning, mend the fences, pull weeds from the garden. You sweep the kitchen as Joel cleans the dinner dishes, you chop firewood for the crackling hearth, gather kindling at the edge of the forest but never venture beyond the tree line as Joel tells you.

Joel gives you space for the first few weeks. Yet he isn't without attention. You find that he's quick to notice when you need something, even if you're hesitant to ask for it. It's as if he sees you in a way you aren't familiar with, discerning your hesitation and inward reflection like an extension of himself. His responses come less in the form of words and more in the form of offerings. An extra blanket for your bed. Another pair of socks. Fixing the shades in your bedroom so the light doesn't seep in, refilling the kerosene in your bedside lamp. It's simple but meaningful gestures, absent of words that somehow fills the unfamiliar space between you two.

"It's okay." They seem to whisper to you, as you lay wide-eyed, awake in your bed at night. "You can stay. I don't mind. You can ask. Take your time."

You never speak to Joel of the circumstances that have led you here, not even when you slowly begin to find your voice again, when words between you two become easier, less forced. Yet Joel somehow seems to know what's happened to you anyways, and you can't help but wonder if he was able to see it from the very start.

There's glimpses you see in him, his eyes becoming distant at times, as if staring into the past. It's as if he's lived your life before you, can see the scenes of his own regret play out in shadowy phantoms across his vision. You feel it in yourself, in the way memories cling to you as night like parasitic fungi, creeping with slow, sinister growth along your veins, old wounds that have yet to heal.

If Joel hears you whimper and cry in your sleep, he doesn't say. Yet in the mornings, after the nightmares have ended but still occupy your shadow, he's gentler. Softer. Extra milk in your coffee, his voice less gruff, allowing you extra time before the mornings begin so you can shed the last of your sorrows.

Slowly, with time, they're chased away by daylight.

You bury the remnants of them with motion, purpose. Joel made it clear from the start you weren't there to freeload.

"Two rules." He told you the first night you were alone, the washed dinner plates stacked to dry, the hearth crackling warmly and filling the silence.

"The first." He begins, and you can hear the age in his voice. Gritty, choked on memories like charcoal. "Is that you do what I say, when I say it, understand?"

His eyes meet yours, and you stare into them, losing yourself for a moment in his brown, keen-eyed stare. You wonder if there was a softness there once, find yourself trying to imagine what it must have looked like.

"This is to keep us safe." He explains, hands clasped together on the aged, wooden table, fingers grazing over worn knuckles. "Just because Jackson runs patrols doesn't mean it's entirely safe out here. I'm your employer, you're my responsibility now, so you listen to me when I tell you to do something, clear?"

You nod in silence, eyes shifting away from him to your mug of weak tea that's long since cooled.

"Clear." You reply, voice soft, a little distant.

Joel nods out of the corner of your eyes, as if to himself. Then his voice raises again.

"The second." He continues, voice maintaining that gruff, even tone. There's a hint of an accent there you try to place but come up empty-handed. Yet it softens, is joined by an indiscernible sigh, a shift of his shoulders that eases into the cracks of your soul. "Is that if you ever need something, all you need to do is ask."

You look at him then, eyes blinking, lips parting, trying to place the strange, sudden wash of feeling that murmurs between your ribs. Joel's stare remains unchanged, but the gentleness of his statement lingers, suspended between you both. An entreaty, an offering.

Slowly, something within you rouses, long laying dormant within the recesses of your grief. A gentle glimpse of color before it's gone again.

"Clear." You tell him, and this time your voice softens too, for the first time allowing yourself to open, unfold within his unwavering, focused gaze.

----

It's quiet, that first year. Joel is closed off, distant in a way that's not entirely unfamiliar to you. You can see the scars on him, even the ones he refuses the bare. It's hard not to see, with the way that his history is written across his eyes.

You don't ask why he can hardly hear from one ear, why he only ever sleeps on his right side. You don't ask about how he knows about how to pour the foundation for a new shed meant to store food for the winter. You don't ask about how he survived this long, why he wants the quiet solitude of the Wyoming steppes compared to the bustle of Jackson.

You don't ask the question everyone seems to ask people like the two of you.

What happened to you? What made you like this?

In turn, Joel doesn't ask you of your own past, of the mistakes and fatal flaws that led to that moment of solemn, fateful near death, your would-be grave a shimmering, white tomb of frost. Nor do you offer them. There's no changing the past now, and even though the screams of the damned still torment you in the witching hours of night, they're just that- ghosts.

They can't hurt you anymore.

Though you don't speak of your past, you do speak. Slowly at first, then with more ease. Joel seems surprised at first, even though the change is gradual. More than once you see him pause what he's doing, turn to you, blinking as he processes your remark about chores, the weather, what to eat for dinner. Utilitarian conversation that seems to mirror his own words.

He, like you, doesn't speak much, doesn't feel pressed to fill the silence. He's more than happy to simply coexist, his hands working alongside yours, his voice directing you with his steadying, unwavering presence. Like a lantern in the mist, the glow of him feels hazy, distant, and yet somehow still there, a signal as you wander in search of yourself.

You watch him, sometimes, over the edges of the worn paperbacks you read in the evening as the fire glows low. The orange flames catch across his face, reveal there the shadows of the things he doesn't say. He stares into the flames like they yield answers he doesn't have. There's a striking gravity there in his gaze, one that pulls you inwards, down into him, causes color to flutter in your heart. Sorrowful, unsummoned, and yet somehow alive.

You gather him in bits and pieces, like sifting for gold along a streambank. The sediment washes away, and what's left there is glimmering dust that catches and glints in the sunlight.

He has a daughter, that you already knew. Ellie is her name. You think you met her once back in Jackson on a misty grey morning where you paced the perimeter in solitude, basking in the absence of others. She'd muttered a brief greeting to you as she blew warmth into her hands, sidling past you towards the direction of the school. Bright eyed, brown haired, dimpled. She looks nothing like him.

Then again, you suppose you're all orphans of the apocalypse.

You meet her once more several weeks into your new residency, ferried there by Tommy. She peeks over his shoulder from where she sits behind him in the saddle, her face faltering when she sees you helping Joel mend the fence of the western pasture.

It's the first time you see Joel nervous, his hands fidgeting, seeking purchase on something that isn't there. You don't understand, eyes darting from him to the girl he's fostered, taught to survive in a cruel world. Yet then he clears his throat, introduces you to her with slow, halting words and you think you see it, the way he seems to look for Ellie's approval.

Ellie regards you warily at first, and like Joel her eyes seem to see more than she lets on, glinting at you as she takes several, heavy moments to judge you by your presence alone.

"Hi." She says at last, and her smile is soft, yet still somehow sincere. "I'm Ellie."

You almost miss Joel's sigh beside you, breathed into the coming winter wind.

His relief is well-placed. Ellie seems to take a shine to you. You happily listen to her ramble about her schooling in Jackson, about her distaste for her teachers, to her pleads for Joel to just homeschool her because "who needs school anyways?" You let her tell you terrible puns from a journal where she's scrawled the jokes with slanted, rushed handwriting. You follow her as she insists you accompany her to survey the ewes, climbing in the hayloft and attempting to hang from the rafters.

You don't notice the way Joel's eyes soften as you smile.

It's only on the third day of Ellie's visit, the morning of her departure, where she turns to you as Tommy and Joel talk next to the horses. Her arms wrap around your middle, head pressed to your chest, the embrace lasting for all of a moment before she pulls away again.

"Thank you." She tells you, eyes gazing up at you, clear and unwavering in a way you've come to recognize. "For taking care of him."

You freeze, eyes wide, lips parted, trying to process what she's just said. Yet you don't get the chance, because suddenly she's striding towards Tommy with a holler of "Let's get this show on the road!" and you're left alone, caught within the imbalance of her words.

No, you think. It was the other way around. You, you were the one who was taken care of, so you could be saved from yourself.

By him.

Things become different after that. It's as if Ellie's presence, her fondness of you has lifted an unknown weight from Joel's shoulders. Where before you could see cracks in him, now you can see the sunlight that dares to seep through, past the heartache and the grief he carries within.

Slowly, you too begin to change.

You're not sure what does it, whether it was Ellie, Joel, or the thaw of spring that relents the boundaries of your heart, unfolds them like snowdrops, born anew.

It's your voice that fills the silence now. Soft, soothing, still somehow endearingly shy yet undeniably kind. You turn your face to the wind, listen to the sound, try and discern the whispers it speaks to you. As the mountains turn green and lush, so too does your smile, a gentle thing that catches the sunlight and imbues it into your soul.

Joel smiles more too. You're not sure why, but you see it sometimes. When you appear from the hayloft with straw caught in your hair, when you hum a forgotten tune over the sink as you do dishes, when he sees you bolt after the lamb that escapes through the fencing, he smiles.

It always catches you a bit off guard, the way his mouth puckers, tugs the corner of his lips. Yet there's something in his stare that feels strangely like familiarity, of warmth, and you find yourself longing after it. You wish somehow you could trace that too into your soul, allow it to fill the cracks there like a balm, erase all the old wounds that linger with a bitter, sour aftertaste.

Joel remains at a distance from you, even though he seems more relaxed now. There's things he doesn't say, things he refuses to let you see. His words, though perhaps provided more often, remain enigmatic. Short, clipped, you come to realize he says what he means, but means far more than he can say.

Yet there's times when Joel is closer somehow, outstretching a hand to keep you from stumbling over a pit in the pasture, helping you down from the hayloft when the ladder breaks, crouching with you over a newborn lamb as it takes its first breath. There's something different in him in those moments. His eyes shine a little brighter, the draw of his face changes, his voice gets firm in a way that's less of a reprimand and more of concern. You can tell, the way he looks out for you without words.

Things get easier after that first year. Joel lets you gently shoo him from the kitchen when you've had enough of his poorly seasoned cooking to last a lifetime. He lets you wander further from the farm when you have the time, venturing into the woods to check the snares he's set. He comes with you when you hike to the top of the valley in search of wild spring onions, makes no complaint about his tender muscles. He tends to you when you come down with pneumonia, and in your listless, sickened state you think you hear him murmur the words "It's going to be okay."

Slowly, you unravel him. He smiles more often, albeit rarely. You get him to groan at terrible jokes and convince him to trade for art supplies and books for you. He listens to you when you suggest sheepdogs, and then forgives you when the mutt runs off into the woods within the first week to never return.

In the evenings, he sits closer, makes you a mug of tea without asking. He pushes the mug into your hands with little fanfare, and you learn it's through gestures that he says what he means the most.

"I want you here." The steam of the mug whispers to you silently. "Things are...easier with you here."

Yet there's unspoken words that remains between you despite that. You see it in the way he averts his eyes too quickly when you dry off from the bath, the way he watches you when you smile into the summer sunlight. You see it when you strip your jacket during the blazing heat of summer and he coughs suddenly, feigns breathlessness. You see it in his smile when you hold a tiny, baby chick in your hands, eyes glimmering with something akin to hope.

You see it when he warns you to get inside as a courier lets his eyes roam over you in a way that makes your skin crawl.

It's a messenger from another outlying settlement, one you've never seen before. Young, brawny, his smile a little too wide as he greets you from atop his horse, dismounts before you can stammer a greeting and extends his hand to you.

You freeze. There's something about his eyes, the way they don't meet your own, the way they seem to fixate on other parts of you. It summons a vile reminder of things that once were, and you feel your breath catch between your ribs, too shallow, too cold-

"Get inside." Joel tells you, and his calloused hand tightens on your shoulder just a fraction, not enough for anyone but the both of you to notice. The deep, gruff rumble of his voice in your ear conveys all the meaning you mean to hear. Familiar, it whispers to you: Danger. Threat. Listen to me. I'll protect you. I'll keep you safe. Don't ignore me.

"Now." Joel growls, and he pulls away enough to give you a look that lasts a millisecond, too short to go noticed by the courier.

You nod at him, but the prickle of peril still skims across your flesh, nipping in a shallow bite. Tasting, teasing, a parting augury that leaves you shivering as you turn in the direction of the cabin.

The courier's eyes never leave you, not even as his conversation with Joel continues, his voice a lazy drawl compared to Joel's clipped, brusque replies. Your skin crawls, and you feel his stare rake over you with a slimy, lasting touch. Putrid, unwanted, vile. Your hands shake.

You cast a glance behind you once you reach the porch steps, and blink when you find Joel crowding closer to the younger man, fists curled at his side. There's a look that passes over the courier's face then, brow knotted and lips turning into a displeased sneer.

For a moment you turn, ready to go back and intervene in the building confrontation. Yet then you see Joel's shoulders rise as he speaks and the courier's face drops, goes ashen and slack at whatever it is Joel has just said to him. The threat, though you can't hear it, hangs heavy suspended between them. You can see it, the way the younger man looks at Joel with a brief, vulnerable expression of fear.

He swallows, shuffles for a moment before tipping his hat at you in a brief but abashed farewell. Then he's getting on his horse, trembling hands grabbing the reins and turning back towards the hill from whence he came.

"What did you say to him?" You ask Joel when he eventually paces over towards the porch, his shoulders still taut, frown creased across his face. He peels off his work gloves, stuffs them hastily in his back pocket as he brushes past you. You think he won't give you an answer, leave you wondering as to what words he spoke to the man who dared to look at you the way he did.

Joel pauses with his hand on the door handle, still facing away from you. He stays there for a moment, and you watch as the rage eases from his shoulders.

"I told him." He says, voice low, reeking of an imminent tempest, a fury he keeps simmered down low, deep inside himself, ready to boil at a moment's notice.

"I told him if he ever looked at you again I'd pop his goddamn kneecap off."

The door stays ajar behind him, and you're left alone, the autumn wind breathing cold across your nape.

Yet warmth blooms within you, a familiar yet distorted dissension to the icy threat of Joel's words. Rather than settle in your bones with a lurid freeze, Joel's warning instead summons an affection like the proximity of a hearth, ensconced within the promise of his protection.

"I've got you." The heat in your chest murmurs in conjunction with his voice. "I'll keep you safe. Don't think I won't."

You follow him, tracing his back with your gaze, and thinking somehow that you might follow him anywhere if he asked you.

---

The months drag on. Winter is harsh that year, the snow falling gracefully yet accumulating with sinister depth. The fire never stops, and it's on more than one night that you and Joel both abandon your bedrooms and sleep in the main room, closer to the woodstove so the freeze doesn't come for you in sleep. It's on those nights that you awake with an extra blanket draped over you, that Joel walks a little stiffly the next morning, grumbles about the cold irritating his joints.

The blanket smells like him.

It's on one of those nights, where the wind howls and sleet batters at the windows that you shiver under your covers, and the nightmares come creeping past your defenses. Like frost, they grow across the planes of your thoughts, extending, fissuring out and reminding you of that time, of an unearthly, blank, white grave. You sink into it, watch through snowflake covered lashes as the world shimmers with pristine, powdery glimmer, even as your heartbeat slows, your vision fades.

It's on one of those nights that there's hands that seize you in your sleep and you struggle against them with a whimper of "No, please, not again-"

"Hey."

It's Joel's voice that breaks through the ice, hauls you from the depths of exposure and into wakefulness once more.

"It's me." He says when you feebly push at him, mind still trying to discern its own direction, tears burning the corner of your eyes. "It's me. I've got you."

Your vision, wavering and watery, meets his gaze. Brown eyed, brow knotted, hands on either side of your face as he wills you to see, to hear him. You can only cling to him, eyes wide, unseeing, mind a cacophony of screams and sickening, bloody impacts until there's only a cavern of blank, snowy silence that rings between your ears.

"It's over." Joel tells you, voice deep, a grinding whisper tinted with an emotion you can't place. His eyes have a look you haven't seen before, and it takes you a moment to place it.

Fear.

"You're here." He murmurs, keeping your eyes facing forward, into his own. "Safe."

The dying embers of the woodstove flicker across your glassy eyes, and the vision fades, resumes into the now with Joel's thumb stroking across your cold, wet cheek. You shiver into his grip as the nightmares fades, a ghost of a past that's long since transpired, but leaves scars echoing endlessly within the prison of your mind.

Neither of you fall asleep again that night, words unspoken into the silence but presences merging, blending together in the darkness until daylight at last breaks over the horizon.

If Joel is different at that night, you can't tell. He keeps his short, gruff way about you, offers what he needs to, busies his hands with the work to be done. He doesn't remark upon the truth he saw in your eyes and words that night, simply absorbs that truth into himself and keeps moving in the way all survivors do. You find yourself wishing you could do the same, could burrow the hurt down deep so it sleeps, hibernates there until spring, whenever that may come.

Yet when a rake falls loudly in the barn, when a gunshot rings out in the woods from a neighboring hunter, when you hear a coyote scream at night, he's there. Wordlessly, his eyes slide over to your tensed, ashen expression and his voice becomes soft, a reassurance of security, of protection.

"It's just the wind." He tells you when a gale lashes at the windows, clatters against the panes. His hands don't cease as they prod the fire, but his eyes turn to you- looking, waiting, expectant. It's only when you nod that he returns his focus elsewhere, ensures the unease in your bones has settled.

It's in that way that you know. Regardless of whether Joel speaks it or not, somewhere along the way he's decided you're one of his own. Someone to reassure, to protect, to keep safe, even from the doubts of the past.

This is where you're meant to stay, you realize. Here, with him.

It's a realization that feels like relief, hopeful like the lambs that bounce through the meadows and the hatchlings that nest in the eaves of the porch. It feels like a rebirth, like a renewal of yourself as you at last realize the true extent of your feelings.

You think you love him.

You think, in another life, you could have been his.

You aren't so bold as to offer him advances, the emotions in your chest too fragile, too fleeting. Yet you do ease around him in a way you haven't before. Sitting next to him on the couch, daring to cover his hand with yours as he reaches for something in the cabinet, stepping closer to point out a hole he missed in the chicken wiring, your breath ghosting over his nape.

He doesn't miss these gestures, you know he doesn't. Joel is too aware to not see them, has too many years struggling to survive in a cruel world to not notice this gentle easiness of yours. Yet he never makes mention of it, never takes the chance to step closer, to narrow the strange distance between you. You don't understand it, can't comprehend why he insists on not venturing nearer to you. It remains one of the things you'll never know about him, why he looks at you with such tenderness and yet refuses to let you come closer.

"I'm too old for this." He groans as you both lay panting in the pasture after wrangling the flock's ram back into the field after his daring escape. "I need to retire."

You huff, something akin to a laugh, staring up at the summer cumulus clouds that roll white and puffy across and egg-shell blue sky.

"I'll stay here, even if you do." You tell him honestly, smiling, feeling for once like you can see into the future ahead of you. You turn to look at him, hair mussed, eyes bright but warm. "I don't want to be anywhere else."

He looks at you then, and the color in your heart wilts to sepia at the emotion that flickers across his face.

Guilt.

It stabs at you, like a blade in the dark, the razor-sharp edge glinting from a campfire. Your face falls, your stomach drops, and distantly, you think you can hear the sound of your heart cracking at the edges.

He doesn't want you.

There's a deep, lurking, sinister shadow that wonders if anyone ever will.

You try not to dwell on it, even as it slowly consumes you as the days drag on. Doubt festers in your veins, like spores sticking to the edges of your skin, your distant, unfocused eyes.

You lay awake at night, days later, deciding to step outside into the summer air to breath, release your demons into the night sky.

It's only then that you see the orange glow on the horizon, wake Joel with your rising, panic shouts.

Joel stumbles out of his room, eyes quickly clearing of drowsiness as he too looks towards the sight before you.

"Get dressed." He tells you, sleep still clogging his voice. "It's the Johnsons. Something's caught fire."

You follow his command wordlessly, and it's within ten minutes that the two of you are riding over the lip of the valley, speeding in direction of the next farm over.

You arrive too late.

The barn is a single flame against the night sky as you arrive, and the farm's two owners hold each other not far away. Contents of their house are strewn about them. The smell of smoke and blood thickens at the back of your throat.

"Raiders." The wife tells you, voice less of a wail and more of a shattered, trembling whisper. It's all that needs to be said.

You and Joel see to them, spend the day helping them gather the remainders of the farm. You don't arrive back at the cabin until sundown, skin chalky with ash, hands chaffed, form slumped with fatigue. Yet it's not even two steps into the door before Joel turns to you, eyes severe, steely, holding back a fury spawned by fear.

"I'm leaving." Is all he says. "In the morning. Gotta tell Tommy about what's happened."

You feel a low murmur of terror gurgle in your stomach at the idea of being left alone when danger lurks beyond the edges of the valley, at the idea of him going by himself.

"Let me come with you." You try, but he shakes his head.

"No." Is all he gives you. "I need you to stay here. Guard the farm. I'll lock everything up before I go."

Then his eyes soften, and he breathes a sigh as he looks at you, sees the anxiety rising in your gaze.

"I won't be long." He murmurs then, voice dipping. "Just keep that shotgun safe, like I showed you. I'll be back soon."

You know you can't argue with him, stubborn as he is. Besides, he's right. Someone needs to stay. Someone needs to make the journey. One of you has to go. You both know it's him.

So, you watch him, the next morning, watching from the porch as he ascends the edge of the valley, tracing his back until he's nothing more than a speck that vanishes over the rise.

True to his word, Joel arrives back the next afternoon, and on his tail is an entire company of riders. Spooked as you are, you at first think they're raiders, forcing him to lead them back to the farm. You stand on the porch with a shotgun, hands trembling until Joel at last dismounts, approaches you like he would a wild, scared animal.

"It's alright." He murmurs, and makes you lower the weapon as the rest of the group stands at a safe distance. His hands are cold, yet familiar as they touch you, ground you from your own rapid heartbeat.

"Security." He tells you simply as you eye the group warily. They regard you respectfully, eyes shifting from you to Joel and then back again, tall atop their horses, murmuring to each other in low voices.

There's around five of them, hard in the eyes, fit, strong. They're all younger than Joel by a number of years. Their weapons lay across their laps or on their saddles. You can tell at a single glance that they're soldiers by training. You know the look. You've seen the same expression in the eyes of FEDRA soldiers. Focused, disciplined, rife with a cold, calculating instinct.

Your eyes flick from them to Joel, and at last you relax, shoulders dropping all of an inch, letting him take the shotgun from you.

It's only then that they begin to dismount, talking amongst themselves and offering you linger, skeptical glances, as if encountering traces of a predator in the woods. Yet there's one of the group that hands his reins to the man beside him, approaches you both with slow, measured steps.

He's the once you noticed first, with his towering stature and set jaw. A short beard and thick brows frame his face, shoulders tight with coiled strength. There's an air to him that seems more acute, more potent than the rest of his men. Somehow, it warns of danger.

He removes his hat as he nears the two of you, holds it over his heart in a humble greeting.

"Ma'am." He offers with a nod.

"This is Joe Graves." Joel tells you, one hand still cupping your elbow. Steadying, grounding.

"You can call me 'Bear'." He adds and gives you a smile that pierces through the remnants of frenetic, panicked anxiety. "They boys and I all have callsigns.

"Hello." You offer at last politely, voice a little quiet, guarded. Bear only nods at you, seems to take your hesitancy in stride, his smile not faltering. It's warm, understanding, and it's as if he senses the unsteadiness in you, waits patiently for you to right yourself.

Your chest flutters.

"The boys and I are going to take good care of your farm." He tells you, voice measured but easy. "If you ever need anything from us, don't hesitate to ask."

You blink at him, feel his words siphon away the fear, the uncertainty that dwells between your ribs.

"Thank you...Bear." You tell him, voice muted but betraying your gratitude, your slow unwinding tension at his tone with you. Entreating, patient, void of expectations.

There's something that glimmers in his eyes then, and you catch it for only a moment. A spark, a hope, an interest you can't yet decipher. It feels like it coats you in a smattering of glimmer dust, leaving behind a warm, hazy glow that catches in your stare.

You know that look.

"Don't worry." It says. "Take your time. There's no rush. I won't come closer unless you want me to. I'll stay right here until you're ready."

Like the bloom of springtime, color once again unfurls in your heart.

#TLOU #Joel miller #the last of us #joe bear graves #Joel miller x reader #Joe bear graves x reader #reader insert #fic: woodsmoke #AHHHHHH ITS FINISHED

149 notes · View notes

deny-the-issue · 5 months

Text

Rainbow Drabble Challenge

Violet

GIF by gameofthronesdaily

Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo <- Previous Chapter

Overall Summary: This is a short love story about Otto Hightower being a sexy bastard. There WILL be a happy ending. The reader is mid to late twenties in age.

Chapter Summary: You are married to Ser Otto and thoroughly enjoy what the night offers.

Thank you to @silcoitus for beta reading! <3

Thank you to all who read! I do have an additional story rattling around in my head for Ser Otto but no actual plans to write it (as of right now). It would be the second part of this story set more in the events of HOTD 👀

AO3 link

Rainbow drabble challenge

link to divider

[spinster!reader] [Otto Hightower x f!reader] [smut] [vaginal sex] [edging]

You woke in Otto Hightower’s arms hearing your mother lament about your poor health. Even after you proved your heartiness by standing of your own will, she barely let off. Fretting about this and that, the whirlwind that is your mother buzzed around you.

She only stopped when Ser Otto offered to have the Maester look you over, seemingly pleased with your future husband’s care. However, he did not lead you to the Maester, but to your private chamber. Where you would expect to feel fraught with worry of being caught, you found his quiet presence peaceful.

There is nothing anyone could say that would ruin this wedding, for the worst was already done. A maid brought you food at his request, and he stayed to watch you eat and drink. His steely gaze would have read as disapproval from any other, but you know it is out of concern.

The care a man such as he provides is stern, without flowery gestures with a mind reminiscent of a glacier, and you cannot wait to see what lies beneath the surface.

To your astonishment, a week later you are married in Baelor’s Sept, the oldest and grandest temple of worship. When you are draped in Ser Otto’s cloak, you feel the warmth of love and gratitude melt your heart, and you blink away tears of happiness.

Oh, how different your life will be from the nightmare you found yourself in. You never thought you would find happiness with a man by your side, let alone one you chose.

The feast is the most delicious you have ever eaten, yet you only eat enough to be lightly sated. Easy enough to do with the Queen herself, who is also Ser Otto’s daughter, studying your every movement.

You know most of what happens after—more than any maiden should—but you cannot help the nervousness blooming in your belly.

You have not been able to talk with Ser Otto in private since your argument. Open doors were standard for an unwed couple if you were alone in a room together, you know, but you grew to hate it with each passing second.

Why did he decide to marry you? What did he promise your family? What did he tell the drunken lord?

So many questions swirl around your mind in a dizzying, but soothing pattern. Or is that the effects of the wine?

You drink a little more and smile at the regal man seated beside you, warmth radiating from your heart. He smiles as well, softer and more subtle while taking your hand in his and leaning over to whisper in your ear.

“I think it is high time we depart, don’t you?”

You swallow hard, blush painting your cheeks a deep red, and simply nod your agreement. The pair of you make your farewells quickly and retreat to Ser Otto’s private chamber. You have never seen his room before, it would not have been polite for an unwed Lady to visit, and he so rarely uses it.

Thrice as large as yours and filled with decadent furniture, you feel lost as you enter through the heavy wooden door. So taken in by the environment, you barely register Ser Otto bolting the door closed, ensuring your privacy.

His arms snaking around your middle startle you. Turning within his embrace, you face him, meeting his gaze lovingly.

“Why?” You ask, not knowing the precise question to ask. “How?”

He smirks, one hand smoothing up your back while the other holds you to him ever tighter. “Your loyalty to your family is admirable, Lady wife.”

The title sends a rush of warmth in between your legs, and you cannot help the lustful way you bite your lip. His sneaky hand delves into your hair, grabbing it from the root to pull your head back. A surprised moan escapes your parted lips at the feeling, and you’re as good as his when he leans in close, beard and hot breath tickling the cup of your ear.

“And did you truly think I could have you, and not crave you again?” His other hand wanders lower, taking firm hold of your ass. “You are mine, don’t you remember saying so?”

His words leave you speechless and aching with only one focus.

“Remind me?” You reply, wit somehow returning through the rush of lustful thoughts.

His eyes darken with hunger as he leads you to the bed, where he undresses you like a present, slow and methodical. Your garments are hung over a nearby chair one by one until your skin is bare to him.

He steps back, admiring your body with an intensity that makes your heart flutter and you approach him with shy, uncertain steps, smoothing your hands up his chest.

“It is your turn, my Lord husband.” The words are foreign on your tongue but incite such happiness.

Your clumsy fingers work at undoing his doublet, but he waits patiently. His clothes adorn another chair, his heavy leather doublet first to drape over the back. Undershirt next, warm cotton revealing his soft stomach, body hair thick and graying, trailing down his torso, disappearing beneath the hem of his trousers.

His skin is hot to the touch, your hands feeling up his bare chest experimentally, loving the feel of the coarse hair.

He cocks his brow, smirking as he teases. “Is that all you wish to see?”

You shake your head with a smile and sink to your knees slowly as an answer, your hands never leaving him. Licking your lips enticingly, fingers hovering over the string holding his pants closed, you almost giggle at the look of frustration on his face as you untie his boots instead.

After you place his boots off to the side, the strain of his cock against his pants makes it more difficult to unlace them, and you hopelessly struggle with it. Patience wilting, Ser Otto saves you more embarrassment, thumb sliding under the string and deftly loosening it.

You slowly pull the fabric down, eyes going wide as his cock bounces free.

He sits in one of the clothes-lined chairs before you take off his pants completely, your eyes never leaving his swollen cock. Ser Otto lets out a shuddering breath when your hands run up his bare thighs but grabs your wrists when you reach his groin.

“Leave that for another night, Lady Wife. I have misgivings to atone for.”

He helps you rise to your feet gently before standing and leading you to the bed. Your heart pounds in your chest as the moment grows near. The ache between your legs pulses as he lays you on the soft fabric, a royal dark emerald to match his family crest. His knees push your legs open, cock so close to where you need it most and yet so far.

The yearning grows too large, taking over your every being. Fuck his atonement! You need his skin pressed against yours, his breath filling your lungs—his cock stretching your cunt.

Giving in to carnal pleasure, you let your reservations burn away and embrace him. Greedy hands bring his face to yours, lips passionately interlocking, each of you eager to show your love, devotion, need for the other.

He melts in your resolve and sits back, long legs splayed in front of him, allowing you to straddle him. Brazenly, you reach between your legs, softly gripping his length to line it up with your entrance. Hot, surprisingly soft skin, he twitches in your hand, a drop of precum adorning its head like a tiny crown.

You whimper, high-pitched and shaky, his cock sliding through your folds, pleasuring your hardening little clit so deliciously. It is not what you meant to do, but it feels so divine that you do it again, slower this time. Ser Otto moans into your mouth, one hand gripping your ass to steady your quickening rhythm and leaning back on the other.

Your hips buck as you grind against him, the movement as natural as breathing. Slick sounds fill the air as the familiar tension grows in your core.

“Let me hear you.” He commands, voice breathy and deep. “Let King’s Landing hear you!”

Ser Otto lifts your hips a little higher on your next pass, and his cock slides into you with ease. Your head tilts back as you sing from the delightful stretch of him, taking in his length slowly until your hips are flush with his.

Desperate little thrusts of your hips, you keen as you balance on the edge of marital bliss with Ser Otto’s shuddering moans painting your neck in his hot, panting breath. You could live in this moment forever—make love to him forever. He clings to you ever tighter like a mooring in a storm, with each wave stronger than the last until his nails are digging into your skin.

His cock grows ever harder inside of you, massaging your bundle of nerves deep within in a mind-bending way.

“Otto!” You cry out, hips bucking uncontrollably toward your release.

Cradling him to you, you feel the base of his cock pulse and twitch, your name fast on his lips to call out his bliss. The pinnacle of your climax takes the breath from your lungs–back-arching, throbbing elation that reaches from the tip of your toes to the top of your spine. Your pleasures are so intensely entwined you do not know where you end, and he begins; even the air itself is heavy with the scent of your communion.

Ser Otto leans back on both hands, utterly spent, but you still cling to him, head nuzzling into the crook of his neck.

“Are you satisfied, Lady wife?” he muses, kissing the top of your head.

You lift your head and smile mischievously, “For now.”

Ser Otto raises his brow in question, and you elaborate.

“What was the atonement you spoke of, I wonder?”

“It was letting you have your way with me.” He rolls you onto your back and looms from above with the commanding presence you fell in love with. “I will not be so docile in the future.”

“Promise?” You ask, heat returning despite the soreness settling in between your legs.

He smirks in approval and kisses your forehead before rising slowly from the bed. Without his heat, you curl up to conserve your evaporating warmth, the ambient air assaulting your bare skin.

He retrieves a small wooden box from atop the nightstand and sits on the edge of the bed, torso turned toward you.

“In truth, this is my atonement. It is no mere object, but a symbol of my promise to be a good husband.” He pauses, bowing his head. “To be better.”

Heart aching for him, you move to his side, arms touching as you lean on him with loving but silent support. He offers you the small box, and you look into his kind hazel eyes before gently taking it. The top slides off easily enough, revealing a beautiful ring. Gold filigree frames a brilliant amethyst, its violet hues dazzling you despite the dimming light of the fire.

The gesture overwhelms you as much as it pleases you, rendering you silent as he takes your right hand in his and adorns your ring finger with the precious stone.

“I love you.” You confess suddenly, unable to find any other words but those.

He cups your face gently, thumbs caressing your soft skin, his eyes intense and devoted. “I love you too.”

#otto hightower #otto hightower x reader #otto hightower fanfiction #hotd #hotd fanfic #hotd fanfiction #fanfiction #fanfic #fluff #smut #rainbowdrabblechallenge

25 notes · View notes