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bambiesfics · 6 months

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⊹ Tag! you’re it. ⊹

(5k wc!)

| SNEAK PEEK: “Fuck me. Almost forgot about her.” The brunette unslung the rifle over her shoulder and head. She threw it a small distance away from you two. The black Nula rifle skidded amongst the twigs, then stopped. You breathed a small sigh of relief amidst your mounting panic. Releasing the terror that it could go off while she fucked herself into you.

⊹ SUMMARY: The concept was simple really. It’s quite literally in the title of this fic. I’m sure you’re smart, reader. So I’m also sure you can deduce what she’s going to make you do. But in the rare chance you’re not that bright, I’ll help and spell it out for you.

You…need…to…run.

⊹ WARNINGS: Predator/prey kink. Strap-on use (reader receiving). Outdoor sex, very rough sex, mean as fuck!Dom Ellie, dacryphilia, ass-smacking, black-out, use of “cock” and “dick” and is referred to as Ellie’s, and other things you’ll have to read to see.

⊹ AUTHOR’S NOTE: Minors & puritans this is not the fic for you. Everyone else: make sure you read this at home. This is genuinely, not safe for work (or school!)

The truck skidded to a stop.

The acridness of burnt rubber twisted its way up your nose, reflexively making you scrunch. The russet haired brunette pulled the keys out of the ignition and slammed the truck's door shut. Her black converses made imprints onto the soft earth.

They were just a few of the many tracks to come.

The slam of the GMC door was like a boom in your head, yelling ‘WAKE UP!’

Laid beyond the car window was a terrifying picture of nature. The forest seemed like rows of shark’s teeth; jagged and everlong. Up along the bank, a crowded family of dark green spruce trees were huddled. Mottled like flecks against the horizon. Nothing could be seen but the green overlaid on top of the clear sky. The trees circumferenced along the bank like a protective dome, surrounding the truck.

This was her idea.

The brunette circled the clearing, her bangs blew softly in the wind. She fixed the M-11 sniper across her back, pulling the dual tabs of her corset webbing to tighten it to her torso. The NULA sniper was heavy. A matte black gun with a wide eyed scope. It was Ellie’s favorite. For hunting; both people and game.

Your girlfriend had known for several years that she’d never be a fan of small firearms. She reveled in the kickback of a sniper.

Firearms.

Running.

Rifle.

Chasing.

Polaroids of memory flooded your thoughts. Snapshots of Ellie pleading relentlessly to convince you to let her use you. Use your adrenaline and terror to scratch a deep deep itch within her. Like a flea ridden dog, your girlfriend had a parasite. And the parasite was the chase. It was a primal itch. One that’d been there since she was a younger girl. It teased along the blurred edges of sociopathy and sexuality.

If you’d really paid attention, you would’ve noticed that Ellie was a little…off. There was an aggression that ran congruent with her boyish teasing and fighting. An intuitive itch at the back of your brain often concluded that Ellie had always wanted to bend your arm back a little bit deeper during play fights. Because she too often enjoyed how quickly your laugh crumpled into yelps.

She’d let out a sudden chuckle during really tense moments, but you were subtly aware that Ellie could, and slyly tried, to get a bit more intense with the floor pinning, with the wall traps, with her power plays. And you suspected she liked it.

Ellie was an awe-inspiring girlfriend, so caring and so sweet; so tender. But you still couldn’t gauge where that hidden characteristic in her temperament came from.

Just how far would she really want to take it?

The surface tension of those memories rippled into obscurity like disturbed water. Leaving you to face the bitter nip of the cool air, and the earthy pine notes that carried itself on the wind.

Ellie had been spending her time studying you from across the distance. Trying to pick apart your thoughts from your micro-expressions. She debated on if the little crease between your brow was tense fear, or if it was exhaustion. Common sense advised her that it was exhaustion; you two had only come out here just an hour after dawn, naturally you’d feel drowsy or irate.

And that pleased her.

Tired would work in her favor. Tired would make you sloppy.

Ellie stepped deeper into the clearing. From your position in the passenger seat, you could see her attempt to feel for the direction of the wind, noting which direction it was blowing her hair. She used the sweep of the wind’s blow on her hair to navigate the direction of which path, in the dense forest, would give her the least resistance.

She planned to avoid that path.

She didn’t want this to be easy.

She didn’t speak. She didn’t have too. Ellie turned around slowly and rooted her feet into the soil. In spite of the distance, her gaze was piercing. She didn’t need to shout, but it was finally time to remove yourself from the safety of the truck.

You steadied yourself on the inside of the door, and used the pane to brace your knees before you dropped from out of the truck.

The sun was a high, white gold. Planting an opalescent sheen on the forest underbrush. It grew brighter and warmer the further behind you left the truck.

Towering above the underbrush, were thick alpine trees; the young and the old. Some of them were beyond being old, and were solidly antiquated. Likely as old as the entire forest itself.

Those alpines were the type of old that’d existed in that forest longer than Jackson town. The type of trees that had seen things not a soul nor an eye would have witnessed. Things, no history book had dared to make a record of.

And today, they saw you.

The sun was shining in her eyes. And she returned back to it her own venomous gaze.

Ellie’s ink moth tattoo moved each time her fingers steadied themselves on the bony juts of her hips. Her evergreen eyes blinked back down to study you once more.

In your timid mannerisms she microdosed on the pleasure of the run to come.

Your back straightened at her voice.

“To set this off, I ran the path six times since last sunday. Shouldn’t take you no longer than ten minutes, fifteen at your slowest. You take twenty minutes, and I come looking for you. Got that?”

Her eyes thinned, then relaxed.

“We’ve done similar patrols around the west wing of Jackson.”

“Like the group patrols and stuff right?”

Your answer was less than stellar.

She itched to grin at your reply, but killed it. Schooling her features back into a placid poker face. “Yeah sure. Those’ll definitely prepare you for today.”

Ellie started stalking behind you now. Eyeing the shoes you chose, how you shifted your weight from leg to leg, how your sleeves were longer than your fingers, and how your fingers fidgeted with its hem.

She pulled back from you. She pressed herself deeper into the gray and dull overcast from the trees. Shadowed by their height and mass, she shouted.

“You get a 120 second head start!”

The air was electric, like power lines running above you. Your fingers twitched, and your stomach tightened. And like a firing gun shooting into the air, she growled.

“RUN!”

Your feet pounded at the earth as your skin braced the whipping wind. Jackson’s forest was miles upon piles of jade. It was a claustrophobic cornucopia of trees. The underbrush scraped your legs with each step you took on the illuminated path of the forest floor. Light speckled from the patterned leaves above you, it looked like a kaleidoscopic.

The earth beneath your shoes was beaten flat from the steps of hikers and runners long before you ever came sprinting down. You’d hiked this path, but hiking and sprinting were light years apart. And the staggering imbalance of the terrain was sending shock waves up your legs. You braced it, a mantra looping in your head like your very life depended on.

Just run.

Your breaths were starting to sound heavier and heavier. Worsened by the regret that was creeping up all the same. Jackson had a system of 5am running patrols that were outlined by Maria on the town’s bulletin. Patrols that you could’ve put your name down for. Ellie did them often, just a short lap around Jacksons gates. She always told you it was only “15 minutes tops”, yet you always regarded that time as an extra 15 minutes to sleep in. Realization dawned on you just as quick as your feet turned around a large spruce tree.

That 15 minutes of running truly did add up.

Just run.

A climbing crescendo of snapped twigs and rustling leaves was all that could be heard whipping about. Louder and louder. Heavier and heavier. An orchestra of sounds; of your heartbeat. Of a burning pain from a persons forceful sprint. Someone was panting, fighting, clawing their way out of Jackson’s forest. You were the someone, but your legs were growing tired.

Your calves were burning as your pace increased, the ache was clawing into the muscles in your lower legs like hot iron. The pain bloomed into your thighs and coiled itself into the pit of your lower belly. It left your breath wheezing and dry.

Sweat broke out on your hairline. Perspiration that would drip down to sting your eyes if you didn’t get home in time. You needed to get home fast. Just as long as you got there before her. Just as long as you beat Ellie to Jackson’s gates, you’d be fine.

All you could do was just run.

You slowed to a stop and cleared a log, you straddled it, holding the large body to steady yourself, before swinging your leg off and hopping back onto the ground. You weren’t nimble. Your girlfriend would’ve cleared the trunk with just the push of her left arm. But you were desperate, anything to not be her prey.

Just run.

Your ears picked up on it, before your brain could process it. The sound was unmistakable. Those were Ellie’s footsteps.

Clearing the log had closed the space between you. This chase was a burning thread. Growing shorter as the distance between you two also grew shorter. Ellies footsteps sounded heavier, more hurried. She could finally hear you too.

You pushed past the haze of pain and ran out of the forest, onto the rocky asphalt in front of the abandoned highway. You slid down the ditch, scraping your palms along before tumbling into a shaky sprint. The abandoned cars in the ditch were as much obstacles as they were protection. But up ahead, growing bigger with every step, were the gates; pillars of protection and strength.

The same voice whispered sharply into your concious, reminding you to

just run.

The only caveat was that Ellie’s conscience was telling her the

exact same thing.

She was behind you. But you couldn’t care where or how far Ellie was. You’d deduced that the strewn jagged pebbles had slowed her down. Converses didn’t work nearly as well on rocky terrain. The rhombus sole could tightly pack gravel and pebbles inside of it, which made for an uneven run.

Jackson’s steep wood gates appeared even larger. A good — no — a great thing. To be dwarfed by Jackson’s gates meant that you were near them. Nearer to the town than you had been a mere minute ago; yet again, still with no Ellie in tow.

You relaxed your sprint into a cursory jog. The relief that coursed through you was electrifying. A tired grin threatened to leap off your face. You were burning, but the chase wasn’t nearly as hard as you had suspected it to be, and for that your nervous system was flooded with relief.

You were so close. Just a few more steps and the lap would be cleared.

Ellie shouldn’t have given you that head start. Jesus, that girl could be so arrogant.

The dual gates were close enough to feel their shade. You took another deep breath, and stretched your arms out. The breeze cooled your skin. The relief from the concluded chase blew a spirit of new life into you. You were done! you had won Ellie’s sick little game of tag.

Now, what you would give to head down to the tavern and ask for a mug of sweet tea and some soft brea—

—Ellie slammed into you, crumpling you to the ground. A tiny yelp ripped out of you like a pathetic puppy. She dug her elbow into the small of your back to put you down, before switching tactics. She instead chose to slide her hand up and grip the back of your neck. She shoved your face into the ground. Holding you down in submission.

“Tag. you’re it.” She giggled.

Your shocked scream was muffled by the ground. Like some hunted doe, only your eyes could communicate. And they strained painfully to the right, hoping to see what the hunter was doing. The pain in the base of your spine ebbed as Ellie removed the puncture of her left knee from your back. She dropped into a crouch. But her hands slid down your back, then down your thighs, then to your knees where she gripped the sides of the joints and forcefully shoved them apart.

In the quiet of the dawn, you were more than a sight to see. You were a picture of desire to drink in, and a terrifying desperation possessed Ellie.

You should’ve ran faster.

Ellie inched all ten knuckles under the band of your jeans, she struggled to shove down your pants and underwear, grunting curses under her breath.

“No way in hell you were convinced you actually had a chance to win against me. I don’t think you realize how much I had to hold myself back. Couldn't let it be that easy for myself.”

Your breath came out ragged.

Ellie loved that.

She barely managed to shove the waist of your pants underneath the crease of your ass cheeks. But seeing as what she managed left her with just the necessary amount of space she needed to work with, it was certainly good enough.

“Honest question.” She paused for a moment and surveyed you. Her hand curled in the air “just to get this straight, were you jogging the entire lap or were you actually sprinting it? I just couldn’t tell.” She mocked.

The sneer her lips curled into was wicked.

But her violence even moreso.

Ellie slapped your ass harshly, intently drinking in the recoil. You yelped and jerked across the dirt. She lunged across to clamp the back of your neck, eyes piercing.

“Stay.”

The sound of a zipper being pulled down made you struggle in her grasp. Your head was scrambling from side to side to better see her. Picking up strewn leaves to tickle the bottom of your lips.

Ellie was having none of it. The fist on your neck squeezed tighter.

She tsk’d next to your ear, your first and now your final warning. She refused to repeat herself a second time.

If only you could’ve seen what she saw. Ass up, face down, bent like some bitch in heat. You were presenting yourself. Your left cheek was squished against the grass and leaves. And your ass was tempting and teasing itself in her face, globes split apart.

God, you didn’t know, but you’d looked so pathetic. Like you were just waiting to be topped. And if that was what you really wanted, then who was Ellie to deny you that?

A wicked grin bloomed onto her face, replacing the sneer.

One phrase boomed in her head.

…my bitch.

Ellie’s.

You were made to be Ellie’s bitch.

Ellie pulled out the harnessed cock, it had a real fat, girthy shaft. With a long vein running along the underside. She drooled at the fantasy of how it’d tug against your tight rim. She slid the dick atop the split of your ass cheeks. Rutting it up and down. Maybe it was a trick of the light, but she swore she saw you roll your hips onto it.

“Fuck me. Almost forgot about her.” The brunette unslung the rifle over her shoulder and head. She threw it a small distance away from you two. The black rifle skidded amongst the twigs, then stopped. You breathed a small sigh of relief amidst your mounting panic. Releasing the terror that it could go off while she fucked herself into you.

Holding her dick against your ass really let her hips take a break from the weight of it. You were such a good doe, letting her warm it between the globes of your ass cheeks. Taking her thumb and forefinger, Ellie angled her tip down, She gave shallow thrusts, reveling in the wet slide of her cock against your labia. She just needed a few more ruts against the slick, to get it as wet as she wanted.

Nimble as ever, the hunter slightly leaned back onto her calves. The bulbous tip of her cock inched back and dragged itself down the expanse of your labia, from clit to hole. Until it caught against the rim of your hole. It barely nudged inside. But the feeling of the tip pressing against it, reflexively made your hole clench a kiss on its head. Ellie whistled at the scene.

Heaven on earth is what this was to her.

“Would you look at that? You want it huh? Can tell by how you’re sucking it in.”

It turned Ellie on so much, seeing her dick just barely touch your hole, just prolonging what you both knew was to come. She was feeling a little violent again, so Ellie cracked another sharp slap on the meat of your ass. The heat and twinge from it, made your eyes widen. A blistering handprint was left where she slapped you. Tears started burning at the back of your eyes and you gasped in a panic. Your reactive jerk from her smack, involuntarily slipped the first inch of her cock into your hole. Your slick coated just the head. Wetness was slowly starting to slip down your walls. And it dripped past the seal of your vagina and coated the top of Ellie’s tip.

Not even pornography could compare; because to the eyes of anyone who could see, the scene between you and her was in every sense of the word: obscene.

You struggled against the grass again. Giving her a beautiful performance of a hunt gone well. Doe-eyed prey shaking fitfully against the grass. Ellie’s intimidating presence dwarfed everything in its path like a dark shadow.

She draped her chest over your back and laid her cheek to rest atop your planted head. Ellie slowly lined up her freckled lips with your ears. It could’ve almost looked like a caress; a sleepy embrace between two lovers. Where one whispered ‘good morning, you up honey?’, and the other grumbled lowly ‘mhm. Just 5 more minutes my love.’

But nothing that came out of her mouth was sweet.

Ellie whispered very lowly.

“I’m begging you—to try to fight me off.”

And with that, and a ghost of a kiss to the shell of your ear; Ellie thrusted the shaft inside, groaning her own pleasure over the shout you yelped into the ground. A sudden intrusion, as alarming as that was, could only be described as malice.

She slowly pumped in more inches of her cock until she felt a strong resistance. She kept testing it, pounding sharp pumps to see if there would be any further give. Each attempt pulled a muffled “n’moh it won’ fit phleese” out of you.

You dug into the grass.

Ellie’s beautiful features transformed into a quizzical frown. Her bushy eyebrows, her full pink lips, and her usually cherubic cheeks, wrinkled in to display a strong feeling of ... .disappointment. There were at least a few inches left of her hungry cock that weren’t warmed inside that slick tight pussy hole.

Why couldn’t you take all of it?

She furrowed her brows, dug her nails tightly into the fat of your hips, and hurriedly bullied her girthy cock into you. She couldn’t help but revel in the way each thrust pulled a yelp out of you like a kicked bitch.

Maybe those weren’t yelps from your lips, but instead muffled moans….

Ellie couldn’t really tell, and regardless, she definitely didn’t care.

Her thrusts were heavy, punchy. There was no space to spare inside of you. Her shaft was molding your hole to fit around its thickness. The cockhead squished against your cervix, pulling a new type of soreness with each pull of it.

“Uhn! Uhn! Uhn! Uhn!”

You drooled on the grass. You took the rhythmic pounding up your abused cunt. Your puffy cervix was leaving wet kisses on the tip of Ellie’s dick, which pulled even more slick from the tiny donut.

“That’s right. Uhn! Uhn! Uhnn! for me baby. Cry just like that. You like being tackled and fucked rough don’t you? Sloppy cunt.”

She mocked.

She was right, it was so sloppy. Your walls were practically drooling along her shaft; and trust her, she could feel it.

Ellie slowly pulled her cock out, only to marvel upon the gorgeous coating of slick that sparkled in the early sunlight. Your milk had pooled along the veins and ridges of her shaft.

There was a creamy mousse ring that wrapped around the base of her balls, frothing from the thrusts.

Ellie had a perverted temptation to taste a bit of that milky coating. The thing was, it wasn’t new to her, she’d gotten a taste of it many times before.

Chuckling to herself, she slid it back in. But with complete knowledge of how intensely full you’d feel, Ellie leaned down to drape her chest across your back once more.

She positioned her torso atop yours, digging her fingers into the dirt on either side of your head to get a solid grip. Dried leaves and grit collected under her fingernails and painted them specks of amber and brown. Her sweaty bangs were sticking to her face now. And they curved around her hairline as she barked a laugh at each rough pounding you took, like her sweet girl.

“So fucking—”

Thrust.

“Fun”

Thrust.

“Watc-hing you—”

Thrust.

Her voice cracked, pounding you was bumping her swollen clit just right.

“Run like.”

Thrust.

“Some weak little prey.”

She replaced her grip in the dirt with finding purchase on top of your hands. She slid her fingers in between yours and interlocked them. She squeezed your fingers between her own, you weakly squeezed hers back. The hunter above you, found just the right footing to put her full body weight into fucking you, and now you felt the stretch and fullness everywhere, everywhere.

No space inside of you was spared.

Who knew hunters could be so mean?

“You feel that? Is it stretching? I wanna know if it burns.” She gruffed.

Yes, yes, and yes. A weepy eyed ‘yes’ to all three.

All you could feel was her. Her cock was nudging past the sensitive swell of your g-spot, bruising the area with her pounding.

How could you not feel it?

Every ridge of her dick pulled muted squeals out of you. And despite how much your neglected clit cried for attention and touch from between its sloppy lips, there was a fiercely intense pleasure that radiated around your body. And the evidence was the strings of glossy slick drooled onto the grass patch below you two. The same slick ran down the underhaft of her cock as she pumped inside you, and collected at the base of her heavy balls. Balls that were building a bruise on your ass, with each stinging connect of her hips to your butt.

Ellie’s sighs and moans were pitching a variation of high and low tones. Huffing like a dog in heat because of how good it felt to be inside of you.

God, the strap was fucking her back. Her brain was growing fuzzy, heavy, needy.

Catching her prey to fuck it, had her mind unraveling.

Who was the bitch now?

“H-hey.” She breathed out

“Your sloppy hole feels s’good. Tiny, tiny pussy clamping on my cock. You making me work for it baby? Work hard to fu— fuck inside of you.”

She screwed her eyes shut. The intensity grew stronger.

“I’ll work as hard as I need to stu-stuff your sloppy holes” she slurred. Her green irises rolled to the back of her head.

Ellie’s grip on top of your hand considerably tightened, which had seemed almost impossible, given their already iron lock.

Ellie rolled her pale hips in shallow circles, grinding inside of you. The friction against your g-spot was dizzying, and from where your nose was shoved in the grass, you grew lightheaded.

As Ellie’s cock made your walls plump and swell, Your vision was slowly growing spotty. Little black dots were dancing across the expanse of your vision. It was unfortunate how little you could breathe, because the barks of pain and whimpers of pleasure that you wanted to release would’ve made Ellie cum on the spot right then.

“Love your pretty pussy. It’s pretty, it’s all mine. All for me. Tiny hole that I get to stuff full of dick—wanna chase and stuff you every day. I wanna be the only one in-inside you. Does my dick hurt your tummy? Want it to hurt you so good. Sorry, m’sorry, but I-I want it to hurt so good.”

Ellie was frantic and erratic. Fever brained and pussy drunk beyond the horizon. She sloppily slurred all her little fantasies in your ear.

The edges of your vision were graying out, your eyes glazed. If Ellie had noticed, she didn’t care.

Instead she obsessed herself with the way she was molding a home for her thick cock in your puffy walls. The same walls were puffy and deep pink inside.

Each thrust from her slender hips was like a zing that dragged pleasure down the ribbed walls. Pressure was building up severely in your tummy, and you were overcome with a strong urge to clamp.

You choked your last whimpering moan into the dirt, and finally let the tension go. Slick milky cum seeped from the seal of your sensitive hole and burst onto the base of her dick. It was frothing and glossy.

Your eyelids grew suddenly heavy. Your vision was tunneling, there was a gray and fuzzy halo around it that obstructed its clarity. You could only make out blurry shapes and colors, only the soft light of the day, just before you relaxed and sleepily went limp.

You had been fucked into a heavy slumber, yet your lower half was still being held up by the girl with the cock inside of you.

She didn’t let up.

Ellie kept fucking you. Frantic and greedy for her own orgasm in your pussy. She needed to be inside of it just a little longer.

She picked up her pace, relishing in the sweet feel of the cockbase smacking her clit. Ellie felt the same pressure in her own vagina rising. Her clit was just as swollen, just as puffy, just as wet and glossy as your hole was on the inside. And Ellie sought a few more angry thrusts to get her over the edge. She snapped her hips forward, and each time you jerked forward in the grass, with your lips forming an “o” and your eyes gently closed.

Thrust.

“Fuck!”

Thrust.

“Please please please.”

Thrust.

“—Prett-pretty my pretty pussy all mine.”

Thrust.

“Sososo tight.”

Thrust.

“Ughhhh!…”

A groan grizzled from her throat.

Ellie squirted spurts of her release down her thighs. Her eyeballs rolled backwards until they were white and veiny, and her hips stuttered with each squirt.

She came all over her skinny jeans.

Her chest rose and fell dramatically as she sucked in deep gulps of air. Ellie’s toned abs contracted with her breathing, clenching and relaxing. Over and over did the muscles dance until her breathing slowly steadied itself.

The hunter pulled out of you and tucked herself back inside her jeans. She barely zipped her pants up, leaving the slick base of her veiny dick still visible to the world’s eyes. She couldn't find it within herself to care, not even a tiny bit.

The NULA rifle was strewn amongst the grass, and its owner walked the short distance to pick it up from the grass. She picked it clean. Wiping the dirt off of it, and blowing off the stuck grass. She stationed the NULA by her hip again, and walked back towards your limp body.

Crescent moon sharpie doodles were scribbled onto the dirty toe box of her converses. The doodles you’d drawn for her one frigid October evening, an entire calendar year ago.

Ellie had found that so endearing, but even then she had been too shy to admit it at the time.

She surely wasn’t shy now.

Despite the fact that her preferred celestial body was still stars, she still held your insistence on decorating her shoes, near and dear to her heart. It had been one of those slow and scary, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you’ moments, that had pivoted the direction of your relationship, unbeknownst to either of you.

Ellie took those same converses and nudged your shoulder. Several times in fact.

In your deep slumber, your body had only moved with the motion of her foot.

A whistle twinkled from her pout.

“….And you’re out cold.”

She reached for your arm “okay come on—get up.” And slung you over her shoulder. It was awkward, it wasn’t easy. The sniper wanted about as much space on Ellie’s slender frame as you did. But she had to make it work. Better than patrollers finding you in the grass with your ass split wide open and your pussy dripping slick like a snail. So she dragged her feet as she carried you, and held the gun parallel to her body.

But she managed to make it work.

She managed all the way to the gates. where she slipped through the back. Your privacy was something she could never risk, no matter how much she reveled in this game.

She managed into Jackson town.

And then into her house, and then into her room, and then into her bed where she tucked you under the covers, so you could sleep the adrenaline and full body orgasm off.

The lull in her messy room was quiet.

It felt like no more than a warm hub, for you and your bold lover. Ellie was tired to her bones, but she worked on the keys of her guitar as you slept.

You’d mewled in your sleep from time to time. And she felt slightly guilty, slightly. She knew you’d wake up just fine. With a bad limp and maybe an attitude to last the day, but still mostly fine.

Ellie dropped her chin onto the guitar, and rolled herself back and forth in her chair.

She mulled over it in her mind, how it’d be kinder of her to just…pull back from time to time. Just so you weren’t wincing in your sleep from the ache. But then she pouted; unsure of herself.

Didn’t you like it when she was mean?

She plucked a key, F major, then B minor. A momentary pause, before her nails hesitantly strummed the strings. They still didn’t sound right. So she tuned them again.

She broke her gaze away from the strings to briefly check on you. You were a sniffling lump underneath her sky blue sheets.

Her chest squeezed at the image.

She knew it was sappy, it was lame. It was the feeling of impassioned affection; of love.

“I know you’ll love this one, whenever you decide to wake up…dork.” She teased.

Ellie strummed the string once again, meditating on the key. She cleared her throat, and whisper-sung her favorite part.

“Shall I stay? Would it be a sin, if I can’t help…” she sucked in a breath, and her cheeks dusted pink. Embarrassed even with no one to bare witness. But this song had best encompassed the ocean of her feelings.

“…Falling in love with you.”

She dropped her head against the body of her guitar.

And smiled into it.

-fin-

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raven-at-the-writing-desk · 2 months

Text

I've been dreaming of the Plotting Serpent.

A Sorcerer in the Sands seeks something far bigger than himself. Freedom, sweet freedom.

How does a moment last forever? How can a story never die?

Bundled up in several layers, Jamil makes his way down a twisting path and into an open market.

The ground crunches softly under his boots. His breath is chilled, turning into a fleeting fog as he exhales. He retreats to the comfort and safety that his bulky coat provides, watching bales of white lazily drift down around him.

Snow instead of sand—imagine that.

The market operates straight out of the town square. From a vantage point--his temporary housing upon a hill--he can see the entirety of it, all the stalls forming a circle. The market is, by no means, large—but it has the spirit of something grander. The banter, the bartering.

Not so different from the bazaars at home.

Jamil ducks in, taking his time to pace around to each vendor. He’s agile and bright, like a child first viewing the moon and rushing to catch it in his palms.

Most sellers—and most customers—are elderly, gnarled like the roots of a tree. The cold colors their rounded cheeks the same red as many of the apples on display.

There’s pink and yellow and green too, and other fresh produce. The majority of it, he is told, is grown in Harveston. Others are foraged from Mt. Moln—nuts, plants, berries, and mushrooms.

Other stalls offer already manufactured goods. Scarves and gloves to protect against the winter, steaming apple drinks and sweetly spiced snacks, toiletries lovingly handcrafted with botanical oils.

His eyes light up with interest. He stops to inspect a row of shampoo and conditioner bars.

Feel free to touch and smell! says a sign at the stall.

He does, testing the weight of a bar in his hand. It is light and has an easy slip to it, and gives off the faint aroma of apples. Slightly tart and juicy.

It'll be good to have on hand, especially when it weighs less than liquid variants. The sign says these bars are made with apple seed oil, an ingredient that treats split ends and dryness while restoring a shine...

He absentmindedly feels the ends of his hair. The locks are normally dark and glossy, but the cold has not treated them well, leaving them slightly dry and brittle.

That's the cost of travel. It can be difficult to predict how my skin and hair react to different climates.

“Excuse me,” Jamil calls out to the stall owner, “I’d like to buy one of these shampoo bars, please. One in the conditioner bars as well."

“Sure thing!!” The owner wraps up the bars and slides them over. As Jamil hands him a few bills, he pipes up. “Say, yer not from ‘round here, are ya, sonny?”

“Yes. I am but a traveler.”

“Traveler!” The owner’s eyebrows shoot up. “Real fancy livin’ ya must have."

“No, not at all. I try to live humbly and travel light.” Jamil indicates his backpack, the one piece of luggage that follows him wherever he goes.

"That so? Not many young folk visit these parts." The owner strokes his rounded chin in contemplation. "I figured ya must be on yer way to the city. A lot more for youngins to see 'n do there."

“I beg to differ. The village has shown me incredible hospitality during my stay. Delicious foods, friendliness... I can enjoy Harveston's natural sights without worry. I'm content with just that."

With each word that leaves his lips, he feels the weight that has been on his shoulders lifting.

Jamil, you're free, the wind seems to whisper. The realization is intoxicatingly sweet and crisp, the first bite taken from a forbidden fruit.

"Aww, that warms mah heart ta hear ya say," the owner beams. "Yer a good kid, yer parents would be proud of ya."

"My... parents?" Jamil falters at the mention of them.

His parents are back home. His sister, too. Najma had texted not long ago, pestering him about bringing her a souvenir and asking when he’d be back.

His family is waiting for him. And... who else is there?

Jamil's brows furrow. Suddenly, he feels as though someone should be beside him, and he, trailing after them. A hopeless person buying up all the stalls, shoveling new dish after new dish at him.

"Here, try this, Jamil! Oooh, and this! That looks super tasty, have some too! And this cracker!"

"Where did you get all this food from?! There's no way we'll be able to feasibly finish this before it goes bad. Why do you never listen to me, Ka..."

A growl rips from his stomach. Jamil's eyes widen, and his face heats.

The stall owner's laugh cuts through his confusion. "Gahahah! Ya hungry there, son? Here, lemme grab ya somethin' on the house."

"Oh no, sir, I can't accept that."

"I insist!! Won't be long 'fore ya mosey on outta here and move on ta the next place. Eat yer fill while yer here, there ain't nothin' like a homegrown Harveston meal or snack anywhere else in Twisted Wonderland!"

The owner rustles with utensils behind the stall, He fills a container with a generous slice of pie--oozing with apple filling--and fluffy pancakes, plus a few potstickers. Then he pours hot tea, apple cubes bobbing in the spiced brown liquid, into a paper cup.

Jamil gets a whiff of it from where he stands and--against his better judgment, his mouth waters. When the owner hands him the container, cup, and a wooden fork, he doesn't refuse them.

"Remember us ‘n all the fun times ya spent here."

"Thank you, sir." Jamil bows his head. "I will. I'll never forget your kindness."

"Don't 'cha mention it. Go on 'n git now, ya got plenty more of the village to visit!""

Jamil departs with his purchase and his gifts, which he immediately settles into.

Lifting the paper cup to his lips, he sips his tea. It's deep and tangy from the cinnamon and apples it has been brewed with. He pleasantly warms from head to toe.

It isn't long before he downs the rest of the drink, apple cubes and all. They're not fresh, but dried--so when his teeth slices them into halves, they're springy and chewy, with a strong flavor.

Jamil lowers the cup, dragging out a satisfied sigh.

It's then that he realizes he's walking directly into a black wall. He veers sharply to the right, but still brushes his arm against that of the incoming person.

“Pardon me. I wasn't watching where I was going...” Jamil looks back, but is startled to find no one where his shoulder has made contact.

Hm? Was I imagining things?

Jamil glances around the marketplace. The crowd is too sparse for him to miss anyone. There are grandmothers and grandfathers, mothers and fathers, each dressed in thick coats and boots, some wrapped in scarves and others sporting fuzzy hats or earmuffs.

But no one is wearing all black.

He shakes his head.

It was probably nothing then.

Jamil returns to browsing the square, his every stride as light as a feather. He feels as though he is dancing atop the snow.

The cold no longer bothers him.

The wind, carrying a new message that resonates with his heart. It seems stronger now, rumbling like a deadly avalanche.

"Be free, Viper. Be free."

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bitterpotionn · 8 months

Text

Johnny Slaughter - Dirt Road

Phew, okay my first ever x reader...ever! I've been so obsessed with Johnny that I had to add my own take on his character. Bear with me, I normally don't do this type of writing. However, I hope to continue to improve. Any feedback or constructive criticism is welcome!

This idea randomly popped into my head and I'm not even sure how to characterize it. A night with Johnny pulled over on the side of an old country road. I experimented with a more hesitant, nervous reader. Again, this is all new to me.

Warnings- Dub-con, unsafe sex, semi-public sex, Johnny's mean, nervous/unsure reader, cunnilingus, focuses more on the reader's inner thoughts, unhealthy dynamics, light slapping, a lot of neck grabbing, Johnny is a litterbug, smoking, name-calling

Red, orange, and yellow streaked across the sky as the sun set deep into the flat horizon. The dirt road he drove down kicked up dust that swirled in circles, disappearing behind them just as quickly.

She laid her head against the seatbelt dispenser, looking out of the rolled-down window. His old white truck hummed as they drove farther and farther out of town. She counted each passing house, fantasizing about the lives of the people who lived in them. What did they do? How many people live there? Do they have kids? What-

"Darlin'" a deep voice cut through her hazy thoughts.

She turned her head to the man driving the old white truck. His right hand was gripping the steering wheel with a bit too much force, while his left lay loosely on top of the stick shift. He was smirking, like usual. He reminded her of a wolf like he could eat her up at any second.

"Are you alright?" his accent thick, the words lazily slipped from his lips.

"Yeah…I was just thinking" she said, turning back to the open window. Allowing the cool wind to hit her face.

He frowned once she looked away, rolling his eyes a bit. His left hand moved from the shift to her thigh, giving it a firm squeeze.

She didn't look at him after that, getting lost again in her wishful thinking. Counting each house one by one by one.

—

She gasped slightly opening her eyes, the sky was dark and she could hear the crickets and frogs chirping. She must have fallen asleep. They were stopped on the side of the road. She could only see vast fields that stopped at the dark tree line. The only light was from the moon and the dull headlights of the truck.

She turned toward the driver's seat. He was out of the car, leaning against the closed driver-side door.

"Johnny…" she said quietly. She knew he couldn't hear her, she almost didn't want him to. But nonetheless, she opened the passenger side door and walked around the truck to stand next to him. He was smoking a cigarette, Marlboro Reds, his favorite.

"What are you doin? Why'd we stop?" she asked looking up at him. He was so tall, that sometimes she felt like she had to crane her neck just to look into his eyes.

He looked down at her and smirked. "Just stopped for a smoke. Got tired of drivin'" he said, grabbing her waist to pull her into his side. He blew the smoke in her direction.

Coughing, she nuzzled into his side, shielding her face from the smoke. She always hated the smell of cigarettes. Recently, though, they were almost a comforting smell. It clung to her clothes, hair, skin, a small reminder of him.

He leaned against his truck, his head tilted up towards the sky. He stared at the stars, expressionless.

"So…how far are we from your family's house?" she asked, breaking the steady silence, craning her head up to look at his face. She held the hand that was gripping her waist, rubbing small circles into his rough skin.

He hesitated. Something he never does, she even took notice. After a long pause, he grunted. "I dunno, maybe another day's drive?"

She didn't pry after that, she didn't want to make him upset. His family was seemingly a very touchy subject, despite him bringing up the idea of taking her there to meet them.

After a while, he threw the butt of his cigarette on the ground stepping on it. He looked down at her, she was still nestled into his side, her eyes now closed.

He chuckled a bit and grabbed her waist leaning her against the driver's side door. Her eyes flew open. "Now hun, I don't think it's fair I'm drivin' all this way and you get to sleep" He hummed out, leaving a trail of kisses down her neck.

"H-hey! I offered to drive you said no" she pouted, wrapping her arms around his waist, pulling him closer to her.

"I can't trust you driving my truck." He scoffed looking down at her. He moved his finger under her chin, pushing it up so she was staring directly at him. "You're just a dumb little girl huh?" He chuckled. A wolf smirk adorned his lips. His words were always laced with degradation. Like he got off on hurting her feelings.

She gave him a pout and stared at him. She was always starstruck at his sharp features. So classically handsome. He reminded her of James Dean. She loved watching those old movies with her dad back home. What was her dad up to? She made a mental note to call him once they arrived at Johnny's home.

He must have noticed her drifting off, he gave her cheek a rough pat. "Focus darlin', I'm not done with you just yet." His hand drifted under her white tank top, his hands stopped just below her breasts.

"Jo-Johnny…" she stuttered out, shivering from his cold hands. "N-not here… It's dark. What if someone sees…" her voice was laced with nervousness.

He scoffed and pulled his hands away. "You're no fun. C'mon…we can go back in the truck, no one will see I promise" He opened the door and lifted her into the truck, so she was sitting with her legs dangling off the seat, facing the outside. His hands were on either side of her, caging her in. She was now looking down at him.

She bit down on her lip slightly, nervous playing with her hands in her lap. She looked into the darkness behind him. Nothing but a cornfield.

He scoffed a bit and played with the buttons of her shorts. "How bout this…" he stopped, smirking up at her before he continued "I'll be a gentleman and help you out first huh?" his calloused hands yanked down her shorts, his arms hooking underneath her knees pulling her closer to him.

She gasped a bit and grabbed onto his shoulders for support. Her eyes were blown wide, and she frantically looked around, worried about someone seeing her in such a vulnerable position.

He grins widely at her nervous state. "You're too cute" he said mockingly as he leaned down, kissing the inside of her thighs. His hand traveled up to her soaking cunt. He gave it a firm slap before looking up at her face.

Her eyes screwed shut as she began breathing heavily. She felt a warm pulsing in her lower belly. "Now look at that…" Johnny gave a low whistle looking at her wet cunt. "Soakin' wet and I barely even touched you" his words were harsh and mocking. He gave her a long lick up her weeping slit.

She gasped, her back arching into him. "F-fuck…m-more…" she whined out, her hands finding their way into his thick hair. His eyes narrowed and he looked up at her pulling away. He grabbed her neck and glared at her, first warning. "Is that any way to ask me, hun?" He smirked at her "Beg nicely, slut"

"J-Johnny please…" her words trailed off, her eyes tearing up in embarrassment, She felt his grip tighten around her neck. "Please! Please…I'll be good!" He hummed slightly, seemingly satisfied with her half-attempt at begging. He began licking and sucking on her swollen clit. Keeping her steady by gripping her thighs.

She cried out as his tongue traveled into her. Her eyes shifted down to him, his face buried in between her thighs, his eyes shut as he worked her. He was eating her with such force. He hummed a bit as he plunged his tongue deeper into her, creating a vibration that made her shake.

He looked up at her, her eyes were shut again. He reached a hand up and grabbed her throat, all while his face was buried in her cunt. Her eyes shot open. She noticed his glare and her breathing hitched. Second warning. "Eyes on me" he said, his voice muffled.

His frantic sucking and licking continued once her eyes were fully locked on him. He reached his hand down and slipped two fingers into her. He curled them up into her rapidly. She felt a blazing sensation in her lower stomach, and her legs began to shake at the sudden entrance. "I…I'm gonna cum!" she moaned out loudly and flew a hand over her mouth in an attempt to quiet her moans. He let out a muffled chuckle as he felt her come undone in his mouth.

He slowly pulled back. His mouth and chin glistened from her arousal. She stared at him and let out a breathy laugh, her eyes hazy and unfocused. He looked so handsome like that. He stared back at her and grabbed her neck, pulling her in for a rough kiss. She could taste herself on his tongue.

He broke the kiss and gripped her chin "What do you say darlin'" His smirk was wide. "Thank you" she breathed out, laying back, trying to catch her breath.

Johnny grabbed her waist and set her back into the passenger seat. He climbed into the truck and shut the door. She panted and laid against the window staring up at the stars. Her mind felt misty.

Johnny stared at her and rubbed the bulge in his tight jeans. He hardly ever worried about just her pleasure. He always needed something in return. He grabbed her thigh "Aren't you forgettin' something doll?" he said leaning back, his hand fiddling with his belt, trying to undo it. She stared out the window, ignoring him. She couldn't look away from the millions of stars lighting up the night sky.

He scoffed a bit and grabbed her neck, yanking her towards him, into his lap. "I'm gettin' tired of you not listenin' to me" he growled out pulling out his throbbing cock, final warning. He set her in his lap and glared at her. She gasped, staring at him, her eyes wide with fear. "I'm…I'm sorry-"

"Show me that you're sorry" he stroked himself a couple of times before easing her down on his cock. Her eyes widened at the feeling of him filling her so suddenly. He didn't let her adjust, he just began thrusting up into her, while gripping her neck. Keeping her in place.

She held onto his shoulders, her head kept hitting the top of the truck as he thrust into her. She whined out and tried to move her head into the crook of his neck but he stopped her. "Nooo you're gonna look at me while I fuck you, slut" he snapped pushing her head back.

Her head hit the roof, over and over again. Each thrust burned. She stared at him, his eyes were so dark, she could barely even see him due to the darkness of the surrounding country road. She knew he was smirking, getting off on her discomfort. She was lucky he even decided to pleasure her first, she should be grateful, right?

“Fuckkk” he groaned out lowly as he continued his brutal thrusts into her. “You’re my good girl huh?” His hands traveled to her face, pulling her down to kiss him roughly. She whined a bit at this but kissed him back anyway. The stretch of his cock was becoming too much to bear. She prayed he would finish soon.

She found herself focusing on the scar that ran down his face, subtle but there. It was a way she feigned eye contact with him, she found that keeping unbreaking eye contact with him was almost impossible. His thrusts became jagged and sloppy. A small moan escaped his lips that he quickly covered with a loud chuckle. “I’m gonna fill you up real good darlin’”

Despite the intense burning, she felt herself coming close to the edge as well. She was able to sneak down a hand to rub her clit, Johnny was too worried about himself to stimulate her like that. “Please…please…” she begged, tears streaming down her face. She didn’t know if she was begging to finish or for him to stop.

With a loud groan, Johnny thrust back up into her one more time, releasing his hot load deep inside her sore cunt. She let out a loud moan as she came undone as well, shivering at the feeling of him filling her up. She collapsed into his chest, the top of her head aching.

He let out a laugh before setting her beside him, he cleaned himself off with some napkins from the glove department, tossing them carelessly out the window.

She shook as she looked out the window again, looking up at the stars again. 1…2…3… she counted, trying to distract herself from the sickly feeling of his cum dripping out of her. Without another word from him, she felt the soft rumble of the truck as he started it back up. Continuing, farther and farther out of town.

#johnny slaughter #texas chainsaw massacre #johnny slaughter x reader #tcm game #tcm #smut #johnny slaughter smut #johnny tcm game #bitterpotionnfics

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ddwxrld · 5 months

Text

Hugs

Neteyam x fem!omaticaya!reader

TW: fluff, slight angst, reader is sad, Neteyam is amazing, use of Y/N,

A/N: this is my first post and my first time writing on tumblr so please understand how much time I spent trying to figure out how to use this app as I haven’t opened it in like a year!

Summary: you get into an argument with your father about choosing a mate and Neteyam finds you and decides to comfort you.

•{}•{}•{}•{}•{}•

The cold winds of the forest blew past you as your back pressed against the harsh and splintering bark of the tree behind you.

With a deep sigh, you drifted off into your thoughts.

You had just gotten into an argument with your father about how “a woman needs a man to provide for her and the family” or “woman cook, clean and heal, they don’t fight”.

You loved your father, you really did, but sometimes he just pushed you too far.

When you and your father got into arguments, it wasn’t ever really resolved. More like Forgotten. Neither person would apologise, or admit their in the wrong and they never even brought it up, never forgiven, only forgotten.

Every time you got into an argument with him, you feel alone. Like no one on Pandora could save you.

No one except Neteyam.

You and Neteyam had became best friends when you were kids. Your father was best friends with Jake sully as they had worked together in the RDA before switching fully into navi form and moving to Pandora.

As for your mother, she was said to be a beauty. She died from a fire that the RDA started last year. Ever since it’s just been you and your dad.

Neteyam was there to comfort you after her death. Just like he always was.

You and Neteyam had a pact. ‘Always be together during our high and lows, for even death won’t keep me from being by your side’.

Ever since childhood, you and Neteyam would repeat this to each other during rough times or sadness.

“Hey, flower. What are you doing?” Said a deep and thick accented voice.

Speaking of the best friend.

He sat down, slightly confused at your silence. Only then did he freeze at the sight of your cold tear stained cheeks.

“Oh, Y/N. What happened?” He asked, tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear.

You sniffled, wiping your stupid tears of your cheeks.

“Hi, Teyam.” You sniffeld again, giving him a wonky smile, not daring to meet his eyes. Yet you could feel his warm gaze burning in through the side of the head.

“My dad wanted me to get you for dinner, it’s your favourite~” he offered, but still not a glance.

“I’m sorry, it’s just my dad got all fussy on how I need to find a mate because a woman needs a man to provide” you groan.

Neteyam softly brushed his fingers through your complex curls.

“Syulang, please look at me?”

You shifted your gaze slowly and trialed your eyes from her lap to his from beside you.

“Good. Now, do you want a hug?” Neteyam smiled cheekily yet gently.

“Yes please” you accepted. making Neteyam squash you in a really tight hug that was practically unescapable.

A silence washed over the two teens as they hugged each other tightly in the tree. The silence wasn’t awkward or uncomfortable, but comforting in many ways for both of them.

The peaceful silence was interrupted by Neteyam.

“I think we’ve stayed past curfew.” He winced at the thought of Jake scolding the two.

“Who cares? Let’s just stay here tonight.” You suggested, snuggling into Neteyams chest, trying your best not to drift off into sleep.

Neteyam’s hand stroked through your hair, spinning his fingers round your curls. “Fine, but when we get in trouble I hope you know it’s your fault.”

“I will, don’t worry” you tiredly slurred, a small yawn escaping your lips.

“You tied there, Syulang?” He lightly chuckled, only to be answered by a nuzzle in his chest. With a yawn of his own, his relaxed back on the tree, holding you in his arms.

“How was your day, Teyam?” You asked drowsily. He rubbed circles into your back with his thumb as he thought about his day.

“It was quite good. The best part was when Dad had to split up two boys who were fighting over something,” he smiled cheekily, staring up at the sky.

“Oh yeah, I heard about it. Apparently Yëla cheated on Viko at the party by sleeping with Aktoro.” You responded, spilling the gossip that Kiri had told you earlier today.

You continued to ramble on about the clans recent drama. Neteyam just stayed silent, listening to every word you spilled.

Until you eventually drifted off.

Sleeping in his arms, you both lay cozily in a deep sleep.

•{}•{}•{}•{}•{}•

#neteyam #neteyam x reader #neteyam sully #sully family #avatar #avatar the way of water

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agent-cupcake · 9 months

Text

grimm

Pairing: Death (Puss in Boots: The Last Wish) x f!catgirl Reader

Synopsis: The series of unfortunate events and clichés that lead you to meeting a familiar nightmare in the middle of the woods beneath a full moon. It goes about as well as you'd expect.

Warnings: 18+, explicit smut w/ a nonhuman character (not a nonhuman cock though), noncon, death, violence

Tags: alternate universe, angst, size kink, object insertion, masochistic reader, praise (voice) kink, outdoor sex

Words: 18.5k

Notes: It's been a while, huh? Yes, today we are going to fuck the furry from a kids movie, I'm not sure if y'all are even surprised but. Anyway. On the one hand I'd say I feel shame but on the other they shouldn't have made him talk so sexy, which is not my fault. All the Spanish is from DeepL and context.reverso. Hopefully any mistakes aren't too bad and you don't find it too cringe, or you can manage to look past it for my sake.

Once upon a time there lived in an unassuming little corner of the world a man. A husband to a beautiful wife and a father of two lovely children. He was strange, perhaps, for the ears atop his head, and the vertical irises through which he looked, and the spry springiness of his limbs. Stranger too for his chosen lifestyle, a traveling merchant whose blood couldn’t get any lower. Ravi, sons and daughters of Bastet, relics of a bygone era. For all that he was strange, however, he was steadfast. Bolstered rather than weakened by the critical eye of other men, the unyielding cut of his silhouette and unshakable confidence made the man a lord in his own right. He had been here, and there, traveling wherever the wind called him, and always with certainty. If his chosen path was obstructed by a swath of trees, he would see the forest leveled before he so much as considered choosing a different route. A further measure of his determination, however, would prove that if he were told that those same obstructing trees were sacred, he would scorch the earth so thoroughly that not even ash dared remain beneath his boots when he trampled on the hallowed ground.

One day, the man looked down to admire how far he had come throughout the years, to smile upon the many grand achievements he had stacked up along the way. But then, looking a little closer, he couldn’t help but notice how long his shadow had become. While he had been distracted, the sun made its arc above him, and now it was falling towards the horizon, casting him in ever dimming light. Taking with it, he thought, Ra’s blessing. He began to tally up all of the things he had been ignoring. A stiff back, sore joints, fatigue after a day of travel, a headache after a night of frivolity. He noticed that while his son had grown tall and strong, he had been shrinking. The lovely apple cheeks of his beloved wife had begun to dull, wrinkles forming around her eyes. This realization filled the man with a feeling he had never experienced before—uncertainty. And then, fear.

Unable to face the dark, he vowed that he would not allow it, he would do whatever it took to escape such a terrible fate. Unbeknownst to him, this audacious belief invited the attention of a creature with a unique penchant for mischief and an appetite for fear. A wolf. He told the man that he could run, he could fight, he could rage, he could try to pull the sun back with all his might, but in his desperate frenzy to escape the night, he would only incur a great debt. An immeasurable bounty. One, perhaps, that would condemn not only him, but his family and the legacy he had created. A terrible fate.

“I do not fear you,” the man said.

The wolf laughed.

It was to be a chase, then. A hunt. The man ran, searching for something, anything, that would save him, traveling here and there with purpose, scouring the shadows, tracking down myth and rumor with a passion bordering mania. There had to be, he reasoned, a way to remain in Ra’s boundless glory. Circling ever nearer, the wolf harried his prey to the last.

Until, on the lush outskirts of a certain small village, a small ravi family set up their wagon for the night. The woods swarmed with the sound of bugs, the early summer heat simmering back down into the cold dampness of spring nights. Haunting and dreamlike, echoing in the dark, signaling finality, a song. And then, a figure in the dark. A familiar face, a frightening foe.

There, in the night, beneath the full moon, the hunt ended. Nowhere to go, nowhere to run, his obsession had taken him so completely that the only remaining recourse was a final fit of fury against the dying light. Perhaps, in those last moments, the man realized what a fool he had been. Too late. The wolf had grown bored of the game.

Horror of horrors, serendipity struck. A child who should have been tucked up tight in her bed, sheltered and safe from what lurked in the dark, grew bored of counting sheep. She hadn’t yet learned to fear the night, thinking her father to be playing a delightful trick. Creeping, quiet, curious, and ignorant to the cruelty of the dangerous unseen, she breached the forest’s uncanny shadows. Deeper, deeper, until she discovered the truth. Her father’s corpse hit the ground, his empty eyes never seeing her terror, his deaf ears never hearing her scream.

The gray wolf bid her to run, and she did. It was inevitable that they should meet again.

one chance.

Before that night, you never gave much thought to death, or luck, or malevolent forces, or tragedy. It was only when you were huffing, puffing, screaming for help, crying wolf, that true fear crept into your life. Once the door opened, it could not be closed. Although the monster was long gone, its shadow remained.

And they said: you were lucky to have escaped. They said: ravi law, loose as it was, could not be counted on for satisfactory justice. They said: the murder could not have been committed by any of the simple townsfolk. They said: it would be a blight upon the poor ordinary people for the case to drag on and on. And so the crime was tried thus—your brother, suffering a fit of drunken rage, donned a mummer’s wolf mask and murdered your father.

Not even a day passed before the so-called trial was held. The only building that could accommodate the gawkers and jury was the local barroom, a place that stank of old wood and fermentation. You didn't know the man acting as judge, you did not recognize any of the faces around you, only that they were indifferent, cold, and your brother's life rested in their callous hands. He sat near the front as the case was laid out for the gawkers, his face drawn and shadowed. Clapped in irons, his mouth covered to protect his jailors from his sharp ravi canines, ears as low as you’d ever seen them, looking not so much a man on trial than livestock on auction.

"You’re the daughter, are you not?” the judge called. It took you a moment to realize he meant you, his dull eyes signaling you out.

Someone spat at your feet.

“Filthy half breed."

"They’re incestuous, the father must have found them in the act."

“They’re both guilty.”

“Go ahead. Run. No one escapes me.”

The low whisper, practically a growl, made your ears twitch, your heartbeat racing as you scanned the faceless crowd with dry eyes, blinking fast to try and find the source of that terrible voice. But the faces were all human, drawn with cruelty and disgust, but human.

The judge banged on the table, catching your attention. “Young lady! You witnessed the crime, yes?”

You shook your head in rejection of the phantom voice and cleared your throat, breaking free of your mother’s grasp to stumble towards the judge. "Yessir," you said. "Yessir, I am… I-I did."

“Go on, then. We’ll hear your testimony.”

It was difficult to breathe, the air was stuffy and hot, your skin too tight. You could feel the people watching you, the weight of their eyes.

"You've got it all wrong, sir,” you said. “It-it wasn't him. He couldn't-"

"The facts only, if you please," the judge said, cutting you off. "Did you or did you not see the man who attacked you?”

Hot, heavy tears formed in your eyes, primed to travel the same salty tracks down your cheeks left by those before. Fear, pain, sadness, exhaustion, all of it compounded and ached within you. You didn’t want to remember. You didn’t want to think. But you had to.

"It was no man, sir," you said, your voice choked.

“Do you mean to tell me a woman killed your father?”

“No sir, it was an… an evil spirit.” Behind you, people muttered and whispered with disbelief. Shock. Doubt. Anger. The judge's jaw tightened, his eyes narrowing. “He had the head of a jackal, or a-a a wolf. ”

“A mask.”

“No, sir. It was not a man.” You heard your mother’s scolding voice from behind you, and your brother raised his head to look at you with shock, but you ignored it all.

"I should hope I don’t need to remind you of the severity of these proceedings,” the judge said, his eyes narrowed into slits.

"I know what I saw,” you replied, your hands balled into tight fists at your side.

"Your testimony is that an evil spirit with the head of a wolf murdered your father and attacked you?" The judge clarified, not so much as pretending to believe you. The question pulled a bit of laughter from the crowd. Your mother grabbed at your arm to pull you back, but you refused to let her. Instead, you set your stance and jaw.

"Yessir."

More laughter, as if there was anything humorous about this situation.

“I know,” the judge said loudly, silencing the crowd with a wave of his hand. “I know that you’ve been through a terrible thing, and I am sorry about that. That’s no excuse, however, and I mean this, it is no excuse for you to lie. You might think you’re defending your brother, but anything less than the absolute truth only strengthens the case against him. And, if I’m to be completely honest, I find this behavior deeply troubling. Perhaps it is acceptable among your kind to believe in stories of evil spirits and the like, but it is not appropriate here. We’re a good, God fearing people.”

“This isn’t a story. I saw it,” you insisted, your throat swollen and the world blurring up with tears. “The beast might still be in the woods, if you just look-”

“Look for the big bad wolf?” the judge asked, a bushy gray eyebrow rising high, inviting further discontent and disbelieving laughter from the people behind you. He sighed, once again calling for order and shaking his head. “It pains me greatly, you must understand, I want to be fair considering your circumstances, but this really is unacceptable. If you won’t testify against him, your father’s killer-”

“I told you,” you insisted, a little louder.

“No, young lady. And I repeat—no. What you have done is insult me and the fine people of this town with your absurd heathen fiction,” he told you.

“That’s not-”

“Your kind think you are above civilized law, but understand that we are giving your father the justice he, as a son of God, deserves by right. Your father brought fear and tragedy into the hearts of these people, and your scoundrel brother committed an unthinkable crime. There are those who don’t believe your brother is deserving of a trial at all, considering the substantial evidence against him. Indeed, this is a kindness I am extending to you and your mother. So, for the last time, I will not tolerate your pagan fiction. Do you understand?”

“I do,” you said, although you could feel your confidence wavering, a shaky cold sweat beading up on the back of your neck, pooling acidically in your stomach. He wasn’t going to listen. He didn’t believe you. “But I haven’t lied, I know what I saw.”

That caused an uproar, the people’s voices overlapping, a relentless and meaningless wave of noise. Demanding you be silenced, removed, executed.

“That is enough,” the judge exclaimed, and you didn't know if he spoke to you or the people. “So far, I have disregarded accusations that you were complicit in your brother’s crime, but if you continue to behave in such a manner, I may have to reconsider. That is a charge of patricide, young lady. Do you not have enough decency to spare your mother the loss of another child?”

You looked at him, really looked at him, overcome with a dizzyingly caustic rush of pain and disbelief at the injustice. He didn’t care if your brother was or was not guilty, or who had actually killed your father. To him, the death of a ravi man was meaningless, let alone two. Let alone three. He saw your eyes and ears and that was it.

Trying to fight back the thick swell of fear and pain and anger, you breathed carefully in and out, staring straight up in an attempt to fight the tears.

“It wasn’t my brother,” you said, forcing the words from your mouth without inflection. "He would never, ever… he wouldn't."

“Did you,” the judge asked icily, bluntly, “or did you not see the face of the man who attacked you?”

Red eyes, a long snout, a canine mouth full of deadly sharp teeth. A spirit attempting some approximation of the god of death with twin sickles in hand, trying to twist the kind shepherd’s image into one of terror, a creature wearing the face of evil itself. But the truth cowered away from something far more potent, shamefully grotesque. Self preservation.

“No,” you said, realizing too late the damning significance of that answer, wanting to add more but not knowing what. When you looked your brother in the eye, you understood. And it didn’t matter what you said after that point. You were the girl who cried wolf.

two times questioned.

That night, a great storm blotted out the stars and made it impossible to see more than a few feet in front of yourself. You made off into the night with your meager possessions packed up in a sack and some vague idea of where to go in the back of your head, mostly memories of better times. Anywhere was better than the home for wayward girls you had been shuffled into, a place that was a charity in name only.

Ultimately, you didn’t make it far, not even out of the city. There was no place in the world left for you, and you were afraid of the dark, and it was so, so cold.

Falling to your knees at the side of the road, mud splattering you with the force of each raindrop, you cried. Sobbed, curling in on yourself, desperate to wish it all away, wailing louder than the winds could blow as if your misery would overcome nature itself. You tried not to cry much anymore, tried not to show your weakness, but now it all came flooding out. Agony deep enough to drown, heavy enough to crush.

Until you heard a song beneath the gale. Impossible that it should reach you above the riotous storm, impossible that you should know its melody. Panic slushed through your veins in an instant, and you stumbled upright, ready to run from a danger you had so desperately tried to convince yourself didn’t exist. Red eyes and silver sickles and-

When you whirled around to run, you were not caught by a wolf, but by the man you could only think of as the prison warden.

Caked with mud and soaked to the bone, he dragged you back to the home, and you let him, fearing what lurked in the darkness more than you feared the punishment your escape attempt would earn.

Although it wasn’t bright, the light blinded your glazed eyes. You slipped when he released you, but felt nothing when you fell, leaving a muddy smear upon the tiles. Your fingers, bleached of color, were numb to all sensation, slipping when you tried to support yourself. The cold burrowed into your very core. You shook. Violently, as if your soul itself trembled.

Fear had kept it all locked up tight in your chest. Fear of your shame for crying wolf. Fear that if you gave breath to the creature that haunted your dreams, he would be made real. You told yourself that your father was murdered by a man in a mask, but the wolfman haunted you, the face of oblivion, that song and that laugh.

Distantly, you became aware of a commotion, and then the headmistress appeared before you. A towel was forced into your clumsy hands by the same girl who helped you get to your ice-block feet, muttering something about drying off. You doubted a single towel would manage that feat, but you held fast onto the fabric with fingers you couldn’t feel.

“Where in God’s name,” the headmistress demanded, haughty even in her dressing gown and curlers, “do you think you were going?”

You hugged the towel to your chest, feeling the fluffy material grow heavy and limp from your embrace. Ruined by your touch. Shaking so hard your teeth clacked, the entire world jittered and hazed, your bones practically vibrating, tears and snot dripping down your face with the rainwater.

“I asked you a question,” she said, her tone a little more shrill. Anger smoldered in her voice, but your eyes found purchase only on the lacy hem of her nightcoat. Such fine lace would have been imported from the north, your father had sold more than his fair share of it. You owned several pretty dresses decorated with similar frills, once. A lifetime ago. A life that ended with one decisive slash of silver. “Where were you going? Running off with a boy?”

Wide open fields of rippling golden wheat, smooth red cliff sides overlooking deep drops into the abyss, frothy blue waves licking pale sandy shores. Places you knew, places you had only heard about. Ravi weren’t meant to stay in one place, yours was a people of wanderlust and breeze.

The lady stepped forward and slapped your cold, numb cheek. You stumbled, slipping back onto the floor. “You will answer when I ask you a question,” she said. “I will not repeat myself again.”

“I wanted to see my mother,” you finally told her, your voice barely comprehensible from the way you were shaking, more tears welling up. The pain was there, was always there, and it burned hotter than the biting blue on your fingers and toes.

“Oh, for the love of… you’re well on your way to joining her,” she said. “What in the world was I thinking, allowing you into my home…”

You stayed silent. There was no defense you could offer, no excuse you could provide. She sighed, annoyed.

“I’ll decide your punishment in the morning. Assuming you don’t catch cold and die.” She laughed once, a short sound. “I should be so lucky.”

Die. Your sluggish brain was slow to process that word, churning it round and round in a swirl of equally unpleasant thoughts. When you breathed, the air rattled in your chest. Your mother made the same sound at the very end, as if death had already planted its seed in her body, slowly infecting her from the inside out. Fear had never come for her, not like with your father or brother. There was only vacuous ecstasy, the madman’s bliss of fever. When you pictured what she looked like, it was her hollow eyes staring into nothingness, her bones poking out beneath waxy skin in unnatural angles and blood bubbling upon dry lips. “I am going to see them soon,” she told you, smiling. It was the first time since your brother’s execution that she didn’t look at you with blame smoldering beneath her pained eyes. “We’ll be together, and it will be beautiful.”

But it was not beautiful.

Death was a hideous, terrible thing. Despair and empty eyes and rotting flesh without poetry or resolution. Blood dripping from curved blades, lives harvested without mercy, red eyes flashing with glee. A neck snapping and a body gone limp at the end of a rope. Agony in a small room that smelled of human waste and sickness. Death was not beautiful.

three failures.

The other girls called you, among other things, murderer.

“She pushed her.”

“Her kind are all like that, thieves and murderers.”

“Freaks.”

The two of you were stuck cleaning windows, balanced precariously high up in the air. The platform got loose, teetering uncertainly two stories up. It could have just as easily been you rather than her, but it wasn’t. Of course you hadn’t pushed her, but who would believe the word of a ravi?

And who would believe you when you told them of the shadow which greeted her down below? A monster you couldn’t believe in. The bastardized form of a benevolent god. The real murderer.

They saw your fear as guilt. And that was that. Murderer. You hadn’t pushed her, that was a fact. But it was suspicious, wasn’t it? There was a pattern of death surrounding you. Punishment.

Every night, you begged forgiveness, begged for freedom from the creature that haunted you. Bastet did not answer. Ra did not answer. Your prayers became pleas, and your pleas weakened into whimpers. Eventually, you stopped asking.

It followed you. Death, less an intangible concept than a lurking threat circling ever nearer, followed. Your father, your brother, your mother, other girls in the home. But not you, no matter how close you came. Accidents happened. Punishment became more and more brutal. Part of it was because of what you were, a belief that a beast could handle rougher treatment. Part of it was your attitude. Punishment. Live, but live in misery. Survive, but survive endless torment. And they said that you were lucky. The beatings were never deadly, although they should have been. The accidents were never fatal, although they could have been. You shouldn’t have survived, but you did.

four minutes.

It was spring, then. The river beside the road gushed with newfound force, overeager after an especially snowy winter. Even the season of life and rebirth was ripe with violence and death. The scent of it seemed to cling permanently to your dirty clothes, cloying in the chill of night. You and three other girls from the charity house followed by the riverside on the way back to town, your faces dusty and feet heavy from a long day of work. There was, as it turned out, quite a bit of money in renting out orphans to satellite farm estates who could launder clothes, clean carpets, polish silver, and scrub cast iron. No money for you or the other girls, but money nonetheless.

The three chatted as they walked in front of you, a conversation you tuned out. Long had you grown accustomed to walking behind them, ignored and withdrawn. Trailing behind like a shadow, an afterthought. In so-called polite society, that’s all ravi were. They—they with their round irises and human ears, with their unmarked faces and smooth canines—didn’t want you at their side. You understood things like that now, things you had been so blissfully unaware of in your childhood.

You watched their worn-out shoes marching on in synchronized steps. Watched when they suddenly stopped, your eyes drawn up in confusion as they turned towards you with big smiles.

"Those flowers are awfully nice, you should see if you can cross the river to pick some for us."

"I’d go myself, but your kind are more agile than real people, right?"

"The rocks make a perfect bridge for you to cross."

Requests from them, although you weren’t sure they could be called anything other than orders, weren’t abnormal. The only thing lower than an orphaned girl was an orphaned ravi girl. That was the way of it. Rather than forming a bond of solidarity, they emphasized what little status they had left by pushing you around. Surely there were similar flowers on this side of the river, but that wasn’t the point.

Biting your lip, you looked at the rocks spanning the river’s violent course to the other side. It wasn’t much of a bridge. Attempting to cross was, at best, stupid. If you fell, you would be helplessly carried away by the water, thrashed about against the rocks. Dead, surely. But if you denied them, they would almost certainly do worse. Whisper words of your supposed misdeeds to the headmistress, spread lies that would earn you punishment. Malice gleamed in their empty, hollow eyes.

"All right," you said, feigning indifference as you sized up the river.

The girls smiled and tittered as you faced the river. The water roared. Nerves had your hands shaking, but you didn’t let them show.

With a big breath and a mental prayer to Bastet to steady your feet, you stepped onto the first rock. Beneath the worn sole of your boot, the rock was slippery. You set your jaw, going to take another step.

Something knocked against your back. While it was a light touch, the surprise jolted your balance.

Just like that, the rock slipped out from under you. An undignified squawk left your mouth, and your arms flailed around empty air desperately to regain your footing, but you couldn’t manage it.

The water hit as hard as the ground might, immediately dragging you under.

For a moment that seemed to consume forever entirely, animal panic. You inhaled a lungful of water, thrashing wildly. You tumbled sideways as the river dragged you along, hitting rocks on the way. You violently struggled against its unstoppable current in an attempt to get your head above the water.

Unable to breathe, unable to orient yourself, you were as good as dead.

Then you slammed against a rock. The agonizing impact gave you enough of a painful shock to find purchase against it, slicing your palms against the rough edges as you held fast against the water’s oppressive tow. Blindly, you managed to find which way was up and dragged yourself to it. And then you were vomiting river water, hacking it out of your lungs and desperately trying to suck in gasps of air.

Feeling as heavy and broken as a corpse, you managed to flop onto the bank, covering your entire front with mud, crawling through it to drag yourself out of the water completely. It was there that you came eye to eye with three familiar pairs of shoes.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to bump into you.”

“I guess cats can swim after all.”

“You’re lucky that rock was there, huh?”

You coughed up more water, coughed until you were hacking up blood, wheezing and shuddering with bone-deep violence. There would be a terrible bruise on your stomach. But you were alive because of it. Pain, and life. Lucky you.

five years.

Barely into your lanky teens and with nothing more than meager pocket change to live on, you made your final escape from the charity house and went west. The most recent beating was proof enough that if you stayed, you would die. The woman who stitched you up said you only narrowly avoided it this time. You knew a coffin was the sole eventuality waiting for you there. So you left. Despite the time spent there, you parted with no sentimentality for what you would be leaving behind, or excitement for what laid ahead.

In a way, you were following your father’s example. His legacy. In his final days, you heard him muttering about the sun going down. Your brother whispered that he’d grown paranoid of his own death, that it was why your family never stayed in any place for too long. He was driven by a mean, feral fear and even aggression towards death, the cornered-rat instinct to defend your life at any cost, to protect the pitiful remains of existence as an animal would. You thought you understood. So you pressed against your bruises and exhaled slowly, accepting the pain as proof that you were still alive.

Dust kicked up a big cloud behind the wagon, baking beneath the heat of the sun. Although the world was alive with birds and bugs and the sound of hoofs on the road and wheels crunching over ground, you couldn’t empathize. Crusty from a night of fitful sleep, your eyes cringed away from the garish sunlight, your head pounding angrily. Pain and anxiety from your first night on your own kept you awake and, when you did manage a few hours of sleep, you had bad dreams. A fiction where your family was restored and you were all together again. Whole, untainted by horror and death. You woke up hollow and sick and empty, unalive but breathing.

“Are those real?” the girl beside you asked, breaking you from your thoughts. She pointed at your ears, her eyes wide with curious innocence. You imagined that question had been building up for a while, ever since you hitched a ride on her father’s wagon to the nearest town, the two of you sitting in the back of the bed with your legs swinging over the passing road. She was very young, her round-cheeked smile missing a single tooth and bright colored ribbons in her hair. He was going to the next town over to sell goods from his farm.

"Quinta!" her father scolded sharply.

“It’s okay,” you said. It was better to be asked outright than to endure the side glances. “They’re real.” You tilted your head to show her. Quinta reached out to pet the fur, her chubby little hands cautious.

“What are you?” she asked, getting another stern look from her father over his shoulder. Not that you blamed her. He probably didn’t know either, ravi didn't often leave their small communities, and they were practically unheard of in this part of the world. Little wonder, some establishments wouldn’t so much as let you inside. It was a very positive mark on his character that he allowed you to ride on his wagon in the first place, most people wouldn’t.

“I’m ravi.”

She blinked. “Is that why you look like a cat?”

“I guess so.”

Quinta considered that for a moment, staring at you unabashedly. It wasn’t just your ears that were different, otherwise you could have covered them up and avoided the scrutiny. With round eyes and vertical pupils, markings seemingly painted over your cheeks, you stood out regardless of what you did or where you went. Ravi were strangers to everyone, uprooted and adrift, low as the dust trailing beneath your feet. That fact hadn’t changed after you ran away from the charity house, you merely traded the title or orphan for that of vagrant.

“My mom won’t let us keep cats, we only have a dog,” Quinta finally announced. “Do you like dogs?”

You shrugged.

“Are you afraid of them because of-” She put her hands over her head, mimicking your ears.

“We are natural enemies,” you said, although the comment didn’t come across as the joke you intended. Perhaps because it wasn’t a joke.

Quinta didn’t say anything, looking back at the passing road and her swinging feet. The warm air smelled like trees and dust and the stacks of straw piled up on the back of her father’s wagon. When the breeze blew, you got whiffs of the approaching town. Manure, cooking food, fire smoke, and that tangy, sweaty scent of so many people all crowded in one place.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Somewhere else.”

“Oh.”

You looked down, staring at the road. The sun beat down on your neck, sweat beading up on your hairline. You could hear the chorus of a small town’s buzzing crowds as the wagon pulled closer.

“We’ll come back tomorrow,” Quinta said. “Will you come to our house? I bet you’ll like my dog, he’s really, really nice. My mom is there, you can meet her.”

You smiled, feeling a sharp little pang at her sweet innocence. “Thank you, I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, please say you will.”

“Quinta, that’s enough,” her father chided. She frowned, but said nothing else.

The wagon pulled to a stop where the animals could be hitched. You hopped off and stretched, looking around the town. You weren’t really sure where you would go next. Far away. As far as possible.

“Thank you, sir,” you told the man, bowing politely.

He nodded gruffly, and you knew you shouldn’t linger. Still, you couldn’t help but glance back at the sound of his heavy grunt. When he passed the wagon bed, Quinta jumped up onto his back, her arms wrapped tight around his neck. He was quick to rebuke her, scowling as he put her on the ground. That clearly hurt her feelings, turning away with a trembling lower lip and furrowed brows. You felt, for a terrible moment, a great pain in your chest.

You wanted to tell her that he was just busy. Maybe he could be cold and stern, but that didn’t mean he didn’t love her. You wanted to tell her to love him while she could, that time was finite. Right then, you weren’t looking at a stranger and his daughter, but at a little girl with ears too big for her head and a man who waved at her from the driver’s seat with a sun-crinkled smile, a man who tweaked those fluffy ears with calloused fingers, and a man who kissed her forehead with paper-dry lips.

But then you blinked, sunblind and a little dizzy, and turned away from the scene.

You thought of your father, love for him tender sweet and swelling in your chest, overwhelming. But quickly, always so quick, his smiling, twinkly eyes were emptied as his body fell to the ground, deprived of dignity in those final moments. And the monster turned from him to face you with a wild expression, a growl in its throat. He said you would meet again. The big bad wolf was not real, he was a masked madman, a creature of fiction. All the same, your anxious, cold gaze scanned the crowd of many faces around you. Haunted. Hunted.

sixth sense.

Blisters covered your hands, and you couldn't stop coughing, your body seizing with fits of it. The tangy sour stench of smoke infected every pore of your body, saturated your lungs with its acrid excretions. Somehow, despite the horror of escaping a building as it burned down, you were alive. You had no idea what had woken you up, but it happened before anybody even noticed the fire. Others weren’t so lucky. The girl who slept every night two beds down from you, who was innocent, who had never done anything at all to you, was dead.

"It's not your fault that you couldn’t get to her in time. You were lucky enough to get out with your life," you were told, an attempt at consolation. A lie.

It was your fault. Your punishment. Your presence invited the flame to spark a blaze in the boarding house for working young women, and yet you had lived while someone else died. Above the sound of so many voices, of a chaos world attempting to fix such a tragedy, you could hear it. She screamed for as long as she was able, until her lungs were too coated in sooty black smoke to make a sound, until her flesh melted by the infernal heat. Other women boasted swaths of charred skin, blisters popping bright red and gruesome, bones broken from leaping out windows. Their lives would be ruined by this, by the sheer misfortune of being near you.

And as the flames licked the sky, you could have sworn you saw an inhuman face at the flickering orange edge where the light tapered into shadow, his eyes not so much reflecting the blaze as they were consuming the fire’s callous violence, soaking in the terror which mingled with the smoke.

Then you blinked watery eyes, and the shadow was just a shadow.

There was nothing for it, you left town as soon as you were well enough. Not soon enough, clearly.

It was your fault, your punishment, but terribly, shamefully, you kept thinking, over and over and over, at least it wasn’t you. You breathed in air that still stank of the memory of murderous smoke and felt grateful that you would recover from this incident.

That selfish drive was the crux of it all, the reason you could never allow yourself to move on. After so many years, most people would have found a way forward. They took their anguish in stride and did something with their life. But you didn’t. For you, there was no forgetting, and there was no moving on. You couldn’t be allowed happiness in a life others had been denied, a life that you hoarded so rabidly. Even cowards had to draw a line somewhere, didn’t they? No matter how miserable, you struggled to squeeze one more day out of the harsh world, to carve yourself another miserable hour, and then, crippled by pain and smoke and fear, felt a coward’s joy when facing tragedy because at least it wasn’t you.

Lucky, lucky, lucky you.

seven rainbow hues.

"Watch out!"

It happened so fast. That was the cliche, but the truth. Time did not wait for you to catch up in moments where survival came down to muscle memory. Panic and surprise cut up your perception in choppy little bits. One second you were walking down the road, you noticed a man beneath a falling beam and lunged, and then you were flat on your ass in the middle of a road, adrenaline spiking your heart rate and your entire body shaking with it. So little time had passed that the warning was still tangy in your mouth, the sound stifled by the echoing impact.

Someone was shouting. Screaming.

Sitting up, little rocks grinding into your skinned palms, you looked at the fallen beam not even a foot away. Had you erred even a few inches to the right, you would have been, at the very least, catastrophically injured. Just like the man you tried to push out of the way. He was screaming. His leg was crushed.

But you were fine. Alive.

People swarmed the man to free him from the beam while the world blurred extra bright, the colors of shock overloading your brain, dozens of different voices buzzing together. Someone asked if you were okay. You were. Of course you were. Alive. The carpenter jumped down from his ladder, finally getting the man out from under the beam. A gruesome mess had been made of his shin, bloody and broken. You only watched, a sort of cool numbness had taken the place of adrenaline.

The man's leg was a ruin of flesh and bone, and your only injuries were a bruised tailbone and skinned palms. You should not have survived that.

eight shots of moonshine.

“He reared up real tall, howling like a beast, and that’s when I stuck him,” the hunter said, his expression animated as he recounted the story. It was, by your count, his ninth drink, and the fifth version of his story about how he fought, and escaped, the terrifying half-man-half-wolf beast—el hombre lobo, in the local dialect. It made sense that some cruel spark of fate would invite the subject matter wherever you happened to be, especially now. That’s the way these things always happened, wasn’t it? The world had a way of kicking you when you were down.

You listened to him with half an ear, staring at your chapped, cracked knuckles. Working as a laundress was not kind to your skin. Unfortunately, being ravi and having a limited skill set meant that simple labor was just about all you could get. So you did odd jobs and, once you had enough money, you would be on your way to the next place, and then the next, and the next. Passing through like a ghost, and then gone. Temporary. Just like this bar, this drink, this man and his story. Transient.

“The sound he let out was deafening, and I mean that,” the hunter continued. “I’ve never heard anything like it, not in all my years.”

“That’s not true,” you said loudly, pulling the story to a screeching halt before its predictable conclusion. You hadn’t meant to speak, but you did. If nothing else than to just make him stop. Details changed, but the ending was mostly the same each time. The creature put up a fight, but the hunter was stronger and smarter. Maybe he’d mention the bear trap again, how he watched the wolfman trying to gnaw off its own leg. And it wasn’t like you cared what some random drunk had to say. You didn’t, really. It was the alcohol, and the memories the alcohol was meant to be suppressing, and some misplaced well of fury crammed deep into your gut, unable to be reached or drained or expressed in any meaningful way. Or maybe it was something else, something less palatable. You had a way of testing people’s tempers. Pain was proof of purchase, after all. And you had paid more than your fair share.

“What was that?” the hunter asked, glazed eyes surprisingly lucid when they landed on you, twinkling with an amused sort of incredulousness at being challenged. He had on a sweat stained red shirt and the ruddy complexion to match. Everyone around you was in similar states of drunken disrepair. So were you, for that matter—a shot of something hard and foul tasting past reasonable. Two shots away from having the energy to engage in this stupid argument, which was ridiculous considering you were the one to involve yourself in the first place.

“That didn’t happen,” you said. The few people who had been paying attention in the first place laughed at you, but the hunter seemed intrigued, if irritated, by your attitude.

“Are you calling me a liar?” he asked.

“Do you expect us to believe you fought the big bad wolf?” Those words were old and mean, that of a horrible old man without a shred of mercy in his heart.

Red-shirt’s eyes narrowed. A couple of the men laughed again, sending a few drunken jibes in your direction.

“Is that what you’re supposed to be?” One of his friends called, gesturing at your ears, which twitched under his attention.

“No, no. She’s one of those cat people. The eastern savages,” the man sitting next to you responded, roughly tweaking your ear. He’d made a few friendly comments in your direction throughout the night. And then a few less friendly ones as the liquor loosened his tongue. You winced and ducked away, scowling at him. He grinned. “Have you got any wares to sell us, gata? Or maybe you’re here to put on a show.”

Another laugh, a playful wolf whistle.

“Ah, I understand. I was mistaken,” red-shirt allowed, a mean grin spreading across his face. “It was no wolfman after all. You ought to tell your pa to keep away from these parts. Next time I see him, he won’t get off so easy.”

That drew a bigger laugh from the few people bothering to pay attention. A part of you hated him a little bit, hated him with a riotous, evil sort of passion. His ignorance, his audacity. You hated yourself more for not holding your tongue.

“No, it was her ma,” another man chimed in. “Must have been in heat if she was so focused on you.” You felt a red hot flush rise to your cheeks at that, some uncomfortable mixture of embarrassment and anger.

Needing to calm the impulse of rage, and kicking yourself for having spoken at all, you took a deep breath.

“Aw, pobre gata, don’t be upset,” the man next to you said. Poor cat? He drew out the condescending pet name with a sugary sweetness, going for your ears again. You scooted back to avoid him, nearly falling from the alcohol-induced sway of the world. The men laughed again. “Where’re you going?” he asked. “They’re just teasing.”

You licked your dry lips. You needed to leave, it wasn’t the sort of place you should have been hanging out in the first place. Part of you worried that he might try something. He looked hungry. Worse, part of you wondered if he would, wanted to stick around and find out what kind of situation you’d dug yourself into. Curiosity didn’t come from desire or lust, but from something darker, the impulse of deserved violence. Alcohol made it worse, made you think that maybe you could want it, that you might enjoy being roughed up and used in a vulgar game of intimacy.

“Let me buy you another drink,” he offered. “I promise not to tease you.”

You pursed your lips, and knew you would hate yourself later, and decided that it didn’t matter all that much anyway. “Okay.”

Hours later, you were sweaty, sour with alcohol but no longer drunk enough to tolerate the discomfort, and ultimately dissatisfied with the interaction as you stumbled through the quiet town back to the room you had been renting. The unpleasant scent of sex was all you could smell, it clung to your rumpled dress and messy hair. Evidence of your mistake. Despite being so forward, he hadn’t been what you hoped. Whenever you pulled back, he thought to coax you further with sweet words rather than rough hands. You’d have been better off trying to antagonize the man in the red shirt to get what you really wanted, not a quick upright with a man who wanted to slobber on your neck and call you beautiful.

Disgust, shame—a sickening feeling of wrong had you ducking into an alley, vomiting up a stomach full of bile and alcohol like a homeless wretch, shaking hard enough that your teeth clattered. Snot, stomach acid, and tears smeared against the side of the building when you pressed your fevered cheek against it, the material rough on your skin. But it was cool, and solid, and you were breathing. Alive.

Miserable. Beautiful. That was your mother’s word. An ugly, ugly word. Your shoulders heaved with half-hearted sobs, your skin crawling and stomach twisting. You were alive because the only thing you feared more than the hideous pain of living was beautiful death, and that was the ugliest feeling you could possibly imagine.

Eventually, you collected yourself, wiping your mouth and eyes, and completed your walk of shame, your thoughts lingering on el hombre lobo and the furious hollow in your chest, and the sort of hatred which begged violence and cried for pity.

nine lives.

Afternoon faded into sunset as you walked, and you weren’t too concerned. If anything, you felt the same relaxing sense of relief you always felt when you left one place for another.

No, you didn’t worry at all until twilight gave way to the rise of the moon. That’s when you stopped, frowning up at the sky. Either you were lost or you had severely misjudged the distance. Unfortunately, there was nothing to be done other than continue on and hope that you reached civilization soon. You pulled your cloak a little closer to fight off the chill, adjusting your bag uncomfortably. Summer was coming, but the air retained the cold damp newness of deep spring.

And so you trundled along, reminding yourself over and over that it was okay. While possible, it wasn’t likely that anything would happen to you.

Your anxiety wasn’t helped by the full moon. A morbid coincidence, and a mixed blessing. It was full that night. Illuminating your father’s twisted expression of fear, haloing the impossible beast looming above you, lighting your way when you ran, dying your blood into the color of ink. As always, it was a bit of mischief the universe was having at your expense. It shone the same steady pale silver, bleaching the world in imitation sunshine just like it always had, always did.

A gentle breeze shook the tree canopy, the leaves shivering. Above them, the perfect velvet blue veil of sky was mostly undisturbed by clouds. The stars twinkled and winked, dulled slightly by the radiance of the moon. Bugs wailed and frogs sang their nighttime dirge, an unsettlingly miserable sound. No matter how uncomfortable the sun could be, blinding and revealing, the night was worse. It was the place where nightmares lived, after all. And the woods, the place where the big bad wolf hid.

Right. These were the woods where the hunter claimed to have seen the wolfman those few weeks ago. A chill slithered down your spine at that realization. While it was most certainly a lie, in the dark, it troubled you. It frightened you. There were many things in the deep, dark woods to be afraid of. Hiding, lurking.

Huffing with annoyance at your paranoia, you vigorously shook your head and focused on the path instead. Everything was fine, you just had to keep going.

Seemingly out of nowhere, the wind began to blow a lot harder, catching the hem of your cloak and loose strands of hair, crawling beneath your clothes to make you shiver. At the same time, a shadow slowly closed in around you, a stray cloud covering up the moon. The sudden lack of light made the shadows darken significantly. Goosebumps crawled across your entire body in response to the windy chill, hairs standing on end and visceral discomfort lurching in your gut like a hook behind your belly button. Surrounded on all sides by darkness, stranded in the woods, you were completely and utterly vulnerable.

Then it all—bugs, the frogs, and the wind—everything died. Not slowly, tapering off naturally, but all at once, as if a great dampener was suddenly pressed into the air. And that was strange, that was eerie, that was cause for fear, but the first whistled note shot straight into your core.

Trees were hungry things. They, with their thick wood and big bodies, had an appetite for sound. Echoes, however, were mischievous. They would rather play tricks than be eaten. Back and forth, from everywhere and nowhere, a tune you knew all too well danced amidst the silent forest. The notes jumped from one to the next in a song that should have been cheerful but wasn’t. You didn’t move. You felt like you couldn’t. Standing there, ears perked and twitching in search of any noise aside from the whistling, heart racing, cold sweat gathering on the nape of your neck, you suddenly knew, with an alarming degree of certainty, that you weren’t alone.

Slowly, eyes watering from the sudden burst and disappearance of the wind, you looked up.

The whistler, seeming not to notice you, was no more than a dozen feet ahead, a darker shadow amidst the void, a little off the edge of the clearing. Jarring surprise shot like lightning down your spine at the sight, at how close you were to somebody you hadn’t noticed, so powerful that you stumbled backward on pure instinct. But your foot landed on a mossy rock and the squishy material slid out from under your boot. You tried to find your balance, but you wound up overcorrecting, sending you forward instead. With a yelp and a loud thump, you tumbled onto the ground, landing hard on your elbows and knees.

The song ended.

“¿Tan deseosa estás de ser engullida?” the man asked, amused. You looked up, terrified, but without any moonlight to help you see, the most you could make out was the vague shape of a hooded figure leaning against a tree.

Fear made your hands shaky, your body unwieldy and awkward. Scrambling, unsure if you should have been embarrassed or scared, you got up to your feet. At least you weren’t hurt.

“I-I don’t… no entiendo,” you said, wondering, hoping, fearing, unsure. At least it was just a man. That shouldn’t have been the consolation it was. It shouldn’t have been any consolation at all.

“I asked if you needed any help,” he clarified in an accented voice, amused in a way that made you think he was making fun of you. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I, um… I was just surprised, bu-but it’s okay,” you said, trying very hard to calm down. “I’m fine.”

“Are you sure? I would hate for you to wind up like the last girl who got lost in the woods,” he said. You squinted into the dark, but you couldn’t see any details beyond a shadow. Covered moon or not, the dark was borderline unnatural. “She was gobbled up whole, her granny too. You’ve even got the red hood.”

It took you a second to register that he was messing with you. Entertaining any sort of interaction was foolish, but you couldn’t help your nervous laugh, pulling your cloak closer. “Oh, yeah.”

The stranger laughed in turn, forcefully friendly in a very uncomfortably stilted way. The sound sent a fresh shiver down your spine. “They don’t get very many people coming all the way out here to visit,” the man said. “Are you here to see family, gatita?”

Your ears twitched nervously. “Um… Excuse me?”

“Is that offensive? I can never remember what you beast types call yourselves. Ra… something.”

“Ravi,” you said.

“That’s right. I’ve never been much of a cat person myself, but I can see the appeal. The big eyes, the fuzzy ears… Very cute.” He paused. “Hey, can you purr too?”

You drew back, your awkward moment of uncertainty giving way to dread at the underlying danger of a question like that. While many people scorned you blindly, there were those with a particular taste for half-breeds.

“I need to get going, it’s late,” you said slowly. You didn’t want to turn your back on him, and you had no idea how close you were to town, but anything was better than here.

“Wait, before you go, I heard a story recently,” he said, unconcerned with your response. “It’s about your kind. Stop me if you’ve heard it before.”

“I don’t-”

“Once upon a time,” he said, speaking as if you hadn’t, “a gato got it in his head that one life wasn’t enough for him. Even though he had everything he could ask for—a wife, two children, a successful career, he was proud. He didn’t see why he should have to abide by the same rules as everyone else. Of course, he was warned that it was a bad idea, but it became a… preoccupation of his. He traveled just about everywhere, certain that he could do what no one else had.”

The man paused, giving you a moment to register his words, to feel the slow drip of horror pooling in your stomach.

“It didn’t work out for him, in the end. It never does.”

“Who are you?” you asked, although you had a feeling. A very strange, awful feeling. “How do you-”

“Do you know how it ends?” he asked, pushing away from the tree and standing up, stepping out of the shadows, only a few feet in front of you. Your eyes were better adjusted now, taking in as much light as possible. His hood fell back, letting you see the man in full.

Only, he wasn’t a man.

For a second, the ears on the top of his head made you think he was ravi too. But they were too small. Pointed. Distinctly canine.

Then the rest of it registered.

He wasn’t a wolf standing on hind legs, or a person with wolf features, but some inhuman, impossible mix of the two. His long, toothy snout was distinct to a dolichocephalic skull. A beast. That’s what you would assume given all that thick gray fur, round eyes, and the pointy ears directly on top of the head. But somehow, despite all of that, something about his face registered as perfectly, sickeningly, uncannily human.

And you knew him. You saw him in your nightmares, in the shadows, in the darkest places of your mind. No matter what resolve you had before that moment, all you wanted was to run. You needed to run. But fear, pure and distilled, paralyzed you.

“No? That’s fine, it’s just a story, after all,” he said, the words far too well articulated considering the wolf’s muzzle they were coming from, the shiny sharp teeth through which they were spoken.

You opened your mouth to respond, and instead you whimpered as you exhaled.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You remember me, don’t you? I remember you. Although, you were a lot smaller back then. Who would’ve thought that you’d turn out to be such a looker?" He laughed at that, a stilted chuckle. When you didn’t respond, his demeanor dropped, darkened. “Your fear was intoxicating.”

Leaning forward, he closed his eyes and sniffed at the air like a dog. You couldn’t do anything, your limbs refusing to move even though every cell in your body screamed at you to run. When he leaned back and exhaled, his lips pulled back in what was very distinctly a smile, an expression that should have been impossible for a wolf to make.

“I’ve waited a long time to see you like this again, I worried that it would be disappointing,” he told you, red eyes opening. They were mad. His smile was mad. Dread overwhelmed your system. “But you smell even better than I remember.”

He took a step forward. With a few unnerving exceptions, his body was human enough. Tall, broad shouldered, slightly hunched, wearing clothes like a person. His hands were almost like paws with pads and claws, but were articulated like your own—short one finger. He was no monster. He was a nightmare come to life.

“What’s the matter?” he asked. “Surprised to see me?”

“No,” you whispered, shaking your head. “No, you’re not… not real.”

You could see the excitement in his eyes as he licked his lips with a long tongue, another entirely animalistic motion. The perfect meld of human and wolf traits was fascinating. Sickening. Something that should not exist.

You did nothing other than stare at him with wide eyes as he leaned in. And you did nothing as he raised his hand, dragging the claw in a butterfly kiss over your cheek. “You think?” he asked, the growl in his voice almost like a purr.

That woke you out of your trance and you stumbled back, covering the skin which tingled from the very real touch.

He laughed and straightened out, but didn’t follow you. “It’s not safe to be out here so late. You never know what you’ll find lurking in the woods.”

You swallowed hard, your breathing picking up, the old well of fury cracking open just a little. There should have been more, but the fear was too intense, cold in your veins. “What are you?” you asked, barely audible. Frightened of the answer, but desperate to know.

“Your father called me Anubis. That’s one of your gods, right?”

“You are not a god,” you said, an objection because you couldn’t allow this nightmare, any degree of holy pedigree that you had feared for so long. There was doubt in your voice though, doubt you couldn’t stifle.

“It depends on how you look at it,” he allowed. “But it’s true that I have no interest in being worshiped, and I certainly don’t want your faith. I prefer fear.”

You swallowed hard, shaking your head in a hazy attempt to fight back the swelling tide of fear, to deny him that. “I'm not… not afraid of you, wolf."

That didn’t so much as make him blink. "You fear me more than you fear anything else."

"No! You killed my… my—I hate you."

“Sure you do."

“And because of you, my brother was…” You couldn’t finish the statement, your entire body nearly vibrating from the way you were shaking. “And then mm-my mother...”

“Execution and, what was it, some kind of sickness?” The wolf clicked his tongue. “It’s a harsh world.”

“You took them from me,” you said softly. “You took everything.”

“Do you want revenge, gatita? You wouldn’t be the first.”

The mocking tone of his voice was as bad as a slap across the face. Even if you wanted revenge, what fight could you possibly put up against an impossible creature like him? You flexed your hands and clasped them together, your breathing picking up with the confusion of old fury and sadness and fear.

“I want to know why,” you finally said.

The wolf sighed, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated—and far too human—way as he continued to circle you. “Everybody thinks there’s a reason. There isn’t. Who lives, who dies, it’s all the same to me in the end. But there are those who… tempt fate. Although, I prefer to call it tempting death."

"You're saying that my father wanted to die? You're crazy,” you argued, your shoulders tensing in some form of defense.

"He was especially tempting. His pride, his ego, his fear… I gave him several chances, and he chose to insult me over and over again.” He paused for a moment before continuing, “I may have gotten carried away. You can’t blame me for wanting some fun now and again."

Despite the relative warmth of the night, the air chilled whenever you inhaled, your skin raising with goosebumps. Something in your head clicked, the understanding you had been trying very hard not to acknowledge.

"What are you?" you asked again, but you were thinking that you knew. Of course you knew, it was something you’d known for a long time.

"You know who I am."

"Death," you whispered.

“And you know all about tempting death, don't you? To be honest, I’m starting to lose my patience, gatita,” he practically whispered the pet name, leaning down behind you so the word brushed intimately against your ear, his breath disturbing the fine hairs and making them twitch.

You yelped and jumped away, twisting around. All you could think about was how close all those teeth had been to your ears. Your neck. Death watched as you stumbled even further backwards, hitting a tree and falling against it.

“Watching you survive things that would kill anybody else over and over, it’s unbearable. You throw yourself into danger like you’re trying to tease me.” Genuine irritation glowed in his eyes. Frustration. You shouldn’t have been able to see an emotion like that on such an inhuman face.

You needed to run. Whether or not that was a good idea no longer mattered. Surely he wouldn’t follow you out of the woods, surely sanity would take his place once you were back among civilization, out of the moonlight’s pure lunacy. Your insides squeezed sickeningly. Your heart raced.

“Is it a cat thing? You inherited the ears, the eyes, and, what, the nine lives? I guess that skipped a generation,” Death mused, his demeanor shifting completely right back into amusement. “Or maybe it’s just dumb luck. What do you think, gatita—are you feeling lucky tonight?”

Run. You needed to run.

Death stepped forward.

You had to run.

Rather than get any closer to him to follow the trail, you rolled off of the tree to the side so you could escape into the trees, letting your pack drop to the ground to avail yourself of the extra weight. With your back to the wolf, you sprinted, not caring where it took you, only that it was as far away from him as possible.

Behind you, you heard him calling out to you. You heard him laughing. You gasped and choked for breath, your feet pounding against the forest floor, your streaming eyes blind to anything other than what was directly in front of you. Running, catching the sharp fingers of trees across your arms and face, stray logs and squishy moss and wet grass threatening to trip you with every step. All around, you could hear his laughter, echoing around amidst the trees and in your head.

And for what? Your escape had been doomed from the start, nothing more than the animalistic instinct of prey.

It really only made sense when you realized that Death stood directly in your path, a hulking shadow with red eyes. Your body jolted on instinct and you skittered into a hard stop, momentum pushing you forward while your feet tried to backtrack.

“¿Dónde vas, gatita? Haven’t you heard that it’s dangerous to stray from the path?”

Thoughtlessly, you twisted around, but you were too slow. Or he was too fast. Grabbing a fistful of fabric from the back of your cloak, Death dragged you backwards. And then you were looking into a pair of bright red eyes, choking as your cloak’s tie tightened around your windpipe.

He growled as a wolf would, and you felt base terror in your very core. No matter how humanly he expressed emotion, his face was very decidedly that of a wolf, of a predator that you were naturally wired to fear. A rising surge of bile burned in your throat from running and all you could hear was your heartbeat, thundering ever faster. You choked out a yelp, lashing out however you could in a bid to get free. He easily avoided every attack you threw out, seemingly bored by the attempts, casually holding you at arms length.

“What I really can’t stand,” he told you, his voice low and calm, “is how you waste it. Fighting so hard to stay alive, and for what? Nothing will be lost when I end it.”

“Shut up!” you cried, choking the words out through gritted teeth. You would live. Survive just like you always did. He considered that, licking his lips before irritation once more gave way to excitement.

“Then again,” Death said, letting you down enough to stand on your toes, allowing you to take a breath. Oxygen hit you in a hard rush, you might have fallen over if he weren’t steadying you. “I’m in no rush.”

“Let me go,” you demanded, your breathing ragged, your ears buzzing and ignorant of his words.

Death smiled, his wolfish muzzle pulled back in an expression so human it bordered on obscene. His face was right to yours, you could practically count each of his deadly sharp teeth, see into the soulless depths of those evil eyes.

“Your fear is positively mouthwatering. The poor little kitten is really terrified of el lobo feroz. That fear is the only thing that’s ever given your life purpose. If you think about it, I’m the only reason you keep going. It’s almost flattering.” He licked his lips again, considering you intently. “You don’t mind having some fun before I kill you, right?”

“No!” you screamed the word, but all it did was make his eyes flash with hunger.

“I’m going to eat. You. Up.”

Every muscle in your body went taut, seizing with a different sort of horror. That confounded curiosity to know what he intended, the disturbing impulse to tempt violence, was only heightened by the adrenaline in your system. You had no word for the dark feeling, for the disturbing impulse. Only disgust, swirling dark twisting up hot and low in your gut. With shaking hands, you finally managed to undo the tie around your neck, dropping out of your cloak and onto the ground. And then, before you could even stand up, you were running.

This time, Death didn’t react. No laughter or jeering taunts followed your escape. Dampened beneath the rush of blood in your ears and your feet pounding on the forest floor, the woods were full of the normal sounds. Bugs and frogs and birds and the breeze.

All the same, you knew that el lobo feroz wasn’t far behind. You knew that, and you knew you wouldn’t escape from him. Not this time. But you couldn’t just stop. So you made your frantic flight through the trees, sprinting as fast as you could to escape a creature which existed in opposition to all that was sane or safe. Death himself.

From behind you, in front of you, on both slides, all around, the lilting whistled tune finally began. Panic, bright red and raw, caused you to trip. There was a jolt when your foot caught on something, sending a little shockwave all up your body, then a lurch as gravity forced you down and momentum dragged you forward. For a moment, true weightlessness. And then you were skidding and somersaulting along the ground, skinning your hands and knees all over again before you collapsed, your chin painfully knocking against the ground when you completed your tumble. No pain registered, just numb confusion. You were breathing so hard your lungs burned, your tongue paper dry and sour. Despite the deafening sound of your heart beating and the wheezing rattle of air in your lungs, you could hear his song.

Everything, everything hurt, but you forced yourself up, to shamble into the bushes, curling into a ball to wait.

The song ended.

Seconds—less than that, really—passed before anything happened. Then you heard him. He allowed you to hear him, your pursuer wasn’t concerned that you would manage to escape. He didn’t need to bother running after you, or disguise the noise of his approach. You squeezed your eyes shut until you heard heavy feet crunching through the grass and twigs right in front of you, peeking them open to watch a figure emerge from the darkness.

Death stopped to sniff the air like the predatory beast he appeared to be. You pressed both hands over your mouth and nose, your entire body shaking with the tension of staying stiffly still. For a moment, you hoped he would move on. You didn’t move. Didn’t breathe.

“This has been fun,” he said conversationally, “but you’re not exactly the most challenging hunt. So, make this easier for yourself and come out, or make it more fun for me and stay put. Your choice, gatita.”

Your sore, overworked body twitched, wanting to obey and spare yourself. But if he knew where you were, he wouldn’t be looking around randomly like he was, right? Unless this was another game and he was trying to trick you, to see how you’d respond to that threat. But he could be bluffing. You didn’t know, and that uncertainty kept you in place.

Death chuckled ominously, leaving your line of sight. Somehow, that was worse than anything else, the nothingness of blind anticipation.

For a fleeting moment, you hoped he had moved on after all.

“Did you really think you could hide from me?” Death asked. Behind you, above you. A short little scream ripped from your throat as he grabbed you by the hair, wrenching you upright so fast that your body went limp with dizziness, head spinning with terror and a fresh rush of energy. He kept you up by exchanging a fistful of hair for the front of your dress. “Me temo que no tiene suerte.”

Getting your bearings, you yelped, thrashing out of his grip. Death let you go too easily, causing you to stumble. You went down hard. This time, it did hurt. Your hands and knees were skinned raw. But still, you crawled. It wasn’t a choice, it was instinct.

“I’m going to enjoy this,” Death said, crouching down behind you. He laughed. “I’ve got a feeling that you will too.”

“No—no.”

“You can’t lie to me. I can smell it. Fear mixed with desire… It's delicious. I can’t wait to have a taste.”

All you could do was grunt when he grabbed you by the waist, easily lifting you up and manhandling you onto your back. You fell with a heavy sound, dizzy all over again.

“I’d say I was surprised, but… Well, I’m not,” Death said, straddling you. His legs were completely wrong. They bent like a man’s at the knee, but bent again with the backwards angle of a wolf’s legs, ending in a set of thick paws. His face was worse. He spoke with such vivid animation. It shouldn’t have been possible for a wolf’s face to emote like that, it shouldn’t have been possible that Death himself could look so gleeful, so excited. When you attempted to drag yourself away, he settled more of his weight on top of you. “This is how you like it, right? Rough. It makes you feel alive.”

Even in your terrified panic, you knew what he was talking about. How long had he been watching you? How intently? Had you ever managed to escape from him, or were you just running around like a headless chicken, never knowing you were doomed? Furiously rejecting that, you bucked upward, bowing your back to throw him off. When that didn’t work, you grasped fistfuls of fabric from the front of his shirt to get leverage.

Death growed low and grabbed your face, slamming your head against the ground, claws digging into the soft skin of your cheeks. He followed while you were still reeling, leaning down to talk directly into your ear.

“Do you feel alive now, gatita?”

You whimpered, squeezing your eyes shut so you couldn’t see his frightening face. El lobo feroz. His nose was cold and leathery when it brushed your face as he pulled back, air ghosting across your cheek and making you whimper. Death laughed, sitting up.

“The ears really are cute,” he told you, releasing your cheeks to take hold of your ear instead. The rough pads caught on the delicate skin, brushing the fur up in a way that made you shudder. He saw that, you could tell by the way his red eyes flashed, the way he licked his lips again. “Who knows, maybe you’ll change my mind about cats.”

“Stop it,” you said, covering your face in an attempt to find peace from this absurdity. He hadn’t broken skin with his claws, but your chin and palms were busted up, your cheeks latticed with shallow scrapes from the trees.

“I told you. You can’t hide from me,” Death said, his voice dragging with a growl. The threat was emphasized by the sudden cold edge dragging lightly against your neck.

Stiffening, you lowered your hands, looking up at him with wet eyes—looking at the humanoid wolf claiming to be death, who had killed your father and ruined your life, who had haunted you every day since, whose mere shadow terrified you to your core, and once you came to grips with the unbelievability of what you saw, you had to contend with the knowledge that you were powerless to such a nightmare. Utterly, completely powerless.

Death groaned. Or hummed. Or growled. It was a happy sound, excited. “Está buena, gatita,” he told you, saying it like praise. “I don’t normally go for this sort of thing.” Casually, he nudged your chin upward before dragging the sickle down so the point caught beneath the neckline of your dress. “I shouldn’t. It’ll have to be our secret, hm?”

Willful ignorance had done nothing for you thus far, but you still clung to it. He couldn’t be talking about what you thought he was. He couldn’t be that human.

In a sharp movement, he pulled the sickle downward. Fabric ripped loudly in the quiet night. Yelping, you tried to pull the scraps back together, to cover yourself because that indignity was too far, wasn’t it? Nudity could mean nothing more than a prelude to violence to something like him, but it was different to you.

Death growled in annoyance, pressing the weapon’s tip into the soft give of your stomach.

“Hands off,” he told you. You didn’t move, and he pressed down. Not too much, just enough to break the skin, to draw blood.

“Stop,” you said, clinging even more desperately to the front of your ruined bodice, “that hurts.”

“I’ll keep going. To. The. Hilt.” Death drew out each word, pressing down with each word to make his point, the sickle’s edge disappearing into your skin. He meant it. Obey or suffer.

Looking straight above at the uncaring night sky, you released your bodice. He chuckled as he pulled the weapon away. It might have been that sound, or the crushing disgust of being exposed. There was very little thought behind the way you lashed out, capitalizing on his moment of distraction as he readjusted himself.

Your pathetic attempt at escaping the inevitable lacked any art or intelligence, only the final burst of energy that came from knowing you’d have no more chances after this. Death avoided your thrashing limbs, letting you wriggle your way upward, twisting around to try and crawl away. And then he drove the sickle into the ground right beside your hand, the blade only narrowly missing your fingers as he drove it into the dirt. You yelped, flinching away. Death used the moment to flip you around again, slamming the air out of your lungs.

"Delicious," he growled, curling over you to get at the exposed skin of your torso. Fabric that hadn’t been properly cut was torn away by his hands. Hands, paws. Human finger articulation and the thick pads of a dog’s feet, each tipped with dangerously long claws. They caught your skin, the rough pads like sandpaper on your sensitive flesh. Just as quickly as the fabric was out of the way, his nose replaced it, his hulking form hunching over your body. Each rapid inhale tickled your skin, pairing disturbingly with the cold of his nose. Unlike his hands, his tongue was soft, lapping up the blood he’d drawn on your stomach before he moved up. The uncanny mixture of sensations made you squirm.

“Stop, stop now,” you said, jerking in uncoordinated little bursts beneath him more on instinct than rational thought. Fur filled the spaces between your fingers as you tried to push him off. He didn't react to you tugging on it, all it did was remind you of how bestial he was. The whole situation was terrifying, yes. But, more viscerally, it was gross. Deeply uncomfortable to feel his long, smooth tongue, to endure the threat of teeth as he moved up, to choke back disgust and terror as he passed over your nipples. “Stop,” you whined the word despite yourself, your eyes screwed shut in an attempt to separate from reality. Death chuckled, moving up across your flushed chest, to your neck, leaving you flushing bright red and slick with his saliva.

“Impatient?” he asked, the words brushing over your fluttering pulse. “I’m not surprised. That’s fine.”

The waistband of your dress didn’t part as easily as the top. He worked from the other end instead, making a slit to tear the fabric up and expose your stockings and panties. Claws made short work of the thin, well worn cotton, carving shallow lines into your skin to strip you entirely.

“Nn-no, what are you doing? Stop, st-” your words cut off with a heavy ‘umph’ when he pushed you back down. Death didn’t so much as look at you as he admired his handiwork, let alone respond to your plea.

“Just like I thought,” he said. “You’re a real piece of work, you know that?”

“No,” you said, desperately shaking your head. All you could see was his sharp, sharp teeth, those deadly claws. And your body was electrified, covered with drool and chills and thrumming hot with blood. There was no way out of this, you couldn't even comprehend the pain he could cause. Out of options, you pushed down the remains of your skirt, attempting to close your legs.

Claws dug into your thighs as Death forced them back open with a little growl, sparing you no indignity. The moon deprived you of the cover of darkness and it shouldn’t have been so embarrassing because he wasn’t a man, but it was. Just like he had with your torso, Death explored the exposed skin. The puffing brushes of air as he sniffed and licked along your thighs was humiliating and obscene on its own, nevermind when he nipped at the sensitive flesh to make you whimper, forcing you to contemplate the damage those teeth could do where you were most vulnerable.

The thought of such agony had you try a final time to close your legs, only to have them spread even wider, giving you the perfect view of el lobo feroz with his muzzle pressed against your pussy, his long pink tongue lolling out to drag across your slit. It wasn’t the pain you anticipated, but it was just too strange, too surprising, too disturbing. Having the snout of a beast between your legs, regardless of the creature's perceived humanity, was enough to make you feel sick, twisted and filthy.

“No, no, don’t,” you demanded shrilly, kicking in an attempt to displace him. Death growled, claws puncturing into your skin as he pushed your hips back down, peering up at you. His eyes didn’t reflect or catch the moonlight. They glowed. Empty. Evil.

“Ten cuidado, gatita,” he warned. “Haven’t you ever been warned about getting in the way of a wolf and his meal?”

“Please,” you said, unable to comprehend that this could happen. That this would happen. “Please don’t… don’t. You can’t do this.”

“What are you going to do to stop me?”

That was awful, too awful for words. Fight and risk more pain, or let it happen and… And what? What rational response could you possibly have to this other than disgust and despair? Maybe you should have been glad he wasn’t about to rip you to bloody shreds and feast on the remains, glad that you would be spared pain and immediate death, but that consolation felt terribly cheap when confronted with the equally unimaginable.

“You can’t,” you said, your voice too high, terrified into a whine. “You’re not even… I mean it’s not like you can… like you’ll… you can…”

Death hummed in annoyance, you could feel the vibration of the sound. “Te voy a comer. Y luego te voy a coger,” he told you, the words easy like he was explaining something very simple which, considering you couldn’t understand them, only made it that much worse. “¿Está bien, gatita?”

“No,” you said. “No, I don’t…” Understand. Believe. Consent.

Death laughed, arranging your legs into a more comfortable press towards your chest to make room for his hulking form. There was nothing you could do to make him stop.

The pads of his fingers were painfully rough against your pussy’s outer lips, catching on the sensitive flesh as he parted them. His tongue, however, was softer than anything you’d ever felt, lapping at your entrance, up to your clit. You squirmed uncontrollably, locked in some limbo of disgust, discomfort, and embarrassment.

You thought that if you just closed your eyes, if you just blocked it out, you could pretend that this wasn’t happening, but Death hummed out an animalistic growl, and his tongue was far too long and dexterous to be human, and his fur bristled against your thighs, and there was no way out. Already, your body was waking up to the stimulation. Responding. There was something wrong with you. You knew that, you’d known that for a long time, taking pleasure in beatings, wanting sex to be rougher and rougher, needing to be brutalized like it was an itch to be scratched. This was a new low, the grotesque indulgence of those most perverse.

Like you.

“Please stop,” you whined, another plea to add to the string of ignored requests. Death made a sound you could feel more than hear. For reasons other than fear, you shuddered at the noise.

With your clit acceptably swollen, your body twitching with every movement, his tongue slicked downward. Your hips jumped, legs closing and opening with surprise, but Death wasn’t deterred.

“No-oh,” you sounded so weak, your rejection coming out pathetic and breathy.

Death made another growl-like sound, pushing you down flat with mean claws that poked fresh holes into your skin. You hadn’t been trying to escape, you just couldn’t stop from squirming as he tested the flinching muscles of your entrance. This was new, and different, and terrible, and foul. His tongue was soft and long and far too dexterous, pushing into you with a few hungry strokes. No human man could do that. It wasn’t physically possible.

You whimpered, your head falling back in some vain attempt to block it all out. Escape wasn’t so easy. While his tongue lacked the pressure and weight of something solid, he attacked your g-spot with precision. Eating you out. Eating you. Given that long snout, it had to have been awkward, but that didn’t seem to deter him. And every time his head moved, his nose ground against your clit. He was probably watching you, watching you twitch and gasp and writhe helplessly, but you kept your eyes squeezed shut. The sight of a wolf’s head between your legs like this would kill you, surely it would.

Unbidden, you remembered telling the child Quinta that dogs were your natural enemy, and your penchant for seeking the companionship of those who promised animosity, and the wicked sort of sense it made that you would find yourself here, and you could only laugh at it all but the hysterical sound came out like a sob, and then a low groan, and then a sharp whine when Death pressed the rough pad of one of his fingers against your clit instead, dragging small little circles against it while his tongue continued to torment you.

“No, no, no, no-”

Whatever you were denying, it was pointless. Noise for the sake of it, words getting all tangled up with your choked moans and sobs and hiccups. The little addition of pain from the too rough texture on your clit was enough to give you what you really wanted, what you always ached for.

Pleasure lurched in your core, your hips bucking wildly. Death growled again and it was mean. Aggressive. You seized up, mouth open wide as if for a scream, your feet planted so you could tilt your hips up for more. More pleasure, more pain. Disgust, shame, fear, all of it became white hot and foul, agonizingly sexy in the few moments where the high of orgasm negated the living nightmare between your legs.

And then you were coming down, hips jerking into the tongue of a wolf monster, the creature that had killed your father, Death himself, and you actually sobbed, shying away from his touch as little sparks of overstimulation promised something worse. Unable to escape in any material way, you covered your face. Tears, dirt, and blood smeared together on the feverish, sweaty skin, nearly suffocating as you panted.

Death let you be and sat up, laughing. Laughing at you.

“That was faster than I expected.”

Peeking out from between your fingers, you saw the way his muzzle was glistening before his tongue swiped it away, saw the way he was smiling as he mocked you. “Ah. Unh-no, I-”

Death leaned over you. You flinched away, but he only grabbed the sickle he’d driven into the ground beside you. Casually, he flicked the blade out. The cool metal winked in the moonlight. Although you were still trembling with the aftershocks of orgasm, you weren’t too far gone to feel a fresh wave of fear. Immediately, you curled in on yourself, covering as much of your vulnerability as possible.

“You cower in fear, but I can taste your desire,” Death said, licking his lips. “It’s not half bad.”

“Please just… just stop.”

“I’m doing you a favor. You’re too tight.”

Death didn’t elaborate on that, positioning the weapon’s hilt between your legs, pushing the flared base between your folds before you could figure out what was happening. Everything was wet with a mixture of saliva and your own arousal, slick enough for the weapon to press against your entrance. You figured it out then, but he pinned you in place with a hand on your stomach, claws pressing against the flinching skin. There was nothing you could really do to avoid it, and you didn’t dare close your legs around the blade itself.

“This might hurt.”

“Stop, please stop, you can’t—”

Death didn’t say anything, watching your expression as he pushed the weapon’s grip into you. To see such a sharp blade between your legs in any capacity was dizzying, and that was without the intensely physical pressure of its grip rubbing against your inner walls.

“I told you, didn’t I?” he asked. “To. The. Hilt.” With every word, he drove the weapon deeper, your body jerking with each movement.

“Stop, just stop, please, take it…take it out.”

“I’d do it myself, but,” Death said, holding up his off-hand, “I’m not so sure you’d like that.” His claws practically gleamed in the moonlight, and you knew exactly how rough the pads were. The idea of those inside of you was enough to make your insides wither, although all that really amounted to was your cunt tightening around the weapon. You grunted at the feeling, shook your head fast, panicked.

“No! No,” you told him as coherently as you could. Your tongue was dry as bone, you choked on the grit.

“Thought so,” he replied, pulling the sickle back only to slam it back in.

The textured grip felt disturbingly good in some mad, broken way. His tongue had been so smooth and soft, but this was solid and firm, forcing itself into you. He used it like a tool, not bothering to simulate sex, twisting it this way and that, forcing your pussy open. Making room. You couldn’t help but writhe with each movement, your cunt tightening around the grip, hips tilting up as you were consumed by a confusing twist of disgust and need. Violence and pain were things you knew and understood. Familiarity had you dripping around the weapon, you could hear how wet you were, and his harsh motions only emphasized the vulgar sound.

“Not bad,” Death said, amused by the sight. You shut your eyes. “This weapon killed your father. It’s only fair that you should die by it too—una pequeña muerte.”

“Don’t,” you said, body going painfully tense with disgust, with hate, with fear. Death pulled the sickle out, pushing it back in with an ugly squelch, dragging a pained yelp from your mouth, and then a distinctly less pained one when he twisted it slightly. “No, no, I…”

Little death. You belatedly realized the implication of that. You’d already come once, it wasn’t nearly as difficult to build you up again. Especially not when he was being more deliberate with each thrust, when the sandpaper-rough texture of his finger nudged at your clit again.

Nothing in particular set you off, maybe it was just the acceptance of sensation, the acknowledgement that it would buy you a few moments of madness from this unthinkable situation. Gasping, flushing, writhing like a creature possessed, you seized up, pleasure flushing through your system with a white-hot sort of frenzy. You didn’t think it could be compared to death, not really. You felt distinctly alive for a few seconds of shivering, wet heat.

Until it ended, abruptly dropping you back in the middle of an unfathomable predicament.

Death hummed as he stopped, letting you wilt back onto the ground, trembling and hot. “I prefer a fight, but-” Without much ceremony and a disgustingly wet shlick, Death pulled the weapon out of your pussy. “You put on quite the show, gatita. This is going to be good.”

“What are you doing?” you asked, drawing your legs in, wincing at the feeling. Some part of you still rejected what was happening, what he was capable of doing. Of course that got a little harder to believe when he pushed his pants down. Was it flattering that a monster would be turned on by torturing you? You wanted to think that it couldn’t be, that you weren’t that depraved, but the part of your deepest self that stirred in reaction to the sight frightened you. It seemed that the human shape and build of his body carried over to his primary sex characteristics. It was sick that the revelation should be relieving, but at least you would be spared the particular grotesque indignity of inhuman genitalia. Maybe if you shut your eyes, if you blocked it all out, you could pretend that it was just a man raping you.

Because that was so much better.

You weren’t even aware that you were trying to crawl away until he clicked his tongue, grabbing your waist to pull you back into place. The pads on his fingers were so rough, claws threatening to rip the sensitive flesh. He licked his lips with wolfish excitement. Fur brushed your bare skin. There was no way out of this, to escape el lobo feroz. Not mentally, not physically.

You pressed your thighs together as tightly as you could, ignoring how slick they were.

“It’s too late for that,” he said, easily prying them apart. Fur brushed against your skin, but you were more concerned with the sight of his cock as it bobbed up before settling against your abdomen.

Heavy. That was your first thought, right before the comparison between your body and his cock really settled in your feverish brain. The head alone was thick enough that you couldn’t fathom it getting past your entrance, let alone that you’d be able to take the rest.

“No, no, no, you-you can’t do this,” you said, staring at his dick with a crawling sense of fear that had nothing to do with his inhumanity—in all regards—and everything to do with the size. “It won’t fit.”

“You can accommodate new life,” he said, a hand going under his cock to press against your abdomen, right above your womb. “Let alone Death. You’ll be fine.” He said it like a joke, like it was amusing. He was sick. You were sick. This was…

When he moved, the slap of his dick on your abdomen was audible, punctuating a joke that wasn’t funny to begin with. Death clearly wasn’t concerned as he rearranged you, pushing your legs up and apart until your thighs screamed, his body bearing down against you for leverage. The unyielding press of his cock between your legs made you panic, but he had you utterly pinned. You couldn’t do anything other than feel it slide across the sensitive flesh, settling right against your entrance. You couldn’t do anything to stop this. Death grunted as he readjusted you, claws digging fresh lines into your flesh, and began to rock his hips forward. When you yelped, bucking up against him, the sharp points broke skin. It would be easy for him to rip you up with nothing more than those claws.

“Quédate quieto,” he growled. You didn’t need to understand to be still.

So close like this, you realized that you could smell him. Not the stench of a dog, of wet fur or a poorly maintained pelt. Not the scent of a man either, familiar and human. Death smelled like a cool summer night, and torrential rain, and a river’s violent rapids, and acrid smoke, and the dry dust of an old road. Although it wasn’t entirely unpleasant in the way you might have expected of a wolf man, it made your stomach churn, doing nothing to help you relax as he continued to press the thick head of his cock against your pussy.

For a moment, you thought that it really was impossible, that you would be spared. That single second of relief was all it took for the head to pop past the initial barrier of muscle. Your mouth dropped open at the feeling. Surprise, maybe. Your legs were spread wide enough to mitigate some of the dragging pain as he forced himself a little deeper, just past the ridge. Death made a sound low in his chest, but all you could manage was stiff, cold shock. Surprise at how surreal it all was. But reality marched on all the same, with or without your comprehension. You weren’t sure what you expected it to feel like, but you would have been wrong anyway. Stretching, aching, too much, too much, too-

Grunting, he rolled his hips, pulling back just enough before thrusting deeper. Little by little, letting you adjust and relax ever so slightly before pulling back to go further. You whined each time, back arching, your pussy tightening around him. It was probably a protective measure, trying to keep him out, but it hurt, pulling a rumbly growl out of his throat, his hips pushing forward despite the painful resistance.

“No more,” you got out, the words tight, pained.

Muttering something under his breath, Death leaned back to let drool drip from his long tongue. It landed heavily where the two of you were joined, splatting with an unattractive slap onto the place where you were joined, onto your swollen clit. He laughed at your girlish yelp of surprise.

You let your head fall back, your hands covering your face. They smelled like dirt and blood. At least the extra lubrication helped, and you knew your body was responding to this. Whether to protect itself or out of some truly disturbing reciprocation, your pussy was soaking his cock, making way for him as he rolled his hips back and forth.

Deeper, further. You were going to split apart.

“Stop, please,” you finally broke enough to beg, pressing against his stomach, ignoring the sickening feeling of fur beneath your hand. You were almost surprised when Death stopped, huffing hard. Worse, you were grateful.

“Too much, gatita? And you were doing so well.”

A pathetic little whine tore from your throat when you looked down at the remaining few inches of cock between your straining pussy lips and his grotesque inhuman body, despairing at the sight. “I can’t,” you whimpered. “No more.”

Death growled in frustration, claws digging painfully into your skin as he shifted back and forth a few times, trying to ease himself deeper. You could see the shadow of distension shifting across your abdomen as he did, proof of how deep inside of you he already was. But no matter how he rolled his hips, or twisted you around, there was no more room.

“Stop,” you said, the word getting caught in your swollen throat, your body desperately straining to get away for fear that he’d just force it in.

Death stilled, exhaling hard to steady himself. It sounded like a growl. Your pussy unintentionally clenched hard around him at the noise. It hurt, the muscles unable to adjust to his size. The reaction had his breath catching, and that became a throaty laugh.

“Fine,” he said, finally dragging his hips back. It was what you wanted, but it still hurt, the stretch worsened by the way your pussy squeezed and pulsed around his length. Death stopped when only the head remained inside of you. “You just need to be broken in. That’s fine.”

You looked, stricken, from the dizzying sight of his cock—now, at least partially, glistening with your own arousal—to the sickening expression of manic glee he wore. How could a canine face express such viscerally human emotions?

And then, in the back of your empty, dizzy head—why was this happening?

“No more,” you begged, squeezing your eyes shut, your pussy trying to push him out despite the discomfort of it. Claws ripped into your skin when his grip had to tighten to keep you in place, his hips chasing yours as you tried so desperately to escape. It hurt all over again. Maybe not as bad, but now you knew what to anticipate.

“It's better like this.” He stopped when he was as deep as he could go and you were grateful that he didn’t push it further, grateful that he was taking it slow. The stretching, pinching ache wasn’t any better, but it wasn’t worse either. “What is this… Two? Three inches?” You looked down, realizing that he was referring to how much of his cock couldn’t fit inside of you. It had to be more than that, although you were stuck on the sight of your pussy stretched around him. “By the end of the night, there won’t be anything keeping us apart. That’ll be… poetic, don’t you think?”

It wasn’t fair that his voice should be that of a man, should be low and dripping with a villain’s dangerous charisma. All you could do was groan weakly, your breathing shallow. Despite what he said, there was nothing poetic to the sound of it. Slick, filthy, disgustingly wet. Every thrust punched a sharp noise out of you, although most of them were nothing more than heavy breaths. Death wasn’t very quiet either, making noises that fluctuated seamlessly between that of a man and that of a beast.

“Hurts,” you whimpered in protest, willing him to slow down. He didn’t.

“Good.”

The single word, the cruelty of it and the accompanying set of a harsher pace, hurt in more ways than the physical. You couldn’t help but wail in despair, writhing with pain you couldn’t escape, unable to get away as he fucked you. Deeper and deeper, forcing you to stretch out to accommodate him.

“You like the pain, right?” Death asked mockingly, his voice low enough to nearly get missed beneath the filthy squelch of each thrust. And all you could do was whimper. Did you like the pain? No, but there was a perverse satisfaction of justified destruction. You had no idea how he knew that.

“I don’t,” you said, needing to reject him. To reject all of this because otherwise you were afraid it would end like before, that you would give in. That you’d enjoy this. But it was too late. You couldn’t help your hips from twitching of their own volition, and a particularly sharp thrust pulled a surprised gasp from your open mouth.

“Buena gatita,” he said in a low voice, half growl. The sound, the language, the speaker, none of it mattered because your body knew praise, and the kind that came with cruelty was what you craved in the sickest part of your brain. “Muy buena.” Your cunt fluttered weakly around him, your hips rolling upward to meet his next thrust. It hurt, and it felt good.

As soon as you admitted that to yourself in any way, you were lost. A few more thrusts and you had to bite your lip to keep from moaning. There wasn’t a single place within you that wasn’t full of him, not in your head or your pussy or your chest. Consumed entirely by Death.

Gods help you, you could hear the fresh wave of wet arousal your body provided with that awful thought, so eager to submit to his dominion. As if sensing that, he stilled, his cock buried deep into you. Your eyes opened unintentionally, confused by the sudden break.

“Well, well, would you look at that,” Death said as a way of explanation, self satisfied. You followed his eyes, looking at where the two of you were joined. There was nothing between, his pelvis flush between your legs, the fur matting with how wet everything was. You opened your mouth to say something, but nothing came out. His hips shifted and you could see the bump of distension, more pronounced now. “Like I said—poetic. All you’ve done for years is tease me and now-” He laughed. “Now you’re mine.”

Death pulled back slowly, letting you see how much of his cock he’d forced your body to accept. It looked about as impossible as it felt, you couldn’t really comprehend it on any level other than the most base—sickening satisfaction. Ensuring you were still watching, his hips snapped forward. Once, twice, three times, making sure each thrust was solid and steady, filling you up entirely, the thick head of his cock brutalizing your cunt in a way no human man ever could. The battering against your cervix hurt in a profound, electric way, a way nobody had ever managed to hurt you.

And you took it. Your mouth open dumbly, your head tipping back into the dirt, your body rolling with each movement.

Even suffering such intimate, awful pain, you couldn’t deny your feeling of pleasure. Sublime friction, pressure in every place you needed it. And, to a dreadful degree, Death seemed to be aware of your reactions. Aware enough, at least, to take note when you couldn’t help but moan aloud, to exploit the angle that had you seeing stars. He grabbed you off the ground, forcing you to throw your arms around his neck. Like that, you were even more at his mercy. Full enough to split, you could understand the indulgence of size, of craving excess. Beautiful. Your boiling brain pulled that word out from its scattered nothingness, and it was beautiful. Repulsive, disturbing, grotesque, and beautiful.

“That’s right,” Death practically purred into your ear. “Look at how well you take it, you’d think you were made for this.”

“Oh, gods, oh—please, I can’t, I…” You weren’t even sure what you were begging for, it was too late from the second he praised you, sending you spiraling, coming hard, your pussy squeezing his cock so hard it hurt, your fingers pulling hard at the fur on his neck. Death laughed breathlessly, not slowing down for even a second. You didn’t care. If it hurt, it felt good, an endless feedback loop of madness.

Holding so close to him, you were more aware than ever of how terrifyingly powerful his body was. He could easily destroy you if he wanted.

This was Death at his gentlest.

Dizzy, reeling, hardly able to scrape together any coherent thought beyond that, all you felt at the realization was the vague veil of fear. Letting yourself get fucked by the big bad wolf. Coming on his cock, moaning like a whore for a being that shouldn’t exist in the middle of the woods beneath a full moon.

His hips stuttered then, a groan catching on a growl in his chest.

“Delicious,” he said. “Your fear, I could just…” Death didn’t finish that thought, or maybe you couldn’t hear it as his thrusts became well and truly punishing. Seeking his end like a man would. That was what you expected, in a distant way, but you didn’t expect that a mystical—mythical?—creature would ejaculate, only that you’d had enough encounters with men to know you shouldn’t let it happen. Not inside. Never inside, that was way too dangerous.

“Nn-no-”

He didn’t listen. You couldn’t escape, and you stopped caring after a moment because the heavy, carnal weight of him coming inside of you was enough to make you squeal, your pussy squeezing his cock, your body straining in an arch against his. You didn’t know if you were coming again or if it was just a continuation of the onslaught of stimulation that your brain couldn’t make rational sense of, but there was a sort of lunatic’s bliss in the feeling, in the agonizingly hellish ecstasy of pleasure. Of complete and utter excess. You could feel the rumbling vibrations of his growl, it entwined with the human groans. The two shouldn’t have suited one another, but your broken mind accepted both gleefully, losing yourself in the sound.

After a few jerky, halting movements, Death released you.

He was slow to pull out, which was probably a mercy. Even softening, his cock was painfully big, you couldn’t hold back your pained whimper when he pulled out. The absence was immediate, cold, and hollow. You wilted when he let you fall limp onto the ground, defeated. Deflated. Breathing as if you’d run a marathon, it was all you could do to keep it together, the gravity of all that happened setting in.

Something landed on your naked, sweaty body. Scared, you opened your eyes. But it was fabric. A second passed before you realized it was your red cloak. The one you left behind to escape from him before. It felt like a lifetime ago. You gratefully used it to cover your nudity, glad for the moment to catch your breath with some dignity.

“Ah, that was good,” Death said, satisfied, rolling his neck and shoulders. He’d already fixed his pants and retrieved his weapons. “The fun’s over now. For you, at least.”

“I don’t know… how to get back to the trail…” you said, wincing as you sat up and looked around. His cum dripped out of your gaping, sore pussy, sticky on your thighs. Vaguely, you wondered what sort of monsters would come from such a coupling, but you disregarded that thought just as quickly. If he was done, you needed to get away. Then again, you weren’t even sure if you could walk.

“I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Death’s less than friendly tone rolled over you like ice water. Slowly looking over at him, you exhaled a big, shuddery lungful of cool night air. He stood high above you, his looming figure blotting out the moon. Right then, he looked no different than he had all those years ago. Brilliant red eyes, gray fur, silver sickles. The big bad wolf in all his glory.

“What?”

Those bright red eyes held a different sort of intensity than before. Swirling, passionate madness without any of the ravenous hunger. “You know, I’ve been watching you ever since that night. Every time you narrowly escape death, and every time you get other people killed. But you know that, you’ve seen me. That’s why you run, thinking you can escape the inevitable. For whatever reason—luck, fate, the blessing of those gods you claim to believe in—your life has been spared over and over. And yet, you do nothing with it.”

There was malice in those words, a visceral sort of disgust that reflected what you so often felt for yourself. You considered trying to stand up, trying to run again. Fear thundered in your chest, urged you to escape as you always did. But, honestly, you didn’t think your legs could support your weight. No. You couldn’t run. You never had really managed to escape him anyway.

“So, I thought, why does it matter if you die now or later—your life has no meaning. If I finish it now, you won’t be able to keep teasing me, and we’ll both have some peace.”

“I don’t want to die,” you said, your voice hushed to hide the tears.

Death looked down at you, and you wondered if it was disgust or pity you saw on his inhuman face. But then you realized, it was neither. His jewel bright eyes gleamed with glee, passion of a type you couldn’t understand, that belonged to something beyond the realm of what you could possibly comprehend. A living nightmare.

“Your fear,” Death said, inhaling deeply as he took a step forward, his sickles in hand, “has the most intoxicating smell. I might even miss it.”

#death puss in boots #death x reader #death the wolf #not sfw #my writing #tw.noncon

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footprintsinthesxnd · 4 months

Text

The Angel of Easy

Mads!! I was so excited when Réka messaged me to be your Secret Santa pinch hitter. So here is a special little Nixon fic for my favourite fellow Lewis fangirl.

Being one of the few female intelligence officers in the 101st was always going to be a slightly different experience. Despite her training as an SOE and working at Bletchley Circle nothing prepared her to be thrown into a company of men who drank, swore and fought like dogs but formed a group far stronger than any family could ever be. One of the men she warmed most to was Lewis Nixon. His endless sarcasm and witty humour had cemented him in Y/n’s heart and it didn’t take long for them to become firm friends and then something more.

“Do you have to go on that patrol? Can’t you just stay here with me?” Lewis whined, his head still buried under the bed covers as his near-naked frame lay sprawled across the bed.

Y/n laughed, lacing up her lump boots as the grown man rolled over to face her, his blurry eyes and sleepy smile tugging on her heartstrings and if she looked at him any longer she would climb right back into bed with him.

“You know I have to go. This is finally my chance to truly prove myself,” she retorted, this would be her first time on a patrol without Lewis and she intended to gain the respect of her fellow paratroopers.

“You’ve already proven yourself to me in many ways,” Lewis wiggled his eyebrows suggestively and Y/n sighed, hitting him with the nearest pillow.

“I have to go, I’ll see you later. I love you,” Y/n called as the door slammed shut behind her.

“Love you too,” Lewis mumbled into the pillow, his mind drifting back into his sleepy state when he sat upright. Had she just said what he thought she had? And had he replied with the same answer?

“You know Lieutenant, you’re not that bad after all,” Johnny Martin, nodded at her and she smiled in return. Johnny was a hard man to win over so this was the biggest compliment he could have given.

“Yeah, you’re alright Little Lady,” Bull chimed in, patting her on the back with his large hand.

“Well thanks, guys, I knew you’d like me eventually.”

The group continued to laugh as they followed the path back towards their camp when a loud crack from beside them caused them all to hit the deck. “FLASH?” Johnny shouted, his weapon raised. “Flash? Or we fire.” Was followed by a burst of machine gun fire. The firing above Y/n head caused her to freeze, she’d been through basic training just like the rest of them, she’d fired her weapon and she carried her M1 with her now, but something inside her would allow her to move. Her limbs lay frozen against the wet, muddy soil, her head pressed to the ground.

“Y/L/N GET UP!” Johnny grabbed her collar and shoved her against the nearest tree. “Y/l/n, you used that goddamn gun of yours. I don’t care if you are a Lieutenant or a fucking Major. I’m not losing any of my men because of you.” Johnny's voice was harsh, his usual snarl mixed with a desperation for her to follow his instructions.

Y/n nodded quickly, raising her M1 and firing around the edge of the tree. Johnny seemed satisfied with this and continued his way along the line to check in with the rest of his men. Y/n continued to fire, round after round, clip after clip, with only the image of Lewis in her mind to keep her grounded.

“I’m out of ammo,” she called down the line but the others were too preoccupied to hear her above the firing. Y/n did something she never thought she would do, she got up and ran. Time stood still as her legs carried her from behind the cover of her tree to the next tree, bullets whizzing past her.

“You alright Luz?” She asked, sliding down next to George who was trying to call through to Winters on his radio. George nodded to her and she grabbed his ammunition, loaded her weapon and started firing again.

The noise was deafening, nothing like practising on the ranges back at Toccoa.

“Y/L/N!” Johnny called, waving at her from the next tree down. “There’s a whole goddamn Panzer division coming from the south. We’ve gotta get outta here.”

Y/n nodded, motioning for him and the other men to head for cover further back from the line as she continued to fire. Johnny and Bull appeared by her side soon after.

“The others have retreated. I think we’ve hit their line. What’s your orders, Lieutenant? Johnny, Bull and George looked at her expectantly and Y/n felt the weight of the world on her shoulders.

“We hold them off for as long as we can, at least we can give the others a chance to pull back.” The men nodded at her, seemingly approving of her reply.

George continued to keep Winters and the battalion in the loop while the others continued to fire upon the inbound Panzer division. Mortar fire from Malarkey’s mortar squad littered the tree line in front of them and sporadic machine gun fire came in response.

“Winters says to pull back. The air force is bringing in air cover,” George shouted over the firing.

“Cease fire,” Y/n called, motioning for Johnny to head back first while supplying covering fire, then Bull and then George.

“What about you Lieutenant?” George asked, hiking his radio onto his back.

“I’ll be right behind you George, okay?” George nodded, keeping his head down and sprinting towards the cover of the tree line.

Now that she was alone Y/n wondered how she was meant to get herself out of this situation and without covering fire she was a sitting duck. They would have had her firing zeroed by now and mortars would surely start firing soon.

“Well, it’s not or never,” Y/n threw herself out from behind the tree, firing towards the German line as she retreated. Once the clip was empty she slung the weapon onto her back and turned tail, running towards George who was waving frantically at her.

“Y/N COME ON!” He screamed, grabbing her hand as she collapsed into him. “Christ Lieutenant, you’ve got a death wish,” he laughed, helping her up. Johnny nodded at her and Bull gave her his signature smile until their faces fell.

“Hey, what’s all the long faces for?” She laughed, “We just got out of there alive didn’t we?”

“Umm Y/n you might wanna sit down,” George caught her as her knees buckled beneath her. Johnny and Bull quickly moved in to help. Johnny pulled his aid kit out of his pocket, pressing a bandage firmly to the pool of blood at her side, before helping to lift her into Bull’s arms.

“Stay with us Little Lady,” Bull whispered as her heavy eyelids slid closed.

“You know what they say, Dick,” Lewis sighed, rubbing his hand over his stubbly chin.

“What do they say, Lew?” Dick stretched his arms above his head, as he sat in the armchair beside him.

“Well sometimes, no matter how much you want it, some stories just don’t get a happy ending,” Lewis choked, the tears freely rolling down his cheeks again. He had cried so much in the last twenty-four hours that he wasn’t sure how he had any tears left to cry.

“She’ll pull through, Nix. She’s strong and she knows you are waiting for her. She’ll make it.” Dick patted Lewis on the back, raising from his chair and leaving Lewis to sit in his uncomfortable silence once more.

“Lewis?” Her voice was weak, her breaths shallow but her bright eyes watched him intently as he raised his weary head.

“Y/n? By God you’re awake. Oh thank God,” Lewis flung his arms around her neck, burying his head into her neck and crushing the air from her lungs. “Careful Lew, I’m a little sore,” Y/n whined, pushing Lewis gently to which he jumped away.

“I’m so sorry, Sweetheart. Are you alright?” Lewis sat back down in the armchair, his hand clutching desperately at hers.

“I’m a little sore,” she admitted, wincing as she tried to move.

Lewis jumped up again, “do you need me to get, Roe? Do you need some morphine?” Lewis' eyes were wild, searching her face for the unspoken answer.

“No. No, I'm alright. Just sore,” Y/n reassured him, reaching for his hand which Lewis took instantly.

“I was so worried I’d lost you,” Lewis admitted, his eyes full of tears but he couldn’t take his eyes off of her, too afraid that he’d blink and she’d be gone.

“I’m sorry I worried you, Lew. It was all going so well. I think I proved myself to them.”

Lewis chuckled, leaning forward to brush the hair that had fallen upon her face, “You, my love certainly did prove yourself. You are all the men of Easy can talk about. Hell, you’re the ‘Angel of Easy Company.”

Y/n laughed, “Well that’s something I suppose.”

“Just next time, maybe don’t get yourself killed over it alright? I don’t think I could go through that again,” Lewis looked at her poignantly and Y/n just smiled. Her fingers reached up, brushing her fingers over Lew’s cheek, cupping it gently.

“I promise, Lew. I won’t do it again but if I do at least I know I have you to come back to.”

Dick smiled from his spot in the doorway, he’d had a message from Colonel Sink but he couldn’t bear to interrupt this precious moment. Just for those few minutes, his friends were happy and that was all Dick could ask for.

Tags: @georgieluz @iceman-kazansky @yeahcurrahhe-e @msmercury84 @blvestxr @dustyjumpwjngs @theflyingfin @jump-wings @kafka-ohdear @kmc1989 @mads-weasley @docroesmorphine @liptonsbabe @sweetxvanixlla @hesbuckcompton-baby @ronsparky @allthingsimagines @whollyjoly @bucky32557038ww2 @panzershrike-pretz @malarkgirlypop @hanniewinnix @inglourious-imagines @l13bg0tt @supervalcsi

#lewis nixon x reader #lewis nixon #band of brothers #band of brothers easy company #easy company #band of brothers fanfic #secret santa 2023 #hbowarsanta23

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rafeandonlyrafe · 6 months

Text

apocalypse

words: 300

warnings: violence, alien invasion lol, mentions of death including parental death

you stomp out your fire before kicking leaves over it, not wanting to leave any trace. you grab your pack off the ground, grunting quietly as you sling it over your shoulder. it’s so fucking heavy, but everything in it is precious. every thing is precious, ever since they came, all material goods are precious. you try not to think about it, especially since it’s been almost a month since you saw the last thing.

you’re not sure if there’s a technical name for them. they’re so beyond anything you know, anything earthly, that giving any name to them seems wrong. aliens, you suppose. they did come from the sky. large creatures, monsters, that ran on four legs, teeth as sharp knives, bodies moving in an almost mechanical way. they had their weaknesses, and you have found the best way to exploit that. they’ve got terrible senses. sight, hearing, smell, all of it is shit. they’re easy enough to avoid, but deadly when they get close enough. the main issue was the sheer number of them.

just keep your distance, you remind yourself. it’s why you’re out in the woods. you hope they’ll keep to the cities. it would make sense. you thought at first when they came that you’d be safe. they wouldn’t even get onto your island, and you were right, for a while. life in the outer banks wasn’t normal though, even as they began to attack only the big cities. everyone knew they would spread quickly, and chaos started before they even moved out of new york city.

you swallow hard, trying not to think about what happened. you think of your family. kooks. fucking kooks. they went crazy, acting like an alien invasion meant it was the purge. your family owned a grocery store, a small one that had been in the family for generations. it meant you had supplies, but it also made you a target. you force the thought out of your mind, but you still see it every time you close your eyes, the blood and bodies littering the store. you left that day, not even taking a single thing with you, just needing to be gone. they came the next day. you watched from high ground as they tore through the town, only reacting to the loudest screams and most movement. you studied them, committing as much as you could to memory, before turning your back to that world. it was over then.

it’s been almost an entire year now. you’ve considered going back. you’ve never gone far from the outer banks, but you’ve also never stopped moving. you know you’re going in slow circles, but you can’t bring yourself to do anything different, and you don’t need to yet. there’s plenty of food in this area, and the winters don’t deplete your resources as much like they would if you headed north. and south is just ocean, something you don’t want to see. too many memories. the sound of your sister laughing as she jumped in the waves, of your mother laying on the beach, whatever book she’s currently reading in her hand.

you curse yourself for getting lost in your memories as you hear a twig snap. you quickly move to a tree to climb, trying to keep your movements light. the biggest risk wasn’t even the monsters, just like before in kildare, it was other people. other people killed your family and you are not going to let yourself fall to the same fate. you’d rather stare down the aliens teeth than let another human take you out. it was all just so wrong and messy.

your breath catches when the man creeping through the trees is familiar. his hair is longer now, falling over his forehead in dark blonde strands. you are moving before you can think over the consequences. you were never friends, theres no saying how he’ll welcome you, but he’s someone. someone you know. “rafe.” it feels weird to speak. you haven’t done it in weeks.

his head snaps up at his name, eyes almost bulging out of his head when he realizes who is standing in front of him. “y/n?” he asks, relief spreading over his features. you nod and smile. you’re not sure why you do it, but you get closer. rafe steps in as well, pulling you into a hug. it’s awkward with the amount of gear you’ve both got, but you don’t care, it’s human contact, it’s good human contact.

“you’re alive.” you state the obvious, and rafe nods. “would never let those fuckers take me out.”

you should have known rafe was too strong willed to die. he’s tough, but he’s more than that, he’s too stubborn to let an alien take him out. you wouldn’t be surprised if he had killed a few himself. to still be alive you practically had to.

“what are you doing here? wheres your base?” you ask. theres no way he’s been in this area long, you couldn’t have been missing him this whole time.

“i’m on the move, actually.” rafe says, clearing his throat. “retaking tanneyhill.”

you smile at that, and the action makes your cheeks hurt. you can’t remember the last time you’ve made that expression. “you and what army?”

rafe shrugs, also grinning. “it’s my home. not going to let anyone drive me out.”

“that’s… brave.” you say honestly. all of the tension is gone from the times before they came. it was always kooks vs pogues, but now, there were just pogues. rafes status was the same as yours. there was nothing for you to be afraid or apprehensive of anymore.

“come with me.” rafe says. you take a step back. back to outer banks. the thought rolls through your head. “at least to the edge of town.”

you nod, not able to find words. it’s getting dark anyways, so you need to make camp soon. you’ll sleep on it and reevaluate in the morning when you don’t have the excitement of finally having another friendly human around you again.

“i’ve been sleeping in a nearby cave the past couple nights.” you tell rafe, making sure to keep your voice hushed. “there’s room for two.”

“sure beats just sleeping under the stars knowing i could get my head bit off at any minute.” it’s an attempt at a joke, but you can’t bring yourself to laugh, or even smile. it wasn’t so long ago that you woke up to a huffing sound, sitting up to realize one of those… things was almost on top of you. you grabbed the blade you keep under your pillow and ended it, only because it hadn’t yet realized you were there. you know you wouldn’t get so lucky next time.

you’re quiet the rest of the walk, rafe following in your footsteps quietly. you know exactly where to walk to keep your steps near silent. you get to the cave, pulling the branches out of the way that mask it’s entrance. it’s a tight squeeze to get in. you have to take your pack off and set it inside first. rafe does the same, eyebrows rising as he takes in how large the cave really is, looking up to see the ceiling is a few feet over his head. there’s a few openings in it, letting in the dying sunlight.

it’s an amazing find, really lucky, which is why you’ve stayed in this once place for so long. and just when you began itching to get moving again, here is rafe, presenting you with an opportunity.

rafe begins to unpack, getting his bedroll out and setting it near yours. it’s the only even spot in the flooring, but your cheeks still heat at the thought of sleeping so close to him.

“here, i have some berries stocked up.” you grab the jar off the floor, opening it and shaking a few into rafes extended hand.

you don’t talk much as you eat. as soon as you stop moving, exhaustion takes over you. you’re thankful that you get so tired, knowing laying down and letting your thoughts run free is not something you want to do. you lay down after you eat, rafe joining you.

“thanks.” he whispers, noticing that just a bit of moonlight is illuminating the cave.

“no problem.” you say, turning on your side to face him. “i’m glad you’re alive.” if you would have thought about rafe yesterday you would have said you didn’t care if he was alive or dead, but it’s different having him here, right next to you.

“i’m glad you’re alive too.” rafe says, reaching out and squeezing your hand. you squeeze back, palm tingling, and you’re not sure if it’s because of rafe, or because it’s human contact. your eyes flutter closed and you fall asleep like that, hands together.

but it’s not how you wake up. you’re so warm, heat pressing against your front. you blink your eyes opening, realizing that at some point in the night you’ve abandoned your sleeping bag and have joined rafe on his bedroll. you go to move away, but rafes arm is trapping you. he lets out a grumble in his sleep at your attempting to move, squeezing you even tighter to him.

you wait for the blush to subside before you tap rafe. “wake up.” you say softly, unable to resist the urge to stroke your thumb over his cheek. rafes eyes flutter open as you pull your hand away.

“sorry.” rafe mumbles, removing his hand from your back to rub over his face. you don’t speak as you roll away, not telling rafe where you’re going as you head out of the cave to get a breath of fresh air as well as do your business. you’re about to remove the brush to get back inside when you hear a chuffing noise. you know exactly what it is, but you wait until the thing comes into view to confirm it, and you’re glad you wait, because it’s not one, but three.

you rush inside the cave, grabbing your blade. “three of them.” is all you say to rafe to get him moving. the entrance isn’t big enough for them to get in, so you work on packing up in case you need to make a quick move. rafe peaks out the entrance, letting out a quiet curse.

“as soon as they’re gone, we’ve got to move.” you whisper. rafe nods, getting his stuff ready as well. you may be safe in this cave, but you’ve only got a couple berries left, and your water bottle is almost empty. as much as you like this location, it’s time to move, because if three are around, theres bound to be more. they’re not pack animals per say, but they tend to stay in groups when they are on move.

you wait hours, sitting there silently, until the sun is high in the sky. you know you have to use it to your advantage, so you share the rest of the berries with rafe and set off, keeping your head on a swivel. you head towards the outer banks, rafe by your side. you want to tell him again, how thankful you are that he’s alive, but you don’t know how long you’ll be able to stick by his side, no matter how bad you want to.

you spend the whole day walking, and you know that you’re only a few more hours from getting where you want to be, but you convince rafe to stop and set up a small camp. it’s not safe to continue at night, especially with the leaves still on the trees, not letting enough light to the forest floor.

you set up your bedrolls side to side, and again wake up in the morning with your limbs tangled together, this time rafe moving towards you. you close your eyes and let yourself enjoy the warm embrace as the sun rises, sending a warm orange glow over everything. rafe wakes up a few minutes later, squeezing you tightly before getting up. you don’t speak about it as you start to walk again.

you stop by a clean looking river and get some drinking water, both filling up your bottles, knowing you’ll have to boil it later but don’t want to stop. time seems to fly, and before you know it you’re walking down the street of the one place you swore you wouldn’t come back. thankfully, rafes house is nowhere near your familys shop, yet you still feel the tug.

“the fence is still intact.” rafe notes as you approach. he swings the gate open, eyes sweeping over the yard. a lot of the houses have damage, but he’s right, everything looks like it’s still in good shape. you suppose it’s a testament to the older houses being built better, after all this house has gone through hundreds of tropical storms or hurricanes.

“lets do a quick sweep before we get too excited.” you tell rafe. he gives a curt nod, but you can still see the excitement in his eyes. you stick together, going through every room in the lower floor before heading up the stairs. it’s obviously picked through, but a lot of the important things remain untouched. you want to cry at the fact that there’s still mattresses on the beds. it’s been so long since you’ve slept properly on a bed.

you’re about to head downstairs when you hear nails scratching against the hardwood. your eyes widen and briefly meet rafes before you both look over the railing, realizing one of the aliens must have snuck in after you, and was now heading right towards the stairs.

“rafe.” you whisper-scream.

“get in the bedroom. close the door.” rafe says, shoving you away.

“no, what?” you protest, knowing you can help.

“please, y/n, i lost… everyone.” his voice breaks, eyes shining. “i can’t lose you too, not when i just got you.”

you frown at his words, but nod, heading towards the bedroom and closing the door. you take your pack off, grabbing your blade. the second you hear rafe in any sort of trouble you’re coming out.

you hear a commotion, but can’t make much out, until you hear rafe mutter a curse. you throw open the door, seeing rafe clutching his arm, but the monster there on the ground, dead.

“rafe!” you rush to him. “into the bathroom, quickly.” you say, hoping to find some sort of towel to wrap around the wound, maybe if you’re lucky something to stave off infection.

“hey.” rafe stops. “we have to go shut the gate first.”

you shake your head no. “you’re bleeding, we take care of you first then we can do whatever else.” rafe sighs, but nods, letting you lead him into the spacious bathroom, but it feels small when you close the door behind you. it’s been almost a year since you’ve been inside a house, and its near suffocating being trapped. you quickly scrounge through the cabinets, shocked to find so much stuff. you realize the camerons probably stayed as long as they could, meaning most of the looting was done by the time the house was vacant.

you find some hydrogen peroxide and a hand towel, deciding it will work for now. you turn back to rafe, who has now taken his shirt off. your breath catches in your throat, noting not just his defined muscles but also the various scars littered along his torso. some were clearly deep, other little scratches, maybe from a thorn.

you shake the fuzzy feeling out of your head and squirt a little bit of the peroxide onto a towel, not wanting to waste such a precious resource. you press it to the wound, and rafe doesn’t even flinch at the sting. as you clean it up, you realize it’s not bad at all. rafe would likely recover quickly, especially now that you can control any potential infection somewhat.

you rip the sleeve off his shirt. it’s no good anymore anyways, and tighten it around his wound.

“you make a good nurse.” rafe says, admiring your quick and efficient work.

“no formal training, but i did watch greys anatomy before.” you laugh, the sound echoing around you.

rafe smiles at you, tucking a strand of hair out of your face. “stay with me?” rafe asks, reaching down to squeeze your hand. “we can fortify this place. put wiring along the top of the fence. plant, make a whole garden. fish for our food. we can live as comfortably as possible, together.”

you nod before you can stop yourself. you honestly can’t think of anything better than feeling safe.

the first couple months are just hard work. you use the prebuilt wall along the property to make it a safe haven against the aliens, even going as far to set some traps.

you eventually settle into a routine. rafe does most of the fishing, you do all of the gardening, and then you fall asleep in the same bed every night. it becomes comfortable. you have sightings of the monsters, but only a couple pose any threat, and you’re always able to retreat back into tanneyhill until they leave the town. you don’t see any other people, probably because no one wants to be trapped on an island, potentially stranded.

you decide to head into town, rafe has been pushing you that it would be smart to check for supplies, and he’s right, but your families shop is in town and you don’t know how you’ll cope seeing it, but you eventually agree you do need to reup your supplies, especially clean, unripped clothing.

rafe takes a gun he found still in the safe at tanneyhill as you walk together down the street. it feels freeing to be out without a pack, knowing that you have someplace safe to return to.

you follow rafe, until you get there, and your steps falter. rafe notices immediately as you turn to face the place you grew up in, running down the aisles with your sister, being scolded by your father when you bump the shelves and knock merchandise off. part of you wants to go inside, be surrounded by those memories, but you know what else lies inside those doors.

“hey, what’s wrong?” rafes voice sounds far away, even as hes right next to you.

you sink to your knees, unable to even stand, tears flowing down your face. rafe follows you to the ground, hand cupping your face, other arm pulling you into him.

“hey, hey, i got you.” rafe says, kissing your head. “i got you. it’s okay.”

he lets you cry until theres nothing left in you. the year of pent up emotions, holding everything in because you had no choice. there was no time for breakdowns in the constant struggle to survive, but rafe has helped give you safety, and in that, freedom.

“thank you.” you look up at him, knowing you would still be out there in those woods if it wasn’t for him. you lean in, pressing your lips against rafes. he hesitates for a moment and then returns the kiss, pulling you somehow even closer into him.

“thank you.” rafe presses his forehead against yours. “i was lost before we found each other.” he pecks a kiss to your lips. “you saved me in ways you don’t even know. i wasn’t coming back to outer banks to retake tanneyhill, i was coming back to give up.” rafe admits.

you can’t help the gasp that you let out. rafe giving up? he must have been in a truly terrible place. you imagine seeing his entire family killed did that to him. you know exactly what it’s like.

“i love you.” you tell rafe, needing him to hear the words you’ve been holding back for almost a month now.

“i love you.” rafe kisses you deeply again. “i love you.”

#obxweek23 #reupload!#rafe fic #rafe fanfic #rafe fanfiction #rafe x reader #rafe cameron fic #rafe cameron fanfic #rafe cameron fanfiction #rafe cameron x reader #rafe cameron imagine #rafe cameron blurb #rafe cameron drabble #rafe cameron one shot

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ilyhaitanii · 19 days

Text

masked fool ft. marius von hagen

sfw. while out on an nxx mission, marius finds himself reminecsing about the childhood you two spent together. jealousy bubbles in his stomach. as annoying as it sounds, he can be quite cute like this

a/n: im v much a vyn girl, but marius brainrot is so real right now. he's all i can think about these past few days

there’s something so beautiful about how imperfect marius is. a young man born into the spotlight, forced to fit the mold of his older brother when it was far too big for him. a young man of many talents and extraordinary beauty. he has it all: talent, money, fame. what more could he ask for?

to an outsider, marius von hagen has his entire life laid out for him. he has his father’s money to fall back on, he has his good looks and charm to help him out of tricky situations. he quite literally has it all. however, growing up the way marius did, you tend to be very lonely.

he seeks out any sort of relationship, good or bad. whether it was the kids in primary school who used to push him around for pocket money, or now the executives who prod and pick at him for every little mishap. he still cherishes any and all connections he makes.

the one he cherishes the most is your bond. childhood friends— marius’ only friend. sure, he was popular. he was giann’s younger brother, everybody knew his family name. but he was never truly friends with anyone.

he felt like an outsider no matter where he went because he knew people only wanted him for one thing: his family’s influence. but you? you didn’t care about any of that. you always sought him out during lunch when he’d sit up on that oak tree by the west-end of the school courtyard during lunch, you always made sure to actually listen to him. you were always the one person he knew he could rely on.

marius gazes at you from across the hall, swirling the sparkly champagne in his glass. he’s staring at your exposed back, but he’s also silently glaring at the man you’re talking to him. the rosy color on your cheeks makes his blood boil. the way you’re laughing (who is he kidding you’re fucking giggling) and blushing. there’s this indescribable feeling of annoyance, yet so much anxiety is bubbling in his stomach all at once. it makes marius feel ill.

the sound of his code name buzzing in his ear brings him back down to earth. however, he can’t help but take another look at you. he knows this is all for the mission— you have to flirt with this guy for information, but he can’t help but want to wrap his arms around you and tell the guy to fuck off.

marius knows he cant, he would mess everything up. he tries to distract himself with conversations and champaign. it works to some extent, but at some point he can’t take it. he steps outside for some fresh air. as he makes his way out to the garden, he lets out a heavy sigh.

what is wrong with him? marius knows, he’s certian you love him. hell, you’re the girl of his dreams— the love of his life. he knows there’s no one else for him but you. his hand slips into his suit’s inside pocket. he pulls out a pack of cigarettes (a pack he definitely stole from vyn’s estate but he would never admit that.)

as he lights the stick, a puff of smoke leaves the corners of his lips. the smoke suffocates his lungs, making him feel light headed. it makes him feel somewhat better. the inability to think means he doesn’t have to think about you all over some other guy. he doesn’t have to think about how you weren’t allowed to wear your promise ring so nobody knows you’re taken. marius doesn’t even want to think about that guy’s hand touching your bare back.

however, before his irritation can grow into something more intense, a pair of arms circle his waist. he’s taken aback before he looks over his shoulder. he doesn’t fully turn all the way before realizing it’s you. your cheeks pressed against his shoulder blades, fingertips toying with the button’s of his dress shirt.

“since when do you smoke?” you ask marius in a tired tone, eyes fluttering shut. he manages to turn around without your arms letting go of him. he quickly drapes his jacket over your shoulders, shielding you body from the cold. marius stomps on the cigarette, before placing it back into the pack.

“what are you doing here, missy? shouldn’t you be inside, hm?” his lips curl into that signature smirk of his. his hands make their way to your hips— cheeky bastard. “couldn’t leave me alone for one night, huh?” his tall stature allows him to hover over you. he leans down, whispering sweet words into your ears.

you chuckle in that sweet, sugary tone of yours. the bubbles in marius’s stomach dissolves. that’s sweet laughter is reserved for his ears. this side of you was reserved for him as well. he’s an idiot. your hand manages to cup his jaw, thumb rubbing circles into his cheeks (he still has a bit of a babyface.)

“answering a question with a question. you really aren’t doing well,” you frown slightly before marius’ brows fall. he shakes his head, hiding his face into the crook of your neck. he hums, inhaling the sweet vanilla scent of your perfume accompanied by the coconut shampoo you use.

“i missed you,” he says, hugging you even tighter. chest to chest, marius tries to bury himself into you, but that's physically impossible. he whines like a child, trying to curl into you. your arms are around him, your palm patting his head.

"missed you too. we can go now, luke will take over from here. just had to lure him away," you don't move your boday away from him though even has the night air has you breaking out into goosebumps. your hands slide around his waist, cheek presses against his shoulders.

there's a beauty in marius's flaws, his immaturity. a boy forced to grow up so fast, forced to carry the burden of pax's ceo-- a task he was not shaped for. though at times his immaturity and teasing manners can tick you off, you tend to encourage it. it allows marius to truly be the young man he is, rather than the serious ceo mask he wears through out the day.

so for now, you'll kiss his face, cup his cheeks in your hands, and allow him to lay between your legs with his head on your stomach, while you toy with his hair. there's no universe in which would you ever want marius to have to keep that mask on forever. even if his jealousy is stemming from a place of childishness and immaturity, you'll allow it to continue for the sole sake of wanting to see the true marius von hagen. he's much easier to talk to like this anyway.

#marius x reader #marius von hagen x reader #tears of themis #idk how to tag this.#tot marius #marius von hagen #marius von hagen fluff #marius fluff #tot fluff

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philtstone · 2 months

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Eowyn, 1

1 - in lonely beds ive finally scraped together a functional first scene for my accidentally-a-psych 3 hunters detective agency au. if you guys like this mess i'll turn it into a real fic. with chapters and a plot and everything!!!!! the prompt is ... interpreted but loneliness and my girl eowyn are well acquainted

It is four o'clock on a Tuesday and Eowyn Eomundsdottir has three significant problems.

Arrest, rapid-onset dementia, and laundry.

Each of her issues is easily explainable if considered separately. Eowyn is the first to admit that her brother Eomer’s always had a bit of a temper, and if she puts aside the necessary development of maturity and commitment to familial responsibilities that happened after their parents died, it was always a matter of time before some poor idiot pressed his buttons in just the wrong-enough way in front of another just the wrong-enough idiot to get him jailed overnight for knocking in an unwitting nose.

Plenty of people’s uncles develop rapid-onset dementia, she is freely ready to acknowledge.

And – if Eowyn may be so self-aware – she has certainly fallen behind on her laundry many times before.

But no matter how short her brother’s temper, he wouldn’t be arrested for trying to embezzle family funds. Rapid-onset dementia is far less likely when there is next to nil history of it in your family tree, and even less so when the Uncle in question is a scant fifty-three and doing perfectly fine not two months ago. And, most importantly: Eowyn has fallen behind on laundry before, but never because of the above-mentioned two issues, and never such that the only thing she’s got left to wear is a thin white sundress from when she was fourteen that is too short at the knees and not at all suited for the early spring cold spell they are currently experiencing, nor the creepy wandering eyes of Uncle Theoden’s new business manager, who routinely looks like he’s been doused in oil.

It’s fucking miserable, is what it is. Her knees have goosepimpled, she’s so cold. And to make matters worse, her cousin Theodred, whom she would usually text for help in a crisis, seems to have blocked her phone number.

That, Eowyn simply can’t believe.

It’s because of all these things that she finds herself standing at the dingy brick building by the docks, eyeing the circling seagulls warily, and clutching her backpack in one hand and her bike helmet — which has left her long blonde hair looking like a birds nest — in the other. It’s a small place, with a glass window in place of a front wall that’s got the blinds drawn on the inside. There’s no official sign, but someone has taped a small piece of cardstock to the back of the windowpane, facing out. It reads, in surprisingly elegant black Sharpie penmanship:

Telcontar, Gloinson & Thranduilion Private Investigators for Hire

Beneath this, there is an additionally taped series of brightly coloured post-it notes, which are scrawled over with the following in various hands:

Got a phone! +1591-334-9920 (If no one answers the door, call the number! We DO NOT have a website.) That’s because Gimli thinks the government is spying on us. SO DO YOU! All inquiries welcome :-)

Eowyn takes a moment to read through it all. Then she pauses, listening. There is the distinct sound of voices from within, muffled. So someone must be home, then – better just to open the door, rather than knock, in case no one hears her. She takes a deep, steadying breath, tugs at the too-short hem of her dress, and twists the doorknob.

Inside there is what can only be described as carefully organized chaos.

Within the small office space there is a cluttered desk housing a laptop and overlarge monitor. Boxes cover everything, as though someone has only just moved in, and a lopsided whiteboard rests against the far wall, covered in a far less elegant version than the hand that wrote the outside sign. Everything smells a little bit like camphor, and also cookies, and a very faint touch of gym socks. A man sits on a rolly chair in the corner; he is on his cellphone. Eowyn wouldn’t have even seen him if he wasn’t talking, so well does he somehow blend into the taupe walls and cluttered box decor, but as she does: he is tall (too tall for the chair), dark haired, and wearing an old grey hoodie, running shoes, and an abominably ratty pair of jeans. He’s talking on the phone in a low gentle voice that is nonetheless a touch put-upon, but nowhere near snippy or even frustrated. Eowyn (in a fit of fancy) doesn’t think a voice like that could be capable of snippiness, and then promptly feels very embarrassed by her own foolishness. At his feet, by the bottom of the whiteboard, a pile of dirty blankets rests. From within them sounds a plaintive meowing. Opera music plays from a speaker system Eowyn can’t see; a hammer (maybe?) is banging somewhere in the distant back room, the door to which hangs open on squeaky hinges; and two other voices can be heard arguing loudly from the same general direction.

Also, there is a young man, around Eowyn’s own age, standing very awkwardly with his green jumper and moppish brown hair to the immediate left of the door and looking as if he’s not sure what he’s supposed to be doing with himself. At Eowyn’s bewildered look, he offers her a pained smile and a weird little wave hullo. Eowyn waves weirdly back.

“Yeah – yeah, just a second. We’ve got a client –” The man in the rolly chair looks up at Eowyn and smiles. It is such a very nice, genuinely kind smile that Eowyn cannot help but smile back immediately and then feel her whole face go red; she’d be thoroughly soothed if she wasn’t also feeling so completely out of her depth. Bang bang bang, comes the hammer from the back room, along with a swelling of the arguing voices. “Someone will be with you in a second,” whisper-mouths the man. Then he reaches down, takes off one of his running shoes, and flings it very expertly through the open door. There is a small noise, like a crash, and the other two voices stop. He returns to his phone call.

“... what I was saying. No. No, I don’t want you to be halfway across the world. That’s not the point, the point is your dad stopped practicing ten years ago and now owns a bed and breakfast. He’s not the one who’d be navigating a corrupt healthcare system. Do you know how much lobby money lines the pockets of mega corporations? Remember the whole Nestle baby formula thing? The media definitely doesn’t …”

“Good afternoon!” declares a second, much louder voice, minutes before its owner materializes behind the cluttered desk. He is more beard than man, wears a very formal and very 1990s plum coloured suit and one single gold earring, and comes up to about Eowyn’s shoulder. He claps his hands together. “Now, which of you was here first? No – don’t tell me, I will guess!”

But his imminent guessing is interrupted by the third voice, floating in:

“I still can’t find it!”

Desk man deflates by a margin. Without turning his head, he calls,

“I told you to look in the third box!”

“I looked there. It’s not there, Gimli. I’ll try going through the books.”

“Why would a thing like that fit in a book?”

“Try the kitchen,” mouths the man on the rolly chair. A muffled woman’s voice comes through his mobile. He has one hand covering his face now, and his head tipped back to face the ceiling. “Well, yes – I do know that. You’re really telling me you don’t want to go to Paris for a year.” While Eowyn watches the meowing blanket pile moves and from within it a truly horrible looking little cat emerges. It shoots one paw out as if intending specifically to scratch its phone-occupied companion; the speed at which he moves his foot to pin the blankets hem and thwart the little paw is bordering on superhuman. Cat hisses pathetically from under its blanket prison. On the speakers, the opera singer has reached a uniquely high pitch in her stanza. “No, obviously I don’t want to do long-distance, I just think — uh huh. Yes. I’d tell anyone to go to Paris. I’d tell Gimli to go, if Gimli’s university was offering to send him to Paris.”

“He’s already tried the kitchen,” says the man at the desk – presumably Gimli. Still, he yells out, “Try the kitchen, would you?”

“I’ve already tried the kitchen!” calls the disembodied voice. “I can’t find it!”

“You can’t find it because of your terrible organizational system.”

“It is not my terrible organizational system, which you know, and besides which I have never had problems with it before.”

“No,” from the rolling chair, “Legolas is maligning my organizational skills. I know you think they’re fine, so you can tell your cousin that on Sunday …”

“Try the kitchen.”

“I’ve tried the kitchen twice.”

Bang bang bang, continues the sound from the back room. Eowyn wonders if there isn’t an ongoing construction project. The young guy on her left, with the moppish hair and jumper, gives her a look as if to say, Filing cabinet, maybe?

“As you can see, gentle lady,” explains Gimli the desk man, very politely to Eowyn, while the second voice declares somewhat redundantly that he is, in fact, going to check the kitchen, “we are a tad busy this afternoon. Someone will be with you momentarily.” He turns, presumably in the kitchen’s direction, and calls out, “if you ask my opinion on the subject again, I’ll wallop you with Aragorn’s dratted guitar!”

Eowyn looks. There indeed is a battered old guitar, perched merrily on a pile of papers behind the front desk, ready to be used for walloping.

“I could come back later,” says Eowyn. She looks over at jumper guy, who’s staring at the still-hissing pile of blankets with some concern. “Can’t really speak for him, though.”

Jumper guy looks aggrieved. “Er – no, I’d rather not come back later. Gandalf said you’d be free to help.”

“And help –” begins Gimli, while there is another crash from the back room (they all wince, though Gimli does it with serenity) “-- we shall! If you give my colleague Legolas a moment to get his head on straight –” (the disembodied voice says something very rude in response to this pointed inflection), “-- then the two of us will be at your disposal.”

“Three of us,” interjects the first, almost forgotten voice.

Eowyn and her jumper-clad companion turn startled to look: cellphone put away, rolly chair man has stood up to his quite considerable height and is looking at them consideringly. Despite his mildness of expression Eowyn experiences the uncomfortable feeling of being looked at by someone who could in a more fantastical setting have, like, laser vision or something – how is he doing it? And she is sure he isn’t really seeing right through her but she does get the sense he is understanding a lot more than she’d like to let on. Almost defiantly she tugs at her dress and clutches her bike helmet closer to herself. Jumper guy clears his throat. Then from the back room comes – presumably – Legolas, who is fair, thin, and for reasons unexplained wearing sunglasses indoors. He is also covered in what Eowyn hopes are pillow feathers and holding, in one hand, a very large glittering silver sword, and in the other a dingy looking VHS tape. It has cartoon vegetables in cloaks on the front.

“Did anyone know we still had this?” he asks pleasantly, and it is not clear to which find he is referring, “Arwen and I used to stare at it for hours as kids.” He spots Eowyn and her jumper-clad counterpart. “Oh – hello!”

Eowyn gapes. The three of them make a fascinating picture, standing there alongside each other.

“Now then,” says the man called Gimli. “Faramir, we know of already –” he nods at the boy beside Eowyn, who looks a bit bewildered by this, “as Gandalf sent him here! But this young lady we do not. How can we help?”

Perhaps it is the blinding reflection of the hopefully-a-prop sword, but Eowyn is suddenly overtaken by an awful affliction of watery eyes, which has nothing at all to do with her general feelings of overwhelm — until now expertly repressed — she is sure. She feels at once full of despair and yet shaking with eagerness, and everything she’d been desperate to explain to a listening ear gets stuck in her throat in the face of three, admittedly sort of weird (somewhat stern, verging on intense, dipping into outright comical), thoroughly kind faces looking right at her. It suddenly occurs to her how horribly, horribly alone she’s felt for the past six weeks.

She remains rooted to the spot and tragically mute while Faramir, from beside her, begins all at once,

“I wasn’t sure where to go. I didn’t want it getting back to dad, so Gandalf seemed like the best option — and he said you were very trustworthy, and I do trust Gandalf of course – but it's my brother, you see, he’s disappeared,” vaguely Eowyn is aware of a grim look of surprise rippling through the collective at this reveal, “and it’ll sound crazy but I had this awful dream two weeks ago …”

While Eowyn attempts to wrangle her misbehaving emotions like one would a wobbly-legged yet stubbornly misbehaving colt, an impromptu consultation begins.

“Gone missing?”

“I bet he went hiking or something and lost his phone. It’s happened before.”

“Boromir hates hiking, though. Remember when Aragorn tried to bring him camping with us?”

“No wonder Gandalf sent you here.”

“I have odd dreams too sometimes; they are usually because of indigestion. I’m sure old Boromir’s just fine.”

“No,” insists Faramir, who seems – in Eowyn’s half-attentive estimation – to be doing an admirable job at hiding his surprise at this existing knowledge of his brother. “He’s not answering my texts – it’s like he’s blocked my number, which doesn’t make any sense!”

Eowyn’s head jerks around to stare at him.

Could it be a coincidence? That is exactly the thought she herself had, not an hour ago, about her own cousin. Is it possible that she isn’t crazy, and her awful yearning for Eomer to be here and not in overnight jail, so someone who is not Eowyn could deal with things, is not childish? She opens her mouth, but her words are stuck again. All she can do is inhale like a small bird puffing up its chest and make a very very faint squeaking noise, which she is mostly sure no one can hear.

“Legolas,” interjects rolly chair man. His sharp grey eyes, which had flitted around briefly and shrewdly throughout the hubbub, are now fixed again on Eowyn, and thoughtful. The commotion dies down. In a mild voice he says, “Maybe you could fetch a clean pair of gym shorts and a blanket to lend our new friend, so she’ll be a bit more comfortable.”

Eowyn, swaying a bit on the spot, hadn't even realized she was tugging at her dress again.

“Oh,” she manages.

“Aye, I’d say you’re about the same size,” agrees Gimli, to Legolas, after a beat. “Aragorn has a good eye for these things,” he adds, as if needing their prospective clients in crisis to know this.

“I’ll bring her a comb, too,” says Legolas, not at all meanly, and goes to fetch these things.

“And I’ll put on some tea,” says Aragorn, so named, and for a second time his face softens with that warm, open smile. “I’m Aragorn,” he continues. “Let’s all sit down, and you can both start from the beginning; everything will be alright.”

In the moment after this offer Eowyn locks eyes with Faramir. He is standing next to her. His jumper looks particularly sad now that she is paying attention. He isn’t looking at Aragorn or the sword or the pillow feathers Legolas left behind, but at her. Right at her. There’s a solidarity there. It would be a touching exchange, Eowyn thinks, if not for the fact that the feral cat in its blanket pile has started talking to itself in oddly pitched meows.

A large crash sounds from the back room, accompanied by the sound of a child swearing.

“Yeah, okay,” Eowyn says.

For the rest of today, at least, she has decided that she refuses to feel alone.

#my writing #taylor swift prompt memes #lord of the rings #eowyn #faramir #eowyn x faramir #aragorn #gimli #legolas #legolas x gimli #aragorn x arwen #for those wondering yes the veggie tales vhs is lord of the beans #and the cat IS gollum

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naisilla · 4 months

Text

Pairing: Rhaast x Reader

Genre: Smut

Summary: You played a game of cat and mouse with Rhaast.

Additional tags: Rape/Non-con, Doggy style, Unedited, Loosing virginity, size kink, scissor straddle

Your lungs were hot, and huffing out shallow and noisy breaths. Your heart thrummed in your ears as you made swift strides through the woods.

The branches of the abundant trees were reaching for you, catching onto your skin and clothes decorating them with cuts and tears. The stinging sensation made you flinch but the heavy pursuing footsteps behind you pushed you to make haste.

There was no sense of direction you were heading at this point you were lost as the woods around you only got more darker and foreboding. You'd rather throw yourself into that dark unknown than be caught by the demon.

Flashes of the recent past were burned into your mind, there was so much blood, so much carnage. There were horrible screams of agony being drowned out by deep cackling.

You remember the fire, how it spread and ate all the houses in the village. How the flames grew tall and hungry, licking the sky in insatiable craving. The smoke was thick and black, it hung over the sky like a heavy blanket, blocking out the evening sky.

And in the smoke were red eyes that looked upon the destruction with revel. Your village had become a massacre to this demon. Your heart clenched in the torment of losing your home and possibly your family. But the terror gripped your heart tighter.

You were the remaining soul left to be slain and you were in plain sight of the predator. Whimpering you turn on your feet and sprint into the surrounding Ionian woods.

And so here you were stumbling and rushing between the densely packed woods. But no matter how fast or nimble you tried to be those heavy footsteps not only followed you, but they were gaining.

"Shit shit shit" you hiss realizing how thin of a thread your life was hanging onto, running wasn't going to cut it, you needed to outsmart it instead.

You drop to the floor, your elbows absorbing the shock of being landed and begin to crawl under the forest brush. Unfortunately, the brush around you was all studded with thorns. You tucked your chin into your collar and screwed your eyes shut praying your eyelids won't be torn open.

You tuck yourself underneath the bush, cramming your body as far back as you can imagine. Thorns have dug into your body and dragged against your skin as you pulled yourself into the brush.

Your heart continued to hammer against your chest, the thrumming of blood pumping deafened your ears. It sounded like the chasing footsteps were coming from everywhere. You clamp a hand over your mouth restricting oxygen for the sake of being undetectable. Or so you prayed.

Your vision was restricted by the thick undergrowth, but the light that seeped through flickered indicating that something was moving nearby.

Those damned footsteps had slowed down into a stalking pace and you listened as they circled around you. Coming and going but gradually edging closer to your spot.

How long were you willing to stay under here? Thirty minutes? A few hours? Could you stay hunkered down here all night? You could already feel your body aching from being folded so unnaturally and the building pain of these thorns digging into your flesh was no ignorable matter.

The remaining light there was dimmed into the blackness of the night. The sound of frogs croaking and crickets chirping slowly began to fill the night. Your heart had calmed down a lot by then but the sense of fear never quite left your consciousness.

Surely now it was safe enough to try and emerge right? You could feel hunger starting to seep in and your many wounds needed to be seen too. Gingerly you start to crawl out of your hiding space wincing as the thorns drag in the opposite direction splitting out your skin even more. You could feel your damp clothes heat up as you bled into the fabric.

You had crawled about halfway out when the forest ambiance went silent. You freeze not liking the sudden change and turn your head looking around. It's too dark to make out anything, shadows seem to silently move among the darkness. You can't tell what is real and what a figment of your paranoia.

Something grabs your ankles and you let out a shrill scream as your dragged back through the bush and out the other side. You try to dig your nails into the earth to hold on but yowl as the force of being dragged pulls your nails away from your fingers.

You get dragged through then violently turned over onto your back and you finally get a look at what has been hunting you all night.

His sturdy physique loomed over you with pride, the cold moonlight brought definition to his sculpted musculature and made his red complexion glow. Clad to his form were plates of armor, hard and steely which contrasted to the traditional Ionian pants that were tied to his waist. His feet were hooved and crowned on his head were two horns that arched into a broken halo.

He leaned in close, bringing you towards his face as his maw studded in sharp teeth opened. A thick hot breath ruffles the hair stuck to your face in a sheen of sweat making you shudder.

The more time you study him the more details you notice, he was covered in blood and he casually leaned against his scythe. His weapon seemed to be made of red flesh, the long curved blade piercing through the meat tissue along with a row of serrated teeth. Jeweled with a glowing eyeball that twitched and swiveled. More blood dribbled from the scythe. The blood of your village.

Your eyes shoot back to the demonic face and your heart quivers in your chest. You were the final girl and now you were to pathetically die in the demon's hands. Your fingers claw into the arm that grips you in a possessive hold. There was no chance you could stand against this demon but you refused to die willingly, at least if you were to die it would be writing, squirming, fighting.

Hot tears shamelessly poured down your face as you tried to pry yourself from his hand. Your legs that dangled below kicked up and pushed against him while your arms banged, punched clawed at your captor. You let out a frustrated shrill screech as you forced yourself to convulse hoping his grip would give way.

In your pitiful attempts, the demon only laughed, his cackle rumbling through the dark forest and vibrating through you in its baritone. He sighs and peers at you amused before his grin falls. "You're boring me."

He brings his other hand towards you teasingly inching his outstretched claws toward your body. Your mind flashed with imagery of those long daggers digging into your flesh and pulling out your organs with ease.

They pause, teasingly grazing the skin of your arm...

"Rhaast".

Staring back fearful and confused you forced your voice out of your throat in a weak whimper. “W-what?”

"My name is Rhaast".

Your jaw clenched and you gulped down the lump in your throat as the thick tension suffocated you. “Why are you telling me this?” A returning grin carves itself onto Rhaast's face.

"So you'll know what to scream when I have my fun."

Immediately his claws slash at you, tearing away the remaining cloth that managed to cover you throughout your escape. The shredded remains fall to the ground exposing you to the darkin, the fresh cuts begin to weep blood that dribbled down your body. The darkin growls at the sight, chuckling as he peers at you.

"You look so delicious in red". Rhaast says dragging his hot tongue along your collar. You try to lean back pushing against Rhaast to make distance, to get away. Your head violently shakes begging for him to stop.

"Oh the things I can do with your body~" Rhaast's grip on you shifted as he handled you into different positions to inspect your body. You were starting to feel very exposed and self conscious of your body. Quickly you try to clamp your thighs shut and cover your chest making the Darkin laugh more in amusement.

Rhaast began to drag his claws across your body only light enough to graze the surface. "I could slice you in half" He says, making a motion across your torso. "Or I could crush your head in '' His hand moves to the back of your head, his fingers wrapping around and adding a slight pressure. "Or I could even claw your guts out" His gravelly voice taunts as he rakes his claws down your chest toward your belly.

"Why are you doing this?" your lip quivers "just kill me like you murdered my village."

Rhaast only threw his head back to laugh louder before drawing one claw along your jawline. "Oh you poor pathetic thing" He chuckles while he watches you squirm. You refuse to obey and submit.

More tears continued to run as the vivid imagery of your corpse in many different circumstances filled your mind. Rhaasts revelled in the pleasure he received through your distress. He was toying with you, he wanted to get a rise out of you and you were being accumulated to it. You couldn't take it anymore and snapped. "Please Rhaast just get it over with it!"

Suddenly you were slammed back into the forest floor, caged within Rhaats’s arms. “DAMMIT,” He growls, his body tensing as if he was internally fighting himself. His piercing red eyes striking down on you. “I have waited for eons to bathe this realm in blood! To take the pitiful existence of life from thousands! To be thrilled by their screams as I drive into their flesh!”

“But this body I’ve possessed still craves things I haven’t desired since I was a human. I want your flesh…but in a different way…”

Rhaast began to rutt his hips into yours snapping them hard and fast rhythmically. Shivers ran through you as his gravelly grunts blared over you, being painfully made aware of the rigid bulge that urgently poked towards your lower half seeking entrance.

You try to flip yourself over between being jerked by Rhaast's sloppy thrusts, clawing at the ground with bleeding nails to crawl away only to be hastily forced against the floor by a clawed hand on your back.

Letting out a whimper you crane your neck to glance behind at the Darkin letting out a sob as your eyes followed Rhaast's other hand lower towards his waist to fish inside the traditional Ionian pants he wore. Rhaast finally pulls out the thickest cock your virgin mind could ever imagine. It matched his red complexion with a dark purple tip and a corrugated pattern.

Your jaw drops as Rhaast's clenched fist guides it towards your exposed vulva, frantically thrashing wasn't an option as the hand on your back gripped you still. At the same time he looms over you baring his large chest onto your shoulders and bringing his face next to your ear.

His maw gapes open and his hot tongue returns to the back of your shoulder blade lapping your skin eagerly before his jaws clamp down onto your shoulder simultaneously synced with the unceremonious slamming of Rhaasts rigid cock inside.

An agonizing scream breaks from your mouth into the surrounding darkness of the forest. Your insides feel so invaded and stretched to the point of tearing as Rhaasts cock buries itself deep in your hole. Not even given a moment to adjust you can feel him retreat his shaft, each rigid segment dragging along your wall before he breaches back inside again. Releasing a low growl Rhaast jerked his hips again making his hips flush against your ass with a clap, more guttural snarls sputter from the Darkins teeth that lodge themselves into the flesh of your shoulder.

The speed of Rhaast's thrusts picks up and the brutality of his strength kicks in, the force makes you struggle to keep upright on your hands and knees. "Oh, how I've missed this" Rhaast grunts bringing his hands to snake around your torso to hold you up while he continues to rail into your helpless form. Your face wore a permanent grimace and after screaming in pain for so long your torn raw throat was in equal pain as your aching cunt.

The momentum of Rhaast slamming himself and your body jostling in reaction went on into the night, eventually your pussy grew numb to having such a large cock batter your velvet walls. You were able to take it without backlash, only discomfort. When would this end? How much more did you have to endure? This was so humiliating and shameful.

One of Rhaasts fingers began to roam down towards your leg, curling under it and using it as a hook to flip you onto your side while keeping your leg bent and raised. Yelping you are forced to now look at the monster as he drives into you from a new angle. His cock now hits and drags over a new spot making you clench out of reflex making the Darkin groan. "So tight" he grunts continuing to plow with renewed vigor, making squelching slaps that echoed in the chilly air. You clamp your lips shut from allowing a soft moan escape.

Cloudy puffs of hot breath mixed in the air between the both of you which you watched with half lidded eyes. Rhaast darkly chuckles "Finally got you to shut up huh?" you merely look at him weakly before diverting your eyes down to where your bodies met. The sight was unreal as you watched such a giant dick disappear into your hole, the size difference between the both of you were durastic Rhaast practically doubled your height so by assumption the size of his cock was twice the times of an average human and here it was being crushed inside your tiny hole passing through and expanding once inside to the resistance of your gummy walls.

It was beggining to twitch and squirm inside of you the prehensilness of it continuing to stroke you over that spot over and over again. That moan you were holding back is let go. "How pathetic, your so tiny and fragile." The wet slapping grew more raucous, each impact of his cock invading your insides making your soft curves and tits forcibly bounce with a rippling effect. Seeing you like this only made Rhaast impossibly more rigid. "Look at how much you tremble its adorable watching you struggle to not break" His claws drag down your front, skin glistening the cold sweat.

You shiver, reminded of how brutal the Darkin is. He is a creature of blood shed and violence, the only reason you were the last survivor left was because he was using you like some toy. It was so wrong yet your mind grew foggy of how good this was beginning to feel. Rhaast watched your grimace melt and chuckled "Such a little whore I knew I could break you". You could only let out a lazy moan "Mmph" Rhaast throws his head back and laughs darkly.

He brings his face down to your body and begins to lick it again, his hot glossa from your navel upwards between the valley of your breasts. The hot trail in its wake exposed to the cold night air making you shiver and moan. "Such a delicious mortal" Rhaasts muses as he continues to nibble and lick your skin lavishing any cuts sloppily lapping up your blood. The sensation makes you squirm and your hands fly to those two grand horns in desperation, Rhaast groans his voice louder than before as his giant hands circle your waist. He begins to handle you moving your body up and down his length, your whole torso fitting in his palm.

Your abused cunt couldnt take all this stimulation and you begin to cry again gripping onto Rhaasts arm desperately and screaming his name. He only forces you to ride him more violently, making you take his length again and again. It feels so much hotter like Rhaasts cock itself is burning up, it contracts inside you and swells, throbbing hard before finally spilling hot ropes of cum.

It overflows your pussy and squirts out your hole onto both of your legs, more and more loads continuing to spill out in a creamy mess. Rhaast lets out a sigh of relief finally letting you go, his cock audibly popping out of your cunt flicking some slickness and a string of his seed connecting the both of you.

You fall to your knees before they buckle under from you and you pathetically collapse back onto the forest floor while the darkin towers over you, chuckling darkly once more. He leans to the side and picks up his scythe he had leaning against a tree this whole time. You stare at the blade trembling from both being used and from the fear of the danger before you.

"That was fun little human. I'll give you ten seconds to run" Rhaasts says slinging the scythe over his shoulder casually. You sob but force yourself back onto your quivering legs and begin to stagger away, desperate to escape from this game of cat and mouse. But it isn't long before your adrenaline fails you...

A/N: My second smut....yay. what is this a darkin collection??

#league of legends x reader #lol x reader #league of legends #league of legends headcanons #league smut #Rhaast x reader #Rhaast

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hotreadingwitch · 4 months

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MADE TO LIE - the epilogue

“UNCLE STEVE!” 3-year-old Rebecca practically screeched as her favourite uncle lifted her up into a tight, spinning hug.

The little girl beamed as she was then smothered in kisses by her two aunts Natasha and Wanda. Sam hugged her too, patting her affectionately on her wavy mass of brunette hair that she got from her dad.

“Come in, come in,” Bucky gestured for them to move to the living room where the large, decorated tree was glistening with festive light.

“Don’t forget about the little one” Y/n joked from the couch at the crew of her friends, her family, that had just arrived for the morning’s celebrations.

The four came over immediately all cooing at the newborn who was wrapped in a light pink blanket. Wanda poked at the sweet thing’s cheek, giggling as it jiggled, bouncing from the slight pressure.

“Hi Stevie,” Steve said softly, his eyes glistening as he took the small baby from Y/n, rocking her in his arms. Y/n sighed with relief, her heart full as she took in the warm scene taking place before her. Bucky planted a distracted kiss on her cheek before hugging Sam, Natasha, and Wanda in greeting, wishing them all happy holidays as he did.

Over the last six years of being together, Y/n had discovered that Bucky was rarely as happy as he was during the annual holiday. Some people hated it, overly concerned with finding the perfect presents or completely stressed about one thing or another. She figured it was such a memorable day for him because he had spent so many of them as a child with Steve and his family. Though Y/n didn’t have as many sweet memories of the day from her childhood with her father and his group of criminals, the day was forever changed for her as, exactly four years ago, Bucky had proposed to her at Tony’s holiday party. Their friends had cheered for them and their future as they kissed under the mistletoe, never wanting to break apart.

This Christmas, like each one they’d had together thus far, was bound to be a special one. It was little Stevie Jr’s first Christmas and Rebecca's third but it was also the first time Bucky and Y/n were hosting the special day at their house with their small group of chosen family. The old Brooklyn apartment resisted the December cold, the lit fireplace thankfully keeping them all toasty and warm as they settled in for the merry day. The smell of fresh gingerbread instantly brought Y/n back from the reel of memories that were playing in her head.

“…” Beatka cheered as she bustled into the living room, bearing cookies.

Sam and Wanda practically dived for the warm baked goods making the rest laugh at their antics. Y/n grabbed one as well, splitting it in half and helping Rebecca into her high chair to eat it.

“Thank you Mama” the toddler expressed her gratitude.

Y/n caressed her hair, helplessly affectionate when it came to the little girl only to feel Bucky’s hand on her back, rubbing gentle circles, releasing all her tension. She gazed up at him, helplessly affectionate when it came to him too. The kiss she placed on his lips was chaste and yet Rebecca's small "ew” was loud, making them break apart just to laugh, blush tinting their cheeks.

~ Later that night ~

Y/n snuggled closer to the mound of warmth beneath her as she woke from a short but deep sleep, her holiday dress slightly crumpled. A smooth, jazzy melody flitted through her consciousness as she yawned. Propping herself up onto her elbow she looked over to see a record spinning on the old player next to Bucky’s impressive vinyl collection.

The stars are aglow. And tonight how their light sets me dreaming. My love, do you know? That your eyes are like stars brightly beaming?

“I think I maybe had too much of that spiked egg nog doll” Bucky’s low rumbling voice reverberated in her ears, breaking her away from her sleepy trance.

She laughed through the brain fog that came from sleep, tilting her head upward to capture his lips in a small kiss, one that quickly deepened into something more.

“Can I ask you something?” Y/n questioned when they finally broke apart.

“You know you can” was Bucky’s easy reply.

“Will you dance with me?”

A low, rumbling laugh sounded in his chest as he pulled her up to stand before him, taking her hands and placing them behind his neck. It was moments like this where Y/n felt most connected to Bucky, both his present and his past. They stood swaying to the music, allowing the lyrics and the sweet melody to caress them as their hands did the same, playing over each other’s skin.

I bring you and sing you a moonlight serenade. Let us stray, till break of day in love’s valley of dreams.

“You’re good at this” she flushed beneath his warm gaze. “Do you ever miss it?”

“Miss what?”

“The 40s”

“I miss who I was but even then, not fully because I like who I’ve become…” he paused, taking a breath as if pondering the right thing to say, “And I miss the dancing”

His lighter tone encouraged Y/n to smile and ask, “Show me?”

He swayed her forward and back, side to side, even dipping her at one point, balancing her weight easily. His callused palms ran across her arms, making her shiver as his hips and feet did the majority of the work for both of them. But what she noticed the most was his expression. It was the softest she’d ever seen him look, exposed by the gentle moonlight streaming through the tall window and the glow of the Christmas tree behind them.

“I love that song” Y/n whispered as the melody reached its natural conclusion.

And I sing you a song in the moonlight, a love song, my darling. A moonlight serenade…

She smiled to herself before humming it from the beginning, allowing them to continue to dance, Bucky swinging her gently along. He matched her voice, his baritone one melding together with her higher tone. It truly was a serenade, a moment of vulnerability for them both as they danced beneath the celestial light that shone brightly down on all of Brooklyn.

“I love you” she whispered into his chest like a secret.

He tilted her chin up to look at him, his gaze fond and real, “I love you too doll”

Bucky Barnes was not a man who opened up easily, so Y/n’s responding kiss was her way of saying she was honoured. She was honoured that in the end, he’d trusted her, that he’d cared for her, that he had chosen love—their love— above self-destruction. This was not to say that Y/n hadn’t made the same hard choice. She too had to overcome her most negative thoughts, her learned behaviours, and her traumas to be with him. Some days they struggled but mostly they lived in love, appreciating the life that they’d built. She beamed at the thought that in their shared pain they both had found something worth fighting for.

requested account tags: cjand10 identity2212 bucky-jbb-sunshine unaxv hnnhbananananana @differenttyphoonwerewolf

#fanfiction #fanfic #marvel #marvel fanfic #mcu #mcu fanfiction #bucky #bucky x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes x you #james buchanan barnes #happy ending #romance

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gggoldfinch · 2 years

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Cherry Kisses

Alexei “Smirnoff” x GN!Reader

A/N: Knee deep into the new season, a lovely anon suggested I repost this after having deleted it a while ago. The new characters are great and all, but I think we’re all missing sweet Alexei right about now

Warnings: gn!reader, no usage of y/n or pronouns, angst & fluff, clumsy make-out sesh, kinda spicy but not really, references to past injury/ recovery, friends to lovers

Word Count: 2,854

{AO3 Link}

Summary: Several months after saving the life of a charmingly goofy Soviet scientist who’d been left for dead at a carnival, you find yourself with a major crush. You’re afraid to act on it, lest your feelings be unrequited and your actions ruin your carefree friendship, so instead you resign yourself to suffer in silence. Fate has other plans, it seems.

Despite the occasional wince and hand pressed to his abdomen, Alexei’s healing process has come along quite nicely. Quicker than the doctors at the hospital had anticipated, too. In less than a month your new friend had bounced back, pacing bored circles in his hospital room until you'd finally caved and brought him back into the real world. You obliged only when the doctors said it was alright; you'd never seen a more thankful expression from anyone than when you'd tried your best to explain his release from the hospital.

In all your time alive, you’d never seen anyone so eager and bright and curious as he— not even the most enthusiastic of children. Everything seems shiny and new to the man, his deep brown eyes twinkling with awe at any given moment. It's honestly the most endearing thing you've ever witnessed. Anything there is to explore he's there. His particular favorite spots consist of the Arcade, the Family Video (conveniently next door to it), and the radio store down on Main Street. He always receives odd stares from the kids, teens, and irritated parents at each location, but never seems to let it phase him. In fact, you always take more offense to it than he does, carefully trailing behind him and sending them bitter glares to ward them off.

Sometimes, when you're not paying attention, his fingers intertwine with yours as he drags you to the next thing that piques his quick-to-wander interest. His warm hand in yours never fails to send the butterflies in your stomach wild.

Granted, he can’t go many places. Not on his own, at least. Especially not with Cold War tensions running high and a potential hit on his back after valiantly defecting. No— everywhere he goes you go, and vise versa. He'd even become your impromptu roommate after being discharged from the hospital. Apparently, none of his "American friends" (a group consisting solely of Murray Bauman, recluse; Joyce Byers, moved away; and Jim Hopper, recently deceased) where willing or available to take him in. That left you, the guardian angel who'd found and saved him, to look after his fugitive self. Not that either of you ever really minded not going anywhere without the other, being practically attached at the hip from the get-go. However, due to the rather difficult language barrier and lack of proper translator, communication between the two of you is still a continuous struggle. You still don't really even have the full story on what led up to the events of last Independence Day. On the bright side, though, you’ve both come a long way in understanding each other since you'd first dragged him into the hospital that fateful day. Admittedly, he’s advanced far further than you have in the language department— not that you haven’t been giving it your all, of course. It just seems to come much more easily for him.

Now, you sit together on a park bench beside the sidewalk, shaded by an oak tree overhead, people-watching the early afternoon small-town rush. A half empty lemonade cup sits beside your thigh, where drops of water bead on the sides and seep into the wood of the bench as they accumulate and trickle down. Alexei’s arm is slung casually around your shoulders, fingers absently drawing circles on your shoulder. You wonder if he realizes how intimate such a gesture is.

He stares off at the pedestrians, cheeks pinched in a small smile as he sips his cherry slurpee through its red straw. Upon hovering at his bedside for weeks, you’d quickly discovered it's his favorite beverage behind Coca-Cola. Nothing can compare the way the colored dye stains his lips bright red, making his grin all the more perfect your eyes. It is a bit of a hassle having to drive all the way out to the far-removed gas station to get him one every time, considering it's the only place nearby that has one of the machines to make the beverage, but you put up with it for the sake of his contagious jubilation.

You observe him observing the people. He'd blatantly ignored your fashion advice and chosen the most outlandish articles in the stores you'd taken him to, favoring loud patterns and bold, clashing colors. It's actually rather cute, and suits him well. His hair is a little longer than when you’d first met a few months ago, dark curls grown shaggy and even more voluminous. He’s insisted on keeping his face regularly shaven and sideburns well-groomed, though. Your fingers twitch in your lap, imagining how it would feel to run your fingers through his hair and ruffle his curls. Before you know it, you’re lost in another fantasy (a daily occurrence by now)— vividly picturing yourself clinging to him like a lover rather than a friend, holding him, touching him.

You blink back to reality when he tilts his head to look at you, stained lips pulling into a broad smile that illuminates the whole of his handsome face. His wire-frame glasses are slipped down the bridge of his narrow nose, and he swiftly pushes them back in place with his index finger to gaze at you properly. You love it when he does that.

“You enjoying your slurpee?” you ask with a chuckle, gesturing towards the mostly-empty novelty cup. He fervently nods, offering it out to you for a sip. You laugh and shake your head, gently pushing it back towards him. “You finish it, I have my lemonade.”

He shrugs, contently mutters an “Okay” and returns to peacefully watching the Hawkins residents pass by. You return to watching him, genuinely pondering what could be going on in that brilliant mind of his as he stares off.

A young couple pass by, no older than high schoolers; you'd heard them coming up from behind before you'd seen them. They giggle and mutter sweet nothings to each other as they stroll along. The girl walks with her arms hugged around the boy's waist, tucked snugly against his side under his protective arm. You can't help but feel a pang of jealousy, the pair looking joyous as can be and plainly expressing their love for each other to the world. Chancing a glance at Alexei, he seems enthralled— curiously observant of their affectionate behavior. You briefly wonder if such open affection is an uncommon sight where he's from, before turning your passive attention back to the couple. The continue to laugh with each other, the jovial sound only being broken when they move to kiss, fondly pecking each other on the lips over and over as they stroll past, giggling whenever they break.

You feel odd staring at them so you break your gaze, instead opting to tap your heels on the sidewalk concrete and stare at the cracks where plants haphazardly grow. It’s bad enough to see other couples happy, but feeling Alexei’s arm wrapped around your shoulders is a different kind a torture. You know you shouldn't feel jealous; it's your fault you fell for the man whose life you saved. The burden of your blooming feelings rests solely on your shoulders. You would never want to risk ruining your carefully crafted and nurtured friendship over something that might change your dynamic for the worse. You would never take the initiative, and never find out if your undying love for the goofy scientist is requited.

A tap on your shoulder draws you from your brooding. You perk your head up to glance at the man. His crimson-stained lips are pulled taut in that impish smile again as he tilts his head to get a better look at you. You feel blush prickling your skin the longer he silently watches you. You wait, anticipating a comment or question in that heavy and distinct (and oh, so lovely) accent of his, but it never comes. Instead he leans closer, free hand lifting to tilt your chin with fingers, chilled by the cool cup he's placed down somewhere. You’re speechless, no more than a hairsbreadth away from touching noses with the man you desire more than anything. This is the closest you’ve ever been to him, and from this perspective you can see every detail of his face up-close and personal, from the small scar hidden beneath the nose-piece of his glasses to the flecks of amber in his eyes.

Before you can fathom the events unfolding before you, he leans forward, closing the distance and planting his soft lips on yours. You can feel him smiling against your mouth. Adrenaline buzzes through every nerve and bursts like 4th of July fireworks in your head and the only thing you can think about is how strongly he tastes of sugar and cherries. The feeling is short-lived as he pulls away and releases your jaw from his gentle grip, still smiling like an idiot. When he hums gleefully and amusedly to himself and goes back to sipping his drink, the anguished realization that he may have only been fooling around hits you like a ton of bricks. Fighting the urge to smack him upside the head, you puff up in defense.

“What was that?” you bite out, adjusting yourself to sit facing him. He chuckles and shrugs, then replies in Russian. You can’t understand a word of it and only become more flustered at his complacent behavior.

“You think that was a joke?” You feel your face growing hot, both with anger and embarrassment.

You don't intend to be mean, but the abruptness of it has you wired. It didn’t feel like a playful kiss for you, nor do you want it to be in jest. It just makes your heart ache. He furrows his brows and turns to look at you, genuine confusion twisting his gentle features as he retracts his arm from around your shoulders.

“Joke? No...” he mutters, cradling the cup in his hands. His playful demeanor shifts instantly, and he hunches, shrinking under your fierce gaze.

“Why would you kiss me then?”

His confusion seems to grow exponentially and his eyes dart away. “They like each other.” He meekly gestures towards where the couple disappeared off to, “I like you. Is that... not what you do?”

His mouth is pulled into the first real frown you’ve ever seen from him. Even through grueling physical therapy and the healing process of a bullet to the liver he’d never frowned. Your heart twists at his words, and you feel like you've been shot. Had you been wrong? Is this yet another miscommunication? Blush almost as red as his beverage creeps onto his face, beginning at his ears and spreading to his cheeks and nose.

“You... like me?” you whisper, hung up on that one sentence. You could care less about the rest. The crease in his brow softens as he nods.

“дa, yes, yes,” he mutters, sheepishly shrugging and shrinking away. "I thought... это было очевиднo."

You don't quite catch the last part, but his bashful confession is enough proof for any residual distress to melt from your system. He's taken aback when you burst into an enormous smile and throw your arms around his neck, laughing with your nose pressed into the curve of his jaw. The swell of happiness in your heart is almost unbearable. This is quite possibly the happiest you've ever felt, as you delightedly pepper kisses against his full cheek. He manages to wriggle out of your latching grip and place his slushee cup down at a safe distance. He peers down at you with brows furrowed and mouth slightly ajar in what looks like a mix of shock and relief. His dark eyes twinkle with curiosity and you finally feel confident enough to slip you hand up the back of his neck, twirling your fingers around his curls. His glasses have slipped down his nose again and this time you do him the favor of pushing them back up properly.

"You... like me?" he asks, a slight pout downturning his dyed lips. You lean up to touch your forehead to his, holding him close by the back of his head. Your other hand rests on his chest.

"I have for a while," you sigh, forehead still pressed to his. "Now, kiss me again." A devilish smile spreads on your face as you bite your lip. A wave of visible relief washes over him as the tenseness in his shoulders dissipates. He giggles joyfully, gleefully obliging your request. His hands find your face and dark eyes flick to your lips— the object of his desire. You lean to meet him halfway, his cherry-flavored lips sealing against yours once more. This time it's more serious (as serious as the man could possibly be, that is), and he puts thought into the way his warm mouth moves against yours. He's gentle and tender, but he doesn't do well to hide his enthusiasm as he fervently leans against you. His hands glide from your heated cheeks to the space below your ears, thumbs brushing against your cheekbones. Your own hands remain where they are, one tangled in his heavenly hair and the other sandwiched between your chests, gripping the fabric of his garish striped button-up.

He briefly breaks and you both take gasping breaths; the corners of his eyes crinkle with a smile before he captures your lips again. He tilts his head to get a better angle at you and a light moan is drawn from your throat, muffled against his plush mouth. He just about trembles with excitement under your hands at the noise. With every extra inch he eagerly leans into you, the further you're dipped backward, clinging to him as you're nearly laid out on the bench. His left hand separates from your head to grip the back of the bench, bracing himself so as to not tip you back too far. Your senses are invaded by his intoxicating scent; the cherry sugar of his lips mixed with the warm cologne that lingers on his form makes for a heady combination. Just as your lips part to allow him entrance, the small of your back bumps and subsequently topples something. Your hazy brain racks to think what it could be, when remember—

The lemonade!

You break with a surprised gasp and twist to find your cup overturned behind you, spilled all over the sidewalk and part of the bench. Alexei peers over your shoulder, resting his chin on the slope of your neck as he surveys the mess. His large hands find your waist and you turn back to him, pouting in disappointment at having wasted the rest of your refreshment. He merely grins and goes back to kissing you, gingerly pecking your smiling lips over and over.

After a moment you hear a huff somewhere to your left, and look up to see an older woman, frowning with arms crossed as she eyes the spilled lemonade splattered across the sidewalk. Her eyes trail to you in Alexei's arms, both red-faced and staring at her. She tuts in disapproval and steps over the dark patch.

"Delinquents," she mutters with a dramatic roll of her eyes as she passes the pair of you on the bench.

There's a pause as you and Alexei watch her walk away, amused and stunned speechless, before his face pinches in a grin and laugher roars from his chest. You follow suit, crumbling into giggles at the sheer ridiculousness of the event. You hook your arm around his waist to better hide your burning face in the crook of his neck, nestling against his chest. He presses his lips to wherever he can reach—your temple, the shell of your ear, the crown of your head—whispering in his native tongue between every sugary sweet kiss.

"I still have to sleep on the couch?" he mock-innocently asks in a low, accented whisper, audibly grinning with his lips against your ear. Though you choke out a surprised laugh and swat his hard chest, you can't help but feel pleasurably enticed by the suggestion.

Your grinning lips find his jaw and give him a quick kiss before slipping out of his hold, scooping up your empty cup in the process. You throw him a playful glance over your shoulder before skipping a few steps away.

"Come on, Lexi, we still have the rest of the afternoon!" you call behind you, laughing at the sound of him scrambling to collect his own cup and follow after you. You deposit your cup in the trash bin beside the sidewalk as you pass it, lingering to wait for him to catch up.

His hand finds yours as he returns to your side, fingers lacing with yours, and you look up at him. His warm eyes watch you from behind askew glasses, sipping through the straw once more. You've never been more overjoyed. Holding his hand feels different now as he cheerfully swings your joined arms. It's real now, and your love is requited. Warmth blooms in your chest, and you've never been more thankful to have gone to that carnival and saved a dying stranger.

#I used Google translate for that one line please forgive me #reposted after a long time #mwah ily anon who requested I repost this you singlehandedly got my act together #stranger things #stranger things fic #alexei stranger things #alexei smirnoff #alexei x reader #alexei smirnoff x reader #goldfinch writes

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obetrolncocktails · 1 year

Text

You're Music to My Eyes | Jake Kiszka X Reader

Warnings: JAKE SINGING, I REPEAT: JAKE SINGING, fluff, but could be more in a part 2 if you guys request it!

Word Count: 1.5K

A/N: It feels so good to be back writing...so good. I really hope you guys enjoy this goopy melty heart-in-a-puddle fluff. Also! The song is from A Star is Born!

Summary: It wasn't unusual to hear Jake humming, but singing? No. Couldn't be...and why is that tune so familiar?

Surely it wasn’t Jake singing. He’d do just about anything–but singing? It was a holy ground he rarely shared with anyone in his circle; not because he was ashamed of it, but it was something intensely private. As you entered his house, you could hear his voice lilting softly through the walls, singing a tune that you didn’t know. You didn’t dare make too much noise. You padded into the kitchen, setting your keys and your purse on the counter and stepped out of your shoes so that your steps wouldn’t be so loud. The house was dimly lit, save for the soft splashes of multicolored light on the walls as you tiptoed through the hallway into the living room. You and Jake had put up the Christmas tree later than usual this year, which had initially bothered you. You were typically the resident nuisance when it came to the holidays; as soon as the turkey left the table on Thanksgiving, you’d be running to Spotify to begin blasting Andy William’s “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” much to the chagrin of every single family member. After one mention to Jake that you’d missed the chance for a ‘holiday explosion,’ as you put it, he had bought and lugged in a gigantic ten foot Christmas tree and had set it up in the tallest corner of the apartment. You’d laughed and named it the ‘Grinch Tree,’ because of the way that the top of the tree smooshed against the ceiling, still too tall for the space.

“The bigger the better,” he had said with a proud grin, coming to kiss you softly, his skin smelling of fraser fir.

Now it stood proudly in the corner, still curled over at the top, but lit most beautifully with far too many lights and too many ornaments, but neither of you cared. Your eyes scanned the rest of the quiet room, landing on him as he sat with an acoustic guitar on the far end of the sectional. You almost hadn’t seen him; he hadn’t stopped playing when you walked in. He simply looked up at you with a gentle smile.

“Hey baby, I didn’t know you were home,” he said, plucking a few notes on the guitar, continuing the soft melody.

“I heard you singing,” you said honestly, walking towards him with a bright smile. “I didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Well, I’ve challenged myself to write some songs–not just riffs and melodies this time.”

“For the band?” You asked, coming to sit beside him, tucking your knees to your chest.

“No, just for me I think,” he clarified, looking up at you and then back down at the guitar.

“I love it when you sing,” you said matter-of-factly, scooching to get more comfortable on the couch. “I could listen to you sing for hours.”

“Ah, well I’ll leave that to Josh,” he said dismissively.

“No,” you insisted, laying a hand softly on his shoulder. “I said I could listen to you for hours.” You watched his face glow a deeper shade of pink. “I mean it,” you continued. “You have a beautiful voice, Jake.”

“Mm,” he hummed modestly, offering you a thin smile.

“Will you sing for me?” You asked softly, hoping he would say yes. “Please?”

He looked at you for a long moment before the corners of his lips curled upward in an enthused grin. “Well I was going to save it for Christmas, but,” he said finally, readjusting the guitar on his knee.

“What do you mean for Christmas? Save what? ” You asked, your eyebrows raising with curiosity.

“Shh, just listen,” he said softly, getting in a comfortable position to start playing. You sat in silence, watching the innate way his fingers found their way to the frets of the guitar. He strummed effortlessly and you admired the way that the varnished wood of the instrument reflected the festive glint of the christmas tree. It was a simple song with a slow, relaxed two-beat musical swing. The melody fell from his lips in a rich, yet understated quality, filling the room with the type of warmth that you couldn’t quite explain.

You're music to my eyes

I've had to listen just to find you

I'd like for you to let me sing along

Give you a rhythm you'd feel

I wanna learn your every line

I wanna fill your empty spaces

I want to play the part to reach your arms

Sing you a song that you feel, oh

Love, let your music be mine

Sing what I harmonize

Let your melodies fly in my direction

Take me to your paradise

On a musical ride

I'm in love with your music, baby

You're music to my eyes

Your voice is quite a view

I heard a song and then I saw you

I learned the lyrics and knew you were mine

Dance the horizon with you

I wanna sing you us a sunrise

And be the doorknob that will move you

I'd like to be the strings on your guitar

Touch me and play what you feel

Love, let your music be mine

Sing what I harmonize

Let your melodies fly in my direction

Take me to your paradise

On a musical ride

I'm in love with your music, baby

You're music to my eyes

You didn’t feel the wetness in your eyes until the tears were already silently streaming down your cheeks, catching on the curve of your lips. You tasted the salt as you wiped your cheeks and eyes once he finished the song. “Who wrote that? It’s so beautiful,” you finally spoke, your throat aching as the words came out. “Sounds familiar.”

“I wrote it,” he said softly, setting the guitar aside, leaning it against the arm of the couch. “About you. It’s familiar because I’ve been humming it for a week straight, trying to get the words out right.” His eyes glistened in the low light, and it almost made you laugh how nonchalant he was about such a romantic and genuine gift.

“You wrote that for me?” You asked, repeating what he had just told you.

“I did. You know I’m not always good with words, so I just wanted you to know how I feel. About you. About us,” he said, reaching for your hands, caressing your knuckles softly with the pads of his thumbs.

“Well, I can definitely say that no one has ever written a song for me,” you told him with a light chuckle. “That was just…you don’t understand,” you choked on the words, more tears pouring from your eyes. You tried your best to awkwardly laugh them away, but he reached to flick them from your cheeks.

“Can I tell you something?” He asked softly, scooting closer to you.

You nodded quietly.

“I think you don’t realize how truly special you are. The way you live your life…the way that the smallest things mean the most to you.” You looked up at him. “I got the idea for the song from when we decorated the tree last week,” he said, his gaze glancing over at it twinkling in the corner. “The way your eyes lit up as we put the lights on the tree, and how you were so excited to show me the ornaments from your childhood. You showed them to me one by one before hanging them up.”

“What can I say, I love Christmas,” you said with a soft shrug, grinning.

“And I love you for it. I’m in love with you, Y/n. So in love with you that it hurts. I want to create things for you, make art, sing songs, write songs…I’ve never felt this way before, and I–” his voice cut off, leaving him to shrug when he couldn’t find the words. “I just needed you to know the best way I knew how.”

“Come here,” you said, standing up from the couch, reaching for his hand.

“What?”

You held out your hand, shaking it exaggeratedly for him to take. “Get up.”

He smiled and took your hand, unfolding his legs from beneath him as he stepped away from the couch. You led him away from the couch towards the Christmas tree. “Sing it to me again, without the guitar. Dance with me.” There was a flicker of insecurity in his eyes when he looked at you. His security blanket was on the other side of the room, and though you didn’t intend it to be a test, he still passed with flying colors, pulling you in close, one hand laced with yours, the other wrapped snug around your waist as he began to tilt you in a slow two step dance, singing the song over again, this time completely acapella.

“You’re music to my eyes…” His voice lilted so beautifully. You laid your head against his chest, listening to the vibrations as he sang, feeling the closest you had ever been with him, swept up in complete and total admiration for the man who loved you completely, without reservation or boundaries.

“Take me to bed, Jake.” You said after a long moment of dancing with no music and no singing–and wordlessly, he unfolded you from your cocoon and led you to the bedroom where he expressed his love again and again into the late hours of the evening.

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shy-urban-hobbit · 27 days

Text

Lambert tried to let the yelling and squealing fade into the background as he sat at one of the picnic tables keeping one eye on his niece, the bright pink bunny ears he'd bought her on the way in paired with her blue dress making for an excellent marker as she ran around in circles like something possessed in her hunt for chocolate eggs. Ciri had talked about nothing but the children's Easter egg hunt at the local petting zoo all week and then of course, both Geralt and Jaskier had to fall sick when Yenn was also out of town and Eskel's car was busted, leaving Lambert to step in to save the day. Or giving him a convenient excuse to not work on that paper which was due when college classes started up again. Potato, potahto. So long as Ciri was happy, right?

Speaking of, Lambert frowned when he saw Ciri attempting to climb the fence on the far side of the playing field. They'd been expressly told the perimeters of the hunt before they started so unless she'd gotten distracted or bored, there was no reason for her to be over there. He made to yell her back before realising she'd probably be too far away to hear him and started walking over. He picked up the pace when he saw a dark skinned man who looked to be around his age in the bright yellow t-shirt which marked him out as farm staff come over and lean on the other side of the fence, smiling as he said something to Ciri. Lambert was still too far away to hear but he caught the gist as Ciri diligently placed both feet back on the ground and instead started gesturing to the large tree which the other man was stood underneath.

Lambert reached them both just in time to hear him laugh before he practically launched himself into the branches and disappeared amongst the thick foliage.

"Ciri?" He asked coming to stand next to his niece, "What are you doing over here?"

"He with you, sweetheart?" A voice from above piped up and Lambert looked up to see the mystery employee perched on a branch, staring down at him critically with eyes so green they could almost blend in with the leaves.

"It's Uncle Lambert. My daddy's his big brother and that's why he's my uncle!" She called back happily, giving the explanation which had now become routine ever since they'd explained the basics to her of how family trees work and proceeding to hang off his arm for emphasis.

He nodded, seemingly satisfied, "Well, Uncle Lambert. How are you at catching?"

Lambert barely had time to process the question before an egg wrapped in bright blue foil was plummeting downwards, Lambert lunging to catch it on instinct before dropping it into Ciri's basket. It was swiftly followed by many others in various colours, the two adults building up something of a rhythm somewhere around the fifth.

"Think that's all of them!" Was the only warning they got before the other didn't so much climb down the tree as drop down, startling Lambert a little with the suddenness and impressing him with the fact that he'd managed to stick the landing from that height.

"Thank you!" Ciri cried out happily, giving him a gap toothed smile, "Uncle Lambert, I want to play on the slide." She shoved her now near overflowing basket into Lambert's side before darting off towards the playground, leaving Lambert to follow behind.

"She's got a good eye." The other said, vaulting over the fence and falling into step next to him, "Name's Aiden by the way." He said pointing to the name badge plastered with various animal stickers which declared as much, "Figured it was only fair seeing as I found yours out."

"Who the hell decided to hide eggs up a god damn tree anyway?" Lambert asked looking back over his shoulder, "How were the kids supposed to find those?"

"I don't think they were." Aiden replied. Lambert raised an eyebrow, inviting him to elaborate, "That tree has a hollow about halfway up. I think one of the guys who was in charge of setting this up stashed a bunch for himself up there and accidentally left that blue one your niece spotted poking out." Aiden gave him a wide grin, "Honestly, that's the best karma ever for literally trying to take candy from babies."

Lambert gave a matching smile, allowing himself to share in the enjoyment of karmic justice, "You being serious?"

"Unfortunately. If it's who I think, they can be a bit of a dick whenever they get scheduled during the holidays. You should've seen the Christmas display, they put a few of the elves in some rather suggestive poses."

Aiden pulled out his phone and started scrolling before holding it out for Lambert to look at, sure enough there were numerous shots of plastics elves in various positions and poses which would have had Geralt and Jaskier covering Ciri's eyes but had Lambert laughing in delight, "Ok, but those are pretty funny."

"We thought so, too. The parents very much wouldn't have though. Luckily our supervisor noticed before we opened for the day."

Lambert gave another laugh before looking over to where he could see Ciri waiting in line for her turn on the slide.

"Hey uh, nice job too by the way. Not just on the egg retrieval but-" Lambert petered off awkwardly.

"Checking that she actually knew you?"

Lambert nodded.

"Of course. Can't be too careful with kids, right? Especially at something like this, although you'd be surprised how many guardians take offence. Still, I'd rather get yelled at than be the one who let a kid go off with a total stranger, you know?"

"Uncle Lambert, come push me!!" Ciri yelled from the swings.

"And that's my queue." Lambert sighed, adjusting his hold on Ciri's basket. Surprisingly, he'd been enjoying the others company, "Thanks again, Aiden."

"Don't mention it. I'd better get back to work too." He turned to leave before seeming to think better of it and turning back, looking slightly hopeful, "Hey. Our baby pygmy goats should be old enough to meet the public next weekend. If you guys are free you should come and say hi, they're seriously cute."

"You working that weekend?"

Aiden nodded, "I'm scheduled for the Sunday."

"Then we'll see you on Sunday, Aiden."

#the witcher #the witcher fanfiction #aiden/lambert #aiden x lambert #lambden #lambert/aiden #lambert x aiden #witcher aiden #witcher lambert #lambert #kid ciri #witcher ciri #princess cirilla #ciri

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five-rivers · 7 months

Text

Grain Chapter 2

Part of the Woods of Amity series!

Written for Ectoberhaunt Day 2: Botanomancy.

On rising, Danny did his best not to think about anything in particular, particularly nothing about families, or humans, or wolves, or being lost, or monsters, or shapeshifting, or…

There were a lot of things Danny didn’t want to think about. If he did, he knew he’d start crying again. He didn’t want to cry anymore. He suspected that if he cried enough, he’d start to feel the lack of salt and water, like how when he’d turned into a sheep and had Tucker cut off his wool, he’d started to feel hungry. He didn’t want that.

Also, crying was gross, and made his eyes, nose, and throat hurt.

So. New resolution. No more crying. It wasn’t productive.

He sniffled.

Leaves brushed consolingly against him as he traveled across branches in a form too close to human to be practical. Now he was reducing humanity to a matter of practicality. What was– No. No. He wasn’t thinking about it, and he wasn’t crying. He was dealing with this. He was coping. It wasn’t like this was permanent.

Who was he kidding, exactly?

He sighed and laid down on the branch he was on, settling back into the cat he’d been yesterday and tucking his paws underneath him. Resting wasn’t what he needed - he needed something to take his mind off of all of this - but he didn’t want to walk off a branch (could he even do that, with the way he was now, with the very trees whispering to him and anchoring him?) or something equally stupid because he was distracted.

Before he did anything else, he had to get his thoughts in order. At least, he had to get them in order enough that he wasn’t breaking down every ten minutes.

… Jazz used to do this with him. He wondered again if she’d even been told he was gone.

Not that he was actually gone.

Start with what was actually upsetting him. Not the whole, overall thing, because that was too big, and, if he could be the teeniest, tiniest bit honest with himself, he wasn’t coping with it well at all. No. Start with this particular incident that had set him off.

He’d been called a monster.

Which… wasn’t entirely untrue. He was, as he was more or less continuously reminded, a creature of the woods, and, strangely, he didn’t hate it. His ruin-home was comfortable, shapeshifting was cool, the touches on his mind were friendly.

He’d also had stuff thrown at him.

Words could hurt, but words backed with actions hurt more. Especially coming from people he’d rescued.

Rescued from wolf-things that were not wolves but something else entirely. Rescued… while looking quite a bit like a wolf himself.

That might have something to do with the name-calling and the stuff-throwing, if he thought about it. Still, he was allowed to be upset, wasn’t he? He was.

This wasn’t helping.

He massaged his aching head with his paws. Maybe he should give up on today. Try again tomorrow. Sleep. Put some additional distance between himself and the problem.

And lie awake turning over every little detail of the problem, and making up more problems while he was at it?

This worked much better when Jazz was doing it. Like this, he had to admit that all he’d done was talk himself in a circle.

Not that it was the first time he’d done that. As much as he liked to pretend otherwise, nights got long and lonely. He’d been attacked by Sam’s royal guard first thing after he’d been changed, and his parents had told him many, many stories about virtuous Rangers fighting horrid monsters.

(Especially after his cousin had gone missing, although as far as anyone could tell, Flynn’s disappearance didn’t have anything to do with monsters.)

It’s just… maybe… he’d been hoping… After all, Sam and Tucker weren’t afraid of him, and they were the people he’d been interacting with since then, so…

(It wasn’t like he’d forgotten what he was.)

(But it had, perhaps, slipped his mind for a moment.)

Speaking of Sam and Tucker, he had a job to do.

(Or, not a job, but a favor, and not the one he’d really assigned himself, either, but who was keeping score? Not him.)

(Besides, it did feel like it was his job, somehow. Like it was something he was supposed to be doing.)

He stood up, arching his back, and stretched very deliberately before shaking himself all over. Enough. It was enough. Enough rest. He’d only been up for an hour, anyway.

The grain. He was looking for the grain, and whatever might have taken it. He would focus on that. And on staying on the branches. He wasn’t in the mood for losing control of his body today.

The rest of the morning was quiet, with no more mental breakdowns and no humans popping out of the undergrowth to yell at him. Just birds, squirrels, and mice. All of which seemed remarkably calm around Danny, considering that he currently had the appearance of a sizable forest cat.

But maybe that was it. He had the appearance of a forest cat, but he wasn’t actually a forest cat, was he? He was… well, he didn’t know and he wasn’t thinking about it.

As the sun grew higher in the sky, however, he started to feel… something. It wasn’t that tug he’d felt before he’d run to the aid of those merchants, but it was similar. Gentler, less urgent, but similar.

He adjusted his path to follow the pull.

Honestly, following strange feelings around probably wasn’t the best of ideas, especially given his status of ‘extremely cursed.’ It’d bother him, though, if he didn’t.

This part of the woods felt newer, the trees younger. He didn’t quite know how that could be. They seemed to be about the same width and height, and his relatively untrained eye couldn’t pick out any differences in bark, or root. He didn’t think that this was just coming from his contact with the trees, although it may have been.

Something to do with the scent, maybe? Or the color of the leaves? Sounds?

He tilted his head, listening to birdsong, and the shifting rustle of the leaves in the faint breeze. There might have been something missing there, but he couldn’t put his finger (or paw, for that matter) on it.

Maybe it was younger, though. Maybe this had been a farmer’s field, left to grow over, and that was what he was picking up on. Maybe there was just ever so slightly more new growth. As it was, though, everything looked approximately the same as where he’d explored before, from the tops of the trees to–

He paused as his eyes swept over the forest floor. There was no deadfall here. No rotting tree trunks. No wilting, dying vines, or sprouts chewed through by bugs before their time.

Huh.

While he didn’t think it was impossible for a section of forest to be like this naturally, it was very strange. Maybe a woodcutter lived nearby, and tended the deadfall and the underbrush? Kept things neat for themself and their family? Could that be the source of the pull he was feeling?

If it was… he didn’t have to show himself. He could stay as something small, something normal to find in the woods. Just… make sure that it wasn’t because someone was in danger. That’s all.

He kept going, then froze, as he heard voices. He pressed himself flat to the the branch, claws dug in, eyes wide. The voices were getting closer. And more familiar.

He bounced up, and raced through the treetops before coming to a loud rustling stop over his targets, who–

–Who had crossbows.

“Sam! Tucker!” he said, narrowly dodging a projectile. “Don’t shoot! It’s me!”

“Danny?” said Tucker, who hadn’t gotten his crossbow into position to fire yet. “What are you doing here? How did you even get here?”

Danny stuck his head down, past the lowest branches. “Uh, I live here, now, remember?”

“No you don’t,” said Sam. “Not here.”

“Well, yeah,” said Danny. “But you don’t actually expect me to stay in one place all the time, do you? That’d be boring.” And way too prone to introspection (and crying) of the type he’d been trying to avoid all day. But he wasn’t thinking about that.

Sam squinted at him. Or was it more of a glare?

“Say something only you’d know,” she demanded.

“Uh,” said Danny. “Why?”

“I want to make sure you’re our weird shapeshifter, and not some other weird shapeshifter.”

Okay. That made some sense, even if Danny didn’t understand why she wanted to do this now, rather than all the other times they’d met up since his transformation. “But would something only I knew really help? I mean, if only I knew it, wouldn’t you not know it? So how would you know it’s something only I knew, instead of just something you don’t know?”

“He’s got you there,” said Tucker, who still wasn’t aiming his crossbow at Danny.

“Fine. Fine. Something only the three of us know.”

“Um,” said Danny, “behind the door you had me look at, there was a tree with red fruit on it, and none of us knew what they were?”

Sam sighed and her shoulders slumped. “It is you. Okay.”

“I know you weren’t expecting to see me,” said Danny, who was now far enough past his surprise to start feeling hurt, “but, like, this was a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“You don’t understand,” said Sam. “You can’t be here, it doesn’t make sense. This is where the silos were, the ones that disappeared. It isn’t connected.”

Danny blinked. “Are you sure? Because I would’ve noticed if I could suddenly leave the woods. That would have been a big thing to me. Huge. Very noticeable. Especially the part where if I touch the ground, my body does horrible shapeshifting things.”

“Yes. I am sure. Even if I hadn’t inspected the place myself multiple times before this, the actual woods should be miles away, I’ve seen it on a…” she trailed off.

“On a map?” asked Danny, raising an eyebrow.

Sam inhaled deeply through her nose, then exhaled slowly. “Right. The woods were - are - unmappable. I just didn’t think that applied to parts that weren’t even touching.”

“Should they even count as part of the woods if they aren’t touching?” asked Tucker. “I mean, it looks like they do magically, but, like, definitionally?”

Danny hummed, thoughtfully. “I think one of my parents’ books said that some people think that all magic woods are the same woods, but that it was a fringe theory, and it was probably just the Woods of Amity, Daire, Elmeria, Urn… You know, stuff that’s nearby.”

“That doesn’t really answer my question.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Sam, decisively. “What matters is that we’re all here, and we can search together, after all. Although, knowing that this is connected to the actual woods, there’s a lot more space to hide things.”

“Yeah,” said Danny, his mood lifting. “Yeah, we can search together. But… are you guys here alone?” Sam may have snuck into the woods to talk to him before, but that was substantially different than going out looking for trouble. She was a princess, she should at least have a bodyguard.

(Tucker didn’t count.)

Both Sam and Tucker made faces.

“We were separated from my guard,” Sam said, finally.

“Like, accidentally or…?”

“They were under orders to not let me near anything even remotely important. I couldn’t investigate like that.”

“I’m expecting my execution orders to arrive any day now,” said Tucker.

“Oh, stop it. My father won’t execute you over this. The worst he would do is exile you.”

“Yeah, because being forced to go live in Elmeria is so much better than death,” said Tucker, sarcastically.

“You can come live with me if you get exiled,” offered Danny.

“Thanks, Danny, you’re a real friend.”

“If you two are quite done,” said Sam, prim in a way only a princess could manage, “we have work to do. Danny, did you find anything?”

Danny opened his mouth to tell them that no, he hadn’t, really, but closed it for a moment, contemplating. “Maybe. I’ve had this sort of feeling today, like the woods want me to go somewhere, like they’re trying to show me something. Just a sort of pull.”

“Really?” asked Sam. “Do you think that’s safe?”

“Safe?”

“The woods did sort of curse you. And eat a bunch of grain silos.”

Danny made a face. “I don’t know that it’s all the same thing doing everything. And the trees are helpful. Also, um.” He hadn’t intended to tell them this, but if it helped them understand… “Yesterday, I got something similar, and it took me to where this family was getting attacked by wolves, and I fought them off.”

“Attacked by wolves? Did any of them bite you? There are so many diseases–”

“Not really,” interrupted Danny, before Sam could list any of the diseases, all of which were, he was sure, horrible and disgusting. He didn’t think Tucker could take it. He’d always been squeamish about things like that. “I think I’d have started feeling nasty by now, anyway, if I’d caught anything.”

“There are things that take a longer time,” said Sam, “and as we were only just talking about magic, I wouldn’t rule anything out.”

“Were the wolves magic?” asked Tucker, with a touch of skepticism.

“Sort of? I think? They didn’t feel like normal wolves, anyway, but they didn’t do anything especially weird. Except they were sort of green. I don’t know.”

“Can you show us?” asked Sam. “You know, with your shapeshifting.”

“Um, maybe. There’s not really a good place for me to stand. Wolves aren’t good at trees. The point is, maybe the woods are trying to help by showing us something. About the silos, I mean.”

“That seems… convenient,” said Tucker.

“It isn’t like we have any other leads,” said Sam, “and we can always run.” She cranked back her crossbow and slotted in a new bolt.

Danny felt his nails prick into claws. “I could also go check it out by myself…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Now that we’re together, of course we’re coming with you. It would be foolish not to.”

“Yeah,” said Tucker, “I mean, if anything bad does happen, you can turn into a bear at it.”

“I hate to say it, but I’m pretty sure that something that can move grain silos around like that isn’t going to be scared of a bear.”

Neither Sam nor Tucker had any reply for that.

“You are certain the woods aren’t misleading you?” Sam asked.

“Well, no. But it doesn’t feel like they are. And I was able to help those people, with the wolves.” He shrugged. He didn’t think they’d get certainty of any kind anytime soon. And if they did, they should be suspicious of it.

Sam sighed. “It’s still our best lead. I’m going to go with you.”

“And if she’s going, I’m going,” said Tucker. “You see what you’re missing? Dragged around by a pushy princess all day… And she doesn’t even eat meat!”

Danny tilted his head, confused by the sudden change of subject. “What?”

“Like I have tried to explain to Tucker,” she said, “my mother is from Iieda. She’s Iiedish. We both bow to the Iiedish gods. And one of the rules of the Iiedish gods is that you can’t eat an animal unless you kill it yourself, or it’s been sacrificed by an Iiedish priest, in strict accord with recorded law.” She punctuated each sentence forcefully, rhythmically, as if reciting something by rote. “The priest that came with my mother when she got married died when I was five. It’s easier, and less wasteful, to just not eat meat than to have it shipped from the nearest proper temple.”

“But,” said Tucker, with the air of someone who had already had this argument several times, “they’re the same gods.”

“That doesn’t matter,” said Sam. “What matters is that they told my ancestors to worship them that way, so that’s the way I’m going to do it. You can worship them the way they told your ancestors to do it. It’s not like my not eating meat is hurting you.”

“It’s not about it hurting me, I just don’t get it. I don’t get how anyone could just choose not to eat meat.”

Sam scoffed. “And he wants to be a monk.”

“Again, that’s because that’s where all the books are.”

“Does… does any of this…matter right now?” asked Danny.

“No,” said Tucker.

“Lead the way,” said Sam. “Please.”

The trees got denser and thicker as they went further in, but Danny’s earlier sense that this was all new didn’t abate. Which made sense. According to Sam and Tucker, this was all new. Grown literally overnight in place of the grain silos. It was just such a strange thing to think of, even stranger than his own transformation. Danny was only one person, after all, a single entity. Small and brief, in the reckoning of the world. A place like this should have more inertia.

It was making him nervous, and even with his body warped into something catlike and hidden by the lower branches of the trees, he knew Sam and Tucker were picking up on it, too. He could tell by the low-grade bickering.

Speaking of which, when had they gotten comfortable enough with one another to bicker like that? It should be weird. Sam was, after all, a princess. But it wasn’t. It felt normal. Comfortable. The anger more performance than real.

But then, Danny had no room to talk about things being weird. Here he was, climbing along tree branches with claws, trying to find something that had stolen entire buildings by following an ambiguous mental pull that may or may not be something sent to him by the Woods of Amity themselves. Obviously, this wasn’t a normal situation at all.

The branches around him rustled. He froze. The wind wasn’t blowing that way.

“Wait,” he said, quietly, and Sam and Tucker stopped. “I think we’re close.”

“I think you’re right,” said Sam. “There’s some kind of clearing up ahead, and… do you smell that?”

Danny inhaled deeply, slowly. Rich earth and new decay. Sharp pine sap and sweet maple. Sam and Tucker. The bitter, almost spicy odor of the vines Sam and Tucker had stepped on earlier. Dust. The birds contemplating nesting nearby. The faint smell of himself. Sunlight, hot and steady, on freshly-grown grass. Cooking grain. Greenness. Yes, he could smell that. All of that.

“I should scout ahead–”

“Not a chance,” said Sam. “We both remember what happened last time you went somewhere without us.”

“I didn’t really go without you–”

“You kind of did.”

“You don’t know what’s here,” protested Danny. “I can run away way faster than you can.”

The trees swayed, overhead branches parting, letting the sunlight through. Where the sunlight struck, new sprouts of grass pushed their way up from the packed and mossy dirt.

Danny clung to his branch momentarily, then jumped to the ground, near Sam and Tucker, hoping to put himself in-between them and whatever this was.

“I should hope,” said a low, feminine voice that rustled like wind blowing through wheat, “that you should not have to run at all, child.”

In the sunlight, where the trees bent away into a clearing, stood the form of an older, almost grandmotherly woman. The form, only, because what stood there had less claim to being called flesh and blood than Danny did. She appeared to be woven, clothes and all, from grass, most of it fresh and green, but some strands dried to almost tan shades. Her dress was a vivid gradient of near-blues to deepest viridian edged with purple, flowering heads gathered at the hem as a ruff. She wore a dry, buff coat of straw over it, belted at the waist with long, braided stalks. Her hair was grain of a dozen varieties, colors, and ripenesses, layered and braided over itself. Her face and hands were made of fibers of grass so fine that Danny could barely pick out the individual strands. The only deviance from the rule were her eyes, which were not grass but two brilliant points of yellow light.

From a distance, and immobile, and without those eyes, she would have been an impressive simulacra. As it was… In this context…

She didn’t feel out of place, exactly. It wasn’t wrong that she was here. But she was foreign to this place, and she was dangerous in ways even the whispers of the trees could not convey.

She moved forward, and Danny could not say if she stepped so much as she planted her feet amid the tall grass.

“I have been waiting for you, young Guardian,” she said, looking directly at Danny. Her gaze moved to Sam, and her expression became markedly more pinched. “And you as well.”

Sam stepped forward, back straight, crossbow pointed carefully down and to one side. Danny could tell that she and Tucker could sense the threat this being represented, even without any connection to the woods. “You expected us?” she asked. She licked her lips. “You have something to do with the disappearance of the grain silos, then?”

“And if I have, what would you say, then, princess of the land?”

“I would ask why, and I would… I would be willing to negotiate for its return.”

“Such negotiations may prove unsuccessful.”

Sam’s grip on the crossbow tightened. “There are always alternatives when negotiations fail.”

The woven woman turned her attention back to Danny. “Guardian, I call upon you for your service as arbitrator and representative. A great transgression has been made against me and thee, and it must be addressed, lest this, my new home, meet the same fate as my last.”

A tingling sensation swept over Danny’s skin, and he was shifted into a more humanoid form, although he noted with some discomfort that his hair had turned as green as the grass growing around them.

Around him, in him, through him… The pull on him was strong, steady. He was urged to respond, to agree, but… “I don’t understand,” he said, instead. “I think you have me confused with someone else. I'm not…" But he couldn't deny that he hadn't even blinked when she called him a Guardian the first time. The title fit him.

Somehow.

He didn’t really feel like he’d been guarding anything, though. But maybe he should be? Was that part of his whole thing? Part of this curse?

The expression on the grass woman’s face loosened slightly. “You are young, aren’t you?”

Danny wasn’t sure if that was a question he was supposed to answer, so he stayed silent.

A wind rippled the grass in a sigh, making the trees to either side creak uneasily. They did not like this. They were not made to bend this way, not like grass, or reeds. Danny wanted to yell at the woman to stop it, but he wasn’t even sure it was her.

“You were called here, were you not? Did these Woods not whisper to you my need?”

Most people called the woods the woods, but Danny could hear the slight emphasis in her tone. The Woods. The Woods.

“Danny,” said Tucker, voice low and tight with tension.

“I… guess so.”

“Then I ask again. Guardian, will you aid me as representative and arbitrator in these negotiations?”

“I won’t help you hurt anyone,” said Danny, despite another pulse of need, another urge to just say yes.

“I have raised no hand against another.”

“The trees,” said Danny. They were stressed, bending against their roots.

“A momentary discomfort. I am well aware of the limits of my environment, Guardian.”

“And– and these are my friends. I’m not going to go against them.”

“That is not what I have asked,” snapped the grass woman. “You are the only Guardian who came to my call. I will accept your biases. I ask you a third time. Will you mediate our negotiations?”

“Yes,” said Danny, finally giving into the call. Three times was just too much. He glanced at Sam and Tucker. “I will.”

The grass woman moved backwards the same way she moved forward. “Then come. We have much to speak about.”

#ectoberhaunt #23 day 2 #23 prompt botanomancy #23 calendar magic #eh23 #danny phantom #ectoberhaunt23

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