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cherrycola27 · 7 months

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Idle Hands

Author's Note: I want to preface this by saying I know that this isn't my usual content. This mini-series is a result of my insomnia fueled rewatch of Outer Range, adhd, the high amount of Lew content we have been getting lately, and my dive back into country music. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it nonetheless

Series Warnings: Language, alcohol consumption, violence/ fighting, rodeo inaccuracies, smut. 18+ Minors DNI. Banner Credit: @thedroneranger

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Part 1: The Devil's Handiwork

Rhett hadn't planned to end up at the Handsome Gambler tonight, honestly.

But with Perry in jail, his parents on the outs, and Maria having left town, the Abbott house was just too—quiet.

So, he hopped in his beat-up old truck and headed into town. He had only planned to stay for one beer, really. But after he finished it, he realized that another one couldn't hurt. And boy, was he glad he talked himself into a second one.

Truthfully, Rhett was on his fourth beer now. But that was all because of you. Your band had been setting up when he first walked in and took a seat at the bar. Rhett had scoffed and rolled his eyes when he saw you.

You had on some well-worn cowboy boots, a flannel draped over you, and a pair of blue jeans that had to have been painted on because the fit you just right.

He figured you were one of those pop-country wannabes that seems to grace the bar more and more frequently.

But the minute you stepped on stage, Rhett knew he was wrong about you. You were different in the best way.

You didn't sing the songs that were all over the radio, that were upbeat, and full of life.

No. You sang songs about love and loss and betrayal. Songs that reminded him of the old country his father had raised him on.

And you were so convincing when sang them. Your words haunted him. The shake of your silver tambourine enchanted him. Drawing him in with every note. They bar must have had almost fifty people in it from here or there, but Rhett swore that you were singing right to him.

He was so bewitched watching you that he didn't realize how much time had passed. Soon, you were announcing your last song. It wasn't one he was familiar with, but he found himself tapping along to the beat as you sang

"Oh, lord, I need a little help."

You crooned into the microphone as you met his eyes.

"Oh, lord, come and save me from myself"

You sighed as you trailed your hand across you the tidbits of lace that peaked out from under your shirt and up your neck.

"And that devil's in the market for a pair of idle hands"

You finished with a wink and a crimson smirk across your face.

Rhett wiped his palms across his faded jeans as his very own hands, that had been setting idle just moments before, wrapped around the neck of his beer and brought it to his lips. He downed it in one gulp as you made your way off the stage and down to the crowd of on lookers, straight towards him.

Rhett fumbled with his wallet, trying to quickly pay his tab and leave, because in his head, he knew that you would be trouble.

He grabbed his hat from the bar and secured it on his head. He turned on his heels and collided with whoever had the misfortune to be behind him.

Rhett quickly caught himself and looked to apologize to whoever he crashed into, only to be met with you standing in front of him.

"Leaving so soon, Cowboy?" You spoke to him sweetly, voice flowing over him like honey.

"Y—yes ma'am." He stammered out.

You cocked your head to the side and clicked your tongue, not moving from your spot. You reached up and adjusted the hat that now sat askew on his head.

"Shame, I was hoping to have a drink with a thirsty cowboy, but if your whistle has already been wet, I guess I can find someone else." You sighed as you trailed your fingers down his bicep and looked up at him through your lashes.

"I—I suppose one drink couldn't hurt." Rhett stuttered. Your warm fingers on him was making it hard to think.

"Perfect." You smiled at him with a devilish grin.

Rhett swallowed thickly. He knew that this was either going to be the best or worst decision of his life. He just wasn't sure which one yet.

"So, Cowboy, you from around here or just passing through?" You ask him as the two of you settle into a booth tucked away from everyone else at your request.

"Born and raised here." Rhett answers you as he fiddles with the label on his beer before taking a sip of it. The hops of it dance across his tongue. Smoothe and familiar. It's a local brew, not something you can find at every bar and store. It surprises most people that Rhett drinks with when they see him order something niche.

"I've never seen this kind before. Is it any good?" You ask him as you gesture to his drink.

"S'one of my favorites," Rhett mumbles as you slide closer to him. Now your thigh is pressed against his. He can feel the warmth radiating off of your body.

"Wanna try it?" He offers as he tips the neck of the bottle towards you. "Sure." You grin at him.

Rhett expects you to take the bottle from his hand, but instead, you surge forward and connect your lips with his.

He lets out a surprise gasp, which allows you to slide your tongue into his mouth. Rhett relaxes into you. One of his large hands curling at the nape of your neck. But just ask quickly as you kissed him, you pulled away, leaving him breathless.

"You're right. It does taste pretty good." You breathe out as if nothing had happened. A laugh bubbles out of Rhett as he shakes his head and takes another drink.

"You're something else, darling." He chuckles. "Y'know, I just realized I never caught your name."

Now it's your turn to laugh. You smile at him sweetly before telling him your name. He repeats it back to you in his gravelly draw, and you think that it's never sounded better.

"You've got a mighty fine name, darling, but I think I'll call you Honeybee." He says.

"Oh, and why's that, Cowboy?" You challenge him.

"Because you're sweet with a little sting. And you can keep calling my Cowboy if you want, but Rhett works just fine, too." He smiles.

"Rhett." You draw out his name like the melody of one of the songs you just sang. Even though he's only heard you utter it once, Rhett can already tell he's addicted to the way his name falls from your lips.

"So where are you from? Because I know it's not from around here. I'd remember a pretty face like yours." Rhett asks you.

"You think I'm pretty?" You fire back. He cracks another smile and nods.

"I'm from Oklahoma. But I've been on the road for a while, following a dream." You tell him. "How the hell did you end up here?" He asks you. "My aunt and uncle have a ranch here. I'm spending the summer with them. Trying to reconnect with my roots." You explain.

Rhett shakes his head and realizes that your aunt and uncle's ranch is a few miles away from his family's. He hopes that means he'll get to see you more this summer.

"So what do you do for a living, Cowboy? Or do you just hang out in smokey bars all day?" You ask him. "I work on my family's ranch, and I ride bulls." He tells you with a shy grin.

"A bull rider. Guess that means you like to walk on the wild side?" You raise an eye brow as your hand comes to rest on his thigh. You trace lazy shapes over the faded denim.

"I've been known to take a few risks." Rhett says as he shifts closer to you.

"Is that so?" You ask him as you slide your hand along his thigh until it's resting atop of his obnoxiously large gold belt buckle that he won in his last rodeo.

"Yes, Ma'am." He replies calmly. You lean in closer to him. So close that he can smell the floral perfume you're wearing. Your lips are millimeters from his ear. "I may not be a thousand pound bull, but I sure could give you one hell of a ride tonight, if you're up for it, Cowboy." Your hot breath fans over him.

Rhett shutters at your words. And you smirk, proud of the effect you have on him. You go to pull your arm away, but he catches you by the wrist and places your hand over his bulging jeans. You cup his length through the fabric and press your thighs together.

"I think I might be the one giving you the ride of a lifetime." Rhett practically growls out.

"We'll see about that, Cowboy. I've been known to hold my own. I'm staying at the motel across the street for a few nights until my aunt fixes up the guest room at her house. I'm in room six. See you there." You wink at him before dropping a key onto the table and sliding out of the booth.

Rhett shamelessly watches you walk towards the exit. And when you turn back to blow him a kiss, he notices that the stetson hat that was once on his head now rests atop yours.

Taging some who might be interested: @shanimallina87 @teacupsandtopgun @wkndwlff @daggerspare-standingby @dakotakazansky @startrekfangirl2233 @hecate-steps-on-me @na-ta-sh-aa @katieshook02 @je-suis-prest-rachel @soulmates8 @diorrfairy @eli2447 @xoxabs88xox @djs8891 @roosters-girl @sebsxphia @rosiahills22 @dempy @callsign-magnolia @alchemxx @withahappyrefrain @lt-spork @bradshawsbaby @seitmai @kmc1989 @bcarolinablr @itsdesiree86 @waywardhunter95 @hisredheadedgoddess28 @whatislovevavy @inkandarsenic @tomanybandstolove @jiminie-08 @dingochef @skipchat @laracrofted @bobfloydsbabe @lewmagoo @sunlightmurdock

#cherrycola27 #outer range #rhett abbott #rhett x reader #rhett abbot x reader #rhett abbot smut #idle hands #outer range fic #outer range fanfic #Spotify

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asherlockstudy · 2 months

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Today's More was like the opening of a fanfic!

“Spank me… for the comedy of course. And the views. Ha ha. It doesn’t mean… I am horny for you” 😂😂😂

Someone has to write the thing!

By the way, I just love Rhett in these sexually charged situations even when they are silly and funny. As always he was so earnestly excited by his idea for spanking and then Link’s voluntary call, his cream and peeps drooped, the microphone fell inside his pants, he’s so thirsty he gets entirely disarrayed I always find it weirdly endearing idk why 😂

#rhink #Rhett and link #randl #R&L #gmmore #good mythical more #a treat #unforgivablengk #mail

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cankersoregirl · 29 days

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Shuffle your on-repeat playlist and then list the first ten songs!*

*any playlist on any platform will do!

Thank u @clairedaring for the tag!! I feel like mine is pretty in line with what I usually listen to but I’m.. me… so <3 LOL

1. Through the viewfinder - Yoshitaka Fujimoto / utsukushii kare soundtrack

THROUGH THE VIEWFINDER. AAAAUUUHHH. I have a Lot to say abt utsukare/hirakiyoi and their dynamics and it extends to the soundtrack too.. which I have been listening to a bunch lately. I am also trying to figure out how to play one of the soundtrack pieces but it’s hard bc I don’t rlly have sheet music (PAIN) so don’t perceive me until/unless I actually do it sjskdjs

2. Thirsty - aespa

I know only a few aespa songs and this one is solely on this list bc joowan was in the music video LMAOOO

3. Day by day - Loossemble

If ur doing a cover ofc ur gonna have to listen to the song a million times back to front. & if anyone hasn’t seen but wants to give my cover a listen it’s hereeeee

4. I See U - P1harmony

My favorite from the new piwon album! I love p1harmony’s music for being so powerful and exciting in a way other group’s songs aren’t imo BUT when one of their “slower” (this isn’t exactly a ballad or anything?) songs hit… they HIT!

5. The Way - Ariana Grande

This is literally just cuz it’s on a ship playlist ahajajdjjs

6. That’s What You Get - Paramore

Banger pmore song! One of their most fun to be in the crowd for when they perform it live

7. Hurt Me Less - The Boyz

My boyz! Loved their recent album it was perfect to get a specific type of emotional over lol

8. The World’s Largest Song - Rhett and Link

Well. You know what they say. SHAZAM! ITS THE WORLD’S LARGEST CLAM!!!! YEEEESSSSS

9. He Said I Said - Loossemble

MORE LOOSSEMBLE!!!!!! This song is so my style I got it on loop sm. Their first comeback continues to prove they’re my fav loona subunit hehehe

10. Freak - Waji

I haven’t checked but at least the majority of the unknown soundtrack has to be on this playlist… esp the week after ep6 aired I was listening to the osts nonstop w so much devastation.. it was delicious I love angst & I’ve enjoyed this drama so much!

Tagging @loserlesbianongsa @ohmthipakorn @iliketodecompose @brightokyolights if u want!

#I shuffle and not a single Thai song comes up but you know what does? rhett and link. impressive #also most of these are recent kpop releases which checks out tbh #tag game #b.txt

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disinfernus · 3 months

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TIMING: Early December PARTIES: @wonder-in-wings and @disinfernus LOCATION: The Common SUMMARY: Dīs and Parker meet again but this time the nymph is bleeding and the warden is thirsty. CONTENT WARNINGS: Under skin tw (nothing moving, but something stuck, brief mention in beginning), vomiting tw (at end)

It was bound to happen eventually. Someone was bound to be brave and retaliate — that was inevitable. Dīs just didn’t think it would happen with so much success. The shadow nymph gripped their forearm tightly. It was wrapped with the bottom of their full length cloak to soak up what blood seeped through the gash. Yes, blood. They may have gotten their man, but that man had a knife and reflexes faster than what the fae had assumed. Never assume, and from now on, carry bandages — just in case. Despite being of shadow, they still had a physical form, unfortunately. It was a detriment to their goal. They needed to be more careful next time.

For now, they reappeared somewhere near the University. They could hear the young adults’ laughter that filtered up through the night air and saw the twinkling of building lights through the leaves, but they kept themself to the dark, keen on keeping eyes off of them until they could get home and clean the mess up. It hurt something awful and was likely deeper than what they could initially tell. In a moment, Dīs was getting ready to move again, but they needed a breather first. And they needed to tighten the cloth. Drippings of little blood droplets had started to follow their limp fingertips and they couldn’t very well have that now. Not when there were creatures that would lap it up eagerly.

Speaking of hurt, Parker was beginning to grow frustrated with his inability to reach that spot on his back where the tick the size of a baseball, gorged and swollen with his iron-rich blood, was pried from off his back. There had to have been a mandible or something equivalent trapped under his skin, too deep to have fallen out on its own and either too obscured or small to have been immediately noticed. Not that Parker blamed Winter for the latter’s eagerness to not have to see the wound anymore. And usually his hunter healing factor worked to his advantage, stitching up any wound that was given to him and that one couldn’t have been too large but it healed too quickly, burying whatever it was under a layer of skin. It was, effectively, a splinter. Ever present, uncomfortably close to his spine, and completely unreachable by the Warden. Parker couldn’t have been sure what kept him from simply asking someone like Rhett to take a look - it might’ve had something to do with the younger Warden’s desire not to be seen as weaker than he was or less capable - what kind of hunter couldn’t remove something from themselves? What would Rhett think? …What would Rhett think if he found out after the fact that it was something so dumb? It didn’t matter, not at the moment. The Warden was lingering around the University himself, determined to keep doing his job and in this case, he was following through on the idiomimics from months ago, just to make sure they weren’t still giving the university difficulties. The ache in his back would go away on its own. It had to. However, it wasn’t that particular ache that gave Parker pause where he stopped in his patrol. This was the turning over of his blood in his veins; a nymph was near. Observant eyes glanced around, though not with such a sense of urgency as to imply that passersby would think that he was having a psychotic episode. ‘Oh yeah no, definitely wouldn’t want people to think you’re psychotic.’ His brother mused in his thoughts. ‘...Wait, I think it’s too late for that.’ Parker shook his head and he turned slowly on the spot; was that the scent of blood he picked up? Was he imagining it? It was too dark for him to see anything effectively so he made to reach for a small flashlight that found itself on his belt. “Is someone hurt?” He decided to ask, loudly enough for anyone who could’ve been hiding out in the darkness of the trees that were nearby.

Oh, that voice was familiar, wasn’t it? It had been some time since they had last spoken, but Dīs wouldn’t forget the cadence and tone of the warden called Parker. The beam of the flashlight cut through the darkness, effectively burning it and breaking through its thin barrier. A small, frustrated growl escaped the nymph, having felt the disruption tear through them, but the night was young still and the dark plenty. Maybe they could have some fun with this?

Dīs clenched at their wound, making sure that it was covered to keep as much blood as possible from seeping out, before following through on their decision to make their presence known. They might have had the element of surprise, but the thought of being in their element only served to fuel their ego. They felt safe despite the blood that dripped delicately to the ground beneath. They felt like they couldn’t be touched.

“Oh no, no,” they replied before their tall frame appeared from what seemed like thin air. They kept part of them bathed in shadow, enough to hide their injury, but not enough to dissuade the warden from making out the familiarity of their glamour. “I’m just out for an evening stroll.” As if on cue, a sting burrowed its way into the exposed flesh, eliciting a twitch of Dīs’ mouth and tension in their temples. “What makes you think that someone’s hurt?”

The voice, the confirmation of what Parker had suspected to be someone in the shadows, quickly registered in his own mind and in an instant, he understood why he had felt the way he did. Even if he hadn’t, though, Dīs’ visage had made itself present to him, uncovering itself in a way that would’ve been eerie had the Warden not found himself encountering a lampade before. He only had once before, but it was memorable enough to stain his mind with the black bile of a shadowy dance, a mocking laugh that surrounded him, the unfamiliar presence of– ‘Fear.’ That was years ago. Parker shook his head free from the memory. “Out for an evening stroll near the University.” He replied, raising a brow as he kept his flashlight steady on the nymph. “I think someone’s hurt because I can smell your blood.” He added after a pause, deciding to cut all the pretense from their conversation; the first time they met, it was an entertaining dance, a graceful duet in attempts to get information from each other while still hiding true intentions behind the facade displayed to the general population. “You know it’s different.” He rolled his shoulders, wincing faintly as the knot in his back, the glorified splinter, stabbed into his musculature. Aside from a sharp, yet quiet inhale through his arrow-straight nose, he recovered quickly, his neck popping after it and his other hand lifted to massage the spots of his back that he could reach. “Did you… get into an altercation?” He asked, regarding the fae once more. “Perhaps you saw something you wanted but… couldn’t acquire it?”

As they squinted, what sliver could be seen of their eyes glinted gold in the light that passed over their face. Its harsh brightness was muted greatly, in comparison to the actual sun, but it still posed a nuisance. Regardless, the dark was plenty and so was their anger towards the warden. Dīs was certain that they had the upper hand despite their injury.

“You think that someone’s hurt because you can smell my blood? That doesn’t make any sense,” they returned, knowing fully well what Parker had meant. They just wanted to goad. Already they could feel the wound start to heal on its own, slow as it was, but still faster than the humans that littered the campus. That was good — they wouldn’t bleed out, but that didn’t mean the trail wouldn’t still be there. Or the smell. They still needed to get home.

“I have had a successful evening, if you must know. Now I’m just… Trying to go home.” Dīs avoided the first question deftly as they were keen on limiting this conversation, though Parker’s own discomfort was not lost on them. “You look like you should probably do the same.”

The Warden narrowed his icy blue eyes. “I’m short on patience.” He replied with an unfamiliar bite to his usually-blunt tone as he opted to keep the flashlight pointed in the direction of the nymph. It might’ve been perceived as needlessly aggressive, sure, but Parker was gathering information about it, as well as utilizing what information he did know about lampades to any advantage that he had - it wasn’t nearly enough light to truly make an impact, but any was better than none, especially given that Parker’s own vision wasn’t suited for peering into the abyssal depths of darkness. …Then again, maybe part of it could’ve been interpreted as intentionally aggressive as the words from the nymph raised the hairs on the back of Parker’s neck, not unlike sand shifting over an open wound; the motion sent another spike of pain radiating from the one damned spot on his back and he did his best to hide the sign of discomfort behind what could’ve been interpreted as a sneer. “I’m not the one bleeding out on a college campus.” He paused, keeping his steely stare in the direction of the nymph. “Where’s the other half?” He asked. “Did you bring your quarry with you?” A pause. “...Was it human?”

“Clearly,” Dīs returned, though despite the pain, they were a little disappointed in the curtness. Even if they were ‘enemies’ in a sense, hunter and prey depending on the day, they still enjoyed what back and forth they had in the museum. They hoped for something similar, even in a passing fashion, but no; this felt a little different. No, they didn’t know the warden well enough for that, but energy just felt off. The night didn’t like this standoff.

They wanted to be out of that light so badly, but they fought the urge to hide their gaze behind a lifted hand. They thought that might make them look weak; so they squinted, mirroring Parker’s sneer, looking stiff in the flashlight’s own gaze. Fast healing — not fast enough. They may very well bleed out if they weren’t careful, but they didn’t want him to know that. It was enough that he knew they were wounded — and cornered, if they didn’t move fast enough when it came down to it.

“I’m not bleeding out,” Dīs shot back with indignation. They felt the skin on the back of their neck prickle. “It’s merely a cut.. It will stop,” but they didn’t sound completely confident. “You’re awfully curious for someone with little patience. It might have been — does it matter?” Though the light burned bright against the lampade, at least one of their feet remained rooted in shadow, a comforting tether to the uncomfortable spotlight and impromptu interrogation. “Do you not have a fly to go pluck the wings off of?”

“And you’re haughty for someone at a disadvantage.” Parker replied, taking a step closer now, his confident step betraying the ache that pressed into his back. “And the answer to your question depends on two factors - one of which is whether or not you’ve harmed any humans.” He added, taking another step closer, trying to glean any details about the fae in the pitch darkness that the light obviously didn’t catch. “The second is what you have.” This wasn’t the museum. This wasn’t somewhere public enough for either of them to get in trouble if the other broke first. The smell of the nymph’s blood was strong, unnatural, and drove Parker to subconsciously attempt to find where the source was. It wasn’t somewhere insignificant; if it was, it wouldn’t have left the smell lingering uncomfortably in the air and the fae would’ve likely just left. “Do you have wings, little fly?” He asked, tilting his head. “Or perhaps a pair of horns? A honeybee can’t survive without its wings, as you said before. You can survive without yours.”

“Disadvantage?” Dīs parroted, their tone a hair perplexed despite the sardonis scoff that left them. “You have a plastic torch — I have the night. The two don’t compare.” The lampade could do much under the cover of the darkness. What was Parker going to do? Blind them? They kept their distance regardless of their confidence. There could be something hidden beneath the human’s clothing, something that could make the bleeding worse.

“Consequences of their actions. I don’t consider it harm if it’s owed.” They might not, but what they did was still harmful, physically and mentally, so it was only right that the wound in their arm lit with a bout of pain. It was only right. The warden was smart, but he also seemed the type to have his mind already made up — especially where fae were concerned. The blood didn’t help, nor did the sneaking in the dark. They scowled at the probing; they didn’t like the way they were being looked at. “I am not little,” Dīs retorted with their voice louder, angrier, than before. They settled in just a second, but it was clear a nerve had been struck.

“It’s not about survivability. I don’t know of a single creature that would want to live a life of disfigurement, myself included. They may be grateful to be alive, but happy? Fulfilled? That is no life. Not a preferable one, anyway. Do you really not share the same sentiment? Could you be content with giving up a hand? Or a foot?” A bark of young laughter shot Dīs’ attention away from the warden, but they stole that second of a distraction to step out of the light beam and disappear like black sand in the wind into the darkness that surrounded them. They could have run, they had the chance. But the temptation was too great.

“Or an eye,” whispered the shadow behind him.

Nothing the fae said was new, even if some of the terminology instinctively made Parker want to roll his eyes. ‘I have the night, really?’ Even Walker found it to be somewhat ridiculous. The Warden’s expression, not quite emotionless enough for his liking at that moment, managed to deaden it despite feeling the knot on his back pulsing faintly. And here he thought, for just a moment, that-

Something he said finally elicited an actual reaction from the nymph, who seemed not to take his comment about being little lightly. Good; Parker meant for it to be condescending. The retort served two purposes, the first of which being the aforementioned derisive comment explicitly meant to insult the nymph, though even he couldn’t have been sure why he opted to go that route. The second was a button of sorts. Walker was much more proficient at pressing rhetorical buttons than Parker was, but things tended to change when there was a steady stream of pressure prodding him, as it turned out.

He was in a bad mood. But the lampade had gotten emotional first, so it was something of an unspoken win in the Warden’s book.

Then the nymph went on, and their voice started to turn into a drone as it attempted to enter his head. He was realizing with impending disappointment that nothing they were saying was anything Parker hadn’t heard before. But the unique thing about that evening was that the Warden wasn’t in good enough spirits to entertain it. He’d received a similar lecture from Felix, with a similar outcome that nothing was different. He’d heard this before, and the nymph’s tone could’ve reeked with entitlement as it slithered from their disgusting mouth, a demonic halitosis that killed any second guesses or doubts in the Warden’s mind. As much as he didn’t want to hear it, hear the same empty words that so many others had attempted to drill through him, he did hear them.

He didn’t hear them as strongly as he heard his father, however. The interaction with Felix had… inflamed something inside of Parker, something small but fast, venomous, something that latched onto things that he saw and wouldn’t remove its fangs until it was in his possession. ‘Your brain is broken.’ Most of the time, he didn’t understand what his father meant by that. Yet every once in a while, he thought that maybe his general apathy towards fae was what he meant.

A laugh, small, young and distant snapped Parker out of his microscopic fugue and, though it was muddled through a nonfunctional ear, he turned slightly as he felt himself tense up; right, they were technically on a college campus. There were humans, annoying, rambunctious but none the wiser of the horrors and strings that wound themselves around the town, the ones that slunk around in the shadows and hid just under the surfaces of the still bodies of water nearby. The one whose voice had just appeared behind him, none-too-subtly whispering a threat.

In a motion faster than the human eye could detect accurately, the Warden turned on the heel of a steel-toed boot, an arm shooting out like a serpent striking at the limb of a human who had encroached upon its territory and four fingers wrapped tightly around a wrist. Speaking of eyes, Parker closed his as he turned and his other hand, still holding the flashlight as it whipped around, faced forward once more. “I said I’m short on patience.” He said, just as bluntly and emotionlessly as everything else he had said, though his body language suggested that he wasn’t as relaxed as his tone suggested; indeed, he was ever coiled like a spring, as most hunters tended to be he was sure, his muscles rippling under scarred skin.

It was unfortunate that Dīs had to be reminded in person about a hunter’s seemingly superhuman reflexes and strength. They would have rather stayed at a distance, maybe even simply read the information to reintegrate it back into his memory recall. It was also unfortunate that the hunter’s grip was as tight as it was. A new bubble of blood burst through broken skin and dribbled sinuously down their forearm until it reached the valleys and peaks of the man’s curled fingers. Dark beads disappeared into dead grass, their fall slow, but noticeable, especially against pockets of snow.

Dīs couldn’t help but to wince; even the smallest breath of surprise escaped them. The sudden grasp on their arm was both painful and humiliating, but they weren’t going to cower so easily. Flee, perhaps, but never cower.

And flee they did. Well — would have, if it wasn’t for the clearly inebriated couple, a decent and unanticipated distraction, that stumbled through the bushes, giggling to their heart's content and making quite the ruckus. Both of them sported expressions of surprise but giddiness, their cheeks flushed and mouths red after having a heated kissing session, “Oh! Sorry fellas! We didn’t know this place was already taken,” one of them slurred but they were friendly enough to offer a red solo cup of some concoction of booze (which was denied with glares) and apologies. “We’ll just – we’ll, have fun! Bye!” With a hiccup or two and another trample through the bush, the interruption was gone as quickly as it’d arrived. Dīs didn’t know which was more irritating — the fact that they thought that the nymph was cavorting with the enemy or the fact that neither of them noticed that help was wanted. Not needed. There was a distinct difference and Dīs would be keen to point it out if questioned.

It could’ve been considered fortunate that Parker’s hearing was deficient enough that the gasp of surprise from the nymph missed him. It also could’ve been considered fortunate that an inebriated couple distracted him for a moment as he felt what was obviously blood collecting on his skin from the wound the fae had acquired, his head turning sharply as his eyes quickly opened again to regard them rather awkwardly. They stumbled through the one-sided conversation, leaving the Warden to wonder if they could actually catch the expression of disinterest and possibly annoyance on both his and the fae’s face, before eventually managing to read the situation and leaving. His already-low patience dropped even further, Parker swiveled his head back around to regard the nymph, refusing to look into its eyes as he would’ve done otherwise but in lieu of that, he looked down to instead assess the damage to the nymph’s arm. And it happened again; pupils dilated, the smell of ironless blood, the strange sensation, mixing with the new visual of it seeping through the opening healthily enough that it was dripping onto the grass below them. What else the lampade had didn’t matter suddenly, as Parker pulled the nymph’s arm up to his mouth where he placed his teeth against the flesh, feeling the blood against his tongue with nauseating satisfaction.

They shouldn’t have taken their eyes off of him. In truth, Dīs didn’t think much would come from this little interaction, much like their first one. But they let their guard down, something they’d be doing a lot since being forcefully ejected onto the surface world. That was stupid. They expected a knife, perhaps, or maybe some other weapon forged of iron, but they got something else: a mouth, wet and eager. It latched with a voracious quality, as if their blood was the only thing that mattered now. Not the fencing of words or squaring each other away, wondering just who might crack first.

The shock of it all was what made them pause. As far as they knew, this man was a hunter, a warden, not a vampire. And yet he locked his mouth onto their bleeding arm, all the same. Dīs, a little more than unnerved, moved to yank their arm from Parker’s grasp and wandering tongue with a sound of perturbed disgust. They already hurt enough without the man having dug his teeth into their skin. The pull of their arm was abrupt and punctuated with a tense, but loud, “what are you doing!?” Anyone in the area would have heard, if they were keen to hear over the sounds of college students cavorting about and having their fun. Dīs had been having fun, as well, but not anymore.

“Don’t,” they hissed once they managed to wrestle their arm free. They could have torn into Parker, verbalized their anger and contempt for such a human, but with the warden’s eyes determined not to make contact with their own and the confusing and slightly painful… attack? What was this, exactly? Regardless, they didn’t want to stick around to find out that the hunter did, indeed, have fangs, which would be quite the twist and important information to pass on to fellow fae. With their own hand now gripping their arm this time, Dīs quickly moved to put distance between them as they started to disappear back into the darkness around them, being sure to avoid the flashlight’s beam.

First went a leg, then the other, as they slipped into the shadows in one fluid motion. Their scowl, though intense, was shaken slightly and the last thing seen in the dark.

Words were muffled, even more so as once more they failed to make it through even his good ear as Parker’s mind buzzed with little more than his unnatural desire to take the blood from the fae. It attempted to move its arm but he went with it, dropping the flashlight as his other hand wrapped itself strongly around the arm to keep it in place. He felt the blood oozing down his throat, strange, not normal either in taste or his execution. The lampade had said something, of course, but it went completely ignored as he sank his teeth in even further as though to attempt a vice-grip on the limb, pulling the life essence from the open wound.

He wasn’t sure how long the endeavor was before the nymph had managed to wrench its arm from his forceful hands, but it had been long enough that a modicum of his thoughts had returned to him. But Parker needed more. He kept his blue eyes on the appendage, blood on his lips, dancing on his tongue, muscling past his gag reflex as it drained down his esophagus. Somehow, he still knew better than to look the nymph in the eye so instead he wordlessly made a quick movement with his hand again, lashing out to grab the arm like a snake striking its prey.

But there was nothing.

He had lost the grip. The lampade was melting into the shadows, becoming darkness itself, intangible. In a moment, Parker understood that this strange, involuntary blood frenzy wouldn’t have been sated with the nymph any longer but that didn’t stop him from grasping again, and a third time, a snarl escaping from his blood-caked mouth. Kicking his flashlight dumbly, lurching at the remnants of the lampade not unlike a cat trying to catch its prey, crashing to his knees as sticky hands caught him on the dead grass. It was too late. He knew it was too late. The pulse on his back ached, his head swam and he retched where the nymph had been just moments before.

Parker’s watery blue eyes danced along his brow as his mind wandered to how close the inebriated couple might’ve been. The fae disappeared, but the debt of blood still had to be paid.

#thread #tr; parker w #thread; midnight snack

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sebsxphia · 2 years

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Rhett when perry says he's thirsty: sucks to be you then 🤪

Rhett when y/n is thirsty: i'mma drive two hours to mcdonalds to get you a soda float, maybe some fries too, do u want one baby? 🥺

Perry watching this interaction: 🧍‍♂

Im love the grumpy/sunshine rhett ask so much

TEE HEE HEE YES YES YES

rhett would do anything for you and his tone would immediately change and he would get all mushy for you!!!

“what do you need baby? tell me, i’m all yours. you hungry darlin’? need a bath? need a back rub?”

i love it so much too!! it just makes so much sense 🥹 oh to be rhett’s diamond girl!!!!

thank you so much for this dear anon!!! 💌🫶🏼

#💌you’ve got mail #rhett abbott

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a-reader-and-a-writer-for-all · 2 years

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🌹

Thank you anon! 💖 Here is a peek at the Rhett Abbott fic I plan on posting tomorrow:

“Here. I figured you’d be thirsty so I made you some-” The glass almost slipped through your fingers as you caught sight of Rhett. He had climbed down from the tractor and was standing with his back to you. His bareback. Apparently, he had gotten hot in the summer sun and had just removed his hat and his shirt as you came walking out. You watched the muscles in his back ripple and stretch as he finished brushing the stray grass from his machine. Then he turned to face you, running his hands through his sweat-dampened hair.

Send me a "🌹" and I'll post from a WIP

#thanks!#anon ask #wip #wip game #rhett abbott #outer range

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ohwynne · 11 months

Text

TIMING: Mid July PARTIES: Emilio @mortemoppetere & Wynne @ohwynne LOCATION: Axis SUMMARY: Wynne comes over to train with Emilio. They drink and speak of brothers and PI assignments in stead as Wynne asks him to look into their family. CONTENT WARNINGS: Child death tw (mentions), alcoholism tw (alluded)

“You want anything to drink?” Emilio stepped into the kitchen, rummaging through the cabinets. He’d been doing his best to teach Wynne how to protect themself in a broad sense lately — telling them about the ‘dos and don’ts’ of fae, answering questions they came to him with about various undead things they ran into — but the physical self defense lessons were a new thing. And maybe there was a part of him that was nervous about it. After all, he’d dragged his feet on training Flora until she was dead, and he still wasn’t sure how to teach someone something like this without making it hurt. His own training had been a brutal, painful thing. He didn’t want to repeat that with Wynne and more than he’d wanted to repeat it with Flora.

So maybe he was stalling, just a little. Standing in the kitchen, looking into the fridge, pretending he had anything other than alcohol and expired milk to offer them. The best he could do if they were thirsty was get water from the sink, and even then he had no clean glasses to put it in. Still, he inspected the fridge like its contents might change if he only squinted at them hard enough. “Could do a snack, too. But, uh, all the food is stuff you made.”

—

They watched him quietly, always feeling a sense of unease when in someone’s house for the first time. It was hard to not feel like a bit of an intruder, eyes looking over all the things that made someone into the person they were. Their own room in the apartment told so much about them, with how bare it was. Emilio’s place told a lot about him, too, and though he’d said he trusted them, Wynne still felt like this was another piece of his soul he was showing. He had a worrying soul, they thought, a heavy one. “Oh, whatever you’re having is fine.”

They were a little nervous about the training too, but through reflection on the past few weeks they knew they weren’t completely useless. The dead agropelter and the punched bugbear were proof of that. “And I’m fine, I just ate.” Their appetite was low and had been low for months, perhaps even a year. “You do eat it, right? I know there’s other people who eat from it and that I don’t mind, but you know.” They shrugged, smiled at him. It wasn’t really like there was a fruit bowl standing anywhere, indicating that Emilio got his fruit and veg. “Well, you know.”

—

It was strange, having Wynne in his apartment. It shouldn’t have been. He’d been in their apartment more than once now, visiting both them and their various roommates. They’d spent time together in other locations, too. The park, the streets, the woods. He liked Wynne, trusted them, felt protective of them. Somehow, they still looked out of place in his apartment. So did Nora, so did Ren. Even Rhett didn’t look quite right on the mornings he spent sprawled out on Emilio’s couch. Nothing looked right in this apartment. Emilio wasn’t even sure he did. Huffing a quiet laugh, he glanced back at them. “I’m having whiskey,” he said. “I don’t think — Are you old enough to have that in America?” The rules were different here than they were in Mexico, though even there Emilio had had his first glass long before the law said he ought to. He wasn’t sure Wynne would want to follow suit.

“Okay,” he nodded, closing the fridge. It was a little bit of a relief, though he wouldn’t say it aloud. If Wynne accepted his offer of food he didn’t have, they’d realize he didn’t have it. Then they’d probably bring more over, and Emilio could never eat it all. Some days, he felt like there was a stone in his stomach so large that he had no room for anything else. He felt a little guilty as Wynne asked if he ate the food they brought over, but he nodded all the same. “I get enough,” he told them. It wasn’t a lie — when Rhett and Nora and sometimes Ren were finished raiding his fridge, there was enough for him to eat his fill. His fill just happened to be smaller than what most might expect. “Yeah, I know.” But he didn’t. He didn’t understand why they brought food over, why they wanted to make sure he ate it, why they’d done so since the beginning. It was weird, wasn’t it? Them caring whether he ate or not, it was weird. But not in a bad way.

—

“Oh.” Wynne smiled vaguely, amused by his amusement. “I mean, yes. I’m twenty one. But we also didn’t really care about that back home.” They drank their first ales way before their current age, though they certainly preferred the homemade honey mead. Whiskey was nice, though, especially on cold nights. They vaguely recalled drinking too much of it and becoming too honest than was appropriate. Still, they liked a small curtain of inebriation draping over their life sometimes. Not too much of it, lest they lose control and face whatever consequences there would be that time. But a slight slumber was welcomed. “I’ll also have some whiskey.” And maybe they wanted Emilio to think they were cool, too.

“Okay, well, good.” It was strange, how insistent Wynne found themself with things like these. At home they had once been a beacon of hope of sorts, a sanctified person who would save them all. Now their purpose was smaller (and less lethal), and yet they still yearned for it at times. To nurture in a way or, at least, to look after those in their newfound community that looked after them in return. “Hey, did I tell you? I killed some creature. It was going to eat my friends’ fingers.” They pulled out their phone, sliding through their gallery to find the picture of the thing they’d killed with the knife Emilio gave them. “And I punched a bugbear. But I feel a bit bad about that.”

—

“Neither did we,” Emilio admitted with a faint smile. Hunters, at least in his family, tended to rely on alcohol heavily enough that someone on the outside looking in might see it as a potential problem. But when you lived your life knowing it would end violently while you were still young, when you watched the people you loved die bloody and afraid, what else could you do? He wondered, absently, if this was why Wynne’s community had allowed them to drink before they were of the legal age as well. There was little point in forcing them to follow rules that would see them dead before they ever had a drop of alcohol, wasn’t there? He pulled down a bottle of whiskey, carrying it over to them. “Don’t think I have any clean glasses,” he admitted, “but it’s fine to drink from the bottle.”

They seemed comforted by his promise that he got enough to eat, in spite of Rhett and Nora’s tendency to raid his fridge from time to time. And Emilio still didn’t understand it, but he was content to move past it. If Wynne was happy, he was content. He’d make an effort to eat a little bit more of whatever they brought next. “Oh?” He perked up a little at that, eyes quickly darting over their face to make sure they weren’t upset about having killed something, the way Nora had been with the ghoul. “Small, yes? Like un ardilla?” He only knew of one thing interested in eating exclusively fingers. He’d heard Rhett bitch about them enough to know they were fae. At the mention of punching a bugbear, he sucked his teeth. “Ah, why’d you punch a bugbear?” He wanted to ask what bugbear, but… He was pretty sure he could guess.

—

Being here, seeing Emilio in his little kitchen without any clean glasses and very little drinks to offer, Wynne felt a little bit like they were intruding. It wasn’t entirely bad, though, as it added more to the picture they had created of the hunter in their mind. There was something idealized about the way Wynne had thought of him, but as more time passed and more of him was shown, they began to understand that maybe he didn’t have everything figured out either. Even if it seemed that way. “That’s alright. I don’t mind sharing.” They opened the bottle and took a sip, their face contorting a little at the sharp taste of it.

“I have no idea what it is. Or was, I guess. What’s an ardilla?” Wynne, with little to no knowledge of Spanish, assumed it was just another kind of supernatural creature they’d never encountered. “Do you recognize it?” They showed him the picture. At his reaction in regards to the bugbear, Wynne shrugged their shoulders. “She scared me before. At work. I got yelled at because of it and I didn’t want it to happen again. She was going to do it again. And I know fighting is wrong, but …” Their gaze drifted and they pushed the bottle towards him. “You know her, I think. I don’t know her name. But she explained what she was. She likes ham?”

—

Amusement danced across his face at the way their face distorted. The whiskey wasn’t good by any stretch of the imagination, and it tasted just as cheap as it was. Emilio had become numb to it over the years. Even before the massacre, he’d been able to drink cheap whiskey from the bottle without flinching. Juliana used to tease that he’d burned his tastebuds off years ago, and maybe there was some truth to it. Whatever taste he’d had left had been lost in the massacre, of course; these days, things tasted like muted, watered down versions of themselves. It always felt like his mouth was full of ash. He took the whiskey from Wynne, taking a long swig.

At the question, he furrowed his brow. “Ah, I don’t know what you call them in English. They’ve got the big tails, they go in trees…” He trailed off with a shrug. “Not important.” He leaned forward, looking at the picture with a nod. “Yes. Agropelter. They eat fingers. It’s good you were able to take it out.” There was a warmth in his chest that felt a little like pride. Wynne didn’t know as much as they should. He was working on that. But it was nice that they could take care of themself in the meantime. “Ah.” That sounded like Nora — stubborn to a fault. He wasn’t sure he could blame Wynne for hitting her, though he wished the two wouldn’t fight. “I know her, yeah. You might see her around the building sometimes. She works for me.”

—

So they did eat fingers. Wynne had wondered if they’d imagined it, if Cass had just agreed with them to make them feel better about the fact that they’d killed a creature. They often looked for justification for their actions, after all, as if they needed to convince themself that what they’d done wasn’t inherently evil or bad. “Oh, yes, I thought that it was going to eat my friends’ fingers, but it’s good to know that that’s what it was really going to do. That I stopped that. That feels good.” The words were awkward as they made their exit from their mouth, but they were true nonetheless.

They nodded. “Yeah, I met her in the hallway a while back. She told me she works for you, that’s pretty cool. And that you know what she is.” Wynne shrugged a little. “She’s not so bad, maybe.” If Emilio liked her and she liked Emilio, that was a good sign. They looked at the hunter, wondering if there were more of them out there, people he took under his wing. Because that was what this was, wasn’t it? The mentors had done it to them, but they had been deceptive and two-faced, they’d reprimanded and punished the way they were supposed to. Emilio was guiding, but only when they wanted it. “Are you doing better, by the way?” They really did want to know, but they also had a pressing request they’d parked a while back. “I know you were dealing with some stuff and you don’t have to tell me, but you know. I hope you’re doing better.”

—

There was some relief when Wynne said it felt good to have stopped their friend’s fingers from becoming snacks, if only because Emilio had no idea how to comfort them if it didn’t. He wasn’t sure how it kept falling on him to ease the guilt of kids who killed things they weren’t sure needed killing, but he’d done it for both Nora and Ren now and he didn’t think he’d done a very good job with either. For a man who hated himself so entirely, trying to keep others from feeling the same about themselves without making himself a hypocrite in the process was… challenging. “Sometimes, you just do what you have to do,” he replied with a shrug, because he figured that was all that needed saying. You did what you had to do. You tried to be someone you could live with. He was better at the former than he was at the latter.

“Yeah, she does. Brings in cases sometimes.” Usually ones that she thought were interesting, but that was fine with Emilio. Some days, the fog in his head was so thick that nothing seemed interesting at all. On the days it wasn’t, he tended to have interests similar enough to Nora’s that the cases she brought in kept him entertained. “She doesn’t hide it as well as she should. What she is. Worry sometimes, you know?” It was why he was relieved that Wynne, as far as he knew, was human. He worried about Nora and about Ren and about people like him finding them, but he didn’t have to worry about Wynne in the same way. With them, he just had to worry about… everything else under the sun. Relaxing. “Better?” The question brought him back to the conversation, and he furrowed his brow. Are you doing better? Christ, was he ever? “I’m all right, Wynne. You don’t have to worry about me. I bounce back.” It wasn’t true, but it was the necessary kind of lie. “How, uh… How are you doing?”

—

That was true, they supposed. Sometimes you did what you had to. Sometimes you were backed in a corner and there were no other things to do but run or fight or freeze. Wynne had done all of them, letting themself transform into a frozen pawn that would do and say what was needed as death waited for them. They had ran, that one fateful night and then just kept running until they’d arrived here. They had fought, that time with Emilio and that afternoon with Cass, but also in one of the motels they’d stayed at. “I guess that’s true. Sometimes there’s nothing else to do.” Wasn’t that what Emilio did too? He was a hunter, after all.

“Yes, I can imagine.” They pushed their lips together. “She just went and scared me in public. It’s fine now, we talked it out.” Or well, more accurately: Wynne had punched Nora, and Nora had turned into a wolf. “But that could be risky.” While they weren’t sure what they thought of Nora, they didn’t think she deserved to be hurt. When Emilio said that they didn’t have to worry about him they wanted to open their mouth and protest, but they stopped themself. Maybe it was true. Maybe he did bounce back very easily. He had a lot of years of experience, where they had none. Still, they shrugged: “I worry about everything.” As if it was something done as easily as breathing, and it might as well be. “I’m fine, yes.” They smiled. They weren’t sure what fine was, but Ariadne and other people did brighten life. “Alive.” Maybe that was what being fine was for them. “Are you taking on any cases at this point?”

—

Sometimes there’s nothing else to do. He wondered, absently, if it was really only sometimes. All his life, he’d been told that fighting was the only choice available to him. You were a weapon before you ever got to be a person, a knife before you were allowed to be a boy. It didn’t matter what he did. He could put down the blade and pick up someone’s hand instead, could put a ring on his finger, could hold a child in his arms. At the end of the day, when all was said and done, his hands were still bloody. He was still making them bloody. Wynne said that there was nothing else to do sometimes, and Emilio wanted more than that for them, wanted them to get to be something better than what they’d been allowed. Maybe he wanted for them to get to be something better than he’d been allowed, too.

“She does that. Tried it on me the first night we met.” But Emilio was difficult to scare, and Nora had learned that. He wasn’t sure if she liked that about him or if she resented it. “I’m glad the two of you talked it out, though. She’s a good kid. So are you.” He’d rather the two of them be friends than be fighting. “It is risky, yeah. I keep telling her that.” Maybe someday she’d listen. She’d backed off Kaden, at least, albeit only temporarily. He glanced to Wynne, smiling faintly as they insisted that they worried about everything. “Take one thing off the list, then. I’m always okay, okay?” It wasn’t true, but the truth was something they’d argue with. For whatever reason, Wynne seemed unwilling to accept the fact that Emilio, in the grand scheme of things, wasn’t much worth worrying about. “Alive,” he repeated, nodding his head. “Good thing to be.” He hummed at her question, nodding. “Yeah. I wrapped up my last big one, so I’ve got the floodgates open. You got something for me?”

—

The idea of trying to scare Emilio seemed a little funny to Wynne, who thought of the other as a rather fearless individual. They had gleamed some imperfections to be sure, but it was easy to look past them in favor of all the things he did have going for him. “I guess that’s why we talked it out. You, I mean. Because we realized we both …” They trailed off for a moment before shrugging. The truth wouldn’t hurt here. “We both care about you.” They smiled a little, the confession not feeling heavy but meaningful all the same. It was good to care about others, even if it was for people who were hunters for a living and thus lived a dangerous life. Maybe that was why it was also good to voice this kind of care.

They looked at Emilio skeptically, not believing for one second that he was always okay. “No one is always okay. And I don’t think you were okay a while back. But okay, I’ll try not to.” They would keep worrying, just as they’d keep dropping of portions of food. Wynne would rather fret about the people around them than the ones they’d abandoned. They smiled at his assessment, because it was a good thing to be alive. To most it might be the bare minimum, but to them it was everything. They reached out for the bottle, took a small sip of it again before answering his question. “I – well, you can say no, alright? But I was thinking maybe you could look into my family. What happened?” They thought about the Leviathan and its offers, their endless wondering of whether they’d take it up on it. “I can give you directions to where it is. Maybe even come with but …” They shook their head, clutched the bottle tighter. “I think I just need to know. If they’re not all dead, or something. Last time people went against It, they — a lot of people died. And I think maybe I need to know.”

—

The idea of two kids that he’d taken it upon himself to look out for talking out a disagreement because of a shared affection for him made Emilio feel a warmth in his chest that was a little unfamiliar. It was strange, in a way; Emilio himself had never been any good at talking things out, preferred to settle disagreements with his fists instead of using his words because he was angry, was always angry. The fact that he’d been something of a catalyst to keep Wynne and Nora from relying on the same methods seemed so impossible, but here was Wynne telling him that that was exactly what had happened. “Good. Uh, that’s good. I… care about the two of you, too.” It was hard to say. It always was. He was so bad at telling the people he cared about that he cared about him, as if he spent every moment waiting for the world to yank them away.

It wasn’t really a surprise that they saw through him. Even if Emilio were better at keeping himself together when shit hit the fan, Wynne was observant. They had a habit of looking at him and knowing when something was wrong in a way that made him uneasy, sometimes, because they shouldn’t have to. Kids shouldn’t have to worry about adults. Emilio was the grown up, Emilio was the responsible one, Emilio was the guy with the answers. He didn’t have time to be not okay, didn’t have the privilege of it. He had to be the one to keep people alive, to keep Wynne alive. He made a note to get better at hiding it in front of them, to learn how to drag himself out of his slumps enough to fool them. He wasn’t sure it was feasible. He wasn’t sure anything was. But he’d try it anyway.

At their request, he hesitated. Was this what was best for them, he wondered? He thought of that day in Mexico, of walking the streets he’d grown up on and seeing the bodies of friends and neighbors and families scattered along them in the dirt. It wasn’t the kind of thing you could ever get out of your head. It’d stay with him until he died, and he knew that. If he went to Wynne’s home, if he found their family in the same state… or, worse still, if he brought them with him… “I’ll go,” he promised. “I’ll do this for you. But I’m not sure you should come with me, kid.” He understood needing to know. But knowing and seeing were two different things. One of them, you never got to come back from.

—

They smiled at that statement, vaguely and somewhat distantly as Wynne got lost in the maze of their mind. It was hard not to think of their previous conversations, about what parents were supposed to do and how their own had fallen short. How Emilio cared about them in a way that their parents had never quite seemed to do, despite only knowing them for months. They wondered where it came from, that instinct. They thought he’d make a good dad. It was hard to find a fitting reply to those words, though, but they made them feel somewhat warm and sad at the same time. “Just don’t have her eat all the food.”

Maybe it was a good and healthy thing, that Emilio didn’t tell them of all the ways he hadn’t been okay, but Wynne wasn’t sure how healthy relationships with adults worked. The ones at home had all varied so wildly, some clinging to Wynne as if they were their savior (which they had been), others having treated them like an adult ever since they had turned twelve. They weren’t a child any more though, were they? And they didn’t want to just depend on Emilio and have this be a one-way street. That was why they cooked for him, and insisted on him not having been okay. Not just as a thank-you, but as a form of reciprocity.

Their stomach was tense as they awaited his answer. It was something that had been swirling around their mind for a while, a need they felt very deeply. It was like an itch they couldn’t ignore, as was the Leviathan’s offer to help, Teddy’s look in their eyes as Wynne and them had shared their truths. Wasn’t it time? To try and look back, to find out what consequences there had been for their actions? To know, rather than run away from whatever truth was out there? Life in Wicked’s Rest had become a nice cacophony of distracting noise and friendship, but that didn’t mean it was escape enough from what they’d left. They needed to know, and once they knww, they might need something to be done. “Okay. I don’t … I don’t know if I should come, either.” They didn’t want to. They couldn’t. They felt their hands grow sweaty at the thought of it, the bottle of alcohol slick in their hands. “And I do want to pay you, okay? But if you don’t need me to come then I’d rather not.”

—

“Ah, she wouldn’t do that.” It was hard to look at Wynne and Nora sometimes and not wonder what might have been. Juliana had always wanted more kids. Hunters usually did. You had a gaggle of them in order to ensure that the family name lived on in spite of hunters’ tendency to live short, tragic lives. His mother, he knew, would have continued having children after him had his father not died early. He imagined, sometimes, a world where things were different. Where the massacre hadn’t happened but he’d found a way to stay or to take Juliana with him, where they’d raised Flora together with a little brother or sister. Would they have ended up in a time, eventually, with two kids like Wynne and Nora? Kids who fought sometimes, but stopped eventually? Kids who were so different but so alike at the same time?

He pushed the thought from his mind like it was a physical thing he had to shove his full weight against. Thinking of it now, in that sense, hurt. And he didn’t want to hurt right now. He was here, in this moment, with a kid who was alive and who thought he was all right to be around. And they weren’t his, and they never would be, but he could help them out anyway. He could show them how to throw a punch, how to keep themself safe. Maybe he could do for them what he hadn’t done for Flora; maybe he could keep them alive.

Wynne admitted that they didn’t want to join him, and the relief he felt was palpable. He nodded his head, offered them a small smile. “You don’t have to,” he promised. “Just tell me what I’m looking for, who I should talk to. I’ll find out what I can for you. And you can pay me if you want to, but not full price. You already put food in my fridge, kid. I probably owe you one. Or two, or three.”

—

“I’ll just cook a little more, anyway. I heard there’s someone else who likes it?” They were curious, admittedly. Emilio had good judgment, and Wynne was keen to know who he trusted enough to step foot into his home. The fact that they themself were among those people and that they in turn trusted Emilio was something valuable. Trust, after all, was hard to come by and hard to extend. And yet here they were, only a few months since that altercation in the woods, undeniably connected.

They swallowed at his question, extending the bottle so that they wouldn’t keep sipping it. Who could Emilio trust, among those at home? Would they try anything with him? Protherians weren’t prone to attack, but their privacy was valued above all else, protected by the demon. Were they sending on a mission that could endanger him? Suddenly Wynne wished to backtrack and tell Emilio to never mind, it was a stupid idea. But they remembered how he’d been in the forest, how he’d probably done things like this before. Teeth buried in their lip.

“Rhys. He’s … I think he’d be okay. Or Llewelyn, my cousin. He’s very tall and has bright red hair. Rhys goes into town sometimes. Greenville. Sells things. Like artisanal. And, I’ll show on the map where it is. How you can get in …” They paused. “The way I got out.” Wynne looked at him, lips pushed together in a fine, anxious line. “I think I owe you more. We agreed on an amount of money. This is — not just any ask. I want to pay. Okay?”

—

“Rhett,” he confirmed, nod almost hesitant. It still felt strange, having his brother in his life again. Like a puzzle piece that no longer fit the way it ought to, like a part of a machine that had become warped over time and couldn’t quite slide into place. But that analogy wasn’t quite right, was it? It wasn’t Rhett who had changed. And when he found out Emilio had…

He tried not to think about it. It wouldn’t be something he learned from Wynne, anyway. For all the shit they’d gone through, they were still only human. He didn’t think there was any danger of Rhett lashing out at them, not if he knew they were important to Emilio. He could only protect Ren from his brother by keeping them apart, could only protect Nora by insisting she never tell the warden what she was. But he thought Rhett might still love him enough that Wynne, human and young, would be protected just by being important. So he shrugged, added, “He’s my brother,” and hoped it wouldn’t come with any more questions.

After all, it was him who ought to be asking questions now. He needed to gather more information about the case they had for him, needed to know what he was looking for. He nodded at the information they gave him. “Rhys is your brother?” He’d look for him first. If it were him in their shoes, that would be the first thing he wanted to know about. He thought of Rhett again, ached with the thought. Wynne’s brother might not be any happier with them than Rhett would be with Emilio when the truth came out. They’d done what they had to do to survive, but… It was hard, sometimes. Getting out from under the way you’d been taught to think all your life, it was hard.

“Show me on the map. I’ll look for them, and I’ll see if they can tell me anything.” They might not be willing to share with a stranger, but if Emilio brought up Wynne’s name… He’d only do it if necessary, of course, and he’d make sure they were safe from it. No one was coming to find them on his watch, no matter what. He’d make sure of that. “Okay, okay,” he held up his hands, a sign of surrender that was almost playful. “You can pay me. I won’t stop you.”

—

His brother. Wynne considered that fact, couldn’t help but wonder about the rest of Emilio’s family. They had learned some things about the way he had been raised, but it was still hard to imagine it. It was hard to imagine how anyone outside of their commune had been raised, although it was a little easier with the media they consumed. But Emilio had a brother. That was good to know. “Maybe I can meet him sometime. Is he a hunter as well?” Probably, right? It seemed like a family thing. Sometimes Wynne wondered if there were similarities between their own youth and that of Emilio.

At his assumption they shook their head. The thought of Iwan made their heart sore. “No, he’s just one of the people there. Older. Kind of like your age?” Rhys had felt trustworthy. Warm, in a way their parents failed to be. He’d made them laugh. But of course, at the end of the day, he’d still been okay with what was to come. Even if Wynne had sometimes thought he’d looked at them with pity or softness, it had never come to anything. “My brother is called Iwan. You could also look for him, but he doesn’t tend to leave the estate the way Rhys does. I — well, I’d like to know if he’s alright, of course.”

Their head felt a little funny, thoughts swirling mindlessly and aggressively as the alcohol spread through their system. Maybe they’d had a sip too many. “He looks a lot like me. But he’s usually on the estate. Tends to work in the kitchens.” They’d cooked together so very much. Wynne bit their lip. “I think Rhys is your best bet. But maybe Iwan will tell you too. If you can get there.”

It was happening, then. Wynne would get their answers and whatever they’d be, they’d have to live with it. Their chest felt tight, but they smiled at Emilio’s movements. “Deal. I’ll show it to you soon.” They rubbed their neck. “Should we do some training now? To … I don’t know.” They wanted distraction, of course. “If that’s alright with you.”

—

“Maybe.” What would Rhett say, he wondered, at the sight of Emilio doing everything he could do to keep another kid safe? He wondered if his brother would see it as history repeating, if he’d look at Wynne and see what Emilio saw — the potential for the same ending to come to pass once again, a future filled with nothing more than another bloody living room floor and another set of vacant eyes. Would Rhett tell him as much? Would he point out that Emilio was setting himself up for it, in whatever gentle way he could manage? He knew how it ended when he had kids he cared about. Flora, Jaime… Maybe Wynne was damned to become another name on that list. Maybe he’d sealed that fate for them the moment he’d decided to give a shit. “He’s a warden. We don’t have the same parents, but he’s been around since I was twelve. As much of a brother as my other brothers were.” Sometimes, he felt like Rhett was more of a brother to him than Edgar or Victor had been. He hated himself for thinking it. “I don’t know if you’d like him.”

He nodded, uncertain about anyone his age who’d been willing to let Wynne lay on an altar but willing to swallow the feeling to get them the answers they needed. “Rhys is old,” he agreed with a faint hint of amusement behind his eyes. He might find it funnier that Wynne thought of him as ‘older’ if he didn’t feel it. After all, compared to most hunters, he’d had an expanded lifespan already. He should have died years ago, like Victor. Like Flora. He swallowed the thought, preferring to focus on Wynne’s family over his own. “I’ll find out about Iwan, too, then.” Whatever there was to find, he’d find it. Maybe he could convince Wynne’s brother to abandon the compound, too. The idea of any kid being forced to grow up in a place like that was nauseating, in spite of everything.

It was worse, he thought, that this was Wynne’s brother they were talking about. That there was a kid who looked like them growing up in a place that would have sent them to the slaughter if they hadn’t made their own escape. “I’ll find Rhys,” he promised. “I’ll see if he can get me on the compound and if he can’t, I’ll sneak in your way.”

Training, of course, was something he understood far better than the rest of it. There was some kind of relief that came with the suggestion, some quiet reprieve. Nodding, Emilio put the bottle down, pulled a stake from his pocket instead. He handed it to Wynne with a faint smile. “First lesson,” he said, taking a few steps back. “Stick them with the pointy end.”

#emilio.#my brother's keeper.#threads.

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