keeiv

[keeiv]

hi ok bye

[keeiv]

yeah I cracked. Cracked this beer open

[keeiv]

(poly werewolves 141 x female human reader || part one)

The forest had a rhythm to it.

Not one of ticking clocks or hours counted on a calendar, but a living rhythm- crows taking wing at dawn, the hush of deer at the river come twilight, the cicadas sawing the silence into ribbons each dusk.

You had lived long enough in your solitude to learn that rhythm as if it were your own pulse; it told you when the seasons turned, when the rains would come, when the bears would lumber down from the higher ridges.

And now, it told you this: you were no longer alone.

Not alone in the way of creatures and their breath in the dark. That, you had already grown used to. It had been weeks since the night of blood and storm, since four shadows had collapsed on your porch and vanished again like wraiths. Weeks since your quiet life had been rewritten with the subtle signs of guardianship- the gifts left on your steps, the predator tracks cut short by heavier, sharper prints circling yours, the strange hush that fell upon the clearing as though the forest itself bowed to some unspoken command you weren’t privy to learn just yet.

This was different.

It began with smoke: not yours, but a thin, rising thread of it curling from the tree line across the lake. The abandoned cottage there had stood for years, sagging into the earth, its roof bowed, its hearth gone cold. You had passed it once in your first spring here, peered into its hollow frame and decided it was a place ghosts might linger and one you’d not waste time on.

But one crisp morning, you looked up from your own chopping block and saw smoke rising from that chimney, steady and sure. Not ghosts, then. Neighbors.

You almost laughed aloud at the absurdity of it. Neighbors. Out here, where the road gave way to little more than deer tracks, where storms cut power for days and the forest demanded a kind of loyalty from those who dared live in it. Few came this far. Fewer stayed, and the closest civilization was the village more than a few miles away.

And yet, the very next week, you saw them.

Four men, crossing the river path with lumber on their shoulders, voices a low rumble of camaraderie. They moved like soldiers: even in their quiet, you recognized the familiar cadence of it. Broad-shouldered, scarred in places they did not bother to hide, eyes sharper than any civilian’s had right to be. You stood at the edge of your garden with your cane, watching from beneath the brim of your hat as they passed.

They raised hands in greeting. Not intrusive, not prying. Just a neighbor’s courtesy.

“Morning,” the one wearing a cap said, polite and friendly.

You returned the nod, though your throat felt thick. Morning.

And then they were gone, melting into the forest trail with their burden of timber.

It should have ended there; A curiosity, an oddity you would eventually grow used to, the way one grows used to a raven’s nest high in the eaves. But it didn’t end, because you noticed the rhythm shift again.

One night, when the coyotes returned, you woke to find your porch lamp already lit, its flame burning steady in the storm winds. You had not lit it. And in the woods beyond, instead of growls, you thought you heard the heavy tread of boots driving the animals off.

Another morning, your cane slipped from your hand as you struggled with a basket by the river. Before you could stoop to fetch it, one of the new men appeared on the path, his russet-colored sweater catching the light, eyes gleaming. He bent and handed the cane back with a grin quick as a flame, gaze bright and unreadable. “Careful there, Miss. Slippery ground.” His voice was warm and careful as honey, and he vanished again before you could properly thank him.

And yet another time, as dusk bled into the forest, you froze on your porch when a bear lumbered near the treeline. You were reaching for your gun when you saw movement from the corner of your eye.

A pale shape- no, a man this time- standing just beyond your garden’s edge. He didn’t shout, didn’t wave his arms. He only stood, utterly still, eyes fixed on the animal. And somehow, impossibly, the bear huffed, turned, and wandered off, as though cowed by something larger than it could name.

When you blinked, the man was gone before you could thank him.

They eventually introduced themselves to you proper, of course. John Price, Kyle Garrick, Simon (just Simon), and Johnny MacTavish. Normal names. Names no one in the village had, so they couldn’t be related to anyone there. They gave them easily, with the kind of ease soldiers had when lying about where they’d been stationed or what unit they’d served in- it wasn’t so much dishonesty as a well-worn habit of keeping the truth folded deep.

You offered your own name, a little stiffly, though your voice warmed when Johnny tilted his head, smile bright enough to catch in the lamplight.

“Bonnie name for a bonnie lass.” He’d said, syllables lilting. His eyes crinkled at the corners, and you found yourself looking away too quickly, unsettled by how closely he looked when he said it.

John had only given you a slow nod, his pipe stem caught between his teeth, smoke curling from the corner of his mouth. Simon- towering, quiet, eyes like bruised steel- didn’t say much at all, only let his gaze sweep across your porch as if assessing its defenses. Kyle had been the first to offer a hand, warm and calloused, his grin kind, his touch gentle and firm.

It should have ended there, polite words shared over a fence-line, the sort of introduction that fades back into distance.

But it didn’t: you began to notice them even in the smallest corners of your life, even after those previous few instances.

Once, when you walked to the cottage after a trip to the village with a pack too heavy for your frame, you found yourself flagging by the first step of your porch. The weight dragged your bad leg nearly to buckling.

Before you could curse the ache in your thigh, the strap lightened- lifted clean from your shoulder. Kyle had taken it without asking, carrying the burden as if it weighed nothing at all.

“You should’ve called for one of us,” he said, his tone almost scolding, though softened by his smile. “Could’ve saved you the trouble.”

“I didn’t know I was supposed to.” You replied, half defensive, half annoyed by the pack, the fall, and the ache in your leg.

His answering smile was gentle and so pretty you wanted to look away, boyish in a way that contrasted with the scars along his jaw. “Supposed to? Maybe not. But next time, eh? You’ve got four big men around, we’d carry anything you asked for.”

He didn’t give the pack back until you were safely at your door, and even then he dropped it on your table and only then left.

Another evening, you lingered in the garden, tending to the last stubborn shoots of late summer. Your hands were deep in the soil when you realized you weren’t alone: Simon stood just beyond the fence, arms folded, shadow long across the tilled earth, a balaclava on his face.

You startled, dropping the trowel. “Holy shit, I didn’t hear you.”

“You weren’t meant to,” he answered simply, voice deep enough that it seemed to stir the very air. Then he climbed over the fence, and knelt beside you. “Let me help.”

You frowned, brushing dirt from your palms. “…. Why are you here?”

His eyes moved- slow, deliberate- across the treeline, then back to you. “Because you’re out here.”

He didn’t explain further and didn’t step closer. But something in the words lingered in your chest, heavy and oddly steadying. He remained until you finally rose, cane in hand, and went inside.

Only then did his shadow slip away into the dusk.

John was more deliberate in his approach, but quieter too, woven into habits you didn’t notice until later: your woodpile, once dwindling faster than you liked, seemed replenished each week with neat stacks of logs you didn’t recall chopping. Your fence rail, loose and wobbling, had been reinforced with fresh nails one morning before you woke.

You caught him once, pipe smoke curling through the mist as he set down an axe (deliciously bare-chested, though you didn’t let yourself focus on that for now).

“John, you don’t need to-“ you began, bristling at the thought of being pitied like this.

He cut you off with a steady look, his voice calm but edged. “A storm’s coming, and I hate having nothing to do, doll. Let me do this for you.”

There was no mockery in his tone. Just fact and just care wrapped in command.

And when he walked past you to the gate, boots crunching against frost, he paused just long enough to murmur, “You shouldn’t be doing it alone, anyhow.”

Johnny was the opposite of John’s steady gravity. He was the fire you kept roaring in your fireplace during winter- restless, bright, and impossible to ignore. He turned up most often in the in-between hours, whistling as he carried back game from the woods, or lounging on your porch rail as if it were his own.

“Dinnae like the way that trap was sittin’,” he remarked once, nodding toward the line of your snares along the brush. “Let me change ‘em for ye, lass. Or add more.”

“I’ve been setting those for years.” You replied, defensive and unimpressed.

“Aye, and maybe I’ve got sharper eyes.” He winked, grin flashing quick. “Humor me, hen. No harm in letting me take a look.”

And somehow, by the end of it, you’d let him place new snares, his broad hands surprisingly delicate with the wire. You told yourself it was easier than arguing, but the warmth in your chest when he looked up, face flushed with exertion, said otherwise.

There were subtler things too. Things you couldn’t explain: when you once left food cooling on the windowsill overnight, you woke to find no scavengers had touched it, though the forest was full of them.

When you walked the river trail, you sometimes caught the smell of woodsmoke and earth that wasn’t your own, and felt the hair on your arms rise as though someone padded just beyond sight.

And in the coldest nights, when your pain kept you awake and the silence pressed too close, you sometimes swore you heard it: the long, low timbre of a howl rolling down from the ridges. Not threatening and not mournful, but something as deep as the forest itself. Claiming.

It should have frightened you.

You fell asleep without clutching your gun.

Bit by bit, you softened toward them: At first, it was in the way you didn’t chase them off when you found them mending something around your homestead. Later, it was in the way you let Kyle carry heavy things without argument, or let Johnny sit on your porch and chatter until the stars came out, or let Simon stand in the dark corners of your garden without demanding he explain himself.

And with John, it was in the way you eventually set two mugs on the table instead of one when you brewed tea on colder mornings- never asking if he’d stay, but always finding the second cup drained when you returned from the stove and found new chopped wood.

They were men, yes. But they were something else too, something you hadn’t yet named. Their movements were too fluid, too sure-footed, their eyes too sharp when they caught the light. They carried the forest with them, as if it bowed to their passage.

And sometimes, when you looked too closely, you thought you saw it: a shadow of fangs when Johnny grinned too wide; a glimmer like molten gold in Simon’s eyes when the moon was high; the twitch of John’s shoulders, as though his body itched to shake free of its human shackles; the way Kyle sniffed the air, subtle, like scent was as telling as sight, and accirately told you whethere it’d rain or not.

Subtle signs and little truths you kept tucking away, telling yourself they were tricks of light and fancy- but you knew the rhythm of the forest better than anyone.

And the forest whispered back to you, clear as bone and blood:

These men are not just men, and perhaps peace did not shatter.

Perhaps it only changed shape.

[keeiv]

Price and Ghost fake dating to lovers but it's because the local Indian gives 25% off to couples on a Friday night. They sell it a little too well, holding hands, setting up a fake anniversary to celebrate for free dessert and beer, and don't realise they're actually dating-dating until three years in. On a random Friday, Simon leans across as they flop into Price's old Toyota, "so, you, uh... fancy a shag, or wot?" Price does. They're official the next morning.

[keeiv]

but what if you're too shy during sex to let your pleasure be known? every slick, trembling movement of your hips is proof your body is betraying nothing, but your mouth is a cage, lips clamped tight, cheeks burning, desperate to stay quiet. you're too self-conscious to let the sounds be free.

but simon isn't having it.

a rough hand slides to your jaw, tilting your head. then fingers press into your mouth, curling between your molars, forcing your lips apart.

"stop hidin'," he growls, low and rough. "your pussy's singin' for me. why can't your mouth do the same?"

your eyes squeeze shut, but he tilts your head back, a thumb flat on your tongue, holding your jaw in place, and a shaky little moan escapes, muffled through his fingers.

"be louder. my hearin' ain't what it used to be."

[keeiv]

mhhh... knight!price who's so utterly enamoured with servant!reader...

he's a high ranking official, his kings right hand man. he can have almost anyone he wants in the whole kingdom with just a snap of his fingers, has people swooning and lusting after him. hes a good catch after all, a good provider, guarantees your safety, gets you close to the king and looks bloody handsome too. you just know that man will build you a home to last for generations and he'll make sure you're happy and taken care of whenever he can - yes, hes away a lot, he has to lead the troops to victory after all; he didnt get where he is today by simply sitting on his ass. all in all hes a dream come true, yet he's still unwed and alone, not having anyone.

he always says he doesn't have the time for a spouse, wants to truly be there for them and take care of them when hes finally married, it just makes all the suitors more eager for him.

but price? hes got his eyes on you.

stolen glances from across the hall when hes eating and you're serving, waiting to follow his every order, touches that linger too long and leave a tingling once his hands are off your skin, longing stares from his window when you're sat outside with the other servants for the well deserved break that doesn't last as long as it should. he often walks by the room you sleep in at night, the only reason he doesn't knock being the others you share the room with, not wanting to wake anyone or arise any suspicion.

he doesn't get you alone a lot, but when he does its his own personal heaven, able to really chat with you without risking your livelihood, getting to unashamedly stare at you, stare at the way the dirty clothes were on your body, wishing he could dress you right and tear them off you at the same time. feeds you from his plate, lets you drink from his cup, runs his hands over your body while youre just trying to work - but god, even you have to admit it feels good.

you'd never tell him to stop - not that you were allowed to either way - but it was such a weird feeling for you; forbidden and so good at the same time. so many times you wander past his room at night, wanting to knock, but just hurry away, not wanting to be caught doing something you weren't allowed to.

[keeiv]

Ghost who either doesnt realize or care how big he is so he shoves it in with very little prep

So of course the next time you get him alone you have to teach him exactly what that feels like. Pulling out a strap thats much bigger than him because "what? I thought you were a big boy? Can't you take it?"

And pushing in the second you can, even as ghost gasps and whines about it being too much. You would be nicer to him, but you were walking weird for three days after he fucked you, so youre not all that sympathetic. Leaning down to push him into the matress by the back of his neck, "dont be such a bitch. Look, I even used lube, are you seriously crying already?"

Ghost, poor ghost, is so overwhelmed he doesnt know what he wants. Stuck between begging for a break and begging for more as you begin to thrust "no- no please- stop, shit- I cant do this cmon- oh fuck right there! Harder-"

You snort at him cruelly, pinch at the fat on his thighs just to watch him shake. "Youve got three inches left, baby. Besides, you didnt stop after I came, why should i?"

By the end of it hes completely boneless, ass sore and voice raw from crying. Once everyone is cleaned up and hes resting his head on your chest, ghost whispers "i...may have been too rough with you before. Sorry."

You grin, kiss the soft curls on his head "apology accepted. You wanna feel that strap when youre properly prepped? It can squirt cum."

"...maybe after my ass isnt screaming from just moving."

[keeiv]

gaz u will always be famous 2 me

[keeiv]

I am unwell

[keeiv]

The room was dim, cold and damp around you. Only lit by one single flickering bulb. It was exactly how interrogation rooms looked in movies. If you weren't so uncomfortable you would smile about it. Instead your wrists were chaffing from the cuffs attached to the table, and the metal chair was making your ass ache.

The door behind you opened. Forcing you to crane your neck back to see who entered. The spooky guy in the skull mask who had taken you down in the field. Ghost, you had heard the stories. The rest of your unit was terrified of him. Though you didn't understand why. Any loser who felt the need to hide his face didn't deserve your respect.

Ghost sat across from you. A small box placed on the table in front of him. You met his dark gaze with a perfectly tailored neutral expression.

"You know where the weapons cache is."

You felt the corner of your mouth twitch upwards. He had a hot accent. Low and grumbly in a way that would have most women swooning. With his pretty brown puppy dog eyes and blonde lashes he must snag all the ladies.

But you didn't answer. He was the third soldier to come in and try to pry information out of you. The others had been unsuccessful. You had the bruises to prove it. He may be big. You were sure he could hit hard. Maybe even break some bones. But you knew you could hold strong.

At your silence he started to open the small box. Too small for torture supplies. Unless they were really itty bitty pliers. Perhaps a singular scalpel. Instead he pulled out a syringe. It looked delicate in his large hands.

"You've clearly been trained to resist all the... basic... interrogation tactics. Your lot came up with this stuff." He gestured the syringe to you. "Did they ever teach you how to withstand it? I guess they never expected it to be used one one of their own..."

Before you could even answer he moved close. Deceptively fast for his size. The needle sinking into the side of your neck. You gasped in surprise at the pinch. Glaring at him with all the fury you could muster. Though your stomach twisted in fear. You've seen what a mess that serum could turn people into. Unable to hold their tongue. Inhibitions out the window. If you spilled the cache location you commander would shoot you on sight.

You tried to calm your racing heart. Focus on staying silent. Relaxed and neutral like you were trained for. You felt woozy. Did you feel woozy or did you just think you felt woozy. What did woozy feel like? Was it more similar to tipsy, or nauseous. You were leaning towards tipsy. Woozy was an odd word.

"I feel woozy."

Did you say that out loud? Fuck.

"It'll do that to ya."

You felt your face heat up. Vision swimming ever so slightly as you focused on the man sitting in front of you.

"Your voice is, like, really fucking hot. Say something else."

He blinked at you. Surprised perhaps? You couldn't tell.

"Are you surprised? I think you're surprised. Take of the mask. I bet you're real pretty under it. Nice eyes. Did anyone tell you your voice is really hot?"

"I think you just did, love."

You knew you were rambling but you couldn't close your mouth. He just called you love. Now you were the one swooning.

"Say that again..."

You felt delirious. Starting to nervous giggle at your own inability to shut the hell up.

"I don't know why I keep saying stuff like that. You've got a real scary vibe. I'm not scared or anything. I've fought guys your size. And bigger. Beat them too. Reckon I could take you as well. Its just your arms are really big and I think I want to bite them."

You gasped as you forced yourself to stare at the ceiling so you wouldn't have to look at the way his muscles bulged in that delicious compression shirt.

After a painfully long silence he barked out a laugh.

"I'm tryna get information out of you, and you're too busy bein' a fuckin' slag."

You squeezed your eyes shut. Trying to will away the woozy-tipsy-nauseous feeling making your head swim.

"Bet if I stripped you down you'd be soaked in your panties."

You felt yourself nodded and could have curled up in pure shame. It was true. You could feel it. Slick as you squirmed in your seat.

"Fuck me and I'll give up the location." You blurted it out before the thought had even fully formed. You could hear him move but still refused to open your eyes. You could feel his gloved hand press at the back of your neck. A small whimper escaping your lips.

"Deal."

[keeiv]

simon and his big ass hands giving reader a pussy massage and driving them into overstim repeatedly

been sitting on this for a minute then was struck with inspiration while jerking off.

Making out with Ghost was one of your favourite hobbies. Sitting on lap in his room, pressed as close as possible. Ghost's mask shoved up just enough to give you access to his scarred lips. His hands firm on your hips, occasionally shifting you to grind down on his cock. Nipping at your lip while your hand slides up the back of his mask to drag your nails down his scalp.

It wasn't rough and needy, just passionate and warm. There was no rush to finish. His hands wandered aimlessly. Groping your ass, thighs, cunt.

You gasped against his mouth as his fingers found their way into your pants and to your clit. Pressing down gently in small, slow circles. His lips trailing down your neck while you moaned.

Ghost kept up the steady pace on your clit. He knew exactly where to touch you to have you squirming. Building up the pleasure with each firm stroke until you were gripping his shoulders and whining. Rocking against his hand as wave after wave of pleasure washed over you. Thighs clenching and brain short circuiting.

He continued as you rode out your climax, and then as it started to fade. Overstimulation started to set in and you tried to squirm away, shoving at his hand to get him off. When you finally opened your eyes again you could see his cruel smile.

"Si..." You whined, writhing in his lap.

You could feel his breath against your neck as he laughed. His free hand wrapping around your waist to keep you still. No matter how hard you tried to wriggle away you couldn't. His fingers kept going until you were gasping. Two slipping inside you and curling so deep it had your back arching.

"Si wait! Too much..."

He nipped at your neck, movements speeding up.

"You can take it. You know you love it."

Tears pricked in the corner of your eyes as you were dragged headfirst into a second orgasm. Trembling in his arms. Almost immediately the pleasure was too painful. All too much. Your whole body firing with electricity. And still he kept going. Working your aching clit until you came a third time. Tears streaking down your cheeks.

You buried your face into his shoulder. Sobbing in relief when his fingers finally stilled. Out of breath and still shaking you whacked his chest weakly.

"Asshole..."

Ghost's low rumble of a laugh shook you gently. Right as he was about to answer there was a bang on the wall next to you.

"Shut. Up. It is three am you fuckin' horndogs."

You giggled softly, tugging on Simon's hair.

"Sorry Gaz!" Before whispering to Ghost, "I'll make it up to him."

[keeiv]

impromptu diner date 🍔

[keeiv]

(poly werewolves 141 x female human reader)

The forest had always been a cathedral to you.

Not in the way of stained glass and hymnals, but in the hush of pine needles cushioning each step, in the incense of sap and rain, in the way sunlight filtered through green boughs like blessings painted in gold. It was the only place where your body’s brokenness did not feel like a sentence. With your cane and your limp and the ache that gnawed the marrow of your leg on storm-heavy days, the world outside demanded swiftness, strength, perfection.

But here, in your tucked-away cottage on the edge of a wild expanse where no roads reached, you moved at your own pace. The mountains did not mind if you were slow, and the rivers did not scorn when you paused to breathe.

It had been three years since the army sent you home with medals and hollow apologies. The steel pin in your leg sang a different hymn than the one they spoke at the discharge ceremony. You had learned to live with it; You had learned to love quiet mornings steeped in tea and woodsmoke, evenings dappled with deer crossing through your garden as if you, too, belonged to the woods.

But peace is a delicate thing. It always shatters quietly, without warning.

The first sound was not one of peace; it was thunder dragged low across the undergrowth- crashing, breaking and desperate. You nearly dropped the kettle in your hands when you heard it, a ragged cacophony coming closer and closer. Your first thought was bear. Your second- wolves.

You barely had time to step outside before the shadows stumbled into your clearing.

Four of them. Enormous, their coats glistened dark with blood, not rain, their breaths sawing out in great wet gasps. Wolves, your mind supplied, but wrong somehow- shoulders broader, and you thought they might perhaps be wolf dogs… though you’d never seen so many in a pack like this.

And yet, not one of them snarled. Not one lunged.

They collapsed instead.

The first you noticed was a black-furred beast with scars tangled across his muzzle, and it crashed right against your porch steps. Another, the largest, was pale as bone itself, curled protectively near the others though he trembled like a candleflame on torn paws and legs. A mottled, dark-grey one with its back fur raised along its back like a long mohawk staggered in last and his eyes flashing toward you, unreadable, before he fell on his side. The fourth, leaner, russet-streaked, was bleeding badly from his flank; he whimpered once and then stilled, curling near the mottled dark-grey one.

Your breath should have fled with fear. And yet… something in their stillness unraveled the panic in your chest; they did not come with bared teeth. They came like creatures at the edge of breaking, and you’ve always had a soft heart towards animals- even ones who could genuinely tear you apart without a single chance for you to defend yourself.

They are injured, and they need help. And they looked wary of you- clearly only dropped here by sheer circumstance.

“God,” you whispered, cane rattling against the porch rail as you knelt as best you could. “You poor things.”

Your hands shook as you reached out, half-certain they’d tear into you, but the black one- his eyes fathomless, old as winter- only let out a low, warning rumble. Not threat, but something like acceptance, and something like surrender.

They let you touch them. They let you tend their wounds.

You dragged your old army medical kit out from the cupboard. The motions returned like instinct- press, clean, wrap. Gauze soaked through crimson faster than you could lay it down.

You whispered apologies each time they winced, though they bore the pain with an eerie calm. They were too intelligent for beasts, but you told yourself they must be strays, must be dogs twisted by some cruel hand of war or horrible owners clearly unequipped.

And still, your heart broke with every fever-hot breath against your palms.

Hours passed; the storm outside broke with rain, tapping against the roof as though the forest itself prayed for them. One by one, they sank into uneasy sleep on your floor, their hulking bodies curled together in a heap of fur and scar tissue.

You should have been afraid, truthfully- your cane leaned helplessly against the wall, your fragile body too slow to escape if they turned on you. And yet, you sat among them with your hand resting on one blood-matted ear, watching the rise and fall of their ribs, and felt nothing except gladness that they’d stopped here and not somewhere they would have been shot.

And when dawn crept pale through your windows, the black one was the first to stir, lifting his massive head to watch you. His eyes caught yours, unflinchingly sharp. You felt the weight of command in him, the way you once felt it in the battlefield: the quiet authority of someone who had endured too much, survived too long. He lowered his head again, a gesture not of defeat but of… trust, delicate as it might be.

Your throat tightened.

When the bleeding slowed and your trembling hands had done all they could with bandages and warm cloth, you stood in the middle of your little cottage and looked at them- four hulking shadows sprawled on your floor, breath hitching, blood drying into their coats. Wolves, or wolf-adjacent.

And yet… they were quiet, calm as tides, and watching you with eyes far too clever.

You had no words to give them; so you gave them what you could.

You hobbled to your pantry, leaning hard on your cane, gathering what little stores you could spare: the smoked venison you had meant to ration for the month, a loaf of bread baked just yesterday, a day-old chicken, and several clay bowls of water. You set it all down gently near the hearth, as if you were laying an offering at the altar of some ancient god.

“Here,” you murmured, voice almost breaking in the hush. “Eat. You’ll need the strength.”

Their eyes followed your every motion, gleaming in the firelight. There was no snarling and no snapping. Just… watching as though they understood.

For a heartbeat, the room seemed to hold itself still, as if waiting for you to do more. But exhaustion claimed you then, the ache in your leg cutting sharp, and you turned your back to reach for another roll of gauze. You thought only of finishing the work, of keeping them alive through the night.

When you turned again, the room was empty.

The bread, gone. The meat and chicken, gone. The bowl overturned, licked clean. The pawprints led across the wooden floor and out the open door, fading into the storm-slick earth.

You stood there alone, staring at the space where they had lain, where their breath had rattled heavy and mortal. And the strangest ache welled in your chest, something not relief and not fear, but in between.

The days that followed wore a strange shape.

You told yourself you had imagined it, that no wolves could have survived such wounds. That they had vanished back into the wild, perhaps to die beneath roots and soil. You wanted to believe it- needed to, even. Life had already carved you down to a small, quiet existence; the intrusion of those impossible beasts felt like a dream you could not keep.

But the forest began to change; it started small.

A rabbit, caught neatly in a snare you hadn’t set, left dangling near your garden. A pheasant feather placed cleanly upon your porch, too deliberate to be chance. Pawprints circling your cottage come morning, broad and heavy, pacing like guards at their post.

One afternoon, your cane slipped in the garden, your bad leg folding under you as the ground rushed up. A crackle tore through the brush, a crash of branches snapping, and before you struck the dirt a shape burst from the treeline. Mottled, Dark-grey fur and a snarl sharp enough to curdle marrow- directed not at you, but at the hulking shadow of a boar that had been creeping too near. The animal fled with a squeal, and the wolf lingered only a breath, gaze flicking toward you, before vanishing as though he had never been.

Another night, coyotes prowled too close. You sat frozen at your window, watching their dark shapes slink along the treeline and contemplating pulling out your gun. Then- low thunder; a growl so deep it seemed to shudder in the bones of the cottage. The coyotes yelped, scattering into the dark, and you pressed your hand to the glass, breath fogging it, certain you glimpsed a pale shape, moonlit and spectral, standing sentinel in the shadows.

And then there were the mornings.

Your path to the river always bore new prints- wolf prints, pacing and circling, shadowing your every step in mud. You never saw them, but the silence of the woods began to hum with a presence.

As though the forest itself had chosen you, and lent you its fiercest guardians.

You tried to deny it: tried to tell yourself you were imagining the weight of those eyes at your back, the sudden absence of predators near your clearing, the gifts of fresh-kill left like tithes upon your porch.

You told yourself it was only coincidence, only luck.

And yet, when you limped to the river one dusky evening, cane sinking into the soft loam, and felt the air shiver with the sound of an unseen growl as a bear wandered too close- only to watch the beast veer off suddenly, ears pinned, as though driven away by something far greater- you knew.

They had left your home, yes. But not you.

They haunted the tree line like shadows, like ghosts. You caught only glimpses- eyes blinking from between branches, the swish of a russet tail disappearing into the undergrowth, the heavy impression of a black pawprint pressed into the soil at your porch step.

And though you did not yet understand why, or what they truly were, you found yourself leaning into the protection of the unseen. For the first time since the war had sent you home broken and alone, you slept through the night without fear and without a hand clutching the gun under your pillow.

Because somewhere in the dark, the forest breathed- and you knew you were not alone.

p2 (tba)

[keeiv]

[keeiv]

simon who never had sisters growing up- not like johnny and kyle. simon who grew up with cruelty and hardness. simon who never truly had a stable female figure or influence in his life.

so when he starts dating you, he observes your every move like he's watching a documentary on an endangered species. he's in awe of everything you do. the simple routines that are ingrained into your life. things that most, if not all, women are accustomed to. he's especially mesmerised when he's watching you braid your hair. you must be some kind of sorceress, he thinks. it's some sacred art to him. begs you to teach him so that when- when, not if- you have a daughter he can take care of her hair the same way you can.

simon who just loves women and their little rituals and their softness.

[keeiv]

Riley²

cooking up a big roach post later, be prepared

strawpage link

[keeiv]

googledocs you are getting awfully uppity for something that can’t differentiate between “its” and “it’s” correctly