obscuraimagines

[obscuraimagines]

Reader's so funny: the first time they hook up Kodi asks *three times* to make sure he has explicit verbal consent and she's all "I guess he just wants to hear me beg 🙄"

Bite Me - Part Five

Summary: After saving your life, Kodiak gets you alone. Kodiak x reader.

Content: Hurt comfort smut. Intended for 18+ readers. Mature content under the cut.

Masterlist

It’s not until midway through the next day that you get chance to talk to Kodiak. You spend a night huddled among the others in the cave, listening to wolves howling in the distance, oddly comforted that it’s not the hunting calls of your abandoned teammates. The next morning you press on across the rockslide: the rocky scree shifts under your feet as you try to walk on, forcing you to pick your way slowly. Any cover that might have been here is gone along with the trail: you’re exposed with nowhere to hide, the ground under you too treacherous to run. Nat takes the most dangerous position in the rear with the rifle, Travis is out in front with the crossbow. The other three cluster protectively around you, the way a herd circles its weakest member.

Halfway across, a stone skids under Mari’s foot and her knee folds inwards, pitching her down the slope. She manages to catch herself but her palms are skinned raw; one knee is bloody through a new tear in her jeans and she holds the other awkwardly, as though it won’t take her full weight. She goes the rest of the way leaning on Akilah, Misty trailing after them. You’re mostly left alone after that. 

Kodiak keeps an arm around you to steady you, braced to catch you if you fall. He’s quick to touch you, slow to let go but he keeps it professional. When he talks to you, it’s mostly orders: “step here”, “lean on me”, “take it slow.” Anyone looking back would see a wilderness guide making sure the injured party member doesn’t fall. 

You shiver a little, halfway across the slope. It’s cooler today, your legs are bare under your shorts and the morning air is chill against your skin. You wish you’d thought to put on your jacket while you were still on solid ground but it’s buried at the bottom of your pack. Kodiak lets go of you long enough to shrug out of his jacket and drapes it over your shoulders. It hangs almost to your mid thigh, warmed by his body heat. It smells like him: tobacco, pine resin and something familiar you can’t quite place – something woody, maybe earthy. He smells like he belongs out here. You probably shouldn’t find that as comforting as you do.

“If you keep that up, I’m going to think you’re trying to get my attention,” he tells you, his voice a low murmur against your ear. 

You turn your head to look up at him. He’s leaning into you, almost close enough to kiss. 

“Like it’s hard.” You roll your eyes, trying to pretend the way he’s looking at you doesn’t make your stomach flip over. 

Kodiak grins crookedly, looking at you sideways like this is all some big joke you’re not in on. The hand resting on your ribs drifts up a little, his knuckles grazing the underside of your breast. You glance backwards guiltily but Nat hasn’t noticed. She’s unfazed by the difficult terrain, holding the gun like it’s an extension of her body, eyes scanning the horizon. 

“You do realise Nat is behind us with a gun?”

Kodiak laughs easily. “What is it with you and using threats as foreplay?”

His good mood comes as a relief. If he resents the two of you not getting to be alone together last night, he’s hiding it well. 

“I mean…they keep working.” You look sideways at him and poke your tongue out, grinning. 

You shouldn’t have taken your eyes off the slope: your foot skids on a loose stone. You throw an arm out for balance and feel the stitches in your arm strain. Kodiak steadies you, no longer laughing. 

“Arm still bothering you?”

“I can keep up.” It comes out sharper than you intended: you don’t want to think about what will happen if you can’t. 

“No shit.” Kodiak leans in, so he’s speaking softly into your ear. “You’re sleeping with the guide. You set the pace.”

“What if the others catch up to us?” 

Kodiak shrugs. “Considering we took all the weapons with us? Probably doesn’t go well for them.”

You bite your lip. You haven’t mentioned it yet, but you left one of the axes behind you, along with a hatchet and a couple of knives. Leaving the others at all was bad enough. Leaving them without any way to butcher meat or cut firewood would be a death sentence. 

Kodiak gives you a long look, considering. It’s unlike the other times he’s looked at you: you can almost feel him weighing your injuries, the dark circles under your eyes, the exhausted slump of your shoulders. 

"You hungry?" He asks it casually, like you're already back in civilization and he's offering to buy you dinner. 

"Yeah," you deadpan. “Since May last year.”

Kodiak grins, that way you're coming to associate with him: like everything is some big joke no one else is in on. 

"Come on," he says. "You really think your friend tripped and fell into the only supply cache out here?" 

Your eyes widen. 

"Why didn't you–”

Kodiak shrugs. "Maybe I like surprising you."

Things get easier once you’re clear of the rockslide. The path forks and you feel a spike of anxiety, knowing you can’t manage the uphill leg; instead Kodiak leads your group along a gentle downwards sweep. You almost don't believe him about the cache until you see it for yourself: tents, equipment, a sealed crate of freeze dried rations. You stand well back from the edge while the others haul it out. It's a complicated feeling: if you'd stumbled over this a year ago, Travis might still have a brother. Shauna's baby might have lived. You’re overwhelmed with a mixture of guilt and relief: your chances of making it to the rescue point have just skyrocketed.

Somehow, Kodiak manages to engineer things so that everyone has a job except you. The food is going to be stretched between seven of you over four days: the hunters still need to hunt, the others need to forage. Kodiak tears a page with an illustration of a plant from a battered field guide, tells the others three times that the roots are good for blood loss. Nat doesn't buy any of it but she doesn’t have much choice: the alternative is including Kodiak in the hunt and that would mean giving him a weapon.

A trail leads from the cache to a sheltered clearing near a stream. Kodiak tells you a team comes here sometimes to study wolf packs in the spring. Or rather they did: maybe they won’t anymore, with one researcher dead and another missing. He sets the tents up in a wide arc, far enough apart to give you a semblance of privacy. You try to help but only end up getting in the way. Once the first tent is up, Kodiak tells you to lie down and rest. 

"I didn't bring you here to help with the tents," he tells you, when you protest. He pulls you in for a kiss, anchoring you in place with a fistful of your hair. He nips your bottom lip hard between his teeth as he pulls away. He’s looking at you like you’re already bought and paid for; something that can be manhandled and then dismissed until he’s ready. You hate that you don’t hate it. "Go rest. You'll need it." 

His voice drops for the last part, heavy with promise. You roll your eyes at him, trying to pretend you’re not still breathless from his kiss. 

"Yes sir." You immediately regret your word choice: your voice comes out ragged, nothing like the cool sarcasm you were aiming for. Kodiak grins like a shark and you flush hot right down to your toes. 

“Shirt off,” is the first thing Kodiak says to you, when he joins you in the tent. 

“Bossy.”

“I need to change your bandages,” Kodiak tells you with a lazy grin. “Interesting that that’s where your mind went.”

“They’re fine.” You push your sleeve out of the way to pluck at the blood spotted gauze on your left arm. 

“Yeah I’m sure the actual feral child you all let play doctor did a great job.” Kodiak leans into your space, crowding you without touching you. “Shirt. Off.”

You shrug out of his jacket, then your tattered overshirt so he can tend to your injuries. The iodine stings. You bite your lip and stay as still as you can. 

“Sorry.” Kodiak’s hand stills as you flinch. It’s the first time you’ve heard him apologise for anything. “I’m being as careful as I can.”

He really is. He’s been different around you since your injury. Now he’s touching you like you’re made of spun glass. 

“I know. It doesn’t hurt that much.”

Kodiak holds your arm up to the light, turning it gently. Cleaned up, you can see how bad it is. “Good job you have a thing for scars, huh?”

You feel yourself flush with heat. “You noticed that?”

Kodiak laughs easily, wrapping your arm in clean gauze. “Please. You’re not subtle. I think there’s people back in civilisation that noticed.”

You shove him playfully. “Shut up.”

Kodiak catches you and pulls you closer. “Be nicer to me and I might show you the rest.”

“Yeah?” You can’t help leaning into his chest, looking up at him through your lashes.

Kodiak grins. “Quid pro quo.”

You frown. You used to know what that meant. You’ve forgotten a lot of things you used to know, over the past year and a half. It’s like the civilised part of you has atrophied to make space for something new. 

“It means get naked.”

You scowl. “I’m not stupid. Sorry if I haven’t had chance to practice my Latin–”

“I didn’t call you stupid. I told you to strip.”

There’s something in the way he’s looking at you, like you’re already a sure thing, that makes heat flare low in your belly. You glare at him and pull your t-shirt over your head. You unhook your bra and toss it to the side before he can notice how worn it is. You hear a slight intake of breath and look back at Kodiak to see him staring. 

It’s the first time he’s seen you naked. Your first encounter was rushed, aware you could be discovered any moment; the second was in the dark, both of you still half dressed, needing to be quiet. It occurs to you that this is the first time you’ve been really alone with him since you met. He’s looking at you like he’s thinking the same thing: his eyes are heavy lidded, his smile lazy but there’s an intensity to his gaze that warms you like a physical touch. 

You move to cover yourself reflexively. Kodiak catches your wrists, pinning them against your knees, so you’re exposed to him. The position forces your back to arch a little, your breasts pinned between your arms so they’re on display for him. Kodiak makes a point of dragging his gaze over your bare chest so emphatically that you swear you can feel it like another pair of hands on your skin. You squirm a little and he holds you still, probably just to prove he can. 

“What?” You try to meet his eyes with challenge but it’s obvious to both of you that he has all the power here. 

“Oh I’m just thinking about how good you look on your knees.” Kodiak leans in to press a lingering kiss to your lips. You want to pull him closer but he keeps a firm grip on your wrists: you’re forced to stay kneeling, to take what he gives you. He gives your wrists a possessive squeeze before letting go, one hand travelling up your thigh and unbuttoning your shorts. “If I have to take these off myself I’m going to rip them.”

You believe him. You shimmy out of them, hooking your thumbs into your underwear so they come away too, leaving you bare before him. You kneel, leaning forwards a little so the scar you have there disappears into the crease where your hip meets your leg.

“Damn,” Kodiak says softly. “Come here.”

There’s no space to stand up so you crawl the short distance between you instead and hear his breath catch. 

Kodiak drags you to him, his arms wrapping round you, his fingers twining in your hair. Your mouth opens to his kiss. Your lips stay parted even when he travels along your jaw and down your throat, layering kisses over your shoulders, lathing his tongue over your collarbones. You’re flushed and breathy, clutching his upper arms when he pulls you off balance. Your hands trace the hard planes of his muscle, lingering over the raised lines of his scars. Kodiak runs his hands over your body like he’s claiming it, palming your breasts, sliding over the length of your thighs, ghosting up your sides. He captures your mouth with his, kissing you while he pushes you down onto the canvas floor of the tent, keeping you distracted until you’re pinned helplessly under him. 

“You know what I’ve been wondering?” he asks. His lips ghost over yours, so close you can feel them brush. 

“What?” 

“I can’t stop thinking about what sort of noises you make when you’re not trying to be quiet.”

You swallow involuntarily and see Kodiak’s eyes trace the column of your throat. He follows it by pressing a kiss against the same spot, his beard rough against your skin. You pull him up to kiss you and he makes an approving noise against your mouth.  Apart from losing his overshirt, he’s still fully dressed. 

“No fair.” You pull at his tank top. 

Kodiak laughs softly. The low sound sends a thrill of danger through you. “What’s unfair,” he tells you. “Is you deciding I’m not allowed to touch you when your friends can see us. And then running around in little shorts with my jacket over them so it looks like you’re naked underneath.”

You swallow. You’ve got so used to thinking of your body as something you need to feed, keep warm, keep safe… You’d forgotten what it was like to be looked at. 

“I think it’s time you learn what getting teased feels like.” Kodiak wraps a hand around the nape of your neck, pulls you in for a kiss. Then he pulls away, putting some distance between you so he can see all of you at once, your body spread out for him. You twist yourself a little, aware you’re on display, trying to conceal the parts you don’t want him to see. 

“You’re so fucking pretty.” Kodiak traces a hand across your side, leaving a shivery trail in its wake. He leans down to press a kiss to the lovebite he left on your collarbone days ago. “Perfect.”

You feel yourself glow at his praise, hoping that he can’t tell how flushed and needy it makes you. 

“I think it’s only fair that I get a closer look at some of your scars. Since you’re so interested in mine.” Kodiak shifts, his knee pressing between yours so your thighs are pushed apart and held there. He runs a finger behind your ear, tracing the faint ridge of an old scar. “What happened here?”

You remember him kissing you there, the first time you’d slept together. He’d taken you from behind, his chest moulded against your back, one hand over your mouth so you didn’t wake the others, his lips ghosting over your neck. It’s too faint for him to have seen in the dark; he must have felt it when he kissed you there. The thought is unexpectedly intimate, making you flush hot. You try to press your thighs together but only manage to clamp them around his leg. 

Your voice shakes a little. “First and last time I used a curling iron.”

Kodiak turns your jaw sideways, so he can press a kiss against the scar. You shiver a little, remembering the feeling of him inside you. 

He trails a calloused fingertip to your shoulder. There’s a jagged gauge there, still stark against your skin. 

“Oh. Um. Plane crash,” you tell him. “Some wreckage caught me when we fell.”

Despite your fascination with his scars, you don’t like thinking about your own much. His scars are all possibilities; he hasn’t told you how he got them but you assume they’re a testament to his strength and skill. Most of your scars – the big ones anyway – remind you of a time you were powerless. 

Kodiak must catch your mood because he doesn’t press you further. 

“You fell out of the sky and all you got was that little scratch?” he bends to press kisses along the length of that scar as well. It grounds you, drives away the memories of the screams and smell of burning metal. His shirt brushes against your chest as he leans over you and the drag of the cloth over your hardened nipples is suddenly all you can think about. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, the rough fabric of his pants pressed against the soft skin of your inner thighs. 

“How about this?” There's a tri-corner scar, thin and silvery as a cobweb, just underneath your left breast. 

“Oh. That was… um… a game that got out of hand.” You swallow. “Bad tackle.”

You let him think you mean soccer. You don’t think any good will come of him knowing how much aggression you all had to work off back in Spring. In reality, Gen had tackled you onto rocks playing Capture the Flag and something in you snapped; you’d fought back, all teeth and nails, until it took three of the others to pull the two of you apart. Neither of you took it personally: lashing out was just a reflex some of you had back then, the way others woke up screaming, or panicked when the wind changed and blew smoke in the wrong direction. 

Kodiak licks a stripe across your scar, jarring you out of the memory and drawing a startled giggle out of you. You try to bat him away and he utterly ignores you, grabbing a handful of your breast and covering your skin in open mouthed kisses. 

“This one’s my favourite,” he says, around a mouthful of your breast. His beard tickles, making you twist underneath him. He shifts so he’s pinning you more effectively.

 It’s a reminder that you only have as much control as he chooses to give you. 

“Kodi!”

He groans a little. It’s only the second time you’ve let yourself shorten his name, the first time you’ve called him that in bed. You feel his tongue trace the faint line of your scar and realise that he’s trying to leave a mark. You feel a guilty jolt of arousal. It’s no secret that he has a possessive streak: he loves seeing you in his clothes almost as much as he likes leaving lovebites littering your skin. 

Kodiak pulls back to survey his handiwork. You crane to look and he pushes you back down, mouth hot against the underside of your breast. You almost sob with frustration when you realise he means to start another. 

“Kodi, please!” You struggle and arch under him, accidentally grinding your hips against him. 

Kodiak nips you with his teeth, hard enough to make you yelp. Then he moves so he’s looking down at you, propped on his elbows, forearms bracketing you, caging you with his body. He presses his thigh between your legs, spreading you open and grinding against your sensitive core. The rough fabric of his pants drags over your clit, causing a friction just this side of painful.

  “What did I tell you about teasing?” he demands, his voice almost a growl. You try to clamp your thighs together to hold his in place but Kodiak presses his advantage, grinding his thigh between yours until you’re reduced to a needy, whimpering mess. The realisation you must be leaving a wet patch on his pant leg sends a twist of humiliation through you, not entirely unpleasant. You writhe under him, not sure if you’re trying to get away or get closer. “The more you try and get me worked up, the harder this is going to go for you.” 

“I–” you break off sharply as he forces another gasp out of you. “If that’s what it takes for you to actually fuck me.”

“You are something else.” Kodiak almost growls. He kisses you so hard and so suddenly that the back of your head collides with the floor behind you. 

You tug at his tank top and this time he helps you peel it off over his head. You run a hand over his bare chest, scraping lightly with your nails. You can still see the faint, fading marks you left on him the first time and feel a sudden, overpowering urge to make more. Kodiak gives one of your breasts a rough squeeze before running a proprietary hand down your side. He stops at your hip and you freeze when you realise he’s discovered the other scar.

“What happened here?” he asks, frowning suddenly. He pulls away, sitting up and running his thumb gently over the mess of scar tissue. 

You look away. “I know it’s ugly.”

“I could care less how it looks. What the hell happened?”

“It’s nothing.” You grab his wrist, meaning to guide it back to your breast. He doesn’t let you. “A hunting injury.” 

“Since when do you hunt?”

You realise he’s not going to drop it, so you give him an edited version. It had been early spring: the snows were melting and all of you were starving. Nat and Travis had been too weakened to drag home the buck they shot, so they’d brought a small group to help. The relief made you stupid: you didn’t see the trail of blood where the buck had tried to drag itself away, or the way its eyes were still rolling in their sockets. When you went to cut its throat, its antler punched into your side, stopping only when it hit bone. You don’t tell Kodiak that the fear that drove you to it wasn’t starvation: you’d inhaled so much smoke when the cabin burned that for weeks you’d cough so hard you couldn’t breathe. You knew you wouldn’t survive another hunt. You knew the draw wouldn’t matter much once the others realised you were so obviously dead weight. You don’t tell him that you hid the injury until you collapsed from infection.

You realise he’s not going to drop it, so you give him an edited version. It had been early spring: the snows were melting and all of you were starving. Nat and Travis had been too weakened to drag home the buck they shot, so they’d brought a small group to help. The relief made you stupid: you didn’t see the trail of blood where the buck had tried to drag itself away, or the way its eyes were still rolling in their sockets. When you went to cut its throat, its antler punched into your flesh, stopping only when it hit bone. You don’t tell Kodiak that the fear that drove you to it wasn’t starvation: you’d inhaled so much smoke when the cabin burned that for weeks you’d cough so hard you couldn’t breathe. You knew you wouldn’t survive another hunt. You knew the draw wouldn’t matter much once the others realised you were so obviously dead weight. You don’t tell him that you hid the injury until you collapsed from infection. 

Kodiak wraps a hand around your hipbone, probing the scar with his thumb. You've seen him roll his eyes and smirk with a gun to his face. Now he looks rattled. 

“This feels like a burn. Did someone try to cauterise it?”

You shrug. “It wouldn’t heal.”

“And you never thought to mention it?”

“No?” The question genuinely confuses you. “Why would I? It’s not a big deal.”

Kodiak’s looking at you like he’s only just realising that you’re damaged. There’s this pity mixed in with it that you really don’t like. It makes you feel exposed in a way stripping naked for him didn’t. 

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” You shove him, catching him off balance so he’s knocked backwards, then climbing into his lap. You wind your arms around his neck, pulling him close so your breasts squish against his chest. His arms wrap around you instinctively, keeping you in place. 

“This is your go to conflict resolution, huh?” he asks, his voice coming out a little strangled. 

“You want me to stop?” 

“Fuck no.”

You really want to stop thinking about all the times you’ve nearly died out here, so even though you’re pissed off you still fumble at his belt and then lift up a little so he can strip out of his pants. Instead, he pulls you down onto his lap and slides his fingers between your legs. You growl a little in frustration, wanting all of him. 

“I don’t need–”

“You are goddamn pathological. Let me take care of you.” The way he says it, there’s no question it’s an order. You like that better than him being careful with you. Your retort is cut off when he scissors his fingers inside you. He grins. “That’s what it takes to stop you talking back, huh?”

Kodiak traces a circle round your clit, drawing a needy whine out of you. He lifts you up a little so he can strip off his pants, kicking out of them so he doesn’t have to let go of you, even for a second. He guides your hips as you sink down onto him. It’s a lot to take, especially with your own weight pushing down onto him. He holds you up when your thighs start to shake, caresses your sides, whispers encouragement while you breathe through it. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs. 

You smack his arm. “You know I don’t like that.”

“But look how good you’re being for me.” He grins, taunting you a little. “Obedient. Submissive even.”

“Fuck off.” You try to scowl at him but look away, not quite able to meet his eye. It’s hard to pretend defiance when you’re stretched around his cock, your body on display for him. 

“You’re the one who stripped naked when I asked,” he reminds you. “You’re the one who insisted on sitting on my lap.”

His hands curl around your hips, guiding them in a slow rocking motion. Your breath hitches sharply. You wrap your arms around his shoulders to steady yourself. 

“And you’re such a good little girl that you’re going to take whatever I give you. Pet names included.”

You can’t help the guilty little moan that escapes you.

Kodiak keeps guiding you. You roll your hips to match his rhythm and he increases the pace until he’s thrusting up into you so hard your breasts bounce. He can’t tear his gaze away. He returns your kisses hurriedly, breaking apart to look down at you. His eyes are heavy lidded, looking darker than they are in the shadows of the tent. You wrap your arms around his neck, fingers threading through his hair, and pull him down to kiss you properly. He slides a hand upwards from your hips to touch you instead, his other hand splayed across the small of your back. 

The orgasm sears through you, white hot. You feel yourself clench around him, back arching, nails biting into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. He fucks you through it, prolonging your release, the sensation building until you feel like you might break apart, as though your body is too small to hold it. 

You feel yourself go boneless, sagging against his chest, still shaky from the aftershocks. “You’re not done,” Kodiak says against your ear, his voice almost a growl. He wraps his arms around you – you think to support you – until he pushes you down in one smooth movement. Before you realise what’s happening you’re on your back, Kodiak looking down at you with a feral light in his eyes that looks almost like hunger. The sudden change in angle draws a wordless shout out of you. Kodiak is apparently done being gentle with you: he pulls your hips to meet his thrusts, hitting a place inside you that makes you see sparks. 

You feel your pleasure building again, almost more than you can take. You couldn’t be quiet now if you tried. Every movement draws a new noise out of you: breathy moans, bitten off gasps, stammered pleas. 

“Come for me.” Kodiak’s voice is rough, his breathing almost as ragged as yours. “I know you have another one in you. Good girl.”

There’s an almost desperate edge to his voice and it’s that – seeing the effect you’re having on him – that tips you over the edge. You gasp his name as pleasure floods through you, so hard you feel your vision spot at the edges. Kodiak comes with a guttural groan and you feel his release deep inside you. 

Both of you are breathing too hard to speak. Kodiak lets the moment draw out, stroking your trembling thighs, your bodies still joined. Then he untangles himself from you, settling beside you and pulling you into his arms with a kiss. You press yourself into him, wanting to be closer. There’s something about being circled in his arms that makes you feel safe. You feel warm, drowsy – until the thought of falling asleep like this makes you jolt upright. 

“We need to get dressed before the others get back.”

“Relax.” Kodiak’s voice is a low content rumble you feel as well as hear. “We’ve got time.”

“How would you know? You’re always underestimating us–” You try to look around for your clothes. 

“Them,” Kodiak corrects you. “Not you. Anyway,” he snakes an arm around your waist, pulling you back down. “That plant I told them was so important? Doesn’t grow this far north.”

“You sent them for nothing?”

“No.” Kodiak pulls you flush against him. He traces his fingers lightly along your jaw, angling your mouth towards his, so he can press a lingering kiss against your lips. “I sent them away so I could get you alone.”

You settle against him, letting him run his hands over your body like it belongs to him. The intimacy comes as a relief: part of you was afraid he’d take what he wanted and discard you once he had it. 

“I should be mad at you,” you tell him, to hide the fact that you’re not. 

“You should,” Kodiak agrees. He glances down at you, naked in his arms. You can’t help the pleased little shiver that runs through you. “Guess I finally fucked the attitude out of you.”

You curl into his side, trading lazy kisses, enjoying the press of your body against his. Kodiak pets your hair absently, both of you sleepy and sated. 

You lie there for what seems like a long time, until the afterglow wears off and you start to feel sticky. Then you press a quick kiss to his lips before pulling away. “Hold that thought. I want to go and wash.”

Kodiak’s grip tightens, pinning you against his side. “Not until we go over some ground rules.”

“What the fuck?”

“The last time you wandered off on your own didn’t turn out so good,” he reminds you. 

“I can’t go a hundred yards to the stream by myself?” 

Kodiak doesn’t answer. He just lets you struggle until you realise he’s serious. “Doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere until I’m done with you.” 

You stop trying to fight him and glare instead. “Nat would kill you if I told her about this.” 

“Okay,” Kodiak says. The worst part is, he sounds more amused than annoyed. “So don't tell her. Unless you want to end up stranded on this mountain with no way home.” 

You think this must be his way of making sure you know your place: restrained, naked, filmed with sweat, his cum leaking down your thigh, your body his to use until he decides to let you go. You huff out an annoyed breath and settle against him, resting your head on his shoulder. It rankles to give in so easily but you can’t fight harder without pissing him off. 

“Fine.”

“First rule: you do not wander off alone.”

“I thought you said it was safe here?” Despite yourself, you press yourself into his chest. Since he saved your life, the closer you are to him the safer you feel.

“I said it was safe from whatever the fuck was going on in that valley. There’s plenty else out here that could kill you.” Kodiak’s brow creases and he looks away. “We could have lost you yesterday.”

“Okay.” You soften. He has a point: you got so used to the relative safety of your camp that it’s easy to forget you’re in unfamiliar territory. “Fine. I won’t go anywhere alone. Happy?”

“Oh Princess.” Kodiak draws the word out like he’s savouring it. “I’m nowhere near done.” 

You feel your stomach twist, half apprehension, half desire. This is the first real demand Kodiak’s made of you. All his other orders – you’re with me, come here, I want you, be quiet – are ambiguous enough that someone overhearing could mistake them for suggestions. The consequences of disobeying have only been implied. 

“Second rule: I want you.” Kodiak punctuates each sentence with a kiss. He’s rougher with you than he was before, now he’s got a point to prove. He anchors one hand in your hair, the other running over your body like he’s claiming it. “In my bed. Every night. No exceptions.”

  It’s almost a relief to have the transactional nature of your relationship spelled out. You try to ignore the hurt that sparks high in your chest. You should have known better than to hope there was anything more between you.

“Third,” Kodiak says, pulling away. There’s an unfamiliar expression in his eyes that looks almost like tenderness. “You will drop all the martyr bullshit and let me take care of you.”

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone for bearing with me while my shoulder's been messed up. I'm hoping to post more regularly going forward. As always, thank you to everyone who likes, reblogs and replies: it really does help motivate me to write faster.

[obscuraimagines]

Sophie Nélisse &Joel McHale as Shauna Shipman & Kodiak

[obscuraimagines]

Bite Me - Part Five

Summary: After saving your life, Kodiak gets you alone. Kodiak x reader.

Content: Hurt comfort smut. Intended for 18+ readers. Mature content under the cut.

Masterlist

It’s not until midway through the next day that you get chance to talk to Kodiak. You spend a night huddled among the others in the cave, listening to wolves howling in the distance, oddly comforted that it’s not the hunting calls of your abandoned teammates. The next morning you press on across the rockslide: the rocky scree shifts under your feet as you try to walk on, forcing you to pick your way slowly. Any cover that might have been here is gone along with the trail: you’re exposed with nowhere to hide, the ground under you too treacherous to run. Nat takes the most dangerous position in the rear with the rifle, Travis is out in front with the crossbow. The other three cluster protectively around you, the way a herd circles its weakest member.

Halfway across, a stone skids under Mari’s foot and her knee folds inwards, pitching her down the slope. She manages to catch herself but her palms are skinned raw; one knee is bloody through a new tear in her jeans and she holds the other awkwardly, as though it won’t take her full weight. She goes the rest of the way leaning on Akilah, Misty trailing after them. You’re mostly left alone after that. 

Kodiak keeps an arm around you to steady you, braced to catch you if you fall. He’s quick to touch you, slow to let go but he keeps it professional. When he talks to you, it’s mostly orders: “step here”, “lean on me”, “take it slow.” Anyone looking back would see a wilderness guide making sure the injured party member doesn’t fall. 

You shiver a little, halfway across the slope. It’s cooler today, your legs are bare under your shorts and the morning air is chill against your skin. You wish you’d thought to put on your jacket while you were still on solid ground but it’s buried at the bottom of your pack. Kodiak lets go of you long enough to shrug out of his jacket and drapes it over your shoulders. It hangs almost to your mid thigh, warmed by his body heat. It smells like him: tobacco, pine resin and something familiar you can’t quite place – something woody, maybe earthy. He smells like he belongs out here. You probably shouldn’t find that as comforting as you do.

“If you keep that up, I’m going to think you’re trying to get my attention,” he tells you, his voice a low murmur against your ear. 

You turn your head to look up at him. He’s leaning into you, almost close enough to kiss. 

“Like it’s hard.” You roll your eyes, trying to pretend the way he’s looking at you doesn’t make your stomach flip over. 

Kodiak grins crookedly, looking at you sideways like this is all some big joke you’re not in on. The hand resting on your ribs drifts up a little, his knuckles grazing the underside of your breast. You glance backwards guiltily but Nat hasn’t noticed. She’s unfazed by the difficult terrain, holding the gun like it’s an extension of her body, eyes scanning the horizon. 

“You do realise Nat is behind us with a gun?”

Kodiak laughs easily. “What is it with you and using threats as foreplay?”

His good mood comes as a relief. If he resents the two of you not getting to be alone together last night, he’s hiding it well. 

“I mean…they keep working.” You look sideways at him and poke your tongue out, grinning. 

You shouldn’t have taken your eyes off the slope: your foot skids on a loose stone. You throw an arm out for balance and feel the stitches in your arm strain. Kodiak steadies you, no longer laughing. 

“Arm still bothering you?”

“I can keep up.” It comes out sharper than you intended: you don’t want to think about what will happen if you can’t. 

“No shit.” Kodiak leans in, so he’s speaking softly into your ear. “You’re sleeping with the guide. You set the pace.”

“What if the others catch up to us?” 

Kodiak shrugs. “Considering we took all the weapons with us? Probably doesn’t go well for them.”

You bite your lip. You haven’t mentioned it yet, but you left one of the axes behind you, along with a hatchet and a couple of knives. Leaving the others at all was bad enough. Leaving them without any way to butcher meat or cut firewood would be a death sentence. 

Kodiak gives you a long look, considering. It’s unlike the other times he’s looked at you: you can almost feel him weighing your injuries, the dark circles under your eyes, the exhausted slump of your shoulders. 

"You hungry?" He asks it casually, like you're already back in civilization and he's offering to buy you dinner. 

"Yeah," you deadpan. “Since May last year.”

Kodiak grins, that way you're coming to associate with him: like everything is some big joke no one else is in on. 

"Come on," he says. "You really think your friend tripped and fell into the only supply cache out here?" 

Your eyes widen. 

"Why didn't you–”

Kodiak shrugs. "Maybe I like surprising you."

Things get easier once you’re clear of the rockslide. The path forks and you feel a spike of anxiety, knowing you can’t manage the uphill leg; instead Kodiak leads your group along a gentle downwards sweep. You almost don't believe him about the cache until you see it for yourself: tents, equipment, a sealed crate of freeze dried rations. You stand well back from the edge while the others haul it out. It's a complicated feeling: if you'd stumbled over this a year ago, Travis might still have a brother. Shauna's baby might have lived. You’re overwhelmed with a mixture of guilt and relief: your chances of making it to the rescue point have just skyrocketed.

Somehow, Kodiak manages to engineer things so that everyone has a job except you. The food is going to be stretched between seven of you over four days: the hunters still need to hunt, the others need to forage. Kodiak tears a page with an illustration of a plant from a battered field guide, tells the others three times that the roots are good for blood loss. Nat doesn't buy any of it but she doesn’t have much choice: the alternative is including Kodiak in the hunt and that would mean giving him a weapon.

A trail leads from the cache to a sheltered clearing near a stream. Kodiak tells you a team comes here sometimes to study wolf packs in the spring. Or rather they did: maybe they won’t anymore, with one researcher dead and another missing. He sets the tents up in a wide arc, far enough apart to give you a semblance of privacy. You try to help but only end up getting in the way. Once the first tent is up, Kodiak tells you to lie down and rest. 

"I didn't bring you here to help with the tents," he tells you, when you protest. He pulls you in for a kiss, anchoring you in place with a fistful of your hair. He nips your bottom lip hard between his teeth as he pulls away. He’s looking at you like you’re already bought and paid for; something that can be manhandled and then dismissed until he’s ready. You hate that you don’t hate it. "Go rest. You'll need it." 

His voice drops for the last part, heavy with promise. You roll your eyes at him, trying to pretend you’re not still breathless from his kiss. 

"Yes sir." You immediately regret your word choice: your voice comes out ragged, nothing like the cool sarcasm you were aiming for. Kodiak grins like a shark and you flush hot right down to your toes. 

“Shirt off,” is the first thing Kodiak says to you, when he joins you in the tent. 

“Bossy.”

“I need to change your bandages,” Kodiak tells you with a lazy grin. “Interesting that that’s where your mind went.”

“They’re fine.” You push your sleeve out of the way to pluck at the blood spotted gauze on your left arm. 

“Yeah I’m sure the actual feral child you all let play doctor did a great job.” Kodiak leans into your space, crowding you without touching you. “Shirt. Off.”

You shrug out of his jacket, then your tattered overshirt so he can tend to your injuries. The iodine stings. You bite your lip and stay as still as you can. 

“Sorry.” Kodiak’s hand stills as you flinch. It’s the first time you’ve heard him apologise for anything. “I’m being as careful as I can.”

He really is. He’s been different around you since your injury. Now he’s touching you like you’re made of spun glass. 

“I know. It doesn’t hurt that much.”

Kodiak holds your arm up to the light, turning it gently. Cleaned up, you can see how bad it is. “Good job you have a thing for scars, huh?”

You feel yourself flush with heat. “You noticed that?”

Kodiak laughs easily, wrapping your arm in clean gauze. “Please. You’re not subtle. I think there’s people back in civilisation that noticed.”

You shove him playfully. “Shut up.”

Kodiak catches you and pulls you closer. “Be nicer to me and I might show you the rest.”

“Yeah?” You can’t help leaning into his chest, looking up at him through your lashes.

Kodiak grins. “Quid pro quo.”

You frown. You used to know what that meant. You’ve forgotten a lot of things you used to know, over the past year and a half. It’s like the civilised part of you has atrophied to make space for something new. 

“It means get naked.”

You scowl. “I’m not stupid. Sorry if I haven’t had chance to practice my Latin–”

“I didn’t call you stupid. I told you to strip.”

There’s something in the way he’s looking at you, like you’re already a sure thing, that makes heat flare low in your belly. You glare at him and pull your t-shirt over your head. You unhook your bra and toss it to the side before he can notice how worn it is. You hear a slight intake of breath and look back at Kodiak to see him staring. 

It’s the first time he’s seen you naked. Your first encounter was rushed, aware you could be discovered any moment; the second was in the dark, both of you still half dressed, needing to be quiet. It occurs to you that this is the first time you’ve been really alone with him since you met. He’s looking at you like he’s thinking the same thing: his eyes are heavy lidded, his smile lazy but there’s an intensity to his gaze that warms you like a physical touch. 

You move to cover yourself reflexively. Kodiak catches your wrists, pinning them against your knees, so you’re exposed to him. The position forces your back to arch a little, your breasts pinned between your arms so they’re on display for him. Kodiak makes a point of dragging his gaze over your bare chest so emphatically that you swear you can feel it like another pair of hands on your skin. You squirm a little and he holds you still, probably just to prove he can. 

“What?” You try to meet his eyes with challenge but it’s obvious to both of you that he has all the power here. 

“Oh I’m just thinking about how good you look on your knees.” Kodiak leans in to press a lingering kiss to your lips. You want to pull him closer but he keeps a firm grip on your wrists: you’re forced to stay kneeling, to take what he gives you. He gives your wrists a possessive squeeze before letting go, one hand travelling up your thigh and unbuttoning your shorts. “If I have to take these off myself I’m going to rip them.”

You believe him. You shimmy out of them, hooking your thumbs into your underwear so they come away too, leaving you bare before him. You kneel, leaning forwards a little so the scar you have there disappears into the crease where your hip meets your leg.

“Damn,” Kodiak says softly. “Come here.”

There’s no space to stand up so you crawl the short distance between you instead and hear his breath catch. 

Kodiak drags you to him, his arms wrapping round you, his fingers twining in your hair. Your mouth opens to his kiss. Your lips stay parted even when he travels along your jaw and down your throat, layering kisses over your shoulders, lathing his tongue over your collarbones. You’re flushed and breathy, clutching his upper arms when he pulls you off balance. Your hands trace the hard planes of his muscle, lingering over the raised lines of his scars. Kodiak runs his hands over your body like he’s claiming it, palming your breasts, sliding over the length of your thighs, ghosting up your sides. He captures your mouth with his, kissing you while he pushes you down onto the canvas floor of the tent, keeping you distracted until you’re pinned helplessly under him. 

“You know what I’ve been wondering?” he asks. His lips ghost over yours, so close you can feel them brush. 

“What?” 

“I can’t stop thinking about what sort of noises you make when you’re not trying to be quiet.”

You swallow involuntarily and see Kodiak’s eyes trace the column of your throat. He follows it by pressing a kiss against the same spot, his beard rough against your skin. You pull him up to kiss you and he makes an approving noise against your mouth.  Apart from losing his overshirt, he’s still fully dressed. 

“No fair.” You pull at his tank top. 

Kodiak laughs softly. The low sound sends a thrill of danger through you. “What’s unfair,” he tells you. “Is you deciding I’m not allowed to touch you when your friends can see us. And then running around in little shorts with my jacket over them so it looks like you’re naked underneath.”

You swallow. You’ve got so used to thinking of your body as something you need to feed, keep warm, keep safe… You’d forgotten what it was like to be looked at. 

“I think it’s time you learn what getting teased feels like.” Kodiak wraps a hand around the nape of your neck, pulls you in for a kiss. Then he pulls away, putting some distance between you so he can see all of you at once, your body spread out for him. You twist yourself a little, aware you’re on display, trying to conceal the parts you don’t want him to see. 

“You’re so fucking pretty.” Kodiak traces a hand across your side, leaving a shivery trail in its wake. He leans down to press a kiss to the lovebite he left on your collarbone days ago. “Perfect.”

You feel yourself glow at his praise, hoping that he can’t tell how flushed and needy it makes you. 

“I think it’s only fair that I get a closer look at some of your scars. Since you’re so interested in mine.” Kodiak shifts, his knee pressing between yours so your thighs are pushed apart and held there. He runs a finger behind your ear, tracing the faint ridge of an old scar. “What happened here?”

You remember him kissing you there, the first time you’d slept together. He’d taken you from behind, his chest moulded against your back, one hand over your mouth so you didn’t wake the others, his lips ghosting over your neck. It’s too faint for him to have seen in the dark; he must have felt it when he kissed you there. The thought is unexpectedly intimate, making you flush hot. You try to press your thighs together but only manage to clamp them around his leg. 

Your voice shakes a little. “First and last time I used a curling iron.”

Kodiak turns your jaw sideways, so he can press a kiss against the scar. You shiver a little, remembering the feeling of him inside you. 

He trails a calloused fingertip to your shoulder. There’s a jagged gauge there, still stark against your skin. 

“Oh. Um. Plane crash,” you tell him. “Some wreckage caught me when we fell.”

Despite your fascination with his scars, you don’t like thinking about your own much. His scars are all possibilities; he hasn’t told you how he got them but you assume they’re a testament to his strength and skill. Most of your scars – the big ones anyway – remind you of a time you were powerless. 

Kodiak must catch your mood because he doesn’t press you further. 

“You fell out of the sky and all you got was that little scratch?” he bends to press kisses along the length of that scar as well. It grounds you, drives away the memories of the screams and smell of burning metal. His shirt brushes against your chest as he leans over you and the drag of the cloth over your hardened nipples is suddenly all you can think about. You can feel the heat radiating from his body, the rough fabric of his pants pressed against the soft skin of your inner thighs. 

“How about this?” There's a tri-corner scar, thin and silvery as a cobweb, just underneath your left breast. 

“Oh. That was… um… a game that got out of hand.” You swallow. “Bad tackle.”

You let him think you mean soccer. You don’t think any good will come of him knowing how much aggression you all had to work off back in Spring. In reality, Gen had tackled you onto rocks playing Capture the Flag and something in you snapped; you’d fought back, all teeth and nails, until it took three of the others to pull the two of you apart. Neither of you took it personally: lashing out was just a reflex some of you had back then, the way others woke up screaming, or panicked when the wind changed and blew smoke in the wrong direction. 

Kodiak licks a stripe across your scar, jarring you out of the memory and drawing a startled giggle out of you. You try to bat him away and he utterly ignores you, grabbing a handful of your breast and covering your skin in open mouthed kisses. 

“This one’s my favourite,” he says, around a mouthful of your breast. His beard tickles, making you twist underneath him. He shifts so he’s pinning you more effectively.

 It’s a reminder that you only have as much control as he chooses to give you. 

“Kodi!”

He groans a little. It’s only the second time you’ve let yourself shorten his name, the first time you’ve called him that in bed. You feel his tongue trace the faint line of your scar and realise that he’s trying to leave a mark. You feel a guilty jolt of arousal. It’s no secret that he has a possessive streak: he loves seeing you in his clothes almost as much as he likes leaving lovebites littering your skin. 

Kodiak pulls back to survey his handiwork. You crane to look and he pushes you back down, mouth hot against the underside of your breast. You almost sob with frustration when you realise he means to start another. 

“Kodi, please!” You struggle and arch under him, accidentally grinding your hips against him. 

Kodiak nips you with his teeth, hard enough to make you yelp. Then he moves so he’s looking down at you, propped on his elbows, forearms bracketing you, caging you with his body. He presses his thigh between your legs, spreading you open and grinding against your sensitive core. The rough fabric of his pants drags over your clit, causing a friction just this side of painful.

  “What did I tell you about teasing?” he demands, his voice almost a growl. You try to clamp your thighs together to hold his in place but Kodiak presses his advantage, grinding his thigh between yours until you’re reduced to a needy, whimpering mess. The realisation you must be leaving a wet patch on his pant leg sends a twist of humiliation through you, not entirely unpleasant. You writhe under him, not sure if you’re trying to get away or get closer. “The more you try and get me worked up, the harder this is going to go for you.” 

“I–” you break off sharply as he forces another gasp out of you. “If that’s what it takes for you to actually fuck me.”

“You are something else.” Kodiak almost growls. He kisses you so hard and so suddenly that the back of your head collides with the floor behind you. 

You tug at his tank top and this time he helps you peel it off over his head. You run a hand over his bare chest, scraping lightly with your nails. You can still see the faint, fading marks you left on him the first time and feel a sudden, overpowering urge to make more. Kodiak gives one of your breasts a rough squeeze before running a proprietary hand down your side. He stops at your hip and you freeze when you realise he’s discovered the other scar.

“What happened here?” he asks, frowning suddenly. He pulls away, sitting up and running his thumb gently over the mess of scar tissue. 

You look away. “I know it’s ugly.”

“I could care less how it looks. What the hell happened?”

“It’s nothing.” You grab his wrist, meaning to guide it back to your breast. He doesn’t let you. “A hunting injury.” 

“Since when do you hunt?”

You realise he’s not going to drop it, so you give him an edited version. It had been early spring: the snows were melting and all of you were starving. Nat and Travis had been too weakened to drag home the buck they shot, so they’d brought a small group to help. The relief made you stupid: you didn’t see the trail of blood where the buck had tried to drag itself away, or the way its eyes were still rolling in their sockets. When you went to cut its throat, its antler punched into your side, stopping only when it hit bone. You don’t tell Kodiak that the fear that drove you to it wasn’t starvation: you’d inhaled so much smoke when the cabin burned that for weeks you’d cough so hard you couldn’t breathe. You knew you wouldn’t survive another hunt. You knew the draw wouldn’t matter much once the others realised you were so obviously dead weight. You don’t tell him that you hid the injury until you collapsed from infection.

You realise he’s not going to drop it, so you give him an edited version. It had been early spring: the snows were melting and all of you were starving. Nat and Travis had been too weakened to drag home the buck they shot, so they’d brought a small group to help. The relief made you stupid: you didn’t see the trail of blood where the buck had tried to drag itself away, or the way its eyes were still rolling in their sockets. When you went to cut its throat, its antler punched into your flesh, stopping only when it hit bone. You don’t tell Kodiak that the fear that drove you to it wasn’t starvation: you’d inhaled so much smoke when the cabin burned that for weeks you’d cough so hard you couldn’t breathe. You knew you wouldn’t survive another hunt. You knew the draw wouldn’t matter much once the others realised you were so obviously dead weight. You don’t tell him that you hid the injury until you collapsed from infection. 

Kodiak wraps a hand around your hipbone, probing the scar with his thumb. You've seen him roll his eyes and smirk with a gun to his face. Now he looks rattled. 

“This feels like a burn. Did someone try to cauterise it?”

You shrug. “It wouldn’t heal.”

“And you never thought to mention it?”

“No?” The question genuinely confuses you. “Why would I? It’s not a big deal.”

Kodiak’s looking at you like he’s only just realising that you’re damaged. There’s this pity mixed in with it that you really don’t like. It makes you feel exposed in a way stripping naked for him didn’t. 

“I don’t want to talk about it, okay?” You shove him, catching him off balance so he’s knocked backwards, then climbing into his lap. You wind your arms around his neck, pulling him close so your breasts squish against his chest. His arms wrap around you instinctively, keeping you in place. 

“This is your go to conflict resolution, huh?” he asks, his voice coming out a little strangled. 

“You want me to stop?” 

“Fuck no.”

You really want to stop thinking about all the times you’ve nearly died out here, so even though you’re pissed off you still fumble at his belt and then lift up a little so he can strip out of his pants. Instead, he pulls you down onto his lap and slides his fingers between your legs. You growl a little in frustration, wanting all of him. 

“I don’t need–”

“You are goddamn pathological. Let me take care of you.” The way he says it, there’s no question it’s an order. You like that better than him being careful with you. Your retort is cut off when he scissors his fingers inside you. He grins. “That’s what it takes to stop you talking back, huh?”

Kodiak traces a circle round your clit, drawing a needy whine out of you. He lifts you up a little so he can strip off his pants, kicking out of them so he doesn’t have to let go of you, even for a second. He guides your hips as you sink down onto him. It’s a lot to take, especially with your own weight pushing down onto him. He holds you up when your thighs start to shake, caresses your sides, whispers encouragement while you breathe through it. 

“Good girl,” he murmurs. 

You smack his arm. “You know I don’t like that.”

“But look how good you’re being for me.” He grins, taunting you a little. “Obedient. Submissive even.”

“Fuck off.” You try to scowl at him but look away, not quite able to meet his eye. It’s hard to pretend defiance when you’re stretched around his cock, your body on display for him. 

“You’re the one who stripped naked when I asked,” he reminds you. “You’re the one who insisted on sitting on my lap.”

His hands curl around your hips, guiding them in a slow rocking motion. Your breath hitches sharply. You wrap your arms around his shoulders to steady yourself. 

“And you’re such a good little girl that you’re going to take whatever I give you. Pet names included.”

You can’t help the guilty little moan that escapes you.

Kodiak keeps guiding you. You roll your hips to match his rhythm and he increases the pace until he’s thrusting up into you so hard your breasts bounce. He can’t tear his gaze away. He returns your kisses hurriedly, breaking apart to look down at you. His eyes are heavy lidded, looking darker than they are in the shadows of the tent. You wrap your arms around his neck, fingers threading through his hair, and pull him down to kiss you properly. He slides a hand upwards from your hips to touch you instead, his other hand splayed across the small of your back. 

The orgasm sears through you, white hot. You feel yourself clench around him, back arching, nails biting into his shoulders hard enough to draw blood. He fucks you through it, prolonging your release, the sensation building until you feel like you might break apart, as though your body is too small to hold it. 

You feel yourself go boneless, sagging against his chest, still shaky from the aftershocks. “You’re not done,” Kodiak says against your ear, his voice almost a growl. He wraps his arms around you – you think to support you – until he pushes you down in one smooth movement. Before you realise what’s happening you’re on your back, Kodiak looking down at you with a feral light in his eyes that looks almost like hunger. The sudden change in angle draws a wordless shout out of you. Kodiak is apparently done being gentle with you: he pulls your hips to meet his thrusts, hitting a place inside you that makes you see sparks. 

You feel your pleasure building again, almost more than you can take. You couldn’t be quiet now if you tried. Every movement draws a new noise out of you: breathy moans, bitten off gasps, stammered pleas. 

“Come for me.” Kodiak’s voice is rough, his breathing almost as ragged as yours. “I know you have another one in you. Good girl.”

There’s an almost desperate edge to his voice and it’s that – seeing the effect you’re having on him – that tips you over the edge. You gasp his name as pleasure floods through you, so hard you feel your vision spot at the edges. Kodiak comes with a guttural groan and you feel his release deep inside you. 

Both of you are breathing too hard to speak. Kodiak lets the moment draw out, stroking your trembling thighs, your bodies still joined. Then he untangles himself from you, settling beside you and pulling you into his arms with a kiss. You press yourself into him, wanting to be closer. There’s something about being circled in his arms that makes you feel safe. You feel warm, drowsy – until the thought of falling asleep like this makes you jolt upright. 

“We need to get dressed before the others get back.”

“Relax.” Kodiak’s voice is a low content rumble you feel as well as hear. “We’ve got time.”

“How would you know? You’re always underestimating us–” You try to look around for your clothes. 

“Them,” Kodiak corrects you. “Not you. Anyway,” he snakes an arm around your waist, pulling you back down. “That plant I told them was so important? Doesn’t grow this far north.”

“You sent them for nothing?”

“No.” Kodiak pulls you flush against him. He traces his fingers lightly along your jaw, angling your mouth towards his, so he can press a lingering kiss against your lips. “I sent them away so I could get you alone.”

You settle against him, letting him run his hands over your body like it belongs to him. The intimacy comes as a relief: part of you was afraid he’d take what he wanted and discard you once he had it. 

“I should be mad at you,” you tell him, to hide the fact that you’re not. 

“You should,” Kodiak agrees. He glances down at you, naked in his arms. You can’t help the pleased little shiver that runs through you. “Guess I finally fucked the attitude out of you.”

You curl into his side, trading lazy kisses, enjoying the press of your body against his. Kodiak pets your hair absently, both of you sleepy and sated. 

You lie there for what seems like a long time, until the afterglow wears off and you start to feel sticky. Then you press a quick kiss to his lips before pulling away. “Hold that thought. I want to go and wash.”

Kodiak’s grip tightens, pinning you against his side. “Not until we go over some ground rules.”

“What the fuck?”

“The last time you wandered off on your own didn’t turn out so good,” he reminds you. 

“I can’t go a hundred yards to the stream by myself?” 

Kodiak doesn’t answer. He just lets you struggle until you realise he’s serious. “Doesn’t look like you’re going anywhere until I’m done with you.” 

You stop trying to fight him and glare instead. “Nat would kill you if I told her about this.” 

“Okay,” Kodiak says. The worst part is, he sounds more amused than annoyed. “So don't tell her. Unless you want to end up stranded on this mountain with no way home.” 

You think this must be his way of making sure you know your place: restrained, naked, filmed with sweat, his cum leaking down your thigh, your body his to use until he decides to let you go. You huff out an annoyed breath and settle against him, resting your head on his shoulder. It rankles to give in so easily but you can’t fight harder without pissing him off. 

“Fine.”

“First rule: you do not wander off alone.”

“I thought you said it was safe here?” Despite yourself, you press yourself into his chest. Since he saved your life, the closer you are to him the safer you feel.

“I said it was safe from whatever the fuck was going on in that valley. There’s plenty else out here that could kill you.” Kodiak’s brow creases and he looks away. “We could have lost you yesterday.”

“Okay.” You soften. He has a point: you got so used to the relative safety of your camp that it’s easy to forget you’re in unfamiliar territory. “Fine. I won’t go anywhere alone. Happy?”

“Oh Princess.” Kodiak draws the word out like he’s savouring it. “I’m nowhere near done.” 

You feel your stomach twist, half apprehension, half desire. This is the first real demand Kodiak’s made of you. All his other orders – you’re with me, come here, I want you, be quiet – are ambiguous enough that someone overhearing could mistake them for suggestions. The consequences of disobeying have only been implied. 

“Second rule: I want you.” Kodiak punctuates each sentence with a kiss. He’s rougher with you than he was before, now he’s got a point to prove. He anchors one hand in your hair, the other running over your body like he’s claiming it. “In my bed. Every night. No exceptions.”

  It’s almost a relief to have the transactional nature of your relationship spelled out. You try to ignore the hurt that sparks high in your chest. You should have known better than to hope there was anything more between you.

“Third,” Kodiak says, pulling away. There’s an unfamiliar expression in his eyes that looks almost like tenderness. “You will drop all the martyr bullshit and let me take care of you.”

A/N: Thank you so much to everyone for bearing with me while my shoulder's been messed up. I'm hoping to post more regularly going forward. As always, thank you to everyone who likes, reblogs and replies: it really does help motivate me to write faster.

[obscuraimagines]

Did you hear a new love language just dropped? yeah its crazy. Its called just fuckin biting them.

[obscuraimagines]

i watched way too many of these today and this one is my favorite

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idk if you’ve ever watched but could you pleaseee make yellowjackets themed dividers??? only if thats okay with you :)

i love all of your work too it’s all so cute 😣😣😣

hi (thank you so much!! 💖) and I can give it a shot for sure! I haven't watched yellowjackets yet, but I've heard great things! I hope these fit the vibe of the show 💛🖤

[Free] Masterlist Headers & Dividers!

Please consider liking or reblogging if you use 💕

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Just a quick update: I'm in the final stages of editing and hope to have the next chapter out by the weekend. Thanks to everyone for being so patient.

Quick Update

I've just found out I have RSI/repetitive strain injury in my shoulder, which is limiting how much I can type. It's not a huge deal: I just need to rest it before it gets worse. I am not stopping writing but Bite Me Ch 5 will be released later than promised.

I'm especially sorry to anyone who follows the story on AO3: I'd mentioned in an a/n over there that I planned to have the next part out in a few days. It's now looking closer to a week or possibly two. I hate to not deliver what I've promised but I know from experience that trying to power through will fuck up my productivity worse in the long run.

Anyway, please learn from my mistakes and take this as your daily reminder to stretch.

[obscuraimagines]

Quick Update

I've just found out I have RSI/repetitive strain injury in my shoulder, which is limiting how much I can type. It's not a huge deal: I just need to rest it before it gets worse. I am not stopping writing but Bite Me Ch 5 will be released later than promised.

I'm especially sorry to anyone who follows the story on AO3: I'd mentioned in an a/n over there that I planned to have the next part out in a few days. It's now looking closer to a week or possibly two. I hate to not deliver what I've promised but I know from experience that trying to power through will fuck up my productivity worse in the long run.

Anyway, please learn from my mistakes and take this as your daily reminder to stretch.

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Masha Morgunova.

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"We are forged from the shattered pieces of our former selves". YELLOWJACKETS (2021-)

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Hiiiii, I love your last two Kodiak fics they’re flipping amazing.

I was wondering if you could do one where the reader gets hurt while getting to the rescue point and Kodiak gets worried and takes care of them. Thank youuuuuuuu

Bite Me - Part Four

Summary: After getting injured on the way to the rescue point, you have to let Kodiak take care of you.

Content: Hurt/comfort; injury detail.

A/N: Thank you so much for this prompt Anon. I'm so sorry this has taken so long to write: it kind of got away from me and ended up longggg but I hope you like it. In fact it got so long I had to split it into two chapters, so stay tuned for some hurt/comfort smut coming out soon. Thank you so much to the people who have asked about a part 4 for being so patient: I ended up getting horrendously stuck and had to scrap and rewrite a large chunk of it to make it work.

Part One - Part Two - Part Three

“What the fuck do you mean she owes you?”

You swear you feel the temperature drop. You shrink back against the tree where Kodiak has you pinned, your lips still swollen from from his kiss. 

Natalie’s eyes are freezing with rage – the kind of cold that burns on contact. The rifle is trained straight at you, her body already braced for the recoil. Her voice is as gravelly as you’ve ever heard but she speaks with a terrible calm. 

“Natalie…” you falter. 

“Let her go.” Nat’s face is contorted into a snarl. It takes a moment for you to realise that her anger isn’t meant for you. 

It hits you suddenly how bad this looks. You’re pinned against a tree, your shirt ripped, Kodiak making promises that sound a lot like threats.Kodiak, with more self preservation than you’ve come to expect from him, has the sense to set you on your feet. He rests a hand on your shoulder but only loosely, making it clear that he’s not holding you against your will.

“Natalie.” You take a cautious step towards her, hands raised. Kodiak pulls you back, angling himself between you and the gun. 

Natalie swings the rifle to aim directly at his head. Her lip curls, more of a snarl than a smile. “Oh, I think you’ve touched her enough.” 

It’s impressive: her voice is shaking with rage but her hands are completely steady.

You think this might be the thing that finally makes her snap. Now you’re away from the rest of the team, you’re realising how fucked up it all was. And Natalie bore the brunt of it: you’ve loaded more and more weight on her since the plane crashed, burdened her with the survival of people who hunted her the day before. And after making her responsible for them, you asked her to abandon most of them to die. 

“Do you want to tell her?” Kodiak asks. You glare over your shoulder at him. He looks unimpressed by the gun but at least his hands are up. 

“Nat, I can explain–”

“No,” she says. This close, the open mouth of the gun eclipses everything else. You can’t look away. “I want to hear what he has to say for himself.”

“Hey, your friend came onto me.” 

“Before or after you cornered her?” Rage flashes across Nat’s face, so white-hot it hurts to look at. Her hand twitches reflexively against the trigger and you flinch, bracing yourself for a shot that doesn’t come. “She was trying to get away.” 

“We’re sleeping together. He’s not… I mean we’re not… I wanted to,” you finish lamely.

The silence stretches, grim and horrible. 

“How? You haven’t been alone together.” Nat’s brows crease in confusion. “Are you lying for him? Did he threaten–”

“No!” Nat tries to sidestep you and you step with her. “I swear. It started before we left.”

““He was under armed guard!” Nat’s voice cracks a little with frustration. 

“Ask your boyfriend.” Kodiak shrugs. “He’s the one who left us alone.”

“Travis would not–”

“No no no!” You put your hands out, placating. “Travis has no idea. We lied, okay? About the deer. Travis went after it. Alone. We only lied because of Shauna.”

Nat studies you warily. You think, deep down, she must have known your cover story didn’t make sense. You’ve all got good at that: believing what you need to to keep going. She flicks the safety catch on. You let go of a long, shuddery breath. 

“You didn’t think the rest of us might want to know about this before we put our lives in his hands?”

“You want to get that out of her face before someone gets hurt?” Kodiak takes a step towards you. “No one ever means for a gun to go off accidentally.”

Something dark flashes behind Nat’s eyes. Nat shoulders you aside, getting in between yout. Her thumb hovers over the safety like she’d like nothing more than to flick it off and squeeze the trigger. Ben’s death and everything that came after it changed her. It’s harder to tell when she’s bluffing. You do know that it’s never been her nature to back down: if it comes to a fight she won’t stop until one of them is dead.

“Nat knows how to use a gun.” You edge round Nat, slowly, the way you’d approach a wounded animal in a trap. “Come on. You know he’s trying to get a rise out of you.”

There’s a long moment where the two of them stare each other out. Then Nat lowers the shotgun with an inarticulate snarl. 

“Can we talk in private?” You grasp her by the shoulders, pushing her a little. You’re not sure that’s a good idea but you need to separate them and you know you physically can’t move Kodiak anywhere he doesn’t want to go. You hear Kodiak scoff behind you and turn to snap at him. 

“I swear to god, it’s like you’re trying to get shot.”

Hearing you talk back to him seems to reassure Nat in a way that defending him didn’t. She allows you to push her a little way aside. 

“So this is why he’s helping us?” she says flatly, once you’re more or less out of earshot. Nat insists on keeping a line of sight on Kodiak, glancing towards him as though she expects him to try and run. 

“He was going to leave. He knew I wouldn’t shoot the only person who knows the way home. I had to stall him.”

“So you decided to fuck him?” Nat’s voice comes out high-pitched, strangled. She hears herself and winces a little. “Sorry. It's just… you couldn’t have shot him in the leg?”

“We need him able to walk, Nat.”

Nat pinches her brow. “Sure. That’s the reason we shouldn’t just fucking kill him. Do you hear yourself?”

“There are other reasons.” You fold your arms across your chest defensively. Then you remember your ripped t-shirt and hurriedly button your overshirt to cover it. “You’re the one pointing the gun at him.”

“All the way back to civilisation, apparently.” Nat rakes a hand through her hair. “Jesus Christ, why didn’t you say something?”

You realise that you could let Nat save you. You don’t have to keep sneaking around, trading your body for rescue. You could go back to normal, or as normal as you’re going to get. You feel an odd, hollow feeling at the thought. It’s almost a relief to realise that it would never work. 

“He’s not going to let us march him home at gunpoint. We need him. If we make him our enemy–”

“No!” Nat’s eyes widen, her mouth drawing into a hard line. “I am not pimping you out–” 

You shush her hurriedly, unsure who else is looking for you. 

“It’s not like that!” 

Nat scoffs, dry and humourless. “So he’d still help us? If you stopped?”

That’s the question you’ve been turning over in your mind since before you left. You hope you never find out the answer. 

“What are our options? We can't go forward without him. We can't turn back: Shauna will kill us. You know the next hunt would have been one of us. You realise Shauna wasn't going to let you live, right?”

“This isn't just about me.” 

“You want to talk about the others? How long do you think Misty could outrun the rest of us? Akilah said herself she doesn't have another hunt in her. We both know Mari can't stop mouthing off to save her life. And Travis–” 

“What about Travis?” 

You look away, not able to face her while you say it.

“He barely even hunts deer anymore, let alone–” You break off, grimacing. “They won’t let him sit them out forever.”

“You would all be dead if not for Travis. You weren’t the one hiking miles through the snow every day–”

“I know.”

“And Javi–” Nat’s voice cracks again, but this time it’s high and fragile, as though she might cry. 

“I know, Nat. I know it isn’t fair.” You glance back towards Kodiak, leaning against a tree. When he sees you looking, his eyes snap to yours. You look away. “If we wait for things to be fair, we’re going to die out here.”

Nat squeezes her eyes closed, draws in a long, steadying breath. 

“Don’t act like Shauna doesn’t fucking hate you too,” she snaps, sounding more like herself. 

Somewhere in the trees, you hear a voice call your name. Whatever Nat decides, she has to decide now.

“Fuck.” Nat rakes a hand through her hair. “I need more time to think about this. I can’t just–”

“So don’t tell them. Not yet,” you plead. “I will tell the others. Later, when we're out of danger. We do not have time for everyone to freak out right now.” 

Nat squeezes her eyes shut, covers them with her hand. “Fuck you for making me go along with this.” 

“Thank you.”

“Don’t fucking thank me. It’s just until I figure out a way to tell the others that doesn’t end in someone getting fucking hunted.”

Nat makes a point of separating you and Kodiak as soon as you rejoin the others, sending you and Mari to help Travis scout ahead. Her and Kodiak bring up the rear, ostensibly to guard from anyone catching up to you from behind. You really wish you were able to run interference: there is no way Kodiak is going to take well to being interrogated, any more than Nat is going to put up with much more of his shit. 

You’ve been walking a little under an hour when Travis tells you both to shut up. Mari’s mouth closes around an unsaid retort, her posture posed for flight. The forest is suddenly, eerily silent. There’s no birdsong, no rustle of small unseen animals, barely even wind. The forest closes around you like a curtain. It’s never quiet out here: there’s also the call of something hunting or being hunted, the wind and weather, the comforting domestic sounds of the others. 

You realise with an uneasy jolt that you can’t hear the others. The only time you’ve heard quiet like this was the sterile, snow-muffled silence of winter. 

The wind stirs the leaves around you. You catch something out of the corner of your eye and snap your head towards it. There are glimmers among the leaves, light catching places where it shouldn’t. 

We should go back. Mari mouths the words. The three of you are frozen, silent, instinctively shifting lower the way prey does when it’s trying to be invisible. You look to Travis for guidance but he’s staring off into the treeline. You follow the line of his gaze and see more of the strange, shimmering light. It looks almost like water but if there was a stream you’d hear it. 

You feel your hackles raise, the fine hairs on your arms standing on end, every part of you screaming to turn back. For a second your feet refuse to move. You imagine going back to the others, telling them you were all spooked by something in the corner of your eye. It’s Kodiak’s imagined reaction that pushes you forward: he already talks to the others like they’re a bunch of dumb kids who survived through sheer luck. You don’t want him to think that about you. 

You squeeze Mari’s wrist. She catches your arm, pushes the axe she’s carrying into your unresisting hand. You creep forwards, signalling for the others not to follow. There’s movement out of the corner of your eyes: you think there must be two or three of them. Indistinct figures about your size and utterly silent. They move when you move, stop when you stop. A grim resignation settles on you, almost like relief. You’ve suspected for a while now that this was how you’d die.  

The wind stirs. There’s a sound you can’t place, almost like the shivery sound of ice sliding over ice. You turn towards it and see a half wild girl looking back at you. She’s dressed like the rest of you: ragged clothes, unkempt hair, eyes hollow with hunger. You recognise the axe before you recognise your own face. The forest shows you back to yourself in slices: the yellow flash of your varsity jacket sleeve knotted around your waist, the faded plaid of your shirt, your wide startled eyes. 

You step closer. Now you’re over the initial shock, you can see how the mirrors are tied or bolted to the tree trunks. It looks like there used to be more: there’s broken glass glittering dangerously up from the moss on the forest floor, empty frames where some haven’t survived the winter. You see hand mirrors and actual shards of glass hanging from the branches like deadly windchimes. 

You hear Travis’s startled huff of breath right behind you and startle, almost colliding with him. You thought you were used to how absolutely silent he and Nat can be but you’re on edge and in no mood to be snuck up on. 

“Don’t come closer,” you tell him curtly. “Broken glass.”

You don’t especially want to get closer. Everything in you is screaming to turn back but you ignore it. You’re stung by being caught out, literally afraid of your own reflection. 

“Someone built this…” Travis doesn’t say it but you hear the subtext: are they still here? Are they a threat?

Something stings against your calf. You look down and see something else that doesn’t make sense: a wire taut against your leg. Time slows down, dilates. You watch blood darken the worn and faded denim of your jeans. Then a lot of things start to happen very fast. You hear something creak above you. Travis yells. And you throw yourself forward as something huge and fast tears through the air above you. Above you, you hear the impact of something sharp and heavy against wood.

Your arm is trapped weirdly under you, something sharp pressed against your skin. At first you think you’ve fallen into a little natural dip in the ground but when you try to push up with your free arm it shifts under you. You spread your weight instinctively, your mind yanked back to the day on the lake you don’t think about, the way the ice groaned and shifted under you. 

“Don’t move!” Travis sounds so unlike himself that you freeze instantly. You hear him drop down behind you, hands clamping over your calves. Somewhere behind you Mari is letting out a stream of oh god oh god oh fuck between panicked breaths. 

Travis turns to her. “Get Kodiak. Now!”

There’s something wrong with the angle of your arm. It’s not under you like you thought but extended almost straight down, as though it’s punched through the earth below. Whatever you’re lying on boughs underneath you, and you feel an awful emptiness underneath. Your mind is snapping pieces into place: the mirrors, the tripwire, Mari’s terror. 

“Is this a–” You can’t bring yourself to finish, as though speaking the words might bring them further into existence. 

“It’s okay,” Travis tells you. He’s never been good at lying. “Just…don’t move.”

You bite down your lip on the hysterical laugh that threatens to burst out of you. Even that movement makes the ground sway under you. Your lower legs are on solid ground, the rest of you angled downwards. If the pit cover collapses, your body is going to swing down like a counterweight, pulling in anyone trying to catch you. There’s not much left to say. You lie still, scared even to breathe until you hear footsteps running. 

“What the fuck else did you forget to tell us?” Nat snarls. Everyone is shouting over each other. 

“I’m not the one who sent her off ahead,” Kodiak snaps back. He drops down to his knees behind you, right where you feel the pit edge. When he talks to you, his voice is softer. “You’re all right. I got you.”

You hear him shift behind you. Out of the corner of your eye, you see him lean across the pit and brace himself carefully against the edge. He’s the only one of you anywhere near tall enough to reach. 

“Careful–” Travis starts.

“You’re the one who let her fall in the death trap,” Kodiak snaps. You draw in a shaky, panicked breath. Kodiak’s voice softens as he turns back to you. “It’s okay. You’re okay. I need you to trust me: I’m going to support your weight and pull you backwards.”

“I trust you.”

Kodiak’s free arm wraps carefully around your waist, lifting you against him. Something sharp bites into your arm as you try to pull it free. You hiss with pain. 

“My arm’s caught.” Your voice comes out tight with pain. “Thorns or something.”

“Okay.” Kodiak sucks in a breath. He sounds more patient than you were expecting from him. “I’ve got you. I need you to pull free. Can you do that?”

“Uh-huh.” You try to brace yourself without actually moving. 

He counts to three. You yank your arm upwards as hard as you can, biting down on a ragged sob. Kodiak pulls you backwards. You hear the pit cover give way under you and jam your eyes closed, not wanting to see what’s underneath. There’s a horrible moment where you teeter, unsure of which way you’ll fall and then three sets of hands grab you. You tumble away from the pit landing sprawled half on top of Kodiak. When you open your eyes, you see your friends’ faces above you, pinched with worry. Above them the leaves are so thick you can’t see the sky: there’s only the odd glimmer of greenish-gold where the light filters through the canopy. 

“Guys!” Misty’s voice cuts through the silence. “She’s bleeding. Like a lot.”

You glance down at yourself and see your left arm is red, the moss underneath you turning oxblood.

“It doesn’t hurt.” You hear yourself say, which is pretty stupid, all things considered. You feel like you’re floating above yourself, stunned to still be alive. Even your voice sounds like it’s coming from somewhere else. 

Misty pulls off her belt, yanking it tight around your upper arm. You jerk away on instinct, remembering the chaos of the crash, Ben’s leg, the slow motion arc of the axe, blood covering her face like a mask. 

“Watch it!” Kodiak barks at her. He drags you upright, pulling you against his chest to shield you. 

“Let me work!” Misty snarls back, showing teeth. She squares up to Kodiak like he’s not well over twice her size. 

“It’s okay. She knows what she’s doing.” You hold your arm out to Misty, pushing up what’s left of your tattered sleeve. There’s so much blood it’s hard to see what the damage is. 

“Thorns didn’t do that.” Nat leans over you. You can tell from her face it’s bad. You try to focus on the pain, like a red rope anchoring you to your body. Misty binds your arm efficiently in a spare t-shirt. You watch blood bloom across the faded floral print. 

Travis peers into the pit. Then he lurches sideways and you hear him throw up, smell the acid reek of bile. You look around at the thing you dived to avoid earlier. It’s a slab of wood, studded with spikes. You see where the force drove them into the tree trunk, gouges of pale wood bleeding sap. There’s a rope above it, stained faintly green with moss. The whole clearing is like one dazzling, disorientating trap. You realise with a sickly feeling that the pit must have been intended for humans, or at least large game. If you’d been even a little heavier – if you hadn’t spent the past year and a half starving – you’d have gone straight through. 

Nat crouches down, a little way back from the edge. “That’s barbed fucking wire. Who built this?”

“Guys!” Akilah is staring at a patch of tree trunk. You catch a glimpse of angular lines cut deep into the bark, all but a corner newly damp where she’s stripped away the moss. You try not to think how many more you might have walked straight past, hidden by the moss. 

“You two want to poke around in death trap valley, be my guest.” Kodiak tries to sound unrattled but you can feel the tension in his arms where he’s holding you. “I’m getting her – and anyone else who wants to live – out of here.”

“We could make a stretcher,” Misty suggests, a little too brightly. 

“I can stand.” You shrug off the various arms holding you and stagger to your feet. Kodiak stands with you, steadying your hips. You stagger, leaning on him a little, but stay upright. “I can walk even.”

“You need to keep your arm above your heart.” Misty peers up owlishly from where she’s kneeling, her hands spotted with your blood. A wave of dizziness overtakes you; you understand all the words she’s saying individually but you’re struggling to fit them together. 

“C’mere.” Kodiak shrugs onehanded out of his overshirt, knotting the arms around your neck to make a sling. His movements are rough, impatient but he lifts your arm into it gently. 

“Thanks.” You try a few steps to prove you can walk but your legs are unsteady. Your vision spots black at the edges. 

Kodiak catches you before you fall. 

“Here’s an idea. Maybe don’t stumble around like a wounded baby deer three feet from the literal death trap.” He sweeps you up into his arms before you can argue. “Here. I got you.”

You drift half in half out of consciousness. By the time you reach the cave, the sun is already low above the mountains: this late in the year, the nights draw in quickly. Kodiak sets you down propped against a rock at the cave mouth and the others cluster around you as Misty strips away your bloodsoaked bandages. Your arm hurts more now that the initial shock has worn off: a dull ache that crowds thoughts right out of your head. 

“She’s going to need stitches.” Misty pushes her cracked glasses up her nose, leaving a small smudge of blood on the frame. “I can see muscle.”

Despite yourself, you look. There are three gouges wrapped around your forearm. The deepest one gapes jaggedly open, revealing muscle and a glimmer of yellowish fat. It’s not the injury itself that turns your stomach. It’s the opposite: you’re so used to seeing bodies carved up that when you look down at your arm you see meat. You jerk away, barely managing to swallow the bile forcing its way up your throat. 

“Eyes on me.” Kodiak catches your chin, turns it towards him. 

“Is she going to lose the arm?” Mari leans over you, her hair brushing your face. Her voice is tight with panic, her grip on your shoulder almost painful. 

Your stomach turns over. “Am I–”

“No you’re not–” Kodiak breaks off midsentence, unable to contain his irritation. “Can the rest of you fuck off and let me handle this.”

Mari’s temper flares. “Since when do you care? Aren’t you just some creepy guy we found in the woods?”

Travis puts a hand on her shoulder, in a way that warns both her and Kodiak to drop it. 

“Here’s an idea,” he says to Nat. His eyes stay fixed on Kodiak the whole time.  “Mari should come hunting. It’s time she learned how to shoot.”

Nat turns to you, frowning. You nod. You don’t have much choice: your group has already eaten all the food you brought with you. Nat’s choices are to leave Kodiak with you, or to give him a weapon and send him out himself. You can tell she doesn’t like either much but all of you need to eat. Out here, hunger has a way of making decisions for you. 

“We won’t be far. If we hear anything, we’ll come right back.”

“I mean, she’s going to scream.” Misty peers at your arm. “You remember how it was with Van?”

“This is nowhere near as bad as Van,” Akilah pushes through the others, kneeling in front of you, medical kit in hand. “Get out of my light, Misty.”

Nat doesn’t look happy about leaving you but there’s not much choice: you’ve lost ground today and without eating there’s no hope you’ll make it up tomorrow. The safety of your headstart is evaporating. 

“Use the bow, if you can,” Kodiak calls after them. “Gunshots carry.”

Nat nods once, grimly. Then she’s gone.

The needle burns like an ant bite. You remember it took four of you to hold Van down. By the end you’d been crying so hard you could barely see her but your memory reproduces the scene in crystal clear high definition: your hands slippery with her blood; the way the ruined half of her face rippled unnaturally as she screamed; Tai watching helpless, biting down on her knuckles hard enough to leave a mark. You try your best to bite down on the pain, trying to make it easier for the others. But you can’t stop yourself from jerking away from the source of the pain. 

“It’s okay,” Kodiak murmurs in your ear. “I’ve got you.”

Kodiak holds you to keep you from thrashing around and hurting yourself. He wraps himself around you, your back pressed against his chest, his legs bracketing yours. Your head tucks neatly under his chin and he keeps up a steady stream of encouragement in your ear: telling you you’re brave, telling you it’s nearly over, telling you you’re safe. 

“Kodi–” The needle punches into your skin again and you break off into a sharp hiss. Kodiak’s grip tightens and he presses a kiss – so quickly it feels almost reflexive, involuntary – against the shell of your ear. It’s the first time you’ve let yourself shorten his name. 

You spare a glance to the others, sure they must have noticed, but they’re both intent on repairing your arm; Misty aligning your torn flesh so Akilah can stitch it neatly. Akilah looks closer to tears than you are: her teeth are gritted, her face scrunched in concentration. She mutters apologies every time the needle pierces you but she works fast and leaves small, neat stitches. Misty is in her element: she’s utterly ruthless, too focused on fixing you to think about your pain. 

You bite down on a scream and Kodiak adjusts his grip on you, cradling you more closely. His thumb traces circles on the underside of your arm, where the others can’t see. The truth is, you’re afraid to cry in front of him. You’re not sure what drew him to you, exempted you from the indifference he shows the others. You’re afraid of what happens if he doesn’t want you anymore. You don’t want him to see you as weak. 

“I’ve had worse,” you grind out. Your voice comes out strangled, fighting to keep level through the pain. 

“We need to get her to a real doctor,” Misty says. “If she has tetanus, she could di–”

“Not helping, Misty!” Akilah snaps. 

“I had a tetanus shot, before the plane crash.” Your voice comes out hoarse, as much from the memory as the pain. “Varsity team barbeque. I stepped on a nail in the lake.”

You remember Van stripping out of her sweater to staunch the blood, Taissa running a red light to get you to the emergency room. You’d bleed all over her seats and she hadn’t even minded. And now you’ve left them both to die. Sobs tear out of you, ragged and involuntary. Kodiak cradles you to him, stroking the uninjured part of your arm, murmuring comfortingly into your ear. 

“Sorry,” you manage, when you can breathe again. “It’s just… Tai and Van – the people who looked after me. We had to leave them behind.”

“I can’t believe we left Tai.” Akilah glances down at her hands, which are stained bright with your blood. Her voice cracks. “I mean… I know she wanted to stay. But it’s Tai.”

“And Van,” you agree. You hate that you left Van but you had no choice. She would never have left Taissa behind. And Tai was too close to Shauna to even consider bringing in. 

Akilah’s hands are shaking. Misty takes the needle from her and finishes the last stitch. It hurts worse but it’s over faster: a fair trade. She releases the tourniquet; the blood rushing back into your arm burns but the stitches hold. You sag back against Kodiak’s chest, weak with relief. 

“I’m sorry, I just need–” Akilah stands up so fast she stumbles. Her voice is choked, her eyes bright with tears. “I need a minute.”

“Go with her,” Kodiak orders Misty. “After what happened today, no one wanders off alone. Go find the others: tell them she’s okay.”

“How are you really doing?” Kodiak asks, once you’re alone. 

You sink back further against his chest. Normally you’d say you were fine but today has been a total horror show from start to finish. “I wasn’t even supposed to be on the fucking plane. Coach benched me when I fucked up my foot. Except my replacement broke her leg, right before Nationals. The worst part is, when I heard all I could think about was how I could tell colleges I'd played at Nationals.”

Kodiak takes a moment to absorb the non sequitur. “At least this will make a hell of an admissions essay.” 

“Assuming we live that long.” You tilt your head back to lean against him. 

“See that's what I don't get about you. You're fighting so hard to get home but the rest of the time you're so…reckless. Fatalistic. It's like you're expecting to die.” 

It turns out that expecting to die is a hard habit to break. You try to explain it to him, as best you can. You’ve learned to run in the middle of the pack; not to be the best or worst at anything; not to commit to any idea too strongly in case people blame you when it goes wrong; above all, not to show weakness. You disentangle yourself from him so you can face him while you talk, even though you mostly find yourself looking away. You need some distance between you. You’ve never talked about this to anyone; it feels raw. Kodiak listens to you, his face unreadable. 

“You realise you just described a prey animal, right?” 

You look away. You’d got used to thinking of yourself and the others as hunters. You’d forgotten that you were also prey. 

“I really hated being that person,” you tell him. You know you shouldn’t. You have more reason to distrust him than you do your friends. The less he knows about what happened out here, the safer it is for everyone – him included. The words spill out of you anyway. “I like this one better. The one who’s getting us out.”

“How about the version of you that doesn’t push herself until she collapses? When do I get to meet her?”

You shake your head slowly. “Last winter was rough. The next one will be worse. No matter how bad the odds are out here, I’ll take them.” You look past him, down at the forested slope below you. “If I’m going to die out here, I want to die doing something good.”

Kodiak takes your uninjured arm and pulls you round to face him. “No one is going to die. Least of all you and me.”

“About that.” You look down at your feet, scuffing the dirt with your heel. “If I do–”

“You won’t.”

“If I do though,” you continue over him. “I need to know you’ll make sure the others get home safe.”

“No.” Kodiak shakes his head. “Fuck that. Anything happens to you, I’m leaving them all to starve. Consider it an incentive not to die.”

“What do you think I’ve been doing?” you burst out in frustration. For the past year and a half, all any of you have done is tried not to die. Your voice cracks and, mortifyingly, you feel hot tears prick at the corners of your eyes. 

Kodiak pulls you to him. “It’s not going to come to that, okay? I’m going to get you home. Like I promised.”

You rest your head against his shoulder. “I know.”

You sit there like that for a while. Kodiak digs a battered tin from his pack and produces a joint, which he claims is medicinal. You lean against his side and pass it back and forth between you, watching the sky turn dark. The pain in your arm turns fuzzy round the edges, until you can almost ignore it. 

Nat arrives, alone, the shotgun slung over her shoulder. There’s a small brace of birds hanging from her belt, their breasts bright with blood. 

“Did Misty and Akilah find you?” you ask. You’d hoped to avoid the three of you being alone a little longer. 

Nat smiles humourlessly, as though she knows exactly what you meant. “The others are, and I quote, appeasing the Wilderness. I told Travis to keep them out of trouble.” Nat’s eyes cut upwards in indulgent exasperation. They turn hostile as they snap to Kodiak. “I thought the three of us should talk. Alone.”

She sniffs the air and then her eyes track to you, noticing the joint still in your hand. 

“Are you seriously both fucking high?”

“You want some?” 

Nat ignores you, opting to glare at Kodiak instead. 

Kodiak shrugs. “It’s medicinal. Pain relief.”

Nat looks at him like she wants him to be in more pain, not less. “You really think now is a good time for any of us to let our guard down?”

“Hey, she was fine until you sent her up ahead. Funny how that works, huh?” Kodiak keeps his arm round you, pulling you closer like he’s daring her to say something. Unfortunately, you’re pretty sure Natalie has never backed down from a dare in her life. 

“So. Kodiak.” Nat sinks down opposite you both, gun in easy reach at her side. She has a way of drawing out Kodiak’s name that makes it sound like an insult. “What was the deal with you and Hannah?”

You breathe in too sharply and end up spluttering on a lungful of smoke. “What the fuck, Nat?”

Nat shrugs but there’s nothing casual about it: her posture is wary, calculated. “If he’s the sort of person who abandons women he’s sleeping with to die, I think we ought to know about it.”

“Hannah had a boyfriend.” Kodiak shrugs, making the arm slung around your shoulder shift. You the sudden tension he’s trying not to let show. “You remember him? The guy with an axe wound where his brain used to be.”

Nat’s eyes flash down, just for a second, before she forces herself to face him. “Why didn’t Hannah trust you?”

“I don’t know. Some bullshit about a nametag. So I thrifted my backpack, sue me.” Kodiak takes the joint from you, takes a long drag and hands it back. “When’s it my turn to interrogate you? Because something tells me you have more to hide than I do.”

“No one’s being interrogated.” You lean over, holding the joint out to Nat. “Go on. You’ll feel better.”

Nat makes a face. “I need to stay sharp.”

“Okay, but I’m going to tell everyone back home that Natalie Scatorrcio can’t hold her weed.” You grin, waving the joint at her invitingly. 

“Look who’s talking,” Nat retorts, without any real bite. “Fuck it. Fine.” 

She takes a tiny, delicate inhale. Then a larger one. Her eyes close and she looks momentarily peaceful. You can’t remember the last time you saw her look like that. “Oh shit. That’s good.”

“Homegrown,” Kodiak informs her. 

Nat hands it back to you, with a regretful shake of her head. “Keep that away from me. I cannot be high right now.”

“You sure?” You draw down smoke into your lungs and hold it there for a second before breathing out. The pain in your arm is like a shadow of itself. 

Nat shakes her head, scrunching her face into a scowl. “It’s not just that. Nicotine withdrawal was bad enough the first time.”

“You want regular tobacco, I got that too. Knock yourself out.” Kodiak hands her the tin. “I packed for a month.”

Nat considers for a long moment before rolling a cigarette with practiced ease. “This doesn’t mean I trust you.”

Kodiak shrugs. “Unless your sense of direction’s radically improved since this morning, you don’t really have much choice.”

He says it like that’s the end of it. But that’s only because he doesn’t know Natalie. You recognise the cool intensity in her expression, the tense line of her shoulders, the way her mouth turns down in the corner with concentration. The only time you’ve seen her look like that is when she’s hunting. It’s how she looks at something she’s working out how to kill. 

A/N: So by this point, you may be wondering what the fuck is wrong with me. The only excuse that I can give is that I was trying to think of an injury that would look serious but not hurt the Reader so badly she couldn't make it to the rescue point. And then I remembered the time I got caught in barbed wire in the woods, had an immediate flight or fight response, tore myself free and still finished the walk. (Luckily, I did not get as badly hurt as Reader, but I also did not get particularly comforted either.) Thank you so much to everyone who likes, reblogs and replies: I absolutely love hearing what you all think and your guesses for what might happen next.

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i NEED more for kodiak PLEASE 🙏🙏🙏 I DONT CARE WHAT IT IS I JUST NEED IT 😭😭

A/N: Thank you so much for this wildcard, Anon! I'm working on another request (which should be out in a couple of days) and this was really helpful in letting me get some plot stuff out of the way first. I really hope you enjoy!

Bite Me - Part Three

Summary: It's getting harder to keep your secret relationship secret. Mainly because Kodiak can't keep his hands to himself.

Content: Secret relationship, fear of getting found out, age difference (reader is over 18)

Part One

Part Two

You wake the next morning, reaching into the still-warm, empty space beside you. Kodiak is already gone, although you can hear him moving around outside, his voice cutting over the quieter voices of your friends. You try not to feel hurt: it was your idea to keep whatever was going on between you from the others. You wish he’d woken you before he left. 

You dress in a hurry, then wait until the others are distracted before slipping out. Everyone’s sore, worn down and irritable from hiking through most of the previous day and the night before. The day starts off badly. Kodiak berates Mari for falling asleep on guard duty, Natalie stands up for her and it turns into a blistering argument. By the time you set off, everyone’s on edge. You pick your way down the mountainside and there’s a brief ripple of something – hope? Alarm? – when you find the remnants of a campsite: flattened grass, the charred remnants of a fire. Natalie crouches to poke at a piece of charcoal, crushing it between her fingers. There are dark shadows under her eyes, plenty of shadows inside them too. She moves like the rest of you: slow and clumsy like a sleepwalker, with bursts of jerky staccato movement when startled. You all startle a lot: every bird call becomes a coded hunting cry, every rustle of wind in the branches becomes a hunter stalking you. You keep seeing shapes between the trees which aren’t there when you look back. 

 

“This is recent. A few days maybe.”

You all exchange worried glances. It’s bad enough, only having Kodiak’s word that he’ll keep your secrets. If there are more people out here they’re an unknown quantity: even one stranger could tip the balance.

“More like a week,” Kodiak catches up to you, Travis and Akilah trailing him. “Ask me how I know.”

You startle and then feel stupid because of course it’s his campsite. Natalie straightens, flushing angrily. It’s not like her to make mistakes but you’re all wound tight, bracing yourself for the worst, whether it’s a wolf attack or Shauna’s retribution. 

“This is where we would have camped last night if you’d all been able to keep pace,” Kodiak adds, unhelpfully. The others bristle in Nat’s defence making you nervous. Last time you all found one person to focus your frustrations on, that person ended up dying badly. You suspect, if it comes to that, Kodiak will take a few of you down with him. 

��You’re the one who wanted to hike for nearly twenty hours.” Nat bites the words out. Her voice drops low and gravelly towards the end and the others get still, the way animals hide when they sense a storm coming. Nat’s accent only comes into play when she’s right on the edge, clinging onto her temper with her fingernails. Travis moves to flank her: he isn’t exactly aiming the crossbow yet but he’s holding it in a pointed kind of way, as though that could change quickly. 

“My bad,” Kodiak says, looking unconcerned. “Here I thought it’d be good to put some distance between us and the cannibals – sorry, the other cannibals – before we slept. Maybe for you lot, waking up with someone gnawing on your leg is no big deal. I mean, it’s not like you’re the one who’s going to die if they catch up to us–”

You feel the air turn thick. There are a lot of things you’re all so careful not to say out here and Kodiak seems to delight in saying them, testing things until they break. He doesn’t understand yet how ugly things can get and how quickly things can tip over. You need to shut him up before someone else does. 

“We’re all going to die if they catch up to us.” You step between him and Nat: at this point, you’re not sure which one of them you’re shielding. “You’re lucky Shauna doesn’t care about you: she might even kill you quickly. The rest of us will suffer.”

The corner of Kodiak’s mouth quirks up, halfway to a smile. His focus is solely on you now, eyes darkening with interest. You feel breathless, remembering last night. 

“Great pep talk,” he tells you drily. “Hey, if soccer doesn’t work out, you could give the cheer squad a try. I hear the uniforms are better.”

His eyes crinkle at the corners a little and you can tell he’s daring you to start something, setting you off just to see what you’ll do. 

“None of us slept very well last night.” You keep your voice reasonable, placating: your friends standing behind you probably think you’re playing peacemaker. You fix Kodiak with your most don’t–fuck–with–me glare and rub your shoulder, hooking the collar of your shirt out of the way with your thumb to let him glimpse the lovebite you’ve been carefully keeping hidden. Your heart is hammering in your chest. You’re running on adrenaline, not even sure what you’re threatening him with, or whether you’re threatening him at all. You’ve tried to impress on him how badly things could go for him if the others turn on him, but you’re not sure he takes you seriously. You realise as you’re speaking that he’s more likely to take the gesture as a bribe, an offer of more of the same. “Everyone’s tense. Let’s not make things worse than they need to be.”

Kodiak grins, wolfishly, all teeth. He steps forwards, getting right in your face. “Is that right?”

For a moment, you think he might actually call your bluff and start something, right then and there.

“Do. Not. Fucking. Test. Me,” you tell him in a low voice. 

Kodiak reaches out to brush your hair off your shoulder. You pull away, guiltily, afraid of what it’ll look like to the others, not realising that you practically recoiling from him looks worse. You hear Nat snarl and start forwards behind you, accompanied by Travis’s “hey, what the fuck–”

“You had a spider.” Kodiak pretends to brush something off your shoulder and raises his hands in innocent mock surrender. “You’re right: everyone is tense.”

Kodiak shifts his weight a little so he’s looming over you. You square your shoulders, refusing to step back. He gives you a calculating look, grins. “Better save our energy for later.”

He strolls off, knowing that you have no choice but to follow him. 

“Are you okay?” Akilah asks once he’s out of earshot. “You look kind of um…”

You don’t want to think about what you look like right now. 

“He is such a fucking asshole,” Mari complains, slipping her arm through yours. “Remind me why we brought him?”

“He’s the only one who knows the way, Mar,” Akilah reminds her. 

“Ugh.” Mari turns to you. “He totally has it out for both of us.”

You tense. “He’s barely spoken to me.”

“No, he just weirdly stares at you. Like a lot.”

“You didn’t notice?” Akilah asks, her brow creased in concern. 

“No, I mean…” you stammer.

“Maybe he likes her.” Misty chirps at your elbow.

“Ohmygod Misty.” Mari’s voice is heavy with disgust. “Stop projecting your weird old man fetish onto the rest of us.”

None of you really want to think about Ben, so mercifully the subject drops. You walk in silence, barely listening to them. Your thoughts draw back to Kodiak. You think part of him likes it, when you challenge him. You’re also sure he’s going to make you pay for it later.

A little after noon, you hit the next roadblock. Kodiak stands looking out over an uneven expanse of rock. You can tell from the set of his shoulders that he’s frustrated. 

“Rockslide took the trail with it,” he tells your group tersely when you catch up to him. “We’ll have to backtrack, cut through the valley and up the other side.”

Nat surveys the rocky scree. You guess she’s thinking the same thing you are: you might make it but the ground will be treacherous and none of you have decent shoes. 

“We’ll lose a lot of height,” she comments. Going uphill is a long, difficult slog and losing altitude seems like a waste. 

Kodiak shrugs. “That’s why the trail was up here. Emphasis on was.”

Natalie glances at the green valley below you. This high up, you’re looking down onto treetops. 

“Is it dangerous?”

“Everywhere out here is dangerous.” Kodiak rolls his eyes. You bristle at that: as thought Nat – as though any of you – needs to be told the Wilderness isn’t safe. “Especially places I haven’t been before.” He hooks his thumbs into his belt, casts a glance back the way you’ve come. “Still better than what’s behind us.”

None of you have much choice except to turn back. Covering the same ground twice is dispiriting but at least you’re walking downhill this time. It’s unseasonably hot for September and mostly people walk in irritable silence. Everything starts to look the same: you’re starting to wonder if you’ve veered off course when you see a stream you passed earlier, falling like a bead curtain over a rocky outcrop and pooling into a natural basin. Kodiak takes pity on your group because he lets you stop to drink and soak your feet. Some of the others strip off their outer layers, soaking them in the water, wringing them and letting the damp fabric cool them down. You wish you could join them. There’s a natural cave behind it and you wander into the cool dark. It doesn’t look like much from the outside but it goes back further than you’d think. 

“Not joining the wet tshirt contest, huh?”

You hadn’t heard Kodiak approach. 

“I might if someone hadn’t left a mark,” you tell him irritably. 

“Hey, you started it.” He indicates the spot on his shoulder where you bit him. There’s a faint crescent shaped smear of blood on his shirt. You hope the others haven’t noticed. Bloodstains are unremarkable out here. “At least I was nice about mine.”

“Speaking of nice,” you say, rounding on him. “Do you think you can ease up on the others for five fucking seconds?”

He catches your wrist. “I mean, if you want to improve my mood…”

You jerk your arm free. The rocks are slick underfoot and you almost fall. Kodiak steadies you and doesn’t let go, one hand on your elbow, the other resting on your hip. 

You glance towards the cave entrance. So far the others haven’t seen you. 

“Oh so that wasn’t blackmail before?” Kodiak asks, his tone deceptively pleasant. “I can never tell with you: are you flirting or just making threats.”

You scowl at him. “You’re one to talk. Which is this?”

He smiles and lets go of your arm so he can trace your jawline with a fingertip, tilting your chin up so you’re forced to face him. His other hand lingers possessively on your hip, one thumb hooked into your belt loop. “See that’s the thing. I think you like it better when it’s both.”

The mortifying thing is, he’s not wrong. You could push him off you but you’re afraid he’ll let you go.

“I don’t think you actually want to be rescued,” he continues. You’re too taken aback to stutter out a protest. Kodiak steps into your space, pushing you with him until your back hits the cool stone behind you and you’re caged in his arms. “I think you’ve been out here so long, danger’s started to feel like home. I think you want more.” 

“I know what we’ve been through is some giant fucking joke to you,” you retort. You realise you’re being way too loud and drop your voice into a furious hiss. The worst part is, on some level he’s right; there is no going back to how things were. Either you’re going to die or you’re going to have to live with the knowledge of what you’ve done. “None of us asked for this. I didn’t– I should be a sophomore in college by now.” It’s getting harder to speak coherently. You dig your nails into your arm, willing yourself to keep it together. “I want to go home, okay? I want to be normal.”

You break off, hating the plaintive note in your voice. 

Kodiak scoffs. “We both know you’re a long way past normal.” He shakes his head slightly, studying you, like you’ve disappointed him somehow. You hate how much it stings. “Trust me. Civilisation’s going to bore you to tears.” 

“You are such a fucking asshole!” you snap, forgetting to be quiet. You wrench free from his grip and shove him. You have no hope of overpowering him but he takes a step backwards; his expression is amused, humouring you even as you storm off. 

“What happened?” Akilah asks, as you nearly knock her and Mari over.

“Nothing! Sorry!” You don’t look round, you just keep heading for the treeline as fast as you can without breaking into a run. You don’t really want to be around the others right now either. You’re all gambling your lives on Kodiak’s ability to guide you safely through the Wilderness: maybe if they’d known his real motivation they wouldn’t have come. Maybe you’ve just put them in worse danger. “I just need to stretch my legs a minute.”

“Um, we’ve literally been walking all day?” Mari calls after you. 

You don’t get far – between the hike and rationing what little food you brought, you don’t have the stamina. It’s probably not a good idea to go out of earshot of the others. You just needed to get away for a minute. At some point during winter you reconciled yourself with the fact you were going to die out here and all the fear and rage and longing kind of froze over inside you. Now because of him they’re thawing. It hurts.

You take a few minutes to calm down, before you head back. The trees are so thick it’s easy to feel like you’re the only person here. They also, apparently, make it very easy for someone who knows how to be quiet to sneak up on you. 

“You can stay mad if you want,” Kodiak tells you, grabbing your arm as though he’s afraid you’ll bolt again. “Whatever: it’s cute. But you do not just run off.”

You try to jerk away but he’s too fast: he catches you around the middle and shoves you into a tree trunk so he can keep you pinned. It’s covered in moss so thick it’s like sinking into shaggy green fur. For all you know, nobody else has ever been here. The two of you could be the first people ever to see this tree. Maybe the last too. 

“You realise there could be wolves out here?” He shakes you a little for emphasis and you realise you might actually have scared him a little.

“Whatever.” You try to wrench free. It doesn’t work: he’s too strong and too pissed to let you. You settle for glaring at him instead. “We’ve faced wolves before.”

“How’d that work out for you?”

You’re hit with the memory of teeth; of half of Van’s face hanging off; of holding her down while the others sewed it up, your hands so slippery with blood you could hardly keep your grip, your sobs blending with her screams. 

“I thought I was addicted to danger?” you spit back at him. “What do you care?”

You shove as hard as you can and manage to almost stagger him. Almost. 

“Drop the teenage bullshit.” Kodiak leans down to snarl directly into your face. “You made yourself my problem when you begged me to get you off this mountain. You don’t get to complain about how I do it.”

Everything is so dangerous out here – even more now you’ve fled your makeshift village – that you forget he’s dangerous too. You’d bested him before but only because your teammates had him outnumbered. Out here it’s just you and him. 

You know the sensible thing to do would be to apologise, quietly go back with him, and keep giving him whatever he wants once the others are asleep. But you’re not ready to swallow your pride just yet, so you do what you did last time he was threatening you and drag him down into a kiss. 

There’s no hesitation this time. Kodiak grabs a handful of your shirt and pulls you up onto your tiptoes, so hard the worn fabric rips. You try to pull away, knowing you’ll have to explain it later, but he follows you backwards, slamming you back into the tree trunk. You gasp at the impact, leaving your mouth open for him to deepen the kiss. Kodiak slides his hands under your thighs, lifting you so you’re on a level with him and using his bodyweight to keep you pinned in place. You feel a thrill at how easily he moves you, somewhere between fear and desire. 

“You going to do this every time you lose a fight?” He speaks the words almost into your mouth, his voice rough. His breathing is fast but nowhere near as ragged as your own. He doesn’t give you a chance to answer him before he kisses you again.

You hadn’t planned beyond distracting him. His thigh is planted between yours; your bodyweight presses the seam of your jeans into you. The friction makes it hard to think coherently. His hands are in your hair, running over your body, touching you to prove he can – whether he’s proving it to himself or to you you’re not sure. It’s rough, unrelenting. You don’t want him to stop. 

You wrap a leg around his for leverage, pressing your calf against the back of his knee to stagger him, so he lurches into you, your bodies pressed close together. You rake a hand through his hair and pull a little to remind him you’re still mad at him. He groans low into your mouth, the muffled sound reverberating through his body and into yours. The sound utterly undoes you. Kodiak slides a hand under your torn shirt, to your breast. You bite down on a whimper, afraid the others will hear. 

Shit! You forgot about the others. The thought is like being doused in freezing water. You turn your head to break the kiss and Kodiak follows you, forcing you to twist away from him until your cheek is pressed flat against the moss covered bark. 

“Wait. We’ve been gone too long.”

Kodiak goes in to press a kiss to your lips, feathering more across your jaw. “I’m starting to think you get off on sneaking around.”

You push him away regretfully. You try to recover some of the annoyance you felt before.

“Oh sure. I love hiking in layers to cover the marks you left, trying to pretend I’m not sore from last night…”

The way Kodiak smirks, you’re pretty sure he took that as a compliment. You plant your hands on his chest and try to push him. 

“Seriously. Let me go.” You do your best to sound angry.

“Well you weren’t complaining at the time.” He grabs your wrists and pins them either side of your head. He leans in to kiss you. You use the last of your self control to turn your face away. He settles for talking directly into your ear instead. His beard is rough against your cheek. “And we both know I could have been a lot rougher.”

His voice is heavy with promise. Despite yourself, you turn to face him. 

“And I mean, last night: you did kind of owe me,” he tells you. His voice is rough too: low and intimate against your ear. You feel a guilty thrill go through you.

There’s a metallic click. You’d know it anywhere: the sound of the rifle’s safety being switched off. You turn and face the absolutely worst person who could be pointing a gun at you right now.

“What the fuck do you mean she owes you?”

A/N: Thank you so much for reading. If you enjoyed it please tell me: it's what keeps me going. I'm working on two more request fills, which should be out shortly. To everyone who sent in a request: thank you for being patient I will get to it. To everyone else, requests are still open but it may take a while.

[Edited 10th June '25]

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girl ty for writing a kodiak fic, ur a godsend frr🙏🙏 can you write one where they go through with the plan of hiking to the rescue point and at night kodiak and reader have to share a tent, also pls include choking if you can

A/N: Thank you so much for this prompt, Anon! I wanted to write a continuation and I had a lot of fun figuring out how to make this work: I hope you like it!

Trust Me

Summary: Follow up to Bite Me. Kodiak and the Reader have some unfinished business to resolve.

Content: Intended for 18+ readers. Smut, breathplay, dubcon, age difference (Reader is over 18.) Mature content under the cut.

Back when you still dreamed of rescue, before winter, you never imagined it like this. You imagined stepping onto the sun warmed asphalt of a runway, all your families waiting for you. At first you imagined other things too – a passing plane noticing smoke from your fire, a search and rescue team just over the next ridge – until you realised just how bad your odds were. Thinking about the logistics of it became too depressing but kept turning the image of home over and over in your mind, like a river rock worn smooth from handling. 

Now, scrambling up a rocky slope with a handful of your teammates, questioning whether every bird call is the friends you abandoned hunting you, you realise how wrong you were. Rescue isn’t something that’s going to happen to you. It’s something you have to claw your way towards: you’re so physically drained you can barely walk straight; you’ve betrayed more of your teammates that you’ve saved; you have no doubt the others will hunt you for it.

Kodiak, the reason you’re here, pauses on top of the ridge and turns to survey the rest of your group, straggling behind him. They know you were the one to offer him a deal: his freedom in exchange for all of yours. They don’t know how you persuaded him to put his neck on the line for you. It’s not that you think they’d judge you: you’ve all done far, far worse to survive. But you’re not so sure they’ll trust him if they find out he has an ulterior motive. It’s probably not a good idea for that particular secret to come out when they’re all twitchy, paranoid and clutching whatever weapons they managed to grab. You try not to take it as a bad sign that Hannah refused to come. You can't exactly fault her for not trusting you but it worries you that she had so little faith in Kodiak.

You manage to stagger over the ridge. The hill falls away on the other side into a bowl shaped scoop, too small to be a real valley. The soles of your shoes are worn dangerously smooth: you cut ridges into them with a knife twice already over the past fifteen months; now they’re so thin you can feel each individual pebble through them and there’s no more left to cut. A stone slides under you, almost pitching you down the rocky incline.

Kodiak catches you. It frightens you a little, how strong he is. You’ve spent over a year in a society made up almost entirely of girls. You’re not used to the space an adult man takes up. His physical presence is overwhelming. 

Even though you’re dreading the others finding out, you still hope he might say something to you, let you know where you stand. Instead, he sets you on your feet and looks back irritated at the others. His hands linger on your arms, making sure you’re steady, but that’s it. You tell yourself it’s ridiculous to feel disappointed.

“We’re losing light,” he tells your group, not addressing you at all. “We can camp down the slope here.”

Camp in an optimistic word for it: you were only able to grab a few things that wouldn't be missed, plus tearing apart the researchers’ campsite for anything the others hadn't got around to bringing back. You have three tarps, less blankets than people, a single scavenged sleeping bag, and very little food. Kodiak finds a couple of low hanging branches to hang your scavenged tarps over and pin the third over a jutting ledge of rock, securing the edges with rocks. Your makeshift shelters are cramped and drafty, but it'll at least keep the weather off you. 

Kodiak insists there’s no way the others could keep up with you but when your fellow escapees insist on keeping watch, he volunteers to take the first. He’s the only one of you who doesn’t look about to collapse: you’re all in better shape than you were last winter but life out here has still taken its toll on all of you. None of you want to risk a fire, so the others fall into exhausted, aching piles under whichever shelter's closest, sharing stolen blankets, not caring who they lie down next to. 

When you go to fall in beside them, Kodiak wraps a hand around your elbow, pulls you back. “You're with me.” 

You wish you’d had chance to talk to him privately about what happened between you. Between the frenzy of planning and then nearly a full day and night of hard hiking, you haven't exactly had a chance to be alone. Now you have a chance, you’re afraid of what he might say. 

“Get some sleep,” he tells you, holding the tarp away from the rocky overhang so you can slip inside. There’s not much room but then you won’t need much: you’re going to have to share body heat anyway. He's managed to snag the only sleeping bag and you stumble into the shelter, grateful to have something between you and the ground. 

You know you should probably sleep in your clothes in case you need to run in the night. Except the air smells like it might snow later and your jeans are damp to the knee from pushing through wet undergrowth. You’re not sure if it’s cold enough to get hypothermia yet but you don’t want to test it. You kick off your shoes, shimmy out of your jeans, and then dig in your pack to swap your shirt and bra for a dark green shirt you raided from the researchers camp that you think is probably Kodiak's. Your last thought, as you slip into the sleeping bag, is that it smells like him. 

You wake to the rustle of the tarp being pushed aside. At first you think it’s morning but the light is silvery: through the opening in the tarp you can see the moon, just past full. You peer out groggily and see another figure pacing around the clearing, blowing on her cupped hands for warmth. Mari.

Kodiak kicks off his boots and shoulders off his jacket before unzipping the sleeping bag just enough to let him slip inside. You shift to make room for him, so used to huddling for warmth by now that you forget to be awkward. 

Kodiak wraps an arm around your waist, pulling your back against his chest. You can feel his breath warm on your shoulder and you press into him, grateful for the body heat. His thumb traces lazy circles on your stomach, then stops. “Is this my shirt?” 

“I didn't think you'd mind–”

Your concept of personal property has kind of eroded while you've been out here. You all just share, reaching for whatever's nearest. Kodiak's so comfortable out here you forget he's not like you.

“I didn’t say I minded.” Kodiak’s voice turns low and husky against your ear. He hooks a finger into the neckline, baring your shoulder for him to kiss. Then he slides a hand down your ribs, ghosting over your bare thigh, tracing the edge of your underwear with a fingertip. 

You bat his hand away.

“Mari will hear us.” 

“Who cares? She’s eaten human flesh. You really think this is going to be the thing that traumatises her?” 

You tense. You wish he wouldn’t just come out and say it like that but you don’t defend yourself. 

“She'll wake up the whole camp. You really want to have that conversation with them right now?” You’ve seen how quickly things can unravel when tensions are running high. Nat’s as close to snapping as you’ve ever seen her. She’s pushed herself twice as hard as the rest of you, always on guard, expecting threats from every direction. Rescue’s been snatched away once when Lottie killed the other researcher, then again when Shauna refused to let you leave. You don’t think she’ll trust this is real until her feet touch New Jersey soil. 

Kodiak glances around the edge of the tarp to see Mari, leaning heavily against a tree. Moonlight outlines the barrel of the rifle at her side. He huffs quietly in annoyance but lies still, pulling you close. 

“Remind me why you had to bring your friends?”

You pretend not to hear him because you don’t have an answer he’ll like. You only had a few hours to bring people in and any one of them could have betrayed you. Your co-conspirators are the ones with the most to fear from staying: the ones least likely to survive another hunt, the ones Shauna hates most. You try not to think about the people who will be hunted in their place: the ones whose loyalties you couldn’t be sure of. The truth is, it’s the bargain you’ve made with yourself: if you can get a handful of them out, maybe you’ll be able to live with the ones you left to die. 

You struggle to get back to sleep after that. You’re not sure what the rules are between you and Kodiak, which is a dangerous thing not to know when you’re fairly sure your life (all your lives) depend on following them. You have no idea what he’s going to expect from you, before you reach the rescue point. Assuming he’s not bored of you by then. You have a feeling it would be dangerous to bore him. You drift in and out of an uneasy sleep, Kodiak’s arm slung over your waist like an anchor. 

The next time you wake, it’s to a hand over your mouth in the darkness. You lash out on instinct, thrashing as your legs tangle in the sleeping bag. Then you remember where you are and who you’re with. You stop struggling and twist your neck so you can see his expression. Kodiak lets go of your mouth but you’re not sure whether it’s safe to speak.

“Turns out your friend’s a pisspoor guard,” he breathes against your ear. He twitches the tarp aside briefly, to reveal Mari in a slumped heap. If not for the rise and fall of her chest you might think she was dead. The trek has been hard on her: she’s not a hunter or a forager used to covering miles, and her knee has never been quite right since she dislocated it. You worry what’s going to happen when Kodiak realises that; you don’t doubt he’d leave anyone who slowed him down behind. 

You go to get up, meaning to wake her. Kodiak splays a hand over your abdomen, anchoring you in place. 

“Let her sleep.”

You frown at him. “We’ll be unprotected–”

“We’ll be fine. Like I tried telling you all: the others don’t know the way and trying to track us will slow them down. There’s no way they’re keeping pace with us.”

You really want to believe that’s true. 

“Anyway,” Kodiak says, pressing a line of kisses along your shoulder and to the sensitive point behind your ear. “We have unfinished business.”

“The others–” 

“Are tired enough to sleep through anything. We’ll be quiet.”

You feel a guilty twist of desire at his words. It’s not like you’re not attracted to him. 

You try to twist to face him but there’s hardly any space between you. Kodiak holds you still, his chest solid against your back. The hand on your stomach trails downwards, sliding inside your underwear. You bite down on a gasp and Kodiak shushes you, silencing you with a free hand over your mouth. 

“Okay?” he asks quietly against your ear. You’re surprised he’s asking: both of you know that your survival depends on him. Maybe he just wants to remind you that you started this: you’re complicit. You nod into his palm. 

He’s more measured than the last time, more deliberate. You realise that he’s trying to make the next part more comfortable for you. His touch kindles something in you that you thought was long burned out. Right when your desire is about to crest, he pulls his hand away. 

You grasp his wrist with both hands, trying to keep it there, making a muffled, needy whine into his palm. 

“My turn,” he whispers into your neck. You spit muffled obscenities, making him chuckle. 

You help him peel your underwear out of the way. He’s hard against you and you brace yourself for pain, worrying you can’t take him. He enters you slowly and you hiss: it’s less painful than you expected but it still stings. He murmurs encouragement, rubbing slow circles into your hip, letting you adjust. 

“You don’t know what it does to me, you wearing my clothes” he tells you. You feel the rasp of his beard on the sensitive flesh behind your ear, his breath stirring your hair. “Makes you look like you’re mine.”

Kodiak slides a hand under the shirt, palming your breast. You moan faintly in response. He takes it as encouragement to start moving, carefully at first. The discomfort turns to a pleasant burn. You roll your hips, matching your rhythm to his and he rewards you by increasing the pace. 

His hand slides down from your jaw to curl around your throat. You tense, remembering when you attacked him, how quickly he’d overpowered you. 

“Do you trust me?” he asks. 

The question confuses you. Of course you trust him: you’ve gambled your life – your friend’s lives – on his ability to get you home. You’re just not sure if you trust him not to hurt you. But it’s too late to stop this thing between you. 

“I trust you.”

He guides one of your hands to cover your mouth, then returns his to your throat. He doesn’t squeeze exactly, just curls his fingers round your neck with a gentle pressure, anchoring you in place. It’s just tight enough to make you breathless, your sensations heightened. It’s nothing like your encounter in the clearing: the need to be quiet means it has to be slow, even sensual. Your world shrinks to the two of you, the movement of your bodies, the tent filling with soft, breathy noises. Kodiak lets go of your throat when you come, his hand covering yours covering your mouth. His pace gets faster, rougher, until he comes too, burying his face in your neck to muffle the sound. 

Neither of you talk after. He presses a kiss to your throat, winds a strand of your hair lazily through his fingers. You worry that one of your teammates might have heard something but all you can hear is normal night time noises: the rustling of the wind in the branches, the occasional night bird, a faint snore from one of the other tents. The tiredness hits you again but this time you feel boneless, pleasantly drowsy. 

You’re almost asleep when he breaks the silence. You didn’t realise he was still awake.

“You did good today.”

“Yeah?” It’s faintly mortifying how much you want him to praise you. 

“Yeah.” He sounds sleepy, relaxed. It’s the first time you’ve heard him like that which, considering the last few days, is probably fair. He traces lazy patterns across your skin with his fingertips 

“What do you think our chances are?” you blurt. “Of getting there, I mean?”

“Hundred percent.” You’re not sure whether it’s reassuring or worrying, the way he doesn’t even pause to think.

“What if–” You were about to say what if the Wilderness won’t let us leave but you realise just in time how insane it sounds. There’s a lot of other what ifs: what if the others catch up to us, what if someone gets too hurt to keep up, what if there’s an early blizzard?

“Stick with me,” he tells you, his voice gravelly with sleep. “Whatever happens I am going to get the both of us off this mountain.”

You’re not sure what he means by that, how transactional this thing between you is. But it doesn’t matter: you’re getting yourself and the others back to civilisation, no matter what. If he’s the best way to do that then whatever he wants you’ll do it. Strangely, the thought calms you. You fall into a dark, dreamless sleep.

Part Three

A/N: Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed it then please let me know. I enjoy writing these but knowing people want to read them is what gets them off my hard drive and onto Tumblr. Requests are open.

[obscuraimagines]

PLZZZ a kodiak piece w the prompt “I won’t bite. unless you’re into that kind of thing” and/or “watch your fucking mouth””… I beg

A/N: Thank you so much for this prompt Anon! It turned out longer than I expected but I had such a blast writing it. Hope you enjoy!

Bite Me

Summary: You're a Yellowjacket on guard duty and Kodiak has made it his personal mission to get under your skin.

Warnings: violence, choking, biting, smut, maybe dubcon if you squint.

You’d never expected to meet a new person again. Your world shrunk when the plane crashed, whittling downwards with every new death. Your memories of Home were getting hazy, muddled, the way dreams slipped away on waking. Only the Wilderness felt real. 

When three strangers appear in your camp, it feels like the world order is turning on its head. As far as you’re concerned, there are only thirteen other people left in the world. The appearance of strangers feels so cataclysmic that at first you think it must be a dream or a vision. 

And then one of the strangers yells and falls forwards. Your memories get jumbled after that. Lottie standing over him with an axe, her face striped with blood. A choked laugh. Nat’s scream. Something whistles past your face and behind you someone cries out in pain. The others start running and you run with them, tearing off your cloak, the night air singing past your ears. The hunt comes as a relief, a return to something you can understand. 

That’s the first time you see Kodiak: a dark figure blurred by firelight, a shadow flashing through the trees. 

The second time he’s being brought back to camp at gunpoint. You’re not disposed to like him: you’re sore from running, one knee skinned from a fall you don’t remember taking. The other prisoner, Hannah, looks almost like she could be one of you: big doe eyes and a round face that makes her look like a teenager. Even after trying to hide in a ditch, everything about her looks fresh, clean and new. 

Kodiak looks like he belongs here: he's tall, well-muscled, dressed in outdoor gear. There’s an economy to his movements that makes you think he must be a hunter. He has a gnarled scar on his neck, a jagged line through one eyebrow, and you see the start of another where his collar opens. Later you find yourself thinking about it; how he got it, how far it extends under his shirt. 

You gave up on the thought of going home so long ago you’re too stunned to accept it’s really happening. Then it isn’t. You watch Kodiak mouth off to Shauna and the world seems to go into slow motion, like the moment before an accident where you can only watch, frozen in horror. You feel a hand squeeze your arm in warning and realise you’ve taken a step forward without meaning to. Akilah looks at you like you’re insane. Maybe you are.

Despite your best efforts, your mind keeps drawing back to him like a magnet. You tell yourself he’s not that interesting, it’s only the novelty of a new person in camp. You ignore the fact you’re not thinking about Hannah. You wonder what kind of name Kodiak is, whether it’s first, or last, or just a nickname he’d picked up. Once you hear Hannah call him Kodi. You don’t though: it seems overfamiliar, considering you’re collectively holding him prisoner.

You notice him watching you. After a year out here, you’d forgotten what it was like to be looked at. Back in highschool you were always conscious of other people’s eyes on you. Out here, you’re free to move: no one cares if your shirt rides up, or stares when you bend over. You think nothing of walking from one hut to another in the oversized shirt you slept in, or stripping down to a sports bra and shorts while you haul water. The first time you catch him, you don’t even realise what he’s looking at; you go to the water bucket to check if there’s something on your face. The second time, you’re chopping wood: you meet his eyes and glare, grip tightening on the axe. He only chuckles to himself. You avoid him after that. 

Until it’s your turn on guard duty. Every time one of the prisoners needs to pee, someone has to take them into the woods at gunpoint. There’s a rule about not going too close to camp, so it’s not a quick trip. And that’s how you and Travis – him with the gun, you with the confiscated crossbow – end up escorting Kodiak into the woods. For reasons you don’t understand, the man seems to have made it his personal mission to antagonise anyone pointing a weapon at him. You wonder if he actually wants to die: if he saw what was left of Ben and decided he’d prefer a quick death to a slow one. 

After he’s done, he takes advantage of his hands being untied to shrug his overshirt off. You see twin scars across his arms, long and straight, almost surgical. He looks up from knotting his shirt around his waist and catches you staring. He holds your gaze, grins lazily. 

Travis shifts his weight so he’s between the two of you, adjusts his hold on the gun. You’re grateful he doesn’t make a big deal of it, grateful he has your back. You thought he was such an asshole when you met him, now it’s like he’s everyone’s older brother. (You try not to think about the space he’s trying to fill.)

“Hands,” he tells Kodiak. Kodiak rolls his eyes but complies for once. It doesn’t really bother you that he looks to Travis and ignores you – Travis is the longest serving hunter, you’re barely an assistant. But Kodiak looks straight past Nat and Shauna too. 

There’s a sound to your right. The three of you freeze and turn towards it. The deer is maybe a hundred yards away through the trees, pebbles showering where it stumbles on the rocky slope. 

“Can you make the shot?” you ask Travis, out of the side of your mouth, voice hushed. 

He shakes his head once, frustrated. 

“I can,” Kodiak says. “Give me the bow.”

You both give him identical flat looks. He holds up his hands in mock surrender. “Fine, let 400 lbs of meat just walk away. Good luck surviving winter.”

You hate that he has a point. You glance up the slope, to where the deer’s haunches flash in and out of view between the trees. Travis isn’t as good a shot as Nat but he’s the better tracker and he can stalk a deer for miles if he needs to. 

“Go,” you tell Travis. There’s no time to hesitate: you could lose sight of the deer any second. 

He looks from you, to Kodiak, then back to you. He doesn’t need to say what a bad idea it is, leaving you alone. You don’t need to tell him what happens when the food runs out. He goes.

As soon as Travis is gone, you realise your mistake. Kodiak’s hands are still untied. You don’t trust him to do it himself and you can’t put down the crossbow. He’s studying you – patient, calculating. The way you were just looking at the deer.

“You should have given me the bow.” 

You take a half step back, widening your stance to brace yourself, training his stolen weapon on him. You hope desperately that Travis will be back soon. 

“You still could, you know,” Kodiak adds, in a tone that’s almost friendly. He looks you up and down but there’s no interest in it this time: it’s purely professional, a predator weighing up where and when to strike. 

“Or I could just shoot you with it.”

Kodiak sighs. “Look, kid, I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You only get one shot,” he explains, almost patiently, when you try to stare him out. “How fast can you reload?”

“I won’t miss.” You try to sound threatening but the truth is, you haven’t practised with the crossbow: the bolts are too precious to risk losing. 

He takes a cautious step towards you, hands raised. You’re not sure if he’s trying to placate you or just getting ready to grab your weapon. 

“If the others hear me scream–” you begin. You realise it's the wrong thing to say as you hear yourself say it. 

“Not so brave without your boyfriend, huh?”

“Travis is not my boyfriend,” you snap. Even the thought of it puts you on edge; one of the unspoken rules you all live by is that Travis is off-limits. 

Kodiak raises an eyebrow, aware he’s touched a nerve. 

“Figures. I mean I get why he doesn’t want to leave: stranded in the woods with a bunch of teenage girls…”

“Shut up.” You hate how childish you sound. The way he’s talking to you like some kid, not to mention his patronising smirk, gets under your skin. In the real world you would have graduated highschool by now, started college. You've grown into an adult out here instead. He has no idea what you’ve seen. What you’ve done. It’d be one thing if he was horrified or disgusted – you probably deserve it. But his dismissal rankles.

“Make me.” Kodiak brushes off your rage like it’s nothing. “I mean… It must be his own personal Girls Gone Wild.”

You don’t understand the reference but the leer behind it is unmistakable. His gaze locks with yours. You try to focus on the weapon in your hand, your finger on the trigger, not wanting to back down and break his gaze, not wanting to meet it either. 

“No, I mean, I get it. We interrupted your weird forest orgy or whatever.” He rakes his eyes over you, taking in your bare legs, tattered shorts, t-shirt worn so thin it’s almost see through, wild hair long since grown out of any kind of style. You feel his gaze trail back over your legs like a physical touch. “I could step in. If you like.”

It’s definitely a trap. He’s trying to confuse you, piss you off, get under your guard. It was stupid of you to think that he might want you after what he’s seen. After what you’ve done. 

“Throw you a bone.” His eyes linger on your hair. You realise with a jolt that the top part of your hair is twisted back with an animal bone in place of a hair stick, a detail so unremarkable to you you hadn’t thought about it. You think what you must look like to him: ragged clothes, sole peeling off one shoe, all the softness whittled out of you.

“Relax,” he tells you. He rolls his shoulders in a shrug that reminds you of a jungle cat. You’ve never actually been hunted. You wonder if this is what Natalie felt like when you hunted her. “I know an animal bone when I see one.”

There’s two ways out of this and neither of them are good: either he kills you or you kill him. The second one only means you die slower. It’s a miracle that anyone stumbled across your camp. He told the others that the rescue point was six days away: wherever you are, it must be remote. No one found you, no one’s going to find him, or Hannah or the other guy. If you were waiting for rescue, this is it. You won't get another chance. 

He takes another step towards you. You realise he’s been backing you into a tree. You sidestep, keeping the crossbow bolt pointed at his neck. 

Kodiak must be able to read the indecision on your face because he steps closer, his voice dropping low, persuasive. There’s no way you could miss him at this range. He’s close enough to grab the bow but he doesn’t. 

“What are you so scared of?” he asks, his tone deceptively soft, mocking you. “I don’t bite.” His mouth curves into a cruel smile. “I mean, unless you’re into that kind of thing.”

“Th–The others–” you stutter. You hate how scared your voice sounds. How young. 

Kodiak throws an exaggerated look back towards your camp. “They won’t get to you in time.”

“They’ll hunt you down.”

“They can try.”

“Shauna will–”

“Shauna’s the angry one, right?” Kodiak asks. “Isn’t she fucking that blonde I shot? Think I’ll be fine.”

So he's smart enough to pick up on that but he's completely misread everything else. Shauna Shipman cares about two people and both of them are dead. You don’t kid yourself that she’ll mourn you. But she’ll want revenge. Her rage is like a forest fire, all consuming. 

“You need to be careful how you talk to her,” you tell him. Obnoxious as he is, he’s your only real shot at rescue: you need him alive. “Shauna’s–”

“Shauna,” Kodiak loads the name with derision. “Is a teenage girl starving in the woods who’s too dumb to get out. You must all have Stockholm Syndrome for the fucking trees. But hey: you want to stay and die with her, be my guest.”

“You don’t know what she’s been through–” You're so used to making allowances that the words fall off your tongue, automatic. 

Kodiak rolls his eyes, looks up at the canopy above you as though something up there might make sense. “Oh I’m sorry. I didn’t realise being a cannibal gave you credibility.”

The word hits you like a slap. You’re all so careful not to say it. Sometimes you think there’s more meaning in the silence, the things you all only hint at, than there is in words. It’s like there’s meaning here that language cannot touch. Or maybe there’s something actually deeply wrong with Lottie and you’ve all just been out of your minds with hunger and desperation, communing with the sounds frogs make while they fuck. You hate Kodiak in that moment for being the one to make you see it. 

“Why don't you stop making excuses for the bitch queen of PMS–”

You slam into him. Because okay, Shauna is hateful and volatile and sometimes you kind of think she might want you all dead. But she’s still your leader. Your queen. He has no right to talk about her like that. He’s never had to carry a child’s too-light body home from a hunt. Never delivered a baby, blood and placenta smeared to the elbows. You’ve starved and scraped and hunted each other and he’s still talking about you like a bunch of dumb teenagers at sleepaway camp.

It’s clear from the way he stumbles that he wasn’t expecting you to be so fast. His back collides hard against the tree trunk, half winded, the crossbow bolt jabbed into the unprotected skin of his throat. 

“I thought I told you to watch your fucking mouth.” You stand on tiptoes to snarl directly into his face, arm braced on his for balance. “Do you realise you’re our only ticket out of here? And you can’t go five fucking minutes without antagonising–”

He sweeps your arm aside without warning. Your hand clenches in panic, the bolt misfiring. You realise your mistake too late: you should never have let him know you needed him. You jerk away from him but he sweeps your leg with his, tackling you to the ground. 

You fight, kicking out in panic but his legs are between yours, his torso pinning yours to the ground, one of your arms trapped between you. You buck your hips, trying to arch your back and throw him off. You claw at his eyes with your free hand and try to yell but all that comes out is a winded snarl. He catches your wrist, pinning it above your head, his other hand wrapped around your throat, his forearm pinning your shoulder. 

His hand tightens around your throat, black spots blurring the edges of your vision. Your heels scrabble uselessly against the forest floor. You can feel your blood pounding in your ears, your heartbeat fast and frantic. It’s getting harder and harder to move. 

“Go on.” His voice sounds like it’s coming from further away than it is. “Scream.”

You can’t. You don’t give him the satisfaction of trying to choke out any sound.

“Nod if you’re going to cooperate.”

You jerk your chin down once into his hand. 

“Good girl.” Kodiak loosens his grip just enough to stop you blacking out. You want to spit at him but your mouth is dry. 

Kodiak leans right down, so close you feel his breath ghosting the shell of your ear. His beard brushes against your temple. You can’t see his face at this angle, only the muscle and tendons of his throat. He blots out the sky and forest canopy above you. 

“Forget them,” he whispers, low and dangerous. “Worry about pissing me off.”

You can feel his voice vibrate in your chest, feel the warmth of his breath against your ear. Your breasts are squashed against the hard muscle of his chest, his body moulded to yours. 

Kodiak hums in the back of his throat, almost a growl. The side of his mouth grazes your temple when he speaks. “Are you ready to behave?”

You let yourself go limp. You feel Kodiak relax his grip just a little, still restraining you but in his mind the fight is over. He lets you choke in a ragged gasp of air, his hand resting over your throat like a warning.

“Thought you might–”

You spend the last of your strength to wrench upwards and bite the place his shoulder meets his neck. He recoils, letting out a startled yell. Blood floods your mouth, thick and metallic. 

“What the fuck?”

He’s not underestimating you anymore. You hook a leg around his knee, anchoring him to you. You know you can’t win but you don’t need to win, you only need to stop him from leaving. 

“Are all of you fucking insane?” he grunts, twisting a fistful of your hair around his hand and yanking your head backwards. You bare your teeth in an incoherent snarl, your mouth smeared with his blood. 

“Guess what? I do bite,” you pant, throwing his earlier jibe back at him. You manage to wrench your trapped arm free and go to jab his eye with your thumb. His reflexes are too good: he catches your wrist, pins it beside the other. His hand is big enough to hold both your wrists easily. You try to twist out from under him, buck your hips against him when it doesn't work. He shifts and you feel him hard against your thigh. You freeze, your mouth pulling into a shocked O. Kodiak stills and it takes him a second to read your expression before he growls in irritation. You feel it vibrate where his rib cage is pressed against yours and it seems to travel downwards, heat pooling low in your belly. 

“It’s your own fault for grinding on me,” he snarls. “Stop wriggling.”

You consider spitting his own blood back at him but decide against it. You swallow instead. You see his eyes trace the movement of your throat. Both of you are breathing hard, his arms striped with scratches, blood soaking into the sleeve of his singlet. Your scalp aches where he pulled your head away from his neck and you know you’ll feel bruised when the adrenaline wears off. Right now the exhilaration of the hunt is still in you, making you feel powerful. Kodiak looks at you with a new wariness. It’s not exactly respect but you’ll take it. He’s propped on his elbows, out of bite range, but your breasts still press against him with every ragged breath. Your heart’s beating so hard you can hear it, your senses on fire, full of energy with no place to go. You know you have to keep him here.

Something in you snaps. You surge upwards and kiss him with a bloody mouth. 

At first he jolts away from you, caught off guard. Then he’s kissing you back. There's real anger in it: the back of your head hits the forest floor with the force of his kiss. It's not romantic: all tongues and teeth, your nose crashing into his. You arch up into his kiss, the breathlessness leaving you dizzy. He seems to realise this isn't a pretext for another attack because he adjusts his grip on your neck, wrapping a hand around your jaw to tilt it upwards. He leaves his thumb resting against your windpipe, pressing just hard enough to remind you he’s in control.

You wonder if this is as transactional for him as it is for you. You don't think he's dumb enough to do this without at least some ulterior motive. But you can feel him hard against your thigh, and his heart is hammering your chest where he's pressed against you, echoing your own. 

You tell yourself you need to keep him here but the truth is, you don't want him to stop. You arch again, grinding your hips up into his again. You're only half aware of what you're doing but it seems to work because his breath hitches and he shifts, knocking your thighs wider with his hip. You part them for him, hooking your legs around his. 

He pulls back. Blood is smeared faintly across his jaw from your mouth. At first you think you've done something wrong but he's staring down at you, pupils blown with lust. 

Your hands are still crossed above your head, trapped under his. He traces the sensitive part of your wrist with a calloused thumb tip. His touch is breeze-light, a total contrast to how rough he's been with you. You shiver, unsure of where he's going but wanting to find out. 

“Are you going to be good?” He looks you in the eye and it's like his gaze is pinning you in place. 

“Do you want me to be good?” 

He grins crookedly at that, tracing calloused fingertips down the inside of your arm, pulling your loose shirt sleeve up with it. 

“Depends,” he says, close to your ear in a low voice that makes heat pool low in your belly. You feel slickness between your legs. “On whether you want me to go easy on you.” 

“I'm not going to be good,” you tell him, meeting his gaze with a challenge of your own. 

He makes a wordless noise of approval into your mouth as he kisses you again. He palms your breast with his free hand, and swallows your whimpering moan. The hand on your jaw travels to the back of your head, anchoring in your hair. He pulls your head aside, turning his attention to your jaw. You make a series of breathy noises no one else has ever managed to pull out of you. 

He sits back, pulling you with him. You whine in protest when you feel him let go but it’s only long enough to shove your shirt off your shoulders and peel your t-shirt over your head. You cross your arms over your chest, embarrassed by your tattered bra. 

“Oh, now you’re shy?” He pushes your arms aside, lowers his body onto yours. He reaches behind you for the clasp but it's been mended, badly, and won't come undone. Impatient, he makes do with slipping a hand under it instead, thumb flicking over a hardened nipple. You wrap your arms around him, fingertips tracing the scars across his arms by touch. His beard rasps against your skin and you realise he's sucking a lovebite onto your collarbone, the same spot you bit him. You try to pull back, worried about how you'll explain it later, but he holds you in place. 

“Payback’s a bitch, huh?” he mutters against your skin. You feel his teeth scrape against the newly sensitive skin, just hard enough to draw a gasp out of you. 

He trails kisses down your collarbone, over the swell of your breast. He bites you through the torn lace of your bra and you feel his smirk against your skin as you yelp. You grind your hips against his, taking satisfaction at the way his breath hitches. 

“Say you want this.” His hand finds the button of your shorts. You try to answer him with a kiss but he fixes you in place with his blue-eyed gaze. “I need an answer.”

You nod, breathless. He toys with the button, pulling away from you and holding you down when you try to follow him. “I want to hear it.” 

You’re not sure whether this is his attempt at being a gentleman, or if he just wants to hear you beg.

“I want this. I want you.” 

He grins wolfishly, teeth bared. “Good girl.” 

You scratch his bare shoulder in retaliation. But you don't mind so much this time: his words send a spike of something dark and guilty through you. You pull his singlet up his chest. You can't do much in this position but he decides to indulge you, yanking it off and discarding it on the forest floor before turning his attention back to you. You catch a glimpse of another scar stretching across his chest and long to map it with your tongue. 

Kodiak splays one hand across your breast bone, keeping you in place. The heel of his hand pressed against the tops of your breasts. With the other he unfastens the buttons of your shorts, shoving them down just enough to slip a hand inside. He takes his time, eyes never leaving yours. His fingers trail teasingly downwards, ghost over the soaked fabric of your underwear, before pushing them aside. 

His thumb traces a circle round your clit and you press a palm over your mouth just in time to stop yourself crying out. You can't be too loud. The thought of being discovered should terrify you but you wouldn't stop this now for anything. Kodiak smirks at that, enjoying the effect he's having on you. He slips one finger inside you, then another. He knows what he's doing and he's ruthless about it, making you writhe and moan beneath him. It's almost embarrassing, how easily he makes you fall apart. You bite your wrist when you come to muffle the sound. 

He pulls back, never breaking eye contact as he licks his fingers clean. There's still a faint smear of blood on his lip from where you kissed him. His eyes seem darker, pupils blown wide with lust. He kisses you, taking his time, making you taste yourself, and then gives you a moment, his forehead resting against yours, your breath mingling with his.

A distant gunshot tears the air. A flight of birds takes off from a nearby tree, filling the clearing with the sound of frantic wingbeats and their high, panicked cries. The two of you pull apart, startled. Kodiak shields you, to your surprise. A deer screams in the distance. Then a second shot. Then silence. 

“Fuck.” Kodiak sits back on his heels. His gaze lingers on you, spread out beneath him, before he wrenches it away. You kind of like how quickly he can snap back to himself, his body going tense, ready for danger. It makes you think that maybe he could understand you someday. “Fuck! How long until your friend comes looking for you?”

Probably not long. You reach for your shirt.  

“Fuck!” Kodiak says again with emphasis. “ Look: I’m not going back. You don’t have to either.”

“We should wait–” 

“That’s not the deal. Last train’s leaving the station. On or off.” 

He picks up the crossbow, tries to pull the bolt from the tree trunk where it’s lodged before giving it up for lost. It's so tempting to just leave with him. You're so sick of this life, always focusing on your own survival. You want to give up the weight of it for a while, let someone else take care of you. You desperately want to believe that he'll take care of you. 

You think of the others. There isn't a word for what you all are to each other now. The things you've been together have forged you into something wholly new. You don't think anyone could understand what you've been through unless it had happened to them. 

To his credit, Kodiak looks disappointed – maybe even sad – as he turns away. 

“I can get your shoes,” you blurt out. You can think quickly too and a plan is forming. You feel sick saying it. The lovebite feels like a brand on your shoulder, marking you as a traitor. You’re going to have to leave a lot of people behind – their loyalties are too uncertain to risk more. The ones you don’t bring will try to hunt you down. There’s a good chance you’ll both die, along with anyone you can convince to come with you. But maybe if you can save just a few – even just one – you'll be able to live with yourself afterwards. The odds are horrible. But you’ll take them over the slow certainty of winter. “I can get you the gun.”

That stops him in his tracks. You think, deep down, he knows he can’t make a six day hike barefoot and unarmed. Just like you know in your bones that you won’t survive another winter. He needs you as much as you need him. 

“Okay,” he says. “I’m listening.”

A/N: If you enjoyed reading this, please let me know. I'm not sure how much appetite there is for this character but I want to make the most of this hyperfixation while it lasts. Feel free to drop me a request if you'd like to see more.