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sojournerstales · 6 days ago

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RUNNING ON FUMES

Bridget turns on the car’s right turn blinker and merges. Denver’s midday traffic plumes exhaust, shimmering in the mid-spring’s unseasonal heat. She reaches to turn the radio on, thumb on the dial, but the light up ahead’s turned yellow. She brakes instead.

Middleton Hospital is a right turn and a few more blocks away. They called a few hours ago about John being scheduled for an afternoon release. It seems far too soon – it was only a few days ago that she’d gotten another type of call entirely, that Special Agent John Jones had been assisting in another agent’s case and been caught in an explosion. The same explosion that had made it on the afternoon news, the same explosion she’d sent a silent prayer for that at-least-it-wasn’t-her-husband. She’s made a lot of those lately. This is the first time it was unwarranted.

Bridget taps the gas and inches closer to the SUV ahead of her. Through the back window she can see that the driver’s on her phone. The light’s green. She half-reads the “PARENT OF A HONORS STUDENT” bumper sticker in North High’s colors as the SUV finally rolls forwards. She turns right and wonders if that other mother is on the way to pick her son or daughter up from school. Maybe they’ll talk on the drive home, maybe her husband works an office job where the worst outcome is eyestrain. Maybe they eat dinner together.

Or maybe not. Maybe that other woman is just running errands. It's too early in the afternoon for school to be out, probably. She thought she got over this tendency of hers around the time Tyler turned four, but ever since moving to Middleton she’s found herself making up stories about strangers again. With their friends a thousand miles away, she’s gotten a lot more time on her hands. The blocks blur together until the hospital complex is suddenly to her right. She nearly missed the turn.

Bridget sits in the small meeting/waiting room, twisting and twining her hands together and apart. John’s fine. He’s being looked over one last time by a doctor, and then he’ll be discharged for her to drive home. She knows he’s fine, and yet the memory of the last few days lances across her mind.

They hadn’t let her into surgery, and while she’d been able to see him after he’d been out cold from general anesthesia and wrapped up in enough bandages that she’d thought, half-hysterical, that he looked closer to a mummy than anything else.

How can he be stable enough to discharge, after that? After an explosion? But what does she know about medicine, or luck.

The door opens and a red-faced man shuffles in. There’s tear stains down both of his cheeks, salt-shimmer dry. He glances to-and-away from Bridget and settles, carefully, into a chair two seats to her right. He grabs yesterday’s newspaper from the clutter of magazines on a low table in front of them and brings it up to read. It shields his head and upper torso. She stares forward, as to acknowledge nothing.

The door opens again a few minutes later, this time for a young woman in scrubs.

“Mrs. Jones?” she asks, as if there’s more than one candidate for that name in the room. “Your husband’s almost out of consultation. You can come with–”

Bridget is already getting to her feet, and she follows the nurse out of the room without glancing back. They walk through the hallway together, Bridget trailing a few steps behind, and she’s left outside of a closed door with another promise that John should be out in a moment or two. She catches herself straining to hear anything over the heavy loud silence of the hospital floor and wraps an arm around her side instead. When there’s some sort of exclamation, she ignores it. John steps out moments later.

He’s wearing the change of clothes – another suit, another tie – that she’d brought him, when she’d rushed to the hospital in a daze. They’d seemed of the utmost importance at the time, but under the bright halogen lights the thought feels absurd. Vain, even, to have wasted what could have been precious time over that. But she’d thought, for a moment, that the least she could do was make sure he had something to change into.

Would he have been buried in a suit like this, if things had gone differently? What does it say about her that she thinks that, while her husband is standing right in front of her?

He looks the part of a neo-noir detective, beaten and bruised but unbroken. An unlit cigarette dangles loosely from his fingertips. One of his eyes is covered by a patch of medical gauze, but the other one meets hers as he flashes a half-smile. The bandages on his face pull with the motion, but he doesn’t wince.

“Hey,” she says, because she can’t say anything else.

“Hey,” he says back, as if there’s nothing else to say, and starts to walk.

John sits quietly in the passenger seat as they pull out of the parking lot. Bridget keeps flicking her eyes up to the rear-view mirror, just to catch a half-glimpse of him without turning her head. With his sunglasses on, she can’t tell if he looks back.

She’s furious. Furious at a dead man who nearly dragged John to the grave with him. Furious at the doctors who released John from the hospital like he’d just broken an arm. (He hadn’t broken anything. Some cuts and bruises and what’s going to be the mother of all black eyes, a mild concussion, but that’s all. Is she the one reacting to this wrongly?) Furious at the FBI, if they throw John back into the field. Furious at…

She fixes her eyes back on the road.

“Carla’s watching Tyler?” John asks.

She nods, merges left and accelerates. Carla’s the closest thing she has to a friend in Middleton. She doesn’t think that they’d have ever crossed paths, if not for Tyler and Carla’s daughter Hannah.

She misses everyone back in Michigan, but it’s not like the move to Middleton is the only reason she’s adrift. Carla’s a nice woman to have in her corner, even if there’s not much for them to talk about outside of their kids.

“I thought we could go pick him up together,” she adds. “That way he knows that you’re…”

Okay? Safe? Alive?

“That makes sense,” John replies, and turns his head to the window.

They pull into Carla’s driveway in silence. Bridget’s a few steps to the door by the time she looks back and sees John leaned up against the car, lighting up a cigarette. She clears her throat and, when John inhales, stops in her tracks.

She reminds herself about the concussion and exhales. “We’re picking up Tyler.”

Tyler, who hates the smell of smoke. John seems frozen, for a moment, but nods and stubs out his cigarette. Bridget turns back before she can see whether or not he picks it up from the driveway. She steps up onto the porch and knocks on the front door, once, twice. Carla swings it open moments later, eyes flicking from Bridget to John and back to her. She’s a few years older than Bridget, her dark brown hair tied up into a bun. A smudge of flour is on her cheek.

“Tyler’s been great,” she says by way of greeting, smiling and brushing back a loose strand of hair. “Hannah thought he probably would want some cookies, so we were in the middle of making some.”

Carla’s eyes look up past Bridget’s shoulder again, looking at John. Bridget sees the start of a sentence form on her lips.

“We can stay a little for that,” Bridget interjects. “I’ve been driving a lot today.”

John shifts behind her, but says nothing. Carla smiles and invites them in.

Hannah is crouched in front of the oven, one hand pressed on the hardwood floor to balance herself. She gets to her feet in a flurry of motion at Bridget and John’s arrival, running to the living room to (Bridget thinks) get Tyler. The oven beeps a moment later and she runs back, no Tyler in tow, to swing open the door for Carla to grab the cookies. They look to be chocolate chip.

“Hi Mrs. Jones!” Hannah chirps, rocking on her feet. “Do you want a cookie?”

“Sure, Hannah,” Bridget answers, only half-listening as she steps towards the living room. “Let me just go get Tyler, alright?”

Tyler is sitting on the floor between the battered couch and scuffed coffee table, a few travel-sized colors of clay spread out before him. He’s working on some kind of animal; from the shape and colors Bridget suspects it might be a dinosaur from one of his new books. He’s marking small notches into it along its arms and tail, and it takes her a moment to realize that they must be feathers. He doesn’t look up.

She crouches down next to him, voice quiet. “Tyler?”

Nothing.

“Dad’s here,” she tries again, watching as Tyler uses the blade of a plastic sculping knife to give the dinosaur another row of feathers. “He’s all better now and is really excited to see you.”

The words taste like smoke on her tongue, bitter. John’s still got a bandage over his eye and is making strained small talk in the other room with Carla.

“Do you want cookies? Hannah made some just for you! Chocolate chip. We can have them and then we can go, so you can finish your dinosaur with all the clay at home.”

Tyler tilts his head towards Bridget and makes a noise in his throat, nnnnhhh, that she knows to mean that he’s not quite ready to pack up yet. But he does put down the sculpting knife. When Bridget looks up from him, John’s hovering in the doorway. He steps in at her gesture and kneels down across from Tyler.

“Hey, Tyler. Did you make all of that just now?”

Tyler’s eyes flick up but don’t quite meet John’s unbandaged one. He nods.

“Is it a dinosaur?”

Another nod.

Hannah comes rushing in with a plate of cookies, the chocolate chips still gooey from the oven’s heat. Carla comes in behind with a tray with two glasses of milk and three more of water. Bridget takes a cookie to be polite and, when John doesn’t, flashes him a look until he gets it and does. Hannah takes two and Tyler, after putting a few more feathers on his figure, takes one as well.

For a few minutes, everything feels like it is as it should be.

The feeling dissipates a few blocks away from the house. The car’s quiet: Tyler’s had a long day, so Bridget doesn’t want to roll the dice on the radio, and while John talked a bit to the both of them at Carla’s, with him in the passenger seat and Tyler in the back they’re at an impasse. She looks out at the horizon and the golden sunlight spilling across it.

In her periphery, in the rear-view mirror, John’s propped his shoulder against the door and is staring out at the passing scenery. Sidewalks and intersections and a few families walking together in the honeyed evening.

Bridget swallows down a litany of questions – Are you really okay? What the hell did you mean, the FBI doesn’t hand out vacations? Do you actually understand why I’m upset? Do you understand that I’m upset? Can you look at me? Can you tell me that you’ll be safe? Do you feel as lonely here as I do? – and looks to Tyler instead. He’s curled one leg up onto the seat and has propped his elbow against it, chin resting on his hand as he looks out the window. The light makes his hair look like an inferno, flames licking down to cover his eye; John’s hair is a bushfire across his scalp. Sometimes she feels like her head’s on fire. Sometimes she feels like it’s been burnt through already, and all that’s left is charred half-standing structures of a different Bridget. Today she just feels tired.

She turns out onto the highway, into the full force of sunset, and pulls down the sun visor to block it out.

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sojournerstales · 18 days ago

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Some Kind Of Creature

or, ROADKILL.

I manage to get a single word out before the boot connects with my chest, "Shit," and my own damn strength and inertia do the rest. I fall backwards, the car door flings open, and after a brief moment of freefall I hit half-and-half asphalt and dirt. First impact breaks a bone, I flip, my arm whips an unfortunately placed rock, I tumble, my face hits the ground and I lose a tooth, then I roll for several more feet.

By the time I'm released from the starting-60 momentum the car I was just riding in is a small red glow way down the road. I watch it fade away, half of my own vision bathed in red to match, and I can't say I blame them for not turning back.

Unceremonious, without much worry and with what you might consider an incongruous sense of being fine, I groan to myself something like, 'Yeah that's about right.'

I wait a while with my palm flat on the ground. Dry dirt between my fingers and under my nails. Eventually I hear a sickly internal pop somewhere down my spine, then there's a dull pressure within my jaw. The ache has me sucking on my bottom teeth. Finally I start pushing myself upright, feeling like I can stand and mostly being correct on that front. My leg feels wrong and it's going to take a short while for my right arm to twist back into place, but I can move.

I see a light in the distance. A gas station.

I must look like walking roadkill. I can see it on his face - the clerk behind the counter. He's twenty-something, or at least looks too young to be working nights like this. Ginger hair, acne scarring, and a look of concern that wraps around the bubblegum in his mouth to then come across as a grimace. What does he see? Dirt and blood in my dirty blonde hair, my torn windbreaker jacket and skinny jeans devastated by road-rash.

He startles when I speak, "Got a bathroom?" My voice feels dry. I cough after speaking and I swear I end up with as much dust as I do blood in the palm of my hand. I wipe it on my sleeve.

Twenty Something stammers like he'd forgotten how to speak, but it turns out to be something affirmative at least and he points towards a non-descript door at the back of the store.

"Cheers," I croak. I head towards the door by way of the middle aisle so I can swipe a packet of alcoholic wipes. Halfway towards the door I feel another internal pop - this time partway down my leg - and my limp vanishes after only a brief stumble.

My arm fixes itself as I reach out for the door handle. A series of clicks carry down each joint. The feeling would turn my stomach if I weren't already used to it.

The fluorescent lighting continues from the store into the toilets, except – and I'm assuming it's the plastic of the stalls, and the tiles halfway up the walls, and just the nature of the room itself – the light feels colder here. A sickly white-blue that isn't offset by food packaging and the like.

I get to work in front of the sink and mirror. I find it funny how the sting of alcoholic wipes has me wince more than cracking my head on solid asphalt. I'll hiss at needing to clean debris from the bloody scrape that dominates half my face, but take bouncing off the road at a good 60 in stride. It's the nature of the beast, I suppose.

The little stones need to be dug out regardless. Healing around them looks as bad as it feels. So that's the ambience. Heavy breathing, short controlled hisses, and a little 'clink' whenever gravel lands in the sink.

I've found that I can accelerate some processes with the right focus. Staring at myself in the mirror I watch as one half of my vision loses its red haze along with my eye turning from glassy and cracked to a more familiar vermillion.

The next part is less elegant. I pinch one nostril closed and blow hard. I think sometimes this might make me stupider. Like maybe I'm losing brain-matter through my nose. The sink is an awful state now, mucus, blood, discarded wipes and little rocks.

Quick. Hands on my nose. "Guh-nuh!" Pain shoots through my face. I had to sneak up on myself to go through with it – jamming my nose back into place so it heals right. The whole experience is eye-watering. The pain manages to end somewhere deep in my stomach.

The rest is simply feeling my body out. Chasing any feelings of wrongness, that's the best way I can describe it. Rolling my neck, my shoulders, rotating my joints. Each movement comes with a new click and pop. Internal wet sounds. The squelching is the most disconcerting, and the feeling of mechanical alignment when I lean forward over the sink is the most satisfying.

Finally I check my teeth. Lip curled to count one fang still intact and a new one half-way grown. These were what tripped me up. My stomach growled and I jumped the gun, bared the fangs too soon and spooked my driver. It's what they don't tell you about being a predator. You hunt when you're hungry, and doing anything hungry is hard.

I press my thumb against the full-grown fang. It aches, but only because of the new growth. It doesn't wobble, or send pain shooting through my skull. I wipe my thumb against my hand and then my hands with paper towels. All done here.

Crickets. Wind. Plastic bag rustle. Electrical buzz from a nearby icebox. I am sat outside the gas station, semi-spotlit by its signposting. Ass on the ground, knees up, smoking a cigarette purchased with crumpled, bloody money.

The world is flat here and there is just one road that curves through the dusty Americana expanse. In the distance I can see a car approach by the twin pinpricks of yellow-white light.

I pull on the cigarette and fill my lungs with smoke. Sometimes I think about hitting the road at just the right angle and spinning out into oblivion. Then I take that feeling after a long drag and snuff it out on the curb.

The approaching car turns on its blinker.

I'm ready to do it all again.

thanks for reading. i like vampires a lot. this is a kind of of rough draft, at some point i will probably flesh it out some more and throw it up on my website. please do let me know what you think. comments, reblogs, etc.

#shameless self reblog #some kind of creature

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sojournerstales · 19 days ago

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Some Kind Of Creature

or, ROADKILL.

Unceremonious, without much worry and with what you might consider an incongruous sense of being fine, I groan to myself something like, 'Yeah that's about right.'

I see a light in the distance. A gas station.

He startles when I speak, "Got a bathroom?" My voice feels dry. I cough after speaking and I swear I end up with as much dust as I do blood in the palm of my hand. I wipe it on my sleeve.

Twenty Something stammers like he'd forgotten how to speak, but it turns out to be something affirmative at least and he points towards a non-descript door at the back of the store.

My arm fixes itself as I reach out for the door handle. A series of clicks carry down each joint. The feeling would turn my stomach if I weren't already used to it.

The world is flat here and there is just one road that curves through the dusty Americana expanse. In the distance I can see a car approach by the twin pinpricks of yellow-white light.

The approaching car turns on its blinker.

I'm ready to do it all again.

#short story #vampire #horror fiction #body horror #gore #it's about how the risk of being thrown out a car at 60 miles per hour is worth the reward of survival

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sojournerstales · 20 days ago

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eleanor fic cancelled because the song it was referencing actually came out in the year 2000. fucked up.

#this is a half joke #but i am legitimately pivoting a bunch of stuff

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sojournerstales · 28 days ago

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ive said before but eventually i will actually introduce myself. the thing is i am bad at Social Media.

anyway status update, i am working on a couple short warframe fics, and a mammoth sized genderbend batman fic (currently at 18k words) and a handful of original short stories.

as the year gets sunnier so too does my ability to actually Do Stuff, so i've also begun work on a weird psychological horror side-blog type thing. we'll see.

much love xox

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sojournerstales · 1 month ago

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if you dont fuck w/ trans men then you don't fuck w/ me tbh. nothing but solidarity with our trans siblings.

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sojournerstales · 1 month ago

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[wehwehwehweh] Die-Hardman: Sam. You've probably noticed the cocoa powder in your private locker. You can use it as flavouring to make your own chocolate milk. A refreshing boost if you need one. Try it now.

[wehwehwehweh] Deadman: Sam. I am sure by now you have concocted yourself a delicious chocolate milk. An enjoyable snack drink, I am sure. But watch out, before the Death Stranding many people reported cases of 'lactose intolerance' towards milk, lactic acid of course being a key chemical compound in the drink. However, since that time no more cases have been reported. Something to do with our connection to the Beach, perhaps? Either way, take note of how you feel after drinking.

[wehwehwehweh] Mama: Sam. That chocolate milk you have? If you find it's too much to drink all at once... Try using a Bridges Thermos. I've had the team put some in your private locker.

[wehwehwehweh] Die-Hardman: Sam. The Bridges Thermos can be used to keep drinks hot or cold. That's something to keep in mind when planning your routes through various climates.

New Mail: [Nick Easton] 'Have You Tried This Drink Yet? :D :D' New Data: 'Chocolate Milk, Cows, etc.' New Data: 'Prevalence of Milkshake Bars Pre-Death Stranding pt.1'

#death stranding #been replaying death stranding recently

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sojournerstales · 2 months ago

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working on an eleanor warframe fic about her deep dive through the void to meet her nunself

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sojournerstales · 2 months ago

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youtube

this is an eleanor nightingale song to me. in my heart.

#Youtube

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sojournerstales · 2 months ago

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WF1999: Summer Heat ch.4

fem!drifter x eleanor

okay so this took me ages. I was mostly just writing other stuff, and honestly I liked chapter 3 as a conclusion in its own way, but still wanted to close the loop on eleanor and sloane here. there is more I want to write for her and my drifter, so this became a necessary chapter to finish. this chapter borrows a lot from a specific KIM interaction, re-imagined as an in-person encounter. please enjoy.

04. Edible (At Least To You)

Even away from the mall proper and in the Backrooms it's as hot as Lodun's cycle. I've practically sweat through my sheets, unable to sleep, just lying awake. It's not entirely because of the heat. It's Eleanor. I keep thinking about her. The way she brushes up against my mind in quiet moments, and the shape of her hips filtered through Mesa's hands. Tactile, but with a frustrating degree of separation. Then I think, maybe that's all I could handle.

In trying to sleep I shut those thoughts out and focus instead on the sounds around me. The electric hum-buzz in the walls. The rhythmic wish-wish-wish of my desk fan. The way Helminth tends to gurgle in the night. This is as quiet as it gets in 1999, I think.

This is the space that I live in.

I am supine on an old couch, my hands are over my face. I drag them down - cheeks, chin, neck, collar. And further - chest, stomach, hips, "Drifter?"

Startled, I sit bolt upright, blinking rapidly. I didn't imagine the voice, it's Eleanor in my head and coming up the stairs. "I'm not disturbing you, am I?"

I make a sound. "Buh." And twist to look over the back of the couch at where Eleanor approaches from. Her eyes are like mine. Pin-point lights in the dark.

"Buh, indeed." Eleanor's voice hums inside my head, "I couldn't sleep. I suppose I hoped you couldn't either."

"No, yeah, no," I say. I pull my knees up and adjust the sheets over my legs, "Couldn't either."

Eleanor just looks at me for a while. Her wide smile gaining some kind of implacable quality. I can't figure it out in the seconds that pass before she asks, "Is that what you sleep on?"

"Huh?"

"I camp out in a furniture store, you know,--"

"I guess I--"

"-- you could have asked me for a bed."

"-- don't mind. Slept on worse."

Eleanor shakes her head. Even without the sound, or without it in my head, I can tell when she's chuckling. Finally she approaches proper, rounding the couch and sitting sideways in the opposite corner to face me, one arm along the back.

There is still that implacable quality in her expression. I think of Duviri, of what it tried to teach me before things got bad. Its storybook representations of feelings did not prepare me for the mess of real people. Eleanor angles her head just-so, like she is following along with the surface thoughts crossing my mind.

"I considered sending a message," She says eventually, "Over KIM, but I wanted to do this here. In person. Where I can feel you."

It sounds serious. "Something you gotta talk about?"

"Something I have to ask." She shifts to move closer. It's only slight, but the distance between us invariable shortens. It makes me very aware of what I am wearing - which is very little even including the bedsheets. I tend to feel naked enough without a Warframe nestled around my consciousness, but here I'm just boxer shorts and a torn tank-top.

"I'm listening," I tell Eleanor.

"Why?" The question is singular and intense. Eleanor doesn't blink and I feel like she is not just looking at me - but into me.

It makes me squirm. "Why what?"

"Why us? Why this plan? Why sweating your arse off late at night at Entrati's old desk, solving all our problems, running all our errands?" The words cascade suddenly into my mind and Eleanor inches towards me with each question, "Why - with everything that you can do - you chose this path? This plan? And why does it feel like if you win you'll choose to stay with us? That you won't just piss off back into space?"

I don't know what to say. There is a beat of quiet, (hum buzz, wish-wish-wish, gurgle), where I say nothing at all, but I do think some answers. Kindness is the way. I want to help people. It makes sense. I don't belong anywhere else that's real. Not all of them ring as true as what I do eventually put together into words, "I like you guys." And then more specifically, "I like you."

Eleanor takes it in and then her voice hums in my mind again, "Did I trick you?" Heat emanates from her, it's a secondary sensation, all in my mind. She has stretched herself over the couch, leaning over me, close enough that even in the low greenish light I can see all the details of her face. The seams where Techrot meets the last of her human flesh. The complicated expression that colours her eyes - shame? Hurt? Fear?

"No," I tell her. I think it as strong as I can too. And I think of her, nothing but the truth of her, because I realize with her mind against mine that I know what she's looking for. "I just like you."

"I could have pushed the suggestion," Eleanor tells me, still with that heat, "Made you like me. Or maybe you have some connection to the Techrot bringing us together. We should find Lettie, make her run a psych-eval, fix whatever this is so that-"

I touch her face. Palm against cheek. It cuts off her thought process, calms her presence in my mind. I feel the heat recede, I see her expression soften, and I see still the hurt it leaves behind.

"Sol," The word projected comes with a soft exhale. "I can't help but feel I know how this ends, then. You beautiful, impossible creature. The best thing in my absurd life. I'll lose you."

"I know you've lost people. I know how that feels. You're not alone."

Eleanor says nothing, but she bows her head against mine and closes her eyes.

"So, I like you," I tell her again. "And you make me feel not alone. And I hope you like me too. 'Cause I can't sleep thinking about it."

Tension, then release, and a puff of warm air on the side of my face as Eleanor exhales some quiet amusement. My hand slips to the back of her neck, hers comes to my shoulder. "There's only one other thing, then," I notice it now that it's gone. Her voice in my head lacks the pressure-whistle quality from earlier. "An embarrassing personal problem."

"The tongue?"

"Mmhm," She drags out the hum. It tapers into a purr that I feel through the back of my skull. I like it.

"It's not a problem." I wonder how much she has gleamed from me. This close, this present in my head. I tell her it's not a problem and she must know I like it.

"No, it isn't. Is it?" Eleanor smirks. It's all the confirmation she needs. She dips in and presses her lips against my neck, and her hand pushes me down onto my back. She is over me, knee between my legs, parting. I am covered in her shadow.

Heat creeps over my body again in my core, rising up to my chest. I feel Eleanor's tongue slip over my throat, then down to curve around me.

A singular thought has me freeze up. The sweat on my body turns ice cold and the little hairs on the back of my neck start to itch. Eleanor notices and I feel her pull back. The thought is my own, I don't know what to do.

"Oh." Eleanor realizes it too. Either just from looking at me, or from peering at my surface level thoughts. Even if she doesn't see the entire history of me - settling into 1999, the war against Narmer, a thousand years spent spiralling in Duviri - she gets the idea. She knows what I never had time for. "That's okay," Her voice in my mind becomes a whisper. She settles down on me with less fervor than before and kisses my neck where her tongue had previously tasted.

I make an odd, awkward sound. Something apologetic getting stuck in the back of my throat.

In response I feel a silent chuckle shake through Eleanor's body. "It's okay," She says again. It helps. I track the tension as it leaves my body (starting from my fingers and toes, comfort working its way up through my limbs until I feel present enough to hold my arms around Eleanor). "Sol, you're cute." Eleanor shifts to make the best of the limited room on the couch, wedging herself between me and the back.

The tension is incredible. Knowing what Eleanor wants with the intentional placement of her hand on my hip and the way she bites her bottom lip. "So you have never..." The thought trails off into an intense sensation which makes me shiver.

I shake my head. "Never had time, I guess, after Duviri."

Eleanor is listening. And somehow I know that she is thinking about the taste of my sweat.

"And things in Duviri were... Weird. It was all me. And most of it feels like a dream. Or a nightmare." My expression screws up. "Mood killer to get into it, sorry."

Eleanor reaches up and taps my nose, "Don't apologize."

"I know I want this," I assure her, like she can't feel it in me. The heat. "Would you show me?"

Relief floods out from Eleanor. Tension that she had been holding now allowed to express itself. She presses herself close and closes her mouth against my throat again. Her tongue extends, tasting, exploring.

She is gentle, and she is kind, and I am devoured.

part 4 of 4

#warframe 1999 #fanfic #drifter #eleanor nightingale #fem!drifter #spoilers

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