#going back to listening to john and reading

[dalekofchaos]

There was never a rat in the Van Der Linde Gang

I'm gonna be honest. Micah is a conniving snake. But there was never a rat.

Why did Blackwater fail? Dutch killed a mother in cold blood and then a massacre happened. The money was a set up and Dutch took the bait. Pinkertons swarmed the area and even Landon Rickets was there.

How did they find them at Horseshoe? By chance the Pinkertons found Arthur and Jack fishing, but was it really by chance? What happens in chapter 2?

A bar fight where fucking everyone in town is there, which afterwords Dutch is there

You sprang Sean free and there are bounty hunters who flee, you seriously don't think they talked??

Oh yeah, ARTHUR AND MICAH SHOOT UP A FUCKING TOWN

John killing Micah led to Ross and Fordham finding him. Any of the missions I mentioned practically led Milton and Ross to finding Arthur near Horseshoe.

How did the Gray/Braithewaite scheme fail?

The Grays knew what they were doing and so did the Braithewaites. They played both families instead of just one and instead of LYING LOW. Dutch's vanity, ego and sense of wanting petty revenge against Confederate white trash caused Sean to be killed and Jack to be abducted.

How did Saint Denis fail?

Dutch played Bronte in his own city, refused a favor(you do NOT refuse the Mob asking a favor) which caused the set up, then Bronte's murder and finally the Bank Robbery which they knew they were there.

The common theory is someone from the gang snitched and talked to the Pinkertons. Who exactly ? Micah ? Well, Agent Milton said they picked up Micah AFTER they came back from Guarma, so it could not have been him. Molly ? Again, Milton said they did pick her up (not mentioned when), but she did not say anything. I have also read theories that it might have been Agibail who snitched to which my response is - pure BS.

The truth is, nobody snitched, nobody talked. Yes. Yet the reaction of the Pinkertons was insanely fast, as if they knew the robbery was going to go down. How you wonder ? Well, it's simple. It's a long one, but have a read.

From the very beginning of the game, Dutch has been claiming that they are a few steps ahead of everyone else, but his arrogance proved to be the downfall. You see, the Pinkertons are not as dull and foolish as Dutch claim them to be, they are extremely efficient as a detective agency proven by the fact that they tracked down Arthur in Valentine. Now, when the gang moved to Clemens Point near Rhodes, the Pinkertons lost their trail for a while. However the gang contradicted their own plan of staying low by creating a huge chaos in Rhodes after killing both the Gray's and the Braithwaite's (best mission in the game btw). As soon as the word spread of the massacre of both the families in Rhodes all over the place, the Pinkertons connected the dots and knew that it could be the Van Der Lind gang who created the fuss and if so, they must be camping somewhere near Rhodes. Nonetheless, they found the gang hideout after sniffing around, a day or two after the Braithwaite massacre. At this point Agent Milton knew these bunch of people would not be too hard to find as all you need to do is to sniff around an area where there has been murder and madness.

Now to Saint Denis, Dutch dismissed Hosea's idea and went after Angelo Bronte just after the failed trolley station robbery. If he listened to Hosea, hit the bank at once, then vanished, the Pinkertons would have never caught on and they would be harvesting mango's in Tahiti. But a failed trolley station robbery followed by a huge shootout in the city killing dozens of cops then followed by a kidnapping and murder of the most powerful man in the city was enough chaos for the Pinkertons to realize it's the Van Der Lind gang. So they knew the gang is around this city and increased security in Saint Denis hoping that the next time they attempt a robbery, it would be the endgame. That is why as soon as the bank robbery started, the Pinkertons were all over the place.

It is also easy to explain why Hosea was captured and Abigail escaped. While causing the distraction, both of them did not realise how fast the response is going to be. The Pinkertons caught Hosea as his face along with other male members of the gang was known to them, specially Hosea, Dutch and Arthur as they have been the oldest members of the gang. But Abigail at this point was unknown to them so it was easy for her to walk right past them without them realizing.

Why did the gang fell?

Micah got into Dutch's ear, Hosea died and Arthur got sick.

Micah promised him riches and the glorious scores that appealed to Dutch's ego and vanity. But he wasn't the rat.

If he did rat, he was playing Dutch and the Pinkertons to get the Blackwater money and the money for turning in Dutch.

However.

It was all Dutch.

Dutch. killed Cornwall in broad fucking daylight. Arthur sprung John out of prison, they blew up a fucking bridge, Dutch led the Natives to their doom, Colm's execution turned into a bloodbath, an attack on the Oil Refinery which led to the deaths of Colonel Favors and Eagle Flies and to top it all with robbing the military. It's no fucking wonder the Pinkertons found them.

There was no rat. The Pinkerton’s were actually just good at their jobs. Micah being a rat makes no sense if you actually think about it. There’s NO WAY the pinkertons would have been ok with the death of Leviticus Cornwall as he was paying their wages. Micah and Dutch planned to kill him together. There’s also the fact that Micah straight up killed Pinkertons in the firefight that ensued cornwall’s death. Micah was an asshole but not a rat. Watch that scene with Milton and Arthur again…Milton would have most likely let Arthur go with that false information but Arthur decided to attack him. There was never a rat, they got played.

It's a combination of things on why they all failed.

Reason 1. Dutch's vanity and ego. Dutch desperately needed to be seen as this great American hero. He cares more of the thrill of “one last score” it’s all about his ego and how he has to be seen as this Evelyn Millerian figure. This great American Literature hero when he’s really as bad as the greed that he says poisons America. He never cared about the people in the gang. It was the prestige of the name "The VAN DER LINDE Gang" HIM. He wanted to be seen as this infamous outlaw and righteous leader. He didn't care about the people in the gang. Arthur? He was dying and he didn't care. John? He wanted him to hang. Abigail? He left her behind the first chance he got. Micah killed Susan RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and Dutch didn't care. He considerd Mary-Beth, Pearson and Uncle leaving as a betrayal. Dutch never cared for the people within the VDL Gang. He cared what they could do for him and the glory they could bring him. It was never of settling down to become farmers, it was always about the thrill of being an outlaw the that great big score.

There are a lot of people who think if Hosea never died, then Dutch never would've lost it. He was always bad. He just had good ways of masking it. Hosea failed at every venture to talk out of getting Dutch to see sense and avoid bloodshed. If Hosea lived, there is a very good chance that Dutch would've lost it and had Hosea killed. Either it would've been an accidental death like he tried by leaving Arthur behind, he would've went into full paranoid mode "You're trying to undermine me and take the group from me" and order Hosea to draw his gun and then shoot him. Like Hosea said "You'll damn us all" and he did.

Reason 2. Loyalty to a fault.

Loyalty held the gang together. Loyalty was what Dutch valued - blind, obedient loyalty. “He had a plan,” after all.

Doubt broke the gang apart. Dutch became suspicious, uncertain of the faith of even his most dedicated friends. This undermined the entire operation and caused its eventual downfall.

“You’ll betray me, Arthur,” Dutch says, “You’re the type.” Dutch couldn’t be more wrong on that account.

Micah is named by the Pinkertons as a rat, but according to them, he wasn’t approached until after they’d returned from Guarma. So, by that timeline, the Pinkerton’s hadn’t needed a rat to foil their plans in Blackwater, or to find Arthur fishing by the side of a stream, or for the bank robbery in Saint Denis.

The Pinkertons always knew where Dutch was and what he was up to. They didn’t need a rat, especially not after their return from Guarma. So, why drop Micah’s name?

Well, the Pinkertons knew the gang was scrambling, that they were on the run, and that it was damn near impossible to arrest one of them at a time without a successful rescue of said gang member, ie Micah, John, Abigail and Sean. They are not the local sheriff’s office, after all. They are the federals and they want Dutch Vander Linde done in for good.

Staring down the barrel of a gun, why would a Pinkerton agent spill their collateral to the enemy? Arthur wasn’t even asking for any information at the time. Why would this agent, in his dying moments, tell Arthur that Micah was the rat?

Unless the agent knew the gang was on thin ice, and that loyalty was all that was keeping it together. He introduced what he hoped would be a final blow to the gang, accomplishing post-huminously what had been his career goal in life.

Also, why would Micah become an informant after Guarma? What were the promising him? After all, he stuck with Dutch and formed a new gang after Arthur died. He never took a big cut from the government and ran. He was a brown-noser and an asshole, but stood nothing to gain from becoming a rat.

Arthur hated Micah, so he took the bait. He wanted a reason to hate him, to have him kicked out of the gang. Micah was pragmatic and greedy and he hardened Dutch’s humanitarian side - the side that Arthur valued. But, Micah being a rat wasn’t the truth.

After all, we know who became a rat - John Marston.

Arthur’s readiness to believe a Pinkerton’s dying words proved the point of the narrative - the gang fell apart because they lost faith in Dutch, and because Dutch grew jealous and fearful as their doubts became apparent.

Loyalty kept the gang together, and its absence tore the gang apart.

Reason 3. "We didn't need a rat. We got sloppier than the town drunk."

The gang was careless. It got sloppy and their overconfidence and ego was their downfall.

Micah wasn’t the cause of their downfall he simply hastened it. The game tells you from the opening titles how it’s going to end and why. It mentions that the remaining gangs are being hunted down and destroyed with the word underlined for emphasis. It was always going to end in their demise, it just happened quicker than it would have because they got sloppy, careless, conceited, and arrogant.

[nocturnesanomaly]

Chapter 7: Keep watching the skies

(Series Masterlist: Divine Violence) (Read on Ao3) (Inspired Playlist)

Series: The Divine Violence - chapter 7: Keep watching the skies

Wordcount: 6.4k

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x John "Soap" MacTavish x Gn!Reader

TW: (View masterlist for series tw and tags) - DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT, Religious Trauma, PTSD, Flashbacks, Hallucinations, Anxiety, Paranoia, Disturbing themes, Grooming, Implied sexual assault/rape, non-consensual drug use,

Description: You follow up on your own lead, convinced it's the only way, leading the rest of the 141 on a hunt to find you.

A/N: Not sure I got all the typos, let me know if you find any <3

[Prev chapter / Next Chapter]

If Price was ever going to grant any of their wishes, Johnny prayed to the lord that it would be to get better beds. Even if he and the taskforce had slept in worse places than this, on the ground in half fallen buildings, in bundles of hay or random items, it didn't keep Johnny from being grumpy about the lack of space and stiff mattresses.

He wasn't sure why Laswell hadn't accounted for the one missing bed. Sometimes he thought that she expected one of them to take the janky couch, but she couldn't really, could she? It was what Simon did most nights, or at least Johnny was pretty sure he did. He typically didn't come into the room during nights, letting Johnny snore away on the little space there already was. Then again, that man never truly slept much on missions.

Simon got the optimal amount of sleep he needed to function for a day, and not a second longer. It was a habit that was hard to coax him out of when he and Johnny went back home. When they had first bought an apartment together, it even took a few weeks before Johnny managed to get Simon into a somewhat normal sleep rhythm.

One thing he found that worked, was letting Simon listen to his heartbeat. It seemed to calm the man for whatever reason. Johnny supposed he understood, it was something consistent, a lifeline in the most literal sense. It assured someone that the other was still alive, that their heart was still beating and their lungs still breathing.

They had both spend a lot of long nights like that. Nights after missions with too close calls, nights fuelled with terrors and horrid images on their minds, nights where it was as simple as the fact that one of them couldn't fall asleep.

Johnny didn't know when Simon had moved from the couch to laying on top of him and squeezing half the air out of his lungs, but he was sure woken up by it. The first rays of the morning sun peeked through the blinds of the window, and highlighted the dust particles floating around in the room.

Simon was a steady weight on top of him. His breathing the only thing inconsistent from his otherwise still form. He reached out, smoothing his hands over the muscles of Simon's back, feeling him sigh further into his hold.

He was still awake then.

"Mornin' wee lad," Johnny whispered teasingly into Simon's ear, conveniently placed right next to him from how he was hiding his face in his neck.

Simon grumbled something unintelligible against Johnny's skin. "Shut it MacTavish..." was about the only thing he could make out of it. It was enough to incite a round of his personal infectious laughter.

The sheets were jumbled between both of their legs, creating an odd display of tangled limbs probably resembling some deformed eldritch horror from an outsider’s perspective.

"Didn't think ye would actually join me...thought ye didn't want affection when spider's around," Johnny mumbles cheekily yet still pulls the massive man even closer. He closes his eyes again, enjoying the weight on his chest, the comforting assurance he'd been craving for all too long.

"They're not here..."

Groggily, Johnny opens his eyes again to catch a peek of the other bed. Surely enough there was no form occupying it, the bed made with military precision. "Mh...got an early start then..." a way too early start even for his own standard.

"They barely sleep..." Simon grumbles and let's out a long huff, resigning to the fact he isn't falling back asleep anytime soon.

"Ye alright love...?" Johnny reaches up to rub his hand through Simon's short hair. A rare occasion for him to take off his mask, even here. Johnny would enjoy every second of it. With gentle movements he guides Simon's head a bit further up so he can place soft kisses to his face. Over his scars, his nose, his cheeks, his lips.

Simon let's out a sigh, lazily kissing him back. "M'fine...jus' exhausted," he did sound it.

Johnny nods quietly, pressing another kiss to his forehead. It had been a long time since they'd taken time just for themselves, their apartment was practically just sitting back collecting dust from how little they managed to actually use it.

"We should take a vacation when we're done here," Johnny suggests.

Simon doesn't get any time to reply before the door is thrown open. Johnny shoots an arm over his shoulders, to shield his face with his arm just in case. The both of them relax seeing Kyle's face linger in the doorway, he looked around the room settling on the two in a pile with a sigh.

"Would you two lovebirds get a move on," Kyle huffs and crosses his arms.

Johnny groans dramatically, making a show of how exhausting Kyle's request really is. "You could always just join us Garrick," he suggests instead, wiggling his eyebrows long enough to make both men groan.

"I'm good," Kyle shakes his head but can hardly hide the smile on his face, "any of you seen Spider? We can't find 'em."

"The fuck do ye mean ye can't find 'em, they can't have gotten that far out," Johnny paces around in the kitchen. His usual energy spiking at the odd occurrence of an unpredictable event. The facts were staring him the face. You were nowhere in the house, nowhere around the house, told nobody and left no note. You were just gone.

You wouldn't just have run away, would you?

He looks over at Simon. He'd put his mask back on, his eyes closed behind it. He still seemed half asleep, nursing a cup of hot tea in his hands.

"They could have gone to town, taking a look around and forgot to tell anyone?" Kyle throws one option on the table. He'd prepared breakfast for himself, sitting opposite of Simon munching down on it.

"We need tae go find them," Johnny says and rubs his nose. There's something uneasy settling in his system, not knowing where you are, what you were up to. He was sure you were capable, that you knew what you were doing, but you had told no one. Even if you were fine, there had to be some stern talk to make sure you wouldn't pull a stunt like this again. Not even Price was liking this at all.

And speaking of Price. Johnny's attention sharpens when the captain comes back into the kitchen. "Laswell heard nothing either, but she mentioned they talked of the mountains" Price shakes his head lightly. "They likely went for them, but we have the town to look into as well."

"We'll split up, cover more ground, they are likely fine on their own but I’d like to have a talk with them so bring them back. Ghost, Soap you take the surrounding area, follow the trail towards the foot of the mountains. Me and Gaz will take a visit to the town, sniff around and see what else we can figure out about this community."

Simon is already on the move, abandoning his still steaming tea at the table. Johnny is hot on his heels, refusing to let him go and make some stupid choice in the heat of it. He still didn't fully understand it. The lingering connection between the two of you, but he knew that it was important. He wasn't going to let him down.

"Listen up My Angel, this is one our newest members. My very own brother, Graham," The Father introduces you to the buffer man standing in front of you. He's taller than him, keeps a short buzzcut you've come to expect from anybody here. It didn't take long before it was enforced on both the men and women, didn't matter what anybody said to it.

The collective has grown significantly and fast. Michael even insisted on being called The Father. You didn't quite understand why. He never explained himself, merely enforced it like he enforced the haircuts. You guessed it was to keep a resemblance between him and God, but you found it more creepy than holy.

His connections expanded a lot more over a very short time. People from far and wide was informed about what you all did here, and they travelled all the way to join you. It was a great feeling. You quickly received a lot more responsibilities for the younger sheep, but you found a lot of the exercises were more cathartic than anything.

"It's good to meet you," Graham speaks your name with a cold indifference. He wasn't very interested in anything that wasn't his brother. He crossed his arms over his chest, looked expectantly at The Father.

You're distracted. That much is obvious to both men on either side of you. Despite doing your best to keep your focus, you keep drifting towards different thoughts. Your gaze continuously looking towards the gate where the mail picked up from town would usually come through.

It's been several weeks, almost two months.

Simon still hasn't answered you.

You felt The Fathers hand gently push against your back, guiding you forward. "Graham trains more unorthodox K9's," he explains while making sure to place you between the both of them, "he specialized in dogs and wolves before he transferred here."

"Don't oversell it Michael," Graham grumbles. He looks off to the side, observing the newer recruits running drills around a makeshift obstacle course.

The Father clears his throat. In all the time you've known him, you've never seen him even close to nervous. "Point remaining...he's going to...train you...afterwards you're going to help him train up the rest," he sounds as if he isn't sure. The final details not yet decided.

Your eyebrows furrow at that. You already have the formal training; you're learning rapidly from shadowing The Father and you don't think you're doing half bad. Still, you needed more training? What else did you have to learn?

"Don't worry your pretty head angel," his hand finds a firm grip on the back on your neck, "just be good, follow orders and everything will turn out just fine."

"Good, again."

Your head was spinning from the pain. He'd had you going for hours at a time, didn't let you stop till you lost consciousness. Your thighs ached, your heart pounding out of your chest. The objective was simple. Shoot the targets he'd set up.

You'd finally completed a full round, and Graham's expression hadn't even changed a bit. He didn't care.

It's not like he was making it any easier on you. Whatever medicine he'd shot into your blood at the start was starting to make your head throb. You could still see the broken glass of the syringe laying amidst the sand and dirt. It glinted in the lowering sunlight.

The wooden targets were starting to get this bad habit of taking form, of looking more and more like moving people. People with angry faces, people with hurtful words, people with guns and ill intent. Around them the shadows crept, licking up against the figures and swallowing them hole. You weren't given much time to question as you were flung through the obstacle course another time.

In the beginning he put on a song on a speaker. An older one, slow and rather beautiful, a love song you think.

It's been on loop ever since. He seems obsessed with it, humming along with the tune for the hundred time as you run through the course. You hit your targets with a shake in your arm, making you miss a few a couple of times. It staggers your progress, and it's like you can feel his displeased look in the back of your neck.

You keep going, shooting at the shadowy figures that remain stationary. He's not saying anything you don't think, but still, you can hear his comments in your ears.

Do better

You're better than this

Wrong

Follow my orders

You miss the last target, by a stroke of bad luck. The ground comes closer all too rapidly when your body decides to give out. It refused to remain standing, to continue the strain that could no longer be received properly.

You heave for air, your grip on the gun all too lose. It falls to the ground and you just manage to push it out of the way before you collapse all the way onto your back. The air is too warm for this, your body already drenched in sweat.

He comes to hover above you.

You don't have time to squirm away.

Graham pulls up your shirt, takes his knife and adds another cut next to the other five. Your scream falls on deaf ears. He was ruthless in his violence. He knew exactly where to cut, knew exactly how deep to make it so you'd lose blood without dying. He timed the seconds in your blood loss, he kept an obsessive eye on your movements, your expressions, until he knew your tells better than you did.

He was lethally precise.

Graham hauls you back up to your feet, shoving the gun back in your hand and turns you back to the obstacle course.

"Cull the herd."

Somewhere along the way, the vials became less mandatory. Mr. Graham stopped forcing them on you one random night. It should've relieved you, no longer being woken up before you normally did with violent movements and a syringe pressed into your skin, but the abrupt change dysregulates you.

You still didn't sleep easy, expecting to be unnaturally woken up by either Mr. Graham or The Father with whatever they had decided they needed from you. Not having the altering substance in your system started feeling weird. You began to crave it again, the precision you had with it, the strength and clearness in your mind. You missed how clearly your targets would be highlighted for you.

So, you started injecting it on your own.

Mr. Graham never objected to it. He supplied you whenever you were low with nothing more than a knowing smile and a strong hand on your shoulder. Whether he ever regretted it, he never told you, but he did notice the change in your mental state. The rapid decline like falling down a ladder, you'd grab unto it, try to save yourself, only for it throw you off once again.

At first, he didn't mind it, even gave you an extra length of patience whenever you'd start to space out outside of fighting, or when you'd take longer to process his words when things were too calm for you.

But then you started to get snappy, too eager for the fight your body ached for.

You hadn't even realized it was the wrong thing before you had done it. Maybe the day had been too long, maybe you were overworked, too tired. It didn't matter, it was you that fired the shot. You had taken the injection earlier than usual, double the dose so it would last until training.

As always, Mr. Graham had met you on the field but he wasn't alone this time. The Father, being ever so gracious, decided to observe you both this time. You had stood dutifully next to Mr. Graham, your head bowed, posture straight, your mind a strange mix of muddy and sharp. Shadows crept at the corner of your vision, making you twitch.

You felt unsteady. Your trigger finger twitching with an odd need to hunt, to expel the uncomfortable energy swirling in you, an energy that needed to be used. All the excess adrenaline seemed to even be noticed by The Father.

"Are you alright, My Angel?"

Mr. Graham gives you a look that's hard to discern. Like he's trying to figure out where on the scale you are from collapsing and going rabid. He gets his answer in the worst way he'd have wanted it.

Something too real moves in your vision, rounding the corner of a building. A small shadowed figure, too stark in the contrast of the white wall. It smiled cruelly, moved erratically and it triggered every sensor in your brain. You act without thinking.

A loud squeaking sound comes from the creature. It collapses to the ground like a dying animal. The shadows slink away revealing the silhouette of a dog, laying gasping on the ground, whimpering and clinging to the life you took from it.

None of them react at first.

Three pairs of eyes watching the life drain. One shocked, one calm, one furious.

You don't even hear the angry words coming out of Mr. Graham's mouth. Your world is spinning, your head is buzzing and you still haven't quite recognized what you had just done. Which of them you had just killed.

He grabs your arm, drags you along to no protest from The Father. You don't remember the way, or where he took you. You only remember the pain of being thrown into the dark room of stone walls. There's no window, no light, and nobody else.

"I'll come get you once you've learned to calm the fuck down."

Those words are all he leaves you with before closing the door. Your breathing is unsteady when you lean against the cold wall and slowly lower yourself to the ground. It's unnerving. You know they're there. They're always there. Watching you, taunting you, baiting you into doing something.

They didn't make noise before; they didn't talk before but now in the darkness they still feel the need to make their presence known.

Calm down calm down calm down

You don't know whether it's you or something else that keeps repeating it. Your heart rate elevates, your body starts to shake. You try to scream out for help but your lips don't move. You don't even hear the little whimpers coming from your throat.

They creep around in the dark. They inch closer. They caress your skin. They fester inside your head.

Spider?

You freeze up in your corner at the familiar voice inside your mind. You don't want to look because you know who you'll see.

"No no no no no no."

Your hands clutch around your head, pulling at your hair.

"Go away!"

I brought food

"No go away! Please! Don't- don't do this."

Go on, I could hear your growling stomach from the gate

"Please!"

I made it

"You're not- you're- not- not-"

Did you hurt yourself?

"Leave me alone! You're not real!"

Whenever you're ready, little Spider

The snow has a blinding purity that's always mesmerized you. It stains so easily, the slightest touch disturbs the perfectly laid coat, creating chaos in the pillows of comfort and sanity. You'd spent most of the morning, most of the day, trekking through that purity and soiling it with the dirt underneath your boots.

There had always been a specific kind of thrill in your chest when you defied orders directly given. A small part of you taken back in your own hands, for better or for worse. You used to thrive so well under watch and order. Even if that's not the case anymore, you'd really ought to listen to the words of your betters.

At least then maybe you wouldn't be here. Standing as still as a statue, having a staring contest with a wolf and its red eyes. They're terribly vibrant. Reminiscent of the blood you could spill now.

Your hand clutched around your gun, ready to move at the order of a split-second decision. You're not here to hunt, you have to remind yourself. Never mind the wolf, never mind your thoughts. It doesn't matter that you used to hunt with them, that they used to sniff out your target for you.

It doesn't matter It doesn't matter It doesn't matter It doesn't matter it does-

The thing isn't even full grown. You'd have been more inclined to leave it alone if it wasn't for the bleeding cross running down it's snout. The red mixed with its fur in a beautiful symmetry. It's growling at you, you think. It makes you wonder if this is what your old targets used to feel when the wolves would corner them. Unlikely. They usually kept a face mixed with fear and hopelessness. Runaway members of the collective never lasted long under the knife.

There's a part of you that doesn't dare look away from it. The fatigue in your eyes almost do it for you, the snow around the creature makes it melt into the surroundings. The wolf was too focused, too interested in the way you looked, in the way you smelled.

He's still training them

They were likely right. If Mr. Graham was still alive, still with the collective, he'd be doing what he'd always been doing.

Cull the herd

Be the guide, the cold example

Cull the herd

And if that was the case, it wouldn't only be wolves lurking around out here. You'd need to relay this to Price, or Laswell, without rousing too much suspicion. It was a mere hunch, a feeling in your gut, but one you'd learnt to trust long ago.

You start to slowly move backwards, if you were tactical about it, you could still come out of this unscathed. Something flickers in the corner of your vision. All it takes is a moments distraction and the creature lunges at you.

The gunshot echoes in your ears. Your instincts took over, fired for you, and in a rare moment of luck you actually manage to hit. The wolf falls to the snow, its left eye is half gone and blood oozes out of it. The snow becomes dirty in its blood.

You take a step closer to it, observing the dead creature. The cross is gone. Something else flickers in the corner of your vision, something bigger and a lot faster. Luck doesn't strike twice, favouring others in a moment of misfortune.

Sharp teeth sink into your shin. You cry out, despite the second wolf only managing to hang onto more clothes than skin, it still penetrates. Scalding pain shoots up your leg. A second gunshot sounding out. You're not sure how you managed to hit it properly this close, but the wolf falls to the ground next to its mate.

You sink to the ground next to them, breathing heavily as if you'd run half a marathon. Your brain runs loops around itself trying to understand what had happened, why both of them had attacked like that, and why the bleeding crosses on their heads were no longer there.

Was it a trick from him? A trick of your mind?

It would take a lot for you to even attempt to call yourself sane any longer but this felt out of hand. Despite your own distorted reality, when it came to the cult you could usually rely on the rampant voices in your head. Were you really turning this paranoid?

With groans and sputters, you manage to move yourself around enough to take a look at your leg. It could've been worse; the damage wasn't deep but you wouldn't be making it to the mountains like this. You let out a curse to the heavens. You'd been so close to achieving your goal before somebody came looking for you, and now you'd have to backtrack.

You had the two options, and you knew you had to choose the boring one.

A higher pitched scream in the distance catches your attention, followed along with a loud splash and arguing not that far from you. The snow carried the sound a bit further than normal but it wouldn't be more than a minute’s walk from your location.

And just when you thought you could make your way back with no complications.

You hoist yourself back on your feet, letting out a hiss as your leg protests to the movement with more pain shot up all the way to your thigh. You lean on a nearby tree, perking your ears to listen to the nearby voices.

At first you can't make out what they're saying but...they're familiar.

Simon and Soap.

Your stomach drops.

Price must have sent them out to look for you. Part of you scolds yourself for not leaving some sort of note or message. No matter how elusive. At least then they might not have come out for you. You could've gotten further, if it hadn't been for the sake of those pesky wolves.

You run a hand over your face, the gloves taking some of the fallen snow off your eyebrows. You walk in the direction of their voices, using their argument to steer you in the right direction.

There was safety in numbers now that they were out here. You weren't keen on being mauled over by another pack of wolves.

"For fucks sake Johnny, I told you to watch where you're placing those feet of yours!"

"Not my fault the bloody stones are so slippery in this weather!"

"Bloody hell just get your arse up!"

You peek out between a set of bushes, the thicket giving you enough cover to observe the situation before you approached them. You tilt your head, your eyebrows turning a bit up in surprise at the sight.

Soap, coming out the water from one of the deeper creeks, completely wet.

Your lip twitches, and you feel the urge to bubble up with laughter. You don't know how he fell in, and you don't really need to know to see the entire event as hilarious.

"Bloody river, stupid weather, stupid snow" he grumbles angrily as he tries to dust off the water like it was a simple speck of dirt.

Simon sighs heavily, his entire gear moving along up and down with him. "You need to go back, gonna get hypothermia if you stay out here," he says sternly. There's concern laced in the order, but it's an undeniable order nonetheless.

"No way...am not letting you stay out here alone, Price told us tae look for 'em together," Soap protests.

"Don't need to look much further," you sigh and speak up.

You emerge from the thicket, startling the both of them at the same time. They're drawn guns are trained on you in an instant, and in return your own gun is trained on Soap. Force of habit and all that.

Simon relaxes when he gets a proper look at you. Soap following soon after.

"Good, you're not dead then" he speaks in a relieved manner. Did he really think you'd act that recklessly? Probably.

"You really think I'd let myself get killed over something that idiotic?"

He looks at you for a moment, but not because he needed to give it any thought. No, his eyes aren't displaying a complex need for that, because he knows the answer. He's giving you the chance to take it back, to explain the limp in your walk. You don't.

"No," he says just as sternly in the crass voice of his.

"Ghost is right," you say and turn towards soap and his half assed attempt at squeezing water out of his gear, "we need to get you back home...get you warmed up."

"Aye."

The entirety of the town is already giving Price the creeps. He's seen his fair share of things in his time, the awful, the creepy, the monstrous. But the feeling this town gives him? Unlike most things he's encountered.

There's no hostility, nothing but the purest of hospitality even for mere tourists. There's something wrong with the smiles, their incessant need to accommodate practically anything he asks for.

He opens the door to the car, holding the two coffee cups against his chest. Garrick reaches over, takes them from him when he gets himself comfortable in the front seat. "I think I got your order right...don't kill me if it isn't, got a bit distracted in line," Price grumbles and leans back in his seat.

Garrick takes a sip of his own, then handing back Price's cup to him. "It's just fine cap, thanks" he mumbles and drinks some more. He let's out a satisfied groan and relaxes back into the seat. "Despite how weird this place is, at least they know how to make coffee."

"Hm that we can agree on," Price takes a sip of his. It's not bad, but he's definitely had better. The shop he went to would do better serving tea on the menu as well.

He'd parked the car in one of the open parking lots, not many seemed to come here. Most of the day it remained practically empty except for the few people coming to and from town. They'd spent the last two hours walking through town, posing as the tourists they undeniable were today. They hadn't learnt much, except for the fact the locals remembered faces too well for comfort.

Though it was to be expected, the town wasn't too big.

"Walked by the church..." Price says with a sigh, "struck up conversation with a few of the locals changing up the sign outside."

"Got anything useful out of them?" Garrick asks as if he'd conducted a whole interrogation.

"They've got daily mass...but most people come on Sundays as to be expected," he tells him before taking another sip, "a few of us should attend on Sunday."

Garrick let's out a louder groan, likely already picking up what he's putting down. The man clearly didn't want to, but like anything else they'd do here in this town, it was all work. Just work.

Price takes another long gulp of his coffee. The energy barely ever worked for him these days, the stress getting to his bones. He looks out towards the bustling little market a bit further up the long road. There wasn't many, but most of them would come through the market at least once a day. Garrick had mentioned a few familiar faces he'd spoken to in his other trips to town.

"Captain, do you think they'll...." he goes quiet, hesitating to finish his question.

"They'll find them," Price says assuredly.

"That's not..."

The captain doesn't bother looking at him, gives him a moment to think his question through. "Speak your mind, Garrick," he urges.

"How much do we actually know about them?" he knows why he's asking. Price had his own doubts, his own concerns, when Laswell first presented your file on his desk and insisted this was the only way.

He hadn't fully shed his doubts yet.

"We know enough, sergeant" it's not the answer he wants nor the answer he needs but it's the answer Price has for him. He'd have to do more digging, for the safety of the team, for the prosperity of the mission itself. You were too big a mystery, one where the only thing he could rely on was Laswell's word.

"They've been helpful, they'll continue to be helpful, it'll have to be enough for now." Price adds on shortly after.

 Garrick says nothing in return, simply continues to drink his coffee dissatisfied.

Price starts up the car, intending to have the rest of the way home in silence. And it was, much to his admiration. The sergeant could have a talkative tongue when he got excited about something, he'd think this whole situation would give him a few things to say.

Instead, it leaves him a quiet contemplating mess. Much like the rest of them.

He only ever speaks up in a low grumble when he sees the tip of the house revealing itself in the distance, only to render himself quiet once again.

The silence stretches on until Kyle sees the three figures bickering at the front door. "Isn't that..." he trails out as he realizes they probably don't have the key for the home. He does his best at holding back his laughter. It earns him a side glare from Price.

"Seems like they found 'em."

Price turns the car around and parks it in its usual spot next to the temporary home. "The fuck happened to you?!" Garrick says bemused by the sight of Soap.

Price does raise a questioning brow as he exits the car after Garrick. They were only supposed to go get Spider, why the man was wet as a dog was lost on him.

"Fell in the river..." Soap grumbles.

Garrick fails to hold in his laughter this time around, snorting on the spot. "I know you like water but maybe you should stay away from the literal ice water mate," he claps Soap on the back a few times.

Soap pushes him away annoyed, "agh away n' bile yer heid!"

Price rolls his eyes, pushing past the two to unlock the front door. As soon as it's open, you dart past him to head inside in the warmth with a surprising urgency. He looks to Simon, coming to stand beside him to move inside as well.

"They're fine...mostly fine...we're all fine," he assures him.

He eyes you suspiciously. His boys might've said you were fine, you might've said you were fine to them. Little observation told him that your limping leg wasn't all that fucking fine.

He followed you out back, the rest remaining in the living room to keep MacTavish warm. "Spider, slow it up" he spoke up causing you to freeze in place. He walked with steady steps until he could place himself in front of you.

"Come, I need to talk to you, and we need to take a look at that," he gestures to the leg that has a stained pantleg. He turns back around to walk to his and Garrick's room. He doesn't bother looking back to see if you're following, he has a deep-rooted feeling that you will.

You may be a rulebreaker when you get the confidence, but there's still obedience in you. From where he doesn't understand just yet, but it doesn't take all of his wisdom to gather a lot went down when you were hunting the cult on your own.

He holds the door open for you. Your eyes meet as you make your way inside, there's that stubbornness he's used to seeing in Simon. "Sit," he points to one of the beds pressed into the corner while he closes the door.

You do as he says, your voice stuck in your throat. He rummages through the cabinets, finds the first aid kit he always saved a few of. He didn't even need to tell you to roll up your pantleg, you'd taken the hint way before.

The wounds weren't deep, but whatever you'd been bitten by had been out to be vicious. "You'll need to get a doctor to look at this...lucky for you the town's got a local practice."

You tense up at that, dodge his touch as he tries to keep your leg steady enough to clean. "It's fine..." you say hastily, "It just needs to be cleaned I don't need to see anyone."

"Yes you do and that's an order," Price is stern in his voice.

One thing was to go out of your way to disobey the laid-out deal between the two of you, to run away to look for clues on your own, but this? He wasn't about to let you walk about with an injury that'll make you hurt yourself even more.

You go quiet at that. It's enough for him to grab your calf and put a wet rag against your wound. You flinch but make no sound. Your muscles are tense under his grip and your eyes shut tight.

He allows you the moment of silence, understanding the discomfort of it. He doubted you'd be able to answer anything if he even asked you right now. He cleans off the excess blood, checking the toughness of the teeth punctures. It wasn't as serious as it looked, but you still needed a checkup, he wasn't changing his mind about that.

He removes the rag, and binds the wound. "Did you find anything?" he doesn't look at you as he asks, merely focusing on cleaning up the opened supplies.

"No..." you speak in a low whisper; he wouldn't have heard unless he was this close.

You don't elaborate, and he doesn't find the energy in him to ask.

"Next time you want to go on an adventure like that you take someone with you, or at the very least inform me," he's back to speaking sternly, the voice of a captain that's been carefully crafted over the years in service.

"I can't have rogue soldiers running around, is that understood?" he looks up to catch your eyes.

You hold his stare with an uncomfortable intensity, trying to be as intimidating as he is.

"Yes sir."

He pats your calf, tugging down your pant leg once again. That time you held back your flinch, but it was obvious in your eyes to him. He takes a moment to observe you, trying to dig through your rougher exterior, to see if you were really softer under in it all.

Had you been soft once?

He calls your name in a quiet voice, makes a point to use a softer voice with rounder edges.

"There's parts of your file not even I have access to," he starts slow, careful, then pauses. You're wary of him, more than the others. He chalks it up to his authority over you, the one you can't quite find your place underneath.

"What's haunting you that much...that you won't even let me in on surprise plans...we're all a team here we-"

You rise from your seat with no warning. You're quick to make your way around him, careful to not step on any of the scattered things on the floor. He doesn't stop you nor does he continue what he was about to pry out of you.

He understands in some underhanded way. He'd dealt with Simon a lot longer than he'd dealt with you. There were undeniable similarities yet still something entirely different between the two.

"You'll go to town first thing tomorrow morning, I'll get Ghost to take you" he speaks up from his seat on the floor. You stop somewhere close to the door, listening to his words, his order. You don't answer him, but he knows you heard him, that you'll heed him this once.

You leave the room, closing the door with a care for potential noise.

Likes, Reblogs and comments are always appreciated, love ya! <3

Taglist: @chickennn-soupp @unlikelyaperson @ghostlythots @lilynotdilly @spicyspicyliving @kaoyamamegami @ellabellabunny123 @woodlandgirl22-blog-blog @haipasa

[silverdoe]

not that i'm ever gonna do it, but right now i actually feel like killing myself

[ricky-mortis]

A portrait of Sir John Herschel because I‘m normal about Pulp Musicals

[idiotwithoutagoodname]

Something that will never not be funny to me is how Harlan writes dialogue for John and then realizes how fucking romantic it sounds so he has to follow up every interaction in which he talk to anyone ABOUT Arthur with a “friend” at the end lmao.

“My king, I respect the affection and care you bestow upon your very dear FRIEND”

“He’s meat”

“Yeas but he’s my meat- MY FRIEND”

“Why does he chose you and not me?”

“Because I love him.

And he loves me. That’s FRIENDSHIP”

Sir, just stop.

Are you doing this to mess with us or are you doing this to yourself and we are all just going along with it for the feels?

(And, just to clarify, this is not a “they are clearly in love with each other” post, but me saying that (whether read as platonic or romantic) it felt like Harlan realizing how beautifully he wrote a piece of dialogue and then having to throw 3 “friends” for good measure in the next sentence, lest the fandom bursts into flames. And that’s seemed a little funny to me)

[the-sunbee]

a little update about how far i got into malevolent and the thoughts ive had so far

spoilers for parts 1-5

here is a man, who wakes up not being able to see and he starts hearing a voice in his head. he wakes up in an office he discovers is his with his partner's dead body in the middle.

and he questions it so little. the thought of not having his own eyes and having a voice in his head and having just killed his partner normalizes so easily for him

istg the first ep i was just :o the whole time

second part so far has been the loudest. there was thunder and yelling and gunshots and it scared me. the podcast started out relatively quietly for my phone (and my headphones suck) so i had to listen to it on speaker. the room i work in is loud so it had to be pretty loud... i had my dog w me. we were both scared of the gunshots and thunder lmao

but yet again it was cool. the world design seems so cool and im eager to keep listening.

he finds a baby in the forest.

thats it. a baby. in the woods. no questions.

he finds a car by the side of the road, sees blood and track marks and FOLLOWS THEM. he finds a campsite with 2 women (one is dead) and a baby and he and john doe think "oh yeah. we have to save the baby." thats it. only baby.

and then she starts laughing. and chasing.

and just... only thoughts are baby.

the wraith things were so cool. i love ghosts and spirits and folklore about such things so the mansion ep was just super cool.

the gasmask man (im bad w names dont mind me) intrigued me. the way john would speak and the man would just scream shut up so the question "does the gas mask man hear john" rise up only for him to shut that idea down. and the comment about the mother. that callback minutes later was comedy gold istg.

im about half way into ep 5 too and the whole starting bit was creepy and cool and set up so well. the voice change from a calm helpful tone to a "TELL ME WHAT YOU KNOW ARTHUR" was 10/10

[obnoxiousarcade]

I have a longing to be understood more than anything else i think

[opens-up-4-nobody]

Listen. Probably my favorite thing about The Terror is that because the story is one planned out season, the arcs and parallel scenes are set up so cleanly and nicely that it echos.

[yourheartinyourmouth]

I can’t express how much it means to me that my spouse loves Cabin Pressure as much as I do

I love that he lets me pause every single episode at least once to make some remark or infodump something abt the show and is always like :D abt it

[ralexsol]

wanting to play video game or watch youtube video or do really anything vs. i cant listen to favorite song while doing that :(

[a-b-riddle]

Part 2

Can't stop thinking about reader finally cutting them loose.

For three days there was nothing but radio silence. In those three days you had told yourself that it was a grace period. Time for Simon to cool off and realize how much of a bastard he was for saying all those things he obviously didn't mean. Johnny coming back over with a bouquet of flowers and endless apologies and cuddles.

Simon didn't apologize for his harsh words.

Johnny didn't call you later, as promised.

For three days you jumped at every single notification, silently hoping it was one of them. Any of them.

But it wasn't.

And you, unfortunately, got the answer to the question you had been asking yourself for months.

Did they still want this?

The answer was clear.

You didn't let their unofficial dismissal get to you. You still had shit to do. A life to get on to. A book signing to go to.

Jesus.

A book signing. A book you wrote. A book that was being published and released the day of the expo. You weren't expecting a huge line because this was your debut novel, but with the help of some ARC readers who had took to social media, there had been a bit of a storm brewing.

You had listened to John when he had mentioned writing under an alias. Don't know how crazy people are out there. They'd do anything to get close to you, Dove. Just better to protect yourself where you can. You almost hated yourself for listening to him now. Now you would just have to keep writing under your pen name.

You were getting ready to close up shop early when your phone finally pinged.

Kyle.

Fuck.

Of course it was Kyle. The one who hadn't treated you like you were constantly bothering him. Not the one who made you feel guilty for agreeing to your arrangement. Nor was he the one who fucked you and left you. No. He was just the one who just wasn't there.

Maybe that was just as bad.

What are you up to today?

That was it. Almost two weeks of radio silence and that's all he had to say? It just added more evidence that you were making the right call in ending this now. It had already carried on for too long.

You had two things on your to-do list and you wouldn't let Kyle's sudden reappearance deter you.

E-mail the publisher back.

Change the locks.

You didn't have the strength to face them again. If they groveled, it would be too easy to take them back. One against four wasn't much of a fair fight. And if they didn't care to fight for you... you don't know if you could survive it. Coming face-to-face with the proof that it didn't bother them to give you up even though it was killing you.

No. Cutting it off completely was the best thing to do.

So you didn't respond.

You left Kyle's text unanswered as you e-mailed the publisher back that everything was set for your flight on tomorrow morning. You would spend Thursday adjusting to the time difference and Friday you would rest up before the expo this weekend. She assured you that you would need to rest up your writing hand. Whatever that means.

You left Kyle read as you closed up shop several hours earlier than usual. You needed to drop off the bank deposit before you started on task number two.

You didn't bothering responding to Johnny when he had texted you when you were leaving the hardware store, purchase in hand. Asking if you were free Friday. Promising dinner. 'In or out. Your choice.'

It was almost second nature when you got home to pull up your phone. Ready to text one of them to see which one of them could come over and help.

Fixing a leaky sink? Nothing Johnny hasn't seen before. Need help moving furniture? John won't mind when you change your several times on what should go where. Kyle would always come in with take out the moment you mentioned you were hungry and whenever you felt like going for a walk when it was a bit too late in the evening, Simon was the first to volunteer as your personal guard dog.

But asking them to come and change the very lock you planned on using to keep them out seemed... counter productive, if not downright petty.

You were almost done with the lock when your phone sounded off. Only this time it wasn't a text. Someone was calling you.

You almost faltered when John's name came on your screen.

Fuck.

That almost got you.

You almost answered it.

Almost.

You clicked on the 'Sorry, I can't talk right now. Options, before finishing up your work.

And just like that, you were done. No help needed. You had changed the lock. Even adding on a deadbolt. Replacing the flimsy chain Simon had taunted you about. If someone wanted to get in here, that wouldn't stop them.

Well, now you didn't need to hear it anymore.

Not that you would really hear it again...

Your flight was in twelve hours. Although that seemed an ample amount of time you hadn't even begun to pack. You had luckily narrowed your outfits down, but now was the task of folding it nicely into your suitcase rather than just stuffing it in there.

On my way. We need to talk.

It was too late for talking. Three days too late. Several months too late.

The last message sent was four weeks ago. A new Thai place had opened up close to your apartment that you were wanting to try. All of them had given you excuses.

Not my taste, Dove.

Cannae do it tonight. Next weekend? Next weekend didn't happen either.

I can do tomorrow. Kyle ended up bailing. You forget the excuse he used.

Simon hadn't even bothered to reply.

The final nail in the coffin of your relationship. Almost two years wasted with nothing, but a broken heart to show for it. And the worst part is, they had all chipped away at your heart, leaving you to deal with the final blow that would shatter it.

Im sorry. I can’t do this with you anymore. wish you all the best.

Your fingers made quick work in blocking their numbers. It was best. If they wanted to reach you, they couldn't. On the other side of the coin, if they didn't care to reply, you wouldn't spend countless hours crying over the fact that none of them had been affected the same way you had.

You would deal with getting them their belongings that they had left behind another time. You had big things, great things happening for you. You were cutting your loses. You were cutting them loose.

You just hoped you didn’t regret it.

[soaps-mohawk]

Cherry Red, Crimson Blood

Chapter 11: It's Coming

Summary: Things have begun to shift in your developing relationship with your pack. Unfortunately, nature has the worst timing in the world. 

Pairing: Poly 141 x reader

Warnings: Suggestive content, Alpha/Beta/Omega dynamics, Alternate Universe, a/b/o typical classism and sexism, military inaccuracies, language, medical stuff, plenty of fluff.

A/N: I wrote like 90% of this chapter on my phone so please forgive any weird typos. I'm super excited for this one and this whole part really. Lots of good stuff coming up!!

MASTERLIST | <- Previous | Next ->

At first you’re not quite sure what pulled you from sleep. You’re warm and more comfortable than you have been in a long time, despite the dull throbbing between your thighs. The pillow against your back shifts, a chill settling in as some of the warmth disappears. 

You blink your eyes open, squinting against the harsh blue light of a phone screen. Price lets out a quiet groan, swiping at something before settling his phone back on the nightstand in front of you. His arms wrap back around your middle, his face pressing into the back of your neck as he settles against you again. 

It was his phone vibrating that had woken you, pulling you from the gentle arms of sleep. It’s still dark out, far too early to be up and getting phone calls, especially on a Sunday morning. You wonder how often John actually gets to sleep, between his job and everything he does when he’s not away. You’re understanding the couch in his office more and more now. 

“Go back to sleep.” He murmurs, a quiet rumbling vibrating against your back as he purrs.

You don’t need to be told twice, snuggling down under the covers again, letting your eyes close. 

You wake a while later alone. It’s daylight finally, the sunlight coming through the window lighting the room. You press your face into the pillow, inhaling Price’s scent. It still smells a bit like arousal and sex in the room, both of your scents heavy in the air. They blend together surprisingly well, Price’s musky woody scent mixing with the sweetness of your own scent. It makes an intoxicating aroma of alpha and omega. 

Price comes out of the bathroom, slipping back under the covers. You curl up against his side, laying your head on his chest as he wraps an arm around you. 

“Morning.” He murmurs, voice heavy with sleep still. 

You hum in response, resting your head over his heart. 

“How do you feel?” He asks, his fingers trailing your bare back. 

“A bit sore.” You say, acknowledging the throbbing between your legs. “Not as bad as I thought I might.” 

Price huffs out a laugh. “It shouldn’t hurt, not if you know what you’re doing.” 

You hum again, the knowledge that he’s very experienced coming to the forefront of your mind. Even if it has been two years, you can imagine him when he was younger, the kind of experiences he must have had. Omegas and barrack bunnies and all sorts of women probably fawned over him. 

“You’re thinking too much.” He says quietly, eyes closed as he lays there with you. 

You’re starting to think he might be able to read your mind. 

“Can I ask you something? Something...personal?” You ask, tilting your head up to look at him. 

He cracks an eye open to stare down at you. “Don’t think you can get much more personal than we already are.” His lips twitch up in a smile. “‘Course, you can ask me anything.” 

“When was the last time you helped an omega through a heat?” You ask, listening to the steady thump of his heart under your ear. 

“Years ago. Well over a decade ago.” He says, voice still thick and raspy with sleep. He clears his throat, a hand settling on your waist. “Back when I was still a Sergeant. I had the idea back then of settling down, finding an omega and having my own pack. Had a few on and off relationships. Then I started getting sent off on more and more dangerous missions. I realized my skill set and my purpose, and gave up the idea of having an omega. I couldn’t stand the thought of putting them through that, if something happened to me. I’ve seen what losing an alpha does to an omega firsthand too many times.” 

A frown tugs at your brows as you lay there against his chest. You know the risk of them dying is high. The CIA had spent ample time warning you of that risk, telling you about how dangerous their lives are and how every assignment, every deployment, could be their last. They could be gone for weeks at a time, months at a time, and they could go and not come back. They know that every time they leave for an assignment it could be their last, and now you’ll be stuck behind knowing they might not be coming back. 

You’ve heard about omegas that have lost their alphas, how damaging it can be. It’s not something you’re taught at the institute. That’s not something you’re supposed to think about, something you shouldn’t have to think about. 

“What’s eating you?” Price asks softly, his finger stroking the pinched skin between your brows. 

You shift against his side, leaning more on his chest as you look up at him. “What if you don’t come back?” 

His smile is a bit grim as he stares up at you, his fingers trailing across your face. “I won’t lie and say that’s not a risk. There’s always a chance.” His fingers trail down your arm to rest on your hand where it’s pressed flat against his chest. “We’re here for a reason. We are the best at what we do.” 

He pauses as your hand moves, your gaze lowering from his as you trace one of the scars on his clavicle. You can only imagine what caused it. A knife? Shrapnel? Where was he and what was he doing when he got it? You might never be able to know all the details. So many secrets, so much you can’t know. 

John wraps his arms around you, easing you off his chest as he rolls you onto your back. You stare up at him as he hovers over you, his hand brushing stray hairs from your face. “Don’t worry too much.” He says, his finger trailing the line of your nose. “We always try our best to make it home. Now we just have an even greater reason to.” 

Your hand cups his cheek as he leans down, pressing his lips to yours. You hum against his mouth, pressing your body closer against his. You can’t help but smile against his lips as his cock hardens against your thigh. 

“Again?” You murmur against his lips, making him chuckle.

“Can’t blame me when there’s a beautiful omega naked in my bed.” 

Your face burns as he leans back down to kiss you, his hips moving against your thigh. Warmth spreads through your whole body from his scent thickening in the air, his arousal prevalent as he twitches against your leg. 

“John.” You moan softly, hands grasping at his back. 

You both pause as a door shuts in the hallway, the reminder that the others are just a thin wall away coming back to you. The moment is over as your stomach growls, also reminding you that you’ll need to eat eventually. 

John chuckles quietly, leaning up to press a kiss against your forehead. “Come on, let’s get the day started and get some food into you.” 

You frown a bit as he pulls away, cock still hard and angry looking as he stands from the bed. “John?” You call out, scrambling off the bed after him. “You’re just gonna...” 

“Give it a minute and I’ll be fine.” He says, moving to his closet. “Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

Your frown only deepens and you step closer to him, catching him as he turns around. You stare up at him through your lashes, wrapping your hand around his cock. He pauses, letting out a little groan as you squeeze him gently. 

“Let me help you.” You say, dragging your hand along his length. 

His eyes darken as he stares down at you, the pants in his hand dropping to the floor. 

Your face is still a bit flushed as you make your way to the mess. You’re hand in hand with John, dressed comfortably in one of his shirts and a pair of leggings. You can’t help but feel a bit bashful, as if they’re all going to know what you did, as if every soldier in the mess knows you and Price slept together last night. 

They’ve probably been thinking that since you arrived. 

Price leads you through the line, making your tray for you. You nearly beam with pride at him taking care of you, your omega preening with happiness as he carries your tray and his to the table. You take the spot next to Gaz as usual, still practically beaming. 

“Have a good night, love?” Gaz asks, smirking a bit at your pleased state. 

“Yeah.” You say, your face getting warm again at their stares. 

“Practically glowing, kitten.” Johnny says, winking at you from across the table. 

Your face flushes hotter and you quickly bury yourself in your porridge to avoid exploding at the breakfast table. 

“Sounded like ye had a great time.” Johnny continues. 

Christ, they probably heard the whole thing. You halfway want to sink down beneath the table to hide from their knowing stares. You don’t have anything to be embarrassed about, not really. They’re your pack, and eventually you’ll be in the same position with them too. 

“Didnae know ye had it in ye, kitten.” Johnny continues. “We certainly enjoyed the show.”

You do start to sink down in your seat a bit, surprised steam isn’t rising off your skin from how warm you feel. Gaz’s hand on your leg stops you, his fingers squeezing your thigh gently. 

“Don’t pay too much attention to him, love.” Gaz gives you a reassuring smile. “He’s just jealous he didn’t get to go first.” 

“Am not.” Johnny whines, practically pouting. 

You can’t help but smile a bit at his antics. You know from how much he bragged about getting to be your first kiss that he probably was rather put out that John got to be your first. It would have been that way regardless, but you know you asking John before your heat changed things a bit. It would have always been John, though. 

It would have always been your alpha first. 

Gaz’s hand doesn't move from your thigh, holding its place there as you all eat, Johnny still pouting a bit. You know they’ll want to pursue that sort of relationship with you after your heat, but now that John’s removed the barrier of the first time as well, you can only expect them to up the teasing tenfold. A shiver runs up your spine at the thought of Gaz sliding his hand slightly higher, fingers slipping between your legs. 

You’re certain there has to be steam coming off of you now. 

Your thighs squeeze together, trapping Gaz's fingers between them as you continue to try and act normally. Gaz turns his head just slightly, side eyeing you as you continue to try and eat your breakfast as normally as possible. Gaz's grip on your thigh tightens, fingers digging into your skin. You fight the noise threatening to come up as he holds his hand there, continuing to eat his breakfast as if nothing is happening. 

You hold Gaz's hand as he walks you back towards the barracks, leaning against his side. His grip around your fingers is tight, not even the rain dampening the heaviness of his scent. It's deeper than usual, the musk of arousal tinging the edges. 

Your back meets your door as soon as you're back in the barracks, Gaz pinning you against the wood. Your own breathing is heavy as you stare up at him, his eyes dark as he meets your gaze. 

“Fuckin’ gorgeous, you know that?” He groans, leaning down to kiss you. It's far more passionate than you've ever kissed him before, his hands sliding down your sides to grip your waist. “Making all those sweet noises last night.” He breathes against your lips. “Haven't seen Price that relaxed in a long time.” 

Your face warms at his words, your hands clutching at the fabric of his shirt. He presses harder against you, pinning you against the door as his tongue prods at your lips. He tastes like the tea he drank with breakfast, herby and earthy. 

“Has us all worked up last night.” He groans against your lips. “Hearing you, knowing our alpha was treating you nice.”

He presses his forehead against yours, staring down at you. You meet his gaze, shivering under the intensity in his deep brown eyes. 

“Johnny bout cried he was so worked up.” Gaz's lips twitch in a smile. “Simon left for the gym bout halfway through, had to work out his tension.”

Your brows raise at the news about what Ghost had been up to last night. You figured he might join Johnny in his room, or perhaps head somewhere so he didn't have to hear you. Not that he would leave because he was being affected by you. 

“Johnny was being such a whiny little bastard. Had no choice but to take pity on him.” Gaz nips at your jawline playfully. “I fear he's going to be unbearable until he gets his chance.” 

“Well, he'll just have to wait his turn.” You say. 

Gaz laughs, kissing you again before he takes half a step back, leaning his arm on the door above you. “Any plans today?”

You shrug, still leaning against your door. “Might read, or nap. Maybe both.” You sink your teeth into your lip, reaching back to put your hand on the door handle. “You wanna come in?” 

Gaz's grin widens into a smile, his eyes practically sparkling. “Sure.”

You open the door, stepping into your room. It's a bit of a mess from you preparing for your date last night. You toss the clothes from your bed onto the floor haphazardly before pushing Gaz onto the mattress. He kicks off his shoes before making himself comfortable. You toe off your slippers, grabbing your book before joining him on the bed. He pulls you against his side, pulling his phone out of his pocket as you settle against his chest. A quiet content purr begins rumbling in his chest, easing the tension in your body as you relax against him. 

You stay like that, reading while cuddling Gaz, for quite a while. Your door is wide open still, the others coming and going as they do on the weekends. Gaz keeps your back to his chest, arm wrapped around his middle as he scrolls on his phone while you read. 

Slowly his head starts to droop until it's resting against the top of yours. You can feel the content sleepiness settling into your bones as well, the words on the pages starting to swim a bit. You mark your place, moving just enough to set your book on your nightstand before you curl up against him, letting his even breaths lull you to sleep. 

You jolt awake suddenly as Gaz's arms tighten around you, keeping you from flying off the bed. You blink open your bleary eyes, squinting at Johnny's grinning face inches from yours. His body is draped over both yours and Gaz's, a solid weight against you both. 

“C'mon ye lazies. Gotta eat lunch eventually.” He says, sounding far too chipper for a Sunday afternoon. 

“Fuck off mate.” Gaz says, shoving at Johnny's shoulder. “Was comfy.”

“Yer hogging the omega!” Johnny says, poking Gaz's side. He pushes himself up, scooping you into his arms and lifting you. “Some of us would like tae spend time with ‘er too.” 

You yelp at being lifted suddenly, wrapping your arms around Johnny's neck to hold on for dear life. 

“Well, maybe you just need to be a little bit faster.” Gaz says, standing from the bed. 

“I'm plenty fast.” Johnny almost whines. “Close to beating your time on the course.”

Gaz smirks. “I'll believe it when I see it.” 

You look back and forth between them as Gaz steps closer to Johnny, caging you between them. 

“And ye will see it.” Johnny says.

“Cheeky.” Gaz murmurs, closing the distance between them. 

You stare wide eyed as they kiss just inches in front of your face. It's all tongues and teeth, Soap's chest rumbling against your side as he purrs. A quiet whimper leaves your lips as you watch them, your body starting to get warm again. 

They break apart, both turning to look at you. Gaz's lips turn up in a smirk, Johnny's eyes sparkling. 

“Look at you, kitten.” Johnny smirks. “Ye like watching us?” 

You make another quiet noise, sinking your teeth into your bottom lip. Johnny slowly lowers you until you're standing between them, Gaz not moving an inch as they trap you in a beta sandwich. Their bodies are warm and solid as you stand there, back to Johnny's chest. You can feel the bulge in his jeans pushing against your ass, Gaz's body a solid weight against your front. 

You can imagine it, naked between them, skin against skin with hands everywhere. A quiet purr begins in your chest, eyes dilating as you stare up at Gaz. He smirks down at you, leaning down towards you. He skirts to the side at the last minute though, kissing Johnny behind you. 

You can't see them this time but lord can you hear it. Johnny is still purring, the sound vibrating against your back. Gaz let's out a quiet sound, his hand dropping to squeeze your waist. 

Johnny pats your side before pulling away. “Should get ye some lunch.”

Your head is still spinning as Gaz hums his approval, stepping away as well. You stand there blinking for a moment at the sudden loss of contact, the sudden shift in energy. 

“C'mon, get yer shoes on, sunshine.” Johnny says. 

You move half in a daze still towards your bed, your body tingling a bit still from the many thoughts that had been racing through your mind. 

Something in the back of your mind begins to itch as you stare down at your bed. Your brows pinch in a frown as you stare down at the mess of blankets and pillows. 

It's not right. 

Your fingertips twitch as you stare at the mess in your nest, your mind taking over as you begin to rearrange the blankets and pillows. You forget you're not alone in the room as you fuss with the blankets until the itching begins to lessen a bit. You fiddle with the pillows, moving them around over and over again until you're happy with how they're organized, the quiet humming in the back of your mind fading away to nothing. 

You sink down on the edge of the bed, letting out a long breath. You feel tired and almost winded after your effort to make sure your nest is just right. 

Nest. 

You're nesting. 

You blink up at Johnny and Gaz, suddenly aware of their presence in your space again. Johnny is staring at you wide eyed, mouth slightly parted in wonder. Gaz has a sparkle in his eye as he grins at you. 

You've just built a nest. 

“Feel better, love?” Gaz asks, still almost beaming from witnessing you make your nest. 

You nod, a sudden weight lifting from your shoulders. You've nested. You're nesting. Everything is going to be okay. 

“C'mon.” Johnny says, slipping your slippers back onto your feet. “Let's get lunch in ye.”

You let him help you up, holding both their hands as you make your way from the barracks, a small, relieved smile on your face.

You wake up nauseous. 

There’s a clawing feeling in your stomach and you’re not sure why. 

It’s early, too early to be up. The sky outside is still dark, and the barracks are quiet. You get up, heading for the bathroom, the gnawing feeling still plaguing your stomach. Cold water on your face doesn't help the light-headedness or the dizziness you’re beginning to feel. 

You can’t possibly be sick. You haven’t been around anyone that’s sick. You know heat sickness isn’t a threat right now. There’s no warnings out about possible exposures. It couldn’t be food poisoning. You eat the same things they do. 

The gnawing intensifies, your stomach rumbling a bit. 

Realization dawns on you suddenly. 

You’re hungry. 

You’re very hungry. 

You check the time on your phone. Three a.m. Still too early for any of the boys to be up, and still a couple hours from when the mess would start serving breakfast. You head for the rec room, hoping there’s at least something in there to tide you over until breakfast. 

You dig through the cabinets, plenty of tea and a couple packets of instant coffee you know belong to Johnny. You dig out a couple protein bars, grabbing a water bottle from the fridge before taking a seat on the couch. 

The protein bars aren’t great. They don’t taste good, but you’re so hungry you don’t care. You down them quickly and the entire bottle of water. For a moment you feel relief, the gnawing in your stomach easing. You head back to bed, slipping back into your room quietly. 

You toss and turn, unable to go back to sleep as the gnawing begins in your stomach once more. You let out a quiet sound, muffled by your pillow as you lay there, knowing you still have a long time until they’ll come and get you for breakfast. 

The thought makes you almost want to cry. 

You’re waiting as soon as they knock, narrowly avoiding Johnny’s hand as you open the door mid-knock. The bright look in his eyes fades as he stares at you. You know you look miserable, maybe a little sick, even. You feel worse, your stomach twisting and gnawing. Those protein bars four hours ago hadn’t been nearly enough. 

“Ye alright, kitten?” He asks, a frown marring his face. 

“Hungry.” You all but whine, slipping out the door, closing it behind you. 

“Ye hungry, kitten? Ye could have said somethin’ sooner. Coulda brought ye somethin’.” Johnny says, following you down the hall. 

You’re determined to get real food and you’re not about to let anything get in your way. You feel ravenous, despite the fact you’d had a good dinner the night before. 

Maybe it hadn’t been enough. 

You make your own tray this time, loading on more than you usually do. You take your normal spot between Price and Gaz, all four of them eyeing your tray as you happily dig in. 

“Hungry, love?” Price asks, watching you spoon huge mouthfuls of porridge into your mouth. 

You nod, chewing quickly before spooning more in. It tastes delicious, something you never thought you would say about British food. 

They all watch in awe as you clear your tray, eating every last crumb, having to refrain from licking it clean. Finally, for the first time since you went to bed last night, you feel full and satisfied. 

“Damn. Putting us to shame.” Gaz says, staring at your empty, nearly clean tray. 

You grow bashful under their stares, realizing you not only out ate them, you also finished first. “I was hungry.” You say, fiddling with your fork. 

“No kidding.” Ghost huffs out, all of them finishing up their trays. 

You’re in a far better mood leaving the mess than you were entering it, the sweet relief of being full after hours of gnawing hunger making you feel almost giddy. Ghost walks you back to the barracks, walking slow enough you can easily keep up with him. So slow, your arm brushes his as you walk next to him. 

“Sorry.” You say, moving a step away from him. You’re so used to standing directly next to the others, you’ve forgotten Ghost prefers his personal space. 

He stares down at you for a moment but doesn’t say anything, holding the door to the barracks open for you. He stands just inside the door, watching you make your way down the hallway to your room. He waits for the click of the lock before he turns, leaving you alone in the barracks again. 

You settle into your usual routine of laying in your nest and reading, the giddiness starting to wear off as the time passes. You make it until ten a.m. when the gnawing hunger begins to return. You let out an annoyed whine, dropping your book to the floor as you roll onto your stomach. 

You want to cry and scream at the same time, watching the clock tick by on your phone. You’re tired of being so hungry, and what’s worse, you don’t even know why. You’re just ravenous and you can’t think of a reason. 

Lunch can’t come soon enough, and you find yourself struggling through the afternoon just as much. It’s almost like your body is on a timer and every two hours you’re suddenly starving, as if you haven’t eaten all day. You eat just as much as you did at breakfast, scarfing down food like you’re a starving animal. 

You certainly feel like one. 

You head to the rec room after dinner, Ghost and Johnny joining you. Johnny takes the seat next to you on the couch, draping his arm behind you as Ghost takes his usual spot in the chair. 

You curl up against Johnny’s side, watching whatever he decides to put on TV half-heartedly. You’re waiting for the inevitable, the gnawing hunger to creep up on you again. 

It does, roughly two hours into your time in the rec room. 

You shift against Johnny, pressing against his side more as you try to ignore the hunger burning through you. His arm wraps around your shoulders, holding you against him. You breathe in his scent, letting the citrusy scent of him wash over you. 

It only serves to make you more hungry. 

You let out a quiet whine, trying to get closer to him. Tears prick at your eyes as you know there’s no relief coming. There’s no more meals until tomorrow. You’ll have to go all night before you can eat again, before you can relieve the hunger. You’re not sure you’ll make it that long. You might perish in the middle of the night, or become violently ill. Perhaps both. 

You let out another quiet whine, standing from the couch. You can’t take it anymore, both Johnny and Ghost watching you as you head for the cabinets, kneeling on the floor and rummaging through everything, desperate to find another protein bar or anything. 

“What are you doing?” Ghost asks, staring at you as you’re halfway in the cabinet, checking every last corner. 

“Hungry!” You snap, half considering eating one of the tea bags just for something. 

You’ve just closed the cabinet door in irritation when an arm wraps around your waist, lifting you from the floor. You let out a yelp, Ghost carrying you easily back to the couch. 

“Stay.” He says after dropping you back next to Johnny. “I’ll be back.” 

Johnny wraps his arms around you as you pout, nearly in tears from how frustrated you are. You’re just so hungry. 

“Easy, kitten.” Johnny says, pulling you back against his chest. 

You nuzzle into him, curling up into a ball against his side. He starts purring quietly, trying to soothe you while you wait for Ghost to return. You can’t pay attention to the TV, Johnny trying to change the channel every time a food related commercial comes on. 

You’re nearly shaking when Ghost returns, arms full of snacks. Your eyes widen as he dumps them on the coffee table, pushing yourself up from Johnny’s chest. 

“Where did you get these?” You ask, dropping to your knees on the floor in front of the coffee table. 

“Vending machine in the mess.” Ghost answers, sitting back down in his chair. 

You stare at him teary eyed, sniffling a little. “Thank you.” 

He grunts in response, turning his gaze back to the TV as you reach for a bag of chips.

You can barely even taste it as you kneel there on the floor, basking in the first taste of sweet relief from a bag of salt and vinegar chips. You grab them by the handful, burning through the small, snack sized bag quickly. 

You’ve barely finished chewing when you’re reaching for a candybar, a sudden realization striking you as your brain begins to regain the ability to think now that it knows relief is coming. You stare at the purple Cadbury on the front of the packaging, your fingers trembling as you hold the candybar. 

You take a deep breath, quickly opening the wrapper before taking a bit, sitting back on your heels as you chew. “Well, shit.” 

“I know, I hate the exam rooms too.” Dr. Keller says, flipping through her clipboard. “Too clinical and sterile looking.” She lifts your hand, removing the pulse monitor from your finger. “A little higher than normal.” She says, writing something down on the clipboard. 

She takes your blood pressure and temperature, writing both down on the clipboard. 

“Temperature is still normal.” She says. “How have you been feeling?” 

“Hungry.” You say, picking at the thin fabric of the hospital gown you’ve been forced into. “Ravenously hungry and clingy.” You continue. “A bit more emotional than normal too.” 

Dr. Keller nods, writing all of it down. “Normal things for your pre-heat, according to your file. Anything out of the ordinary? Aches and pains? Any nausea or vomiting, not related to hunger?” 

You shake your head. “No. Kinda sleepy all the time too, but the hunger makes it hard to sleep.” 

Dr. Keller nods. “That’s normal. Your body is preparing for a few days of very little caloric intake and little rest. I’d say you’re exhibiting all the signs of pre-heat. You’re right on time, as expected.” She gives you a little smile. “Judging by your vitals you still have a few days before the full heat symptoms begin. Any questions?” 

“What do institutes do for heats?” John asks where he’s sitting to the side of the exam table. 

“It depends on the institute.” Dr. Keller says, looking at you. 

“FIOT rotated between sedation and isolation.” You say, not really wanting to think back on the heats you had gone through at the institute. “Sedation for the full heat, or shutting us in private rooms for a week to ride out the symptoms alone to avoid triggering heats in the other omegas.” 

“Neither are great, but in that sort of environment there’s not a lot that can be done. Sedation is the better of the two, though it can still be disorienting. Isolation is painful and risky, especially if proper care isn’t given.” Dr. Keller says. 

“Is sedation an option for the future?” Price asks. 

You turn to look at him, before looking back at Dr. Keller. 

“It’s something we can explore. I know it can’t be expected of you to be here for every heat. We can start exploring some alternatives after this heat is over and I have a better idea of what they’re going to look like.” Dr. Keller gives you a soft smile. “Now, I’d like to do a little exam just to give me a baseline for after your heat when I check for any abnormalities or injuries.” 

She directs you to lay down on the exam table and put your feet in the stirrups. You suddenly feel nervous, her words doing little to calm you. John appears in your peripheral, slipping his hand into yours. 

“Is that a risk?” You ask as Dr. Keller pulls a clean pair of gloves on. 

“Only a small one.” She says, standing at the end of the table. “I know you’ve probably heard all the horror stories, but those are only really concerns with inexperienced alphas who have never helped an omega through a heat before, especially those who had limited exposure to omegas in general.” She smiles at you. “You’re in good hands, my dear.” 

She does her exam, letting you sit up once she’s finished. John helps you up, still holding your hand. Dr. Keller’s words do ease your concerns just a bit, but you can’t help the images flashing through your mind, the horror stories of mutilations and even deaths. You trust Price to take care of you, but at the same time, you won’t know until it’s over. 

“Everything looks good.” She says. “The best thing you can do right now is try to satiate the pre-heat symptoms and take this time to make sure everything is ready and in place for when the full heat begins. Don’t worry too much.” She looks pointedly at you. “I’ll be on call and ready should something happen.” Her gaze turns to John. “Your beta knows what to look out for, right?” 

John nods. “Kyle has been doing a lot of research. He knows what to do.” 

“Good.” Dr. Keller says, looking back at you. “Why don’t you get dressed, then we can go back to my office where it’s more comfortable and talk some more.” 

Dr. Keller leaves you alone in the room, Price helping you change back into your normal clothes, leaving the room with you. You turn to look up at him, Dr. Keller waiting for you near her office door. 

“I’ll see you later, yeah?” Price says, leaning down towards you. 

“Yeah.” You say, standing up on your toes to kiss him. 

You try to ignore the look on Dr. Keller’s face as you walk past her and into her office, your face warming a bit in response. You take your normal seat, trying to get comfortable despite your bashfulness. 

“You and Captain Price seem a lot closer.” Dr. Keller says as she sits across from you on the couch. 

You nod. “Yeah. We, uh, we have gotten closer.” You chew on your lip. “We slept together...on Saturday night. Had a date, he cooked dinner. Then we...did it.” 

Dr. Keller’s brows raise at your words, her face surprised. “Oh? Is that so? Is that something you wanted?” 

You nod. “I asked him if he’d do it. I wanted my first time to be when I could remember it...before I would feel like it was something that had to be done.” 

Dr. Keller hums, writing something down. “Did you have fun?” 

Your face warms at her words, and you halfway wish the chair would swallow you whole. You nod, hiding your fingers beneath your sleeves again. “Yeah. I uh, started nesting too.” 

Dr. Keller’s face breaks out into a huge smile. “That’s great! That’s fantastic news! Perfect timing too.” 

You nod. “Yeah. Started on Sunday. Been feeling it since.” 

“Good. That gives us one less thing to worry about.” She sets her notebook aside, crossing her legs as she stares at you. “How do you feel about your heat coming so soon?” 

“Nervous.” You answer honestly. 

“It can be a bit daunting, I’d imagine, your first heat with an alpha. Captain Price knows what he’s doing, though. He and Sergeant Garrick will take good care of you.” 

“I know.” You say, fiddling with your sleeves. “It’s still scary. A lot of things can happen and...what if one of them does?” 

“It’s not very likely.” Dr. Keller reassures you. “Captain Price knows what he’s doing. He’s experienced with omegas and heats and the likelihood of him losing control is small, even after so long without any contact with an omega. It sounds like Sergeant Garrick has educated himself on things to look for, and what to do to help. I’ll be ready and on call the entire time as well. I’ll make regular check-ins with Sergeant Garrick too, to make sure everything is going smoothly. You’re not alone in this. We’ll all make sure you’re well taken care of. I know it’s a lot to ask you to trust people that are still somewhat strangers, but we all have your best interests in mind here.” 

“I know.” You say quietly. “It’s hard, not knowing much of anything. They tell you everything you should expect at the institute over and over again, then you get in it and everything is different. Nothing is like it should be. Nothing like they said. I don’t know what I’m doing.” 

“I know. You were prepared for one life and got an entirely different one. Lucky for you, though, you’re surrounded by very understanding people who are more than happy to help you. I know this is so far from ideal for you, but I think you’re doing a fantastic job with what you were handed.” 

You stare at your hands, thinking over her words. John’s called you a good omega before. He’s called you that a few times. He thinks you’re doing a good job, despite the fact you feel like none of your skills are useful here. Despite the fact you feel like you haven’t been trying. 

You think over everything they’ve done for you, how hard they’ve tried to help make you as comfortable as possible. She’s right. They’re all so understanding and you know they like you. You can see it in their reactions to you, you can smell it on them. You know Gaz won’t let anything happen to you, even if something goes wrong. 

They have yet to prove themselves untrustworthy, for the most part. 

Maybe you really don’t have anything to worry about. 

“Come on.” Ghost says, standing in your doorway. You almost don't recognize him in a beanie and surgical mask instead of his usual balaclava. “Get shoes on, and let’s go.” 

“Go where?” You ask, sitting up on your bed. 

“Shopping.” He says, before turning on his heel. 

You frown, but do as he says, slipping on comfortable shoes and grabbing your phone. You head down the hall towards the door, a familiar car parked outside. Price and Ghost are waiting next to the car, both dressed in civilian clothes. You approach them hesitantly, suddenly feeling intimidated in the presence of the two alphas. You know you have nothing to worry about, but this is the first time you'll be alone with both of them. 

Ghost steps up to you, a bottle in his hand. You barely have time to hold your breath before he sprays you down with scent blocker, the harsh chemicals burning your nose as they settle on your skin and cut off your scent. It's necessary, even with two alphas around you. 

“Ready?” John asks, letting his eyes scan over your form for a second. He could probably pick up on your tension and uneasy energy from a mile away. 

“Can...Can I ask why?” You ask as John opens the back door for you. 

“Well, we can't have you starving to death on us, can we?” John smiles. “And we need to get a few things for your heat.”

“Oh.” You say, blinking up at him. 

“Hop in. Hopefully we can get the shopping done before dinner.” John says. 

Before you get hungry again. 

You climb in the backseat, John closing the door before getting in the driver's side. Ghost is already in the passenger seat, buckled in and ready. 

You sit and watch the landscape pass by, the car quiet except for the radio. The contrast between the two betas and the two alphas is almost as distinct as night and day. Johnny and Gaz had talked almost nonstop the entire drive to and back from town. Ghost and Price seem content in their silence, Ghost watching the landscape pass just like you. 

It speaks volumes of their trust and ease with each other. 

The farmlands turn to city and you find yourself back at Asda again. You hold John's hand as you walk, Ghost taking your other side, sandwiching you between them. People stare as you pass, their eyes on Ghost, but he doesn't even seem to notice. 

You stick close to John as you walk through the store, picking up items you'll need for your heat, as well as some other things. Ghost follows like a shadow, people giving you a wide berth when they spot him. You're almost grateful for it. You swear some of them can tell you're about to start your heat, their eyes burning into you as they pass. 

You can feel the beginnings of hunger starting to creep in as you walk down the bed liner aisle. You know if you weren't starting to get hungry, you would have been close to combusting from the knowledge of why this aisle was necessary. 

You let out a sigh, leaning your head against John's arm as he crosses the bed liner off the list. 

“What?” He asks, amusement in his voice. 

“You know what I miss?” You say, wrapping your arms around one of his. “Good authentic Mexican food.” 

The corner of John's lips lift in a smile. “Yeah? You getting hungry again?” 

You nod, a subtle whine to your tone. “Yeah.”

John turns to look at Ghost, the two alphas having a seconds long silent conversation before Ghost heads off, disappearing from the aisle. 

“Where's he going?” You ask. 

“Getting a head start on the other supplies for your heat.” John says. “Just a couple more things, then your snacks and we'll be done and we'll get some dinner.” 

You stop as you turn the corner around the end of the aisle, your eyes spotting a giant teddy bear. It looks soft and squishy, your pre-heat addled brain already picturing the perfect spot for it in your nest. 

“You want it?” John asks, looking between you and the bear. 

You snap back into reality for a moment, glancing up at the price. You nearly die on the spot, shaking your head. “I-I don't...”

John turns you to face him, speaking firmly. “Do you want it?”

You stare up into his eyes, nodding slowly. 

His gaze softens just a bit, a smile tugging at his lips. “Then grab it.” 

You're moving before you can even have a second thought, wrapping your arms around it and lifting it off the shelf. It's just as soft as you thought it would be, nearly as big as you are too. You can imagine cuddling it in your nest, napping contently, surrounded in soft plushness. 

“C'mon pup.” John says, patting your back gently. You're purring, you realize suddenly, the sound leaving you entirely unconsciously. “Let's get you some snacks then we'll get dinner.”

You carry the bear, following John to the grocery section of the store. He takes you to the snack aisle and you pass the bear off to him, grabbing anything and everything that looks good, loading up the cart. You grab a few things from the American section as well, snacks you didn't think you'd miss, but right now they sound like manna straight from heaven. 

“Simon's done with his part.” John says, glancing at his phone. “We'll meet back at the car.” 

You take the bear back once you're done filling the cart with snacks, heading towards the checkout. You're hesitant to let the bear go long enough to be scanned before you're holding it again, purring quietly and contently. 

John keeps his arm around you as you walk through the parking lot towards the car. There's already bags in the trunk from Ghost, the alpha already in the passenger seat. They must have both been carrying keys to the car. Safety precautions. Things most people wouldn't even think about. 

“Thank you.” You say as John fills the trunk with the rest of the bags. “You didn't have to do this.”

“Yes we did.” John says, looking down at you. “Not going let you starve like that if we can help it.”

“It's still strange to me, getting taken care of.” You say, squeezing the bear. “Still makes me feel a bit like a sugar baby.”

John chuckles. “Don't worry, I won't make you call me daddy.” He leans in close to your ear. “Unless you want to.” 

Your face burns hot, your entire body igniting with heat at his words. He gives you a gentle pat on the ass, directing you to the door of the car before taking the cart back to the store. 

Your face is still burning as you attempt to climb into the car with your bear, giving up and stuffing it in first. 

“What the hell is that?” Ghosts asks, turning to look at you.

“My new bear.” You respond, arranging the bear so its sitting in the seat beside you. 

“Christ.” He breathes, and you can practically hear the eye roll as you buckle the bear in. 

You buckle yourself in as John climbs in the driver's seat.

“All set?” He asks, turning to look at you. 

You nod, smiling happily despite the hunger eating away at you. 

“Let's get some dinner, then we'll head back to base.” John says, turning on the car. “Can't have our omega starving on us, can we?” 

Ghost snorts. “Best feed her before she decides we look appetizing.” 

You wrinkle your nose. “You'd be too gamey, Ghost.” You say, eyeing him before turning your gaze to the seat in front of you. “John, though...” You lick your lips. “I already know you taste good.”

John lets out a deep chuckle that rumbles with the edge of a pleased growl. “Easy, kitten.”

Ghost lets out a heavy sigh, running a hand over his face. “Spare me. Now there's two of ‘em.” 

John chuckles again, squeezing Ghost's shoulder. “Little did you know, Simon.” 

Ghost turns to look at John. “Is it too late to get a refund?” 

You stifle a giggle as John smiles. “You'll have to ask Laswell.”  

Ghost sighs, turning to look out the window. “No hope for it, then.” 

“Hey, at least I'm cute!” You grin. “Don't tell Johnny I said that.” 

You practically beam with pride as you see Ghost's shoulders shake with his laughter. Maybe you can get through to him more than you think you can. 

Maybe, just maybe, you can get him to like you. 

The knock comes at your door unexpectedly. It's late, and you had just begun to feel the pangs of hunger once more. You hate it, but you know it's necessary considering you'll have to go roughly a week getting in nothing but what nutrient bars can offer while exerting insane amounts of energy. Your body needs to store the calories now so that you don't die during your heat. 

You're surprised to see Ghost on the other side of the door, back in his balaclava. His shoulders are squared, but you can't scent any anger or hostility on him. 

He almost seems...nervous. 

“Hungry?” He asks, staring down at you. 

“Always.” You answer almost instinctively, staring up into his deep brown eyes. 

He motions for you to follow with his head. “C'mon.” 

You frown a little, but you step out of your room, closing the door behind you. You follow him towards the rec room, staring at his broad back. His shoulders are still squared, hands in his pockets. 

The rec room is set up again not unlike it was for your date with John. The card table is out and there's foil covered dishes on it, along with a couple plates. Your brows raise in surprise as you take it all in. 

“I made you something.” Ghost says, moving over to the table, removing the foil from one of the dishes. 

You move closer, blinking in surprise. “You made...enchiladas?” 

He nods. “As close as I could get with what I could find on short notice. There's rice and beans, too. And salsa.” 

Tears blur your vision as you stare down at the food on the table. It smells delicious and that's not just your ravenous pre-heat hunger talking. “You...did this for me?”

“Well, I had help,” He says, looking past you. 

You turn, Soap and Gaz standing at the windows that frame the door to the rec room. They smile and wave at you as you turn to look at them. A quiet laugh leaves your mouth as you smile at them. 

“Help yourself.” Ghost says as you turn back to the table. “There's plenty.”

You serve yourself a plate, nearly melting off the chair as you take the first bite. It takes you all the way back home, the good years when your father was stationed in Texas. 

“Taste okay?” Ghost asks, watching you. “I know it's not authentic, but I did a lot of research.”

“It's amazing, Ghost. Really.” You say. “Tastes just like the ones my mom would make.” You wipe at the tears in your eyes. “Thank you for doing this.”

He shrugs, looking almost bashful. “It's the least I could do. I know how big of a deal heats are to omegas and how nervous you've been. Thought you could use a little comfort.” 

You smile softly. “That means a lot.” You can't help but giggle softly. “I knew you liked me deep down.”

He gives you a look, making you giggle even more. “Don't push it.” 

NEXT ->

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[gloomwitchwrites]

They overhear you telling the team how much you like them and want to have their babies.

ANON! The way I screamed when I first read this prompt. I love shit like this because o-m-g. I had so much fun writing our boys in this scenario. Thank you so much for sending it in!

While there are some sweeter moments, these all lean toward the steamy side but don't cross over fully into spice. But, each is left open enough that you can make up your own mind about what happens! (hehe).

Content & Warnings (per the warnings MDNI): mild language, suggestive themes, pregnancy, fluff, feelings

ao3 // taglist // main masterlist // imagines & what if series masterlist

John "Soap" MacTavish (wc: 651)

John is grinning like a bloody idiot. Has been for the last few days.

He’s caught your attention, and he’s downright smug about it. Every lingering glance and gentle upturn of your mouth has his skin singing with an intensity that can only be described as a tree burning from the inside out. He’s been after you for months, doing his best to gauge your interest in him.

He thinks he has an in because just yesterday, you touched him. Not a passing touch either but a firm grasp of his upper arm. A squeeze that shot heat straight to his toes and sent blood rushing quickly to an already throbbing need.

You looked him in the eye, brow all soft, mouth puckered slightly in the most gorgeous pout. John wanted to kiss you right then.

He turns the corner, heading into the training room, only to stop dead when he hears your voice. Pausing, he backtracks, pressing himself against the wall but leaning around the corner to listen in.

“Johnny’s been sweet on you,” comes Ghost’s voice. It’s slightly teasing, and John frowns slightly. Ghost would never overstep and steal you out from under him, but he would give him or even you a hard time.

“Has he?” you reply, and it’s breathy.

At this rate, his cheeks are gonna hurt for a week from how stupidly big his grin is.

“Don’t tell us you haven’t noticed,” laughs Gaz. “Soap’s been drooling all over the floor and himself.”

You remain silent, and John would give anything to know what you look like right now or what you’re thinking.

“Do you like him?” asks Ghost.

“What?” you exclaim.

“We won’t tell. Unless you want us to,” continues Gaz. “We can tell him to back off if—”

“No. I—” There is a stretch of silence. “I like him.”

When neither Gaz nor Ghost say anything, you keep talking. “I like him. I’m interested.”

“How interested?” asks Ghost, slowly.

“I’d have his babies if he asked,” you blurt so suddenly that it even takes John by surprise.

His grin momentarily slips away, and then it comes back, raging larger than before. He is going to bottle up those words and savor them. John runs his fingers through his hair, tugging on the tips slightly as he comes to a decision.

Pushing off from the wall, he barrels around the corner, making enough noise to not startle anyone. You and Gaz both jump but Ghost remains utterly still, a passive brick of a man. But his dark eyes swivel from you to John, and he sees Ghost’s amusement behind the balaclava.

John approaches you, and it takes every ounce of willpower to keep his grin from seeming too eager. “Price is looking for you.”

“Oh,” is all you say, moving in the direction John just emerged from. He waits until you pass him to start following, but before he can, he catches Gaz’s grin and Ghost’s gentle shake of his head.

When the two of you disappear around the corner, John reaches out, grabbing your arm. He tugs you against him, then shoves open a nearby door, hauling you inside.

“Johnny,” you protest as he shuts the two of you inside.

Leaning against the door, John crosses his arms over his chest. “Heard what you said.”

“Did you?” you counter, placing your hands on your hips.

“Aye.”

“And what did I say?”

“That you wanted to have my babies.” Your face heats and John has to bite back a groan. He surges forward, trapping you against the wall. “Is that the truth? Do you want me?”

You soften in his arms, and he cannot help himself. His arms snake around your middle only to lift you onto a nearby table.

“I want you,” you whisper.

John dips his head and you greet him with your mouth. “Then let’s get to it, love.”

John Price (wc: 420)

Price reclines in his office chair.

His mind is a mess. All thoughts of work are utterly gone. Finished. The only thing in his head is you and what you said this morning. The thing is, you don’t know that Price heard every word, that he listened as you confessed your feelings for him to the rest of the team.

Price is your superior, which means anything between the two of you cannot happen. At least, not while you’re under his command. The rest of the team said as much, and you reluctantly agreed, knowing that nothing could be done unless you or he moved out of the unit.

And Price won’t leave. Not because he wouldn’t do it for you, but because Laswell would have his head if he tried.

But the two of you can still talk. The two of you can still figure something out.

Yet it wasn’t just your interest in him that has Price’s head in knots. It’s what you said, almost absently, like you were speaking to the air and not the rest of the team.

I’d have his babies.

Fuck, he was gone when he heard that. Price walked away immediately and went to his office. Which is where he’s been the entire fucking day. When his phone rings, he refuses to answer. Everyone who has come knocking leaves when Price ignores them. He just needs to get his head on straight but he can only do that once he talks to you first.

Sighing, Price leans forward in his chair, resting his forearms on the table. A knock comes, and everything in him tenses.

He swallows. Turns his nerves to steel. "Come in."

When you enter, Price loses all thought. It isn't until the silence becomes awkward that Price clears his throat and stands. "Shut the door."

You do and then take a few more steps inside. Price isn't one for stepping around a conversation. He just needs to get this shit off his chest.

"Heard what you said this morning."

"You did?"

"I did."

You take a shaky breath. "And?"

"Did you mean it?"

'Every word," you say automatically.

Fuck. He's done for.

Price slowly sinks into his chair. He leans back casually, legs spread. Resting both hands on his thighs, Price runs them up and then back down. He taps the inside of one thigh in open invitation.

Your legs obediently move, and Price's chest tightens. As you straddle him, Price's hands come to rest on your waist.

"Show me."

Kyle "Gaz" Garrick (wc: 309)

Kyle heard you wrong. He must have.

The words that just came out of your mouth simply aren’t true.

I want to have his babies.

He shakes his head, the middle of his brow furrowing slightly as he continues to listen. He hears Soap guffaw at your reply and then swear up a storm when you smack the back of his head.

“It’s not funny,” you snap.

“Oh, aye. But it is.”

“Cut her some slack, Johnny,” says Ghost teasingly. “Sergeant Garrick is a handsome man.”

You sigh in frustration. “You’re both terrible. I can’t tell you anything.”

“You just did.”

“Oh shove it, Soap,” you reply.

Kyle covers his mouth with his hand, smothering a laugh. You’ve always been feisty, and you don’t take shit from anyone, especially not from them. But this admission completely catches him off-guard.

He’d be lying to himself if he said he wasn’t interested. What first began as mutual respect grew into genuine friendship. Now it’s…this. Whatever this is.

But Kyle is a private person, and he’s not going to shove himself into this conversation. He’ll wait until you’re alone and the two of you can talk this out without an audience. From there, he will have the truth directly from your mouth.

And if he's being honest with himself, Kyle is fucking ace to the idea of you giving him a kid or two. Or three.

His mind swirls outward with images of what he’d do to put a baby inside you. Everything in him ramps up, burns hot until he’s aching.

“Sergeant.”

Kyle’s eyes snap open, and he momentarily sways as he rights himself.

“Captain,” he replies, clearing his throat.

Captain Price smirks and then squeezes his shoulder. “Must have been a hell of a daydream.” Price releases Kyle’s shoulder and continues on.

Privacy. Privacy with you.

That’s what Kyle needs.

Simon "Ghost" Riley (wc: 375)

Ghost is a patient man.

But right now, there is a fire beneath his skin.

It itches, radiating outward, even making his bones ache. This is not a wound. Not an injury. He didn’t take a hit. There is nothing physically wrong with him. Ghost is healthy. A solid brick wall of muscle and scars.

This impatient insistence comes from a carnal place. All the blood is rushing to a singular point, and Ghost is going fucking insane with how badly he needs to relieve it. The worst part about it is that you don’t even know. You have no idea what you’ve done, or what he heard.

I’d have his babies.

Ghost is entirely aware that the conversation you had with Soap and Gaz was private. He wasn’t meant to hear it. But he did. He did, and now he can’t stop thinking about all the things you said to them.

Which is why he’s lurking in the shadows, watching your every step, assessing when he should slide on up to you. Ghost needs you alone. He needs to talk but he also needs you in his lap.

So, when you turn the corner, Ghost slips into his namesake, grabbing you by the waist to haul you through the nearest door. Instinct kicks in, and you lash out, but Ghost is so much bigger than you, easily restraining all resistance.

"Stop moving."

"Simon."

His real name on your tongue is perfect. Pressing his face into your neck, he inhales, and you melt into him.

"What are you doing?" you ask softly.

"I heard the conversation you had with Johnny and Gaz today."

"Did you?"

"Is it true?"

Your face shifts slightly in his direction and Ghost draws back a bit. "Yes."

"Mean it?"

"Yes."

Slowly, Ghost removes his arms from around your waist. He gently guides you forward and then spins you around so that you're fully facing him. There is silence and then Ghost reaches for the front of his belt buckle. Your gaze immediately drops and then pops back up as undoes and then removes the belt with one hand.

"Willing to show me?" he asks.

Your lips part, and then you're touching him.

The fire beneath his skin becomes an inferno.

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@tulipsun-flower @ghosts-hoe @jaggersinclair @nomercyforthewarrior @glassgulls

[felassan]

August 30th 2024 Developer Q&A (from the official BioWare Discord) - Complete transcript

Under a cut due to length and spoilers.

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

[Link to video recording of Q&A] | [Link to equivalent post for first Q&A (June 14th)] | [Link to video recording for first Q&A]

Update: This post has now been updated into a word-for-word transcript.

If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here. This blog post is linked in the description under the video. ( ˶´ ᵕ `˶ )

Please note before proceeding that the devs advised that this Q&A may contain minor spoilers!

Corinne Busche, John Epler and Community Manager Katey were the devs that were there.

KFM: Community Manager Katey JE: John Epler CB: Corinne Busche

---

KFM: We’re gonna be joined by John and Corinne here in a sec, just waiting for them to get on. Hey John, hey Corinne, thanks for joining - hey!

JE: Hello! Thank you for having us. It's a pleasure.

CB: Hey y’all. It's so good to see so many people, I see some familiar names here. Good to see you again.

KFM: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to, you know, bring us this second Q&A on the Discord server. Last time we were really, really happy, with the way it happened, y'know, it turned out and how everyone seemed to really enjoy it so we're back again. Thank you for submitting your questions on the ask-bioware channel. I am going to start and kick that off in just a second, but, for those of you who might be new here, I'm the Community Manager, and I'm going to let Corinne and John introduce themselves as well.

CB: Hey y'all, I'm Corinne Busche, Game Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard. I just generally help people on the team do cool things and create this world.

JE: And I'm John Epler, the Creative Director on Dragon Age: The Veilguard, and Corinne picked probably the best way to describe what I do, too, so I'm just gonna steal that. I'm there to make sure the team can, is enabled to do their best work and I'm super excited to share all this with you.

KFM: Awesome. Yeah before we start I also wanna give a quick heads-up, you might have seen in Announcements, but there are a couple of questions in here that we have answers to that we would consider minor spoilers. I'll give a heads-up before that minor spoiler answer is given, or even the question is read, so you can go, y'know, grab some water, or y'know, go outside for a second, or just do anything, to decide if you want to listen to the answer or not. But, I promise, these spoilers are, y'know, we'll call them out before we say anything.  

CB: That is kinda the coolest part of this session, we're getting closer to launch now, so I think we can do a little bit deeper on some of the questions this time.

KFM: Yes, no this is so exciting! Okay, are you guys ready?

JE: Yes! Yes I am.

CB: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's do it.

KFM: Let's start with a fun one. Do all Evanuris hate tea? Does Ghilly-Flower exclusively drink haunted bog water?

JE: Alright. That is a fun one. Y'know, it's funny because I think Solas is the only one of the elven gods that actually really has a tremendous aversion to tea. That said, we don't really get too into what they drink, I would say though, knowing what I know about Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain, I think Elgar'nan probably drinks a combination of gas station coffee and the Thedas equivalent of an energy drink, at all times he's got a big Thermos with him. Whereas Ghilan'nain is all about the herbal concoctions that are supposed to be really good for like, your gut health, things like that - she really takes care of herself, so.

CB: John, I think you just described you, and then me. Interesting.

JE: Hurtful, Corinne, accurate but hurtful.

KFM: Okay, next one. So we know that we can hug Assan, but will we be able to hug any of our companions?

JE: So you can't hug your companions at all times. There's not an option to just walk up and give them a hug. They've got their boundaries, they've got their preferences. But there are opportunities in conversations, in dialogue, in scenes where you will, you know - a companion may ask you for a hug because they're having a rough time and you are able to give it to them.

KFM: And will there be a lot of politicking involved? And by politicking they mean quests like Wicked Eyes and Wicked Hearts.

JE: Yeah, so I mean, there's not gonna be a quest quite like the Halamshiral Ball, I mean that was very specific to the Inquisitor. The Inquisitor was trying to gain favor with a bunch of different factions, they were trying to form an army. Rook's struggle and Rook's, honestly,  challenge is much more immediate and visceral. That said, it's Dragon Age. It wouldn't be Dragon Age if there weren't politics. You'll have influence on the, y'know, things that are happening, and the fate of nations, that are happening around the world, and Rook, I mean, throughout the game, across this adventure, Rook does become a fairly important figure, so it's natural that you’ll have some influence and some involvement with the affairs of the different factions and nations.

KFM: Gotcha. So this question, this next question comes from Onomatopoeia. I know this has been asked before, but they didn't see an answer for it - is there a way to toggle off nudity and sex scenes?

CB: Yeah, let me take this one. It's so funny, John, you get the fun questions and I get the thirsty nudity questions - I'm here for it. So, let me, let me answer and maybe elaborate. So, there is a toggle for on and off nudity. That is one of the settings we have. And we'll be going deeper into settings and accessibility and things like that as we get a little bit closer to launch. But let me also expand on this. So when you're in character creator, you'll actually be able to select what underclothes your Rook wears, and whether that exposes your chest or your breasts. So, by default nudity is on, chest or breast, that is up to you by your underclothing that you select, particularly as you get into, say, romance scenes, but, at any point you can toggle the setting to be non-nudity and it will override your undergarments. 

KFM: Gotcha. This question comes from DarkGoddessEris. What are the companions’ ages? That was a question that actually came up a bunch, so I'm excited for somebody to be able to answer this one.

JE: Yeah,  I can take this one. So the companions in The Veilguard range anywhere from kind of early-mid twenties with Taash at the youngest, all the way up to Emmrich who is in his early fifties. The rest of the companions tend to be in their late twenties, early thirties, again though, they're all experts in their field, they're all people who have been through a lot, so even the ones that are at the younger end of the age spectrum, their experience, they've been through a tremendous amount by this point by the time you meet them, so, yeah. So I mean, I guess, Taash is the closest to Sera at early twenties, but they’re all in kinda that age range, so.

KFM: This next question I'll pitch to Corinne. How linear is the quest experience? Are there going to be side quests that you can stumble upon and resolve within areas or are you locked into a golden path?

CB: This is such a good one. Yeah, a lot of people have been asking about this so thank you to whoever submitted it. So the content in the game is a mix of directed, kinda like story quest missions, and then explorable content. Or you might say optional content. I don't even like calling it side content because it's a lot of fun, it's really good content. So to give you an idea, a lot of the main story quests are critical path missions if we want to call it that. They're very highly crafted. They're more linear than some of the other parts of the game, because we feel that’s how we can tell the best stories, give you a very intentionally-paced experience, y'know, with lulls and climaxes, so it really hits you. But that's only part of it. You're also gonna explore, fully explore a bunch of the locations in The Veilguard, so like, let me just lay a few on you: Arlathan Forest, Hossberg Wetlands, those are probably two of the biggest ones, the Crossroads - now we've seen Crossroads before in Trespasser, but this, isn't necessarily the Crossroads as you remember it. So you'll be able to explore this, this part of the Crossroads, and as you're there, you're absolutely gonna be discovering new areas, new quests, mysteries and new challenges. So exploration in the game is absolutely about player agency in these larger, less linear levels, and it's really an important part of the overall experience and core to our design. Now, as a player - and I'm just speaking for me personally - I'm the kind of player that wants to 100% every area. I want to go find all the optional quests, all the treasures, I wanna see that big 100% completed on my map. That's gonna take you quite a bit of time. So hopefully that answers the question. It is both.

KFM: I think that's a great answer, thanks, Corinne. This next one is from a user named Benedictus: Will we ever get the Venatori gear?

CB: Yeah, I can take that one as well. Venatori gear - so like, I'm assuming what we mean is for to like, wear on Rooks or on companions. Gosh, y'all, I'm gonna be honest - we really, really tried on that one. Hopefully you've seen in the videos our cloth sim, our hair sim, I think it's quite beautiful. The Venatori gear, generally we couldn't make that work to the quality we'd expect within combat. So, no you can't get most of the Venatori gear, but I will say there is a unique Venatori-themed helmet. I, I don't want to spoil what that is exactly, but, so, you can get a helmet, it is unique, it's pretty interesting and ties into some of the events that can happen in the game but I'm just gonna leave it there.

KFM: Gotcha. So, now we're getting into our first real minor spoiler question, so - consider yourself warned, do whatever you need to do, either listen or don't for the next, like, I don't know, minute. So this question is from Kala: Will there be any romanceable NPCs outside of the companions?

JE: I'll take this one. So, no - not this time. This time the romances for Rook are strictly within the companions. We wanted to really focus on those relationships and make sure that they were as developed and as deep as we could make them. And yet honestly and part of it - the other side of it is - Harding was a great example in DA:I, that was a character that as we were building the game, it really struck us, stuck out to us, this is a character that, actually, y'know, you see a lot, you build this very specific rapport with, and the writer, Sheryl, wanted to create that light romance with Harding. None of the characters in The Veilguard really jumped out to us in that same way as, this is a character we really want to build a relationship with, for Rook, but again, y'know, really focusing down on making sure the companion romances were as deep and meaningful as we could make them.

KFM: And this question is just for fun. So we're passed a spoiler, we'll get back into other spoilers in a bit, but this one's just for fun. We have so many cute, silly bird videos on the internet - Lucanis' Ninth Dagger, by the way, says that birds are their favorite animal - if you could just snap your fingers and a bird Easter Egg would be added for Assan, what would it be?

JE: Oh, that's a good question. So actually I'm gonna cheat, because I am trying to think of bird memes, or bird videos specifically, and I'm having a hard time, but, y'know, the thing about griffons is that they're half bird and also half lion, so I'm gonna go with a cat meme, say my favorite meme, and this is one that still brings me joy years after it came out, is the video of the cat grooving to the guy playing Finnish polka on the drum. Again, years old, I've loved - that's one of my favorite videos on the internet, so y'know, if we were gonna give Assan any kind of Easter Egg it would be that one.

KFM: I love that one - 

CB: You know, don't judge me on this, you're putting me on the spot here, but, the only thing I can picture in my head - y'all remember that video a few years back where the kid unleashes the rabbit into the field and then immediately that hawk comes down and snatches it up?

JE: Yes!

CB: Don't judge me, y'all! Don't judge me. But that's where my head goes.

JE: Oh, man.

CB: Assan just getting a little treat.

JE: I love that.

KFM: I love that.

JE: That's a great, that’s a great answer, Corinne. Fantastic.

KFM: So this next one is from a user named Ash. So Taash breathes fire, Lucanis has wings, Harding is a dwarf who has magic. A lot of our companions have some strange abilities - is this because the Veil is compromised?

JE: Oh, I'd say it's, I mean partially yeah. I mean, we've talked before about how over the course of the time since Dragon Age: Inquisition, I mean, it started at the end of Trespasser. The Veil's not in great shape. Corypheus already did a number on it, and Solas has very clearly, as you saw, in the [inaudible] preview, not been making things better in the intervening times. So, there is to some degree, y'know, I'll use Bellara as an example - Bellara's someone who's seeing these artifacts turn on, and being able to interface with them because there's all this magic that's coming back to the world through the torn Veil. Other characters though, I mean, you are recruiting people to stop the end of the world. You're recruiting extraordinary people, they're gonna have extraordinary abilities, and you know, someone like Davrin, a lot of his abilities are focused around Assan and the fact that he's got this partnership, this, almost, you know, familial bond with Assan, his griffon, so.

KFM: Can we get some Assans in the chat?

JE: I think I'm seeing a lot of Assans in the chat, so I think we're well covered there.

KFM: Me too.

KFM: Alright. This next one is for both of you, and I will say, another quick little spoiler, minor spoiler warning, depending on the way that either of you might want to answer this question. This is, of all the companions, who's the team's favorite and what companion was the most difficult to design?

JE: Ooh. I'm gonna cheat, I wrote Bellara so, I’m definitely not gonna say the companion I wrote because that would be weird, but I will say I loved the companion interactions so I'm gonna go with two of my favorite relationships that Bellara has within the team, friendships that she has within the team. So, Bellara and Lucanis start off as two characters who feel like they're from completely different worlds, their experience growing up was very different, where they lived, what they do, and over the course of the game, they kinda build this friendship over all these things that despite again - very different upbringings - they have a lot of things in common. They're both the, y'know, characters who just believe family is deeply important and that shows up in a lot of their interactions, a lot of, y’know, the way they talk to each other, they interact with each other, both within the Lighthouse but also out in the field. The other one - and this was one that came up organically as we were building the game - is Neve and Bellara and they, y'know, Bellara is a character who, y’know, despite being out in Arlathan is very big on stories, very big on - she finds - gets all the newspapers from Tevinter and she has kind’ve learnt who Neve is through that, and they build this very sisterly relationship that I love and that over the course of the game, I mean, we started out without this kind of as the intention, we started finding all these places that this can show up and it turned into, again, one of my favorite friendships that exists between the companions, so.

CB: Oh, that was such a good answer. Yeah, I think I might cheat as well, John, because, first of all, I don't want to speak on behalf of the entire team. So I'm gonna give you my two faves if that's alright. And I feel like y'all already know me on this. Every time we have a chance to talk about Taash and Emmrich I'm right there for it. I'd say they're probably my two favorites, but here's the thing y'all, here's why I love them so much. When you're out in the field like exploring, or on missions with them, their banter is so good, because they do not see eye-to-eye on necromancy, like, at all, and, it's really funny, it's really delightful, I love seeing how it evolves - so like, look - if you wanted a recommendation from me on like, banter in the field, you've got to hear Taash and Emmrich. Most difficult to design, let's touch on that really quickly. I, so, I'm gonna answer, but I don't want to say that like we put more effort into one versus another, but I would say the most challenging was probably Harding, just because you've probably seen if you saw some of the teaser footage, the pre-release trailer, we have teased some strange new powers for Harding, and when we do that we have to figure out how that layers into her combat kit, and when we onboard that, and, yeah it was an interesting challenge, it was a really fun one.

KFM: Awesome. Backing away from spoilers for a quick second, I'm going to ask this question to Corinne. With only two companions per party, as a Nightmare mode player, how can we balance not having a warrior in the team to tank? Will higher difficulty players be forced to bring Davrin or Taash for a melee instead of bringing the characters that we want?

CB: Oh super good - I was hoping this would come up, especially after we released the combat deep-dive for warrior trailer - hopefully y'all enjoyed that. So, let me start by telling you what's happening under the hood. Well, first of all, I'm not gonna bury the lede - you're not gonna have to bring a tank if you don't want to. But, let me first tell you what's happening under the hood, this is gonna be kind of high level, maybe we can go a little bit deeper when we have more time. Behind the scenes when you walk into an enemy encounter, we generally know how much pressure, or you could say intensity or aggression, we want to be putting on Rook to maintain that satisfying moment-to-moment experience. So to give you an idea of some of the levers we have for each encounter, that is the number of enemies that could be specifically focused on you versus your companions, how many enemies can be attacking at once, and even when you have multiple enemies coming at Rook, we have a ticketing system.

[text block character limit reached]

CB: And what that means is each enemy basically knows when it is allowed to attack or not. So, I tell you all that because basically when we're looking at the different types of classes and team compositions, those levers exist underneath the hood, so that we give you the most autonomy and flexibility, but also maintain that, that pressure, that engagement for you the player. So, a couple of other things on that. Now that you kinda get a sense of like what's happening under the hood, it is absolutely beneficial, but not required to have one of each class in your party. We did go into this with the goal of giving players more flexibility than perhaps we've seen in past entries. It's just a different approach. What we know is that players tend to get very attached to certain characters. If you've got your favorites, you oftentimes wanna bring them with you or if you're romancing a character, sometimes it's a feelbad to feel like you have to leave them behind because maybe they're the same class as you. So, the whole game is built and balanced around flexibility, and giving you the agency. So you can be successful, you can mix it up, but you gotta plan for it. So what, what do I mean by that? If you're not using teamwork, if you're not planning for your party composition for those synergies, it's definitely not gonna end super well. Right? Like, I've done no tank runs, but it takes some foresight in the strategy here. So I'll give you an example if you don't mind, I think I've been pretty out there that my favorite class and specialization right now - could change tomorrow - is the rogue Veil Ranger specialization. And this is very much a ranged archery-based specialization. So, I want to keep enemies at ranged, because I want to get those well-aimed critical hits, right, if those enemies are right up on top of me, I'm not gonna be able to do that. So if I don't have a tank in my party, a couple of the tools that I turn to - and I have done this, in fact, in my last playthrough I did this quite a bit - I might bring Bellara and use her Galvanic Tear, which pulls all the enemies towards like this really cool-looking gravity well and gets them off of me. I might instead use Neve's Time Slow. So the cool thing about this is it slows time for everything in the world except for you and your team, right? So I'm running away, I'm doing a Heavy Draw, getting those headshots, or making other tactical decisions. I could also turn to my rune loadout - hopefully y'all saw runes in the warrior combat deep-dive - that's an important part, especially if you're playing on Nightmare Mode, the strategic and tactical options that gives you, will allow you to overcome things like not having a tank. I think everyone may have saw the rune where you're doing a, basically an AoE freeze, and freezing everything in place. So it's kind of a long-winded answer, I'm sorry, it's complicated, but point is, is I think you're gonna have more flexibility in your build crafting and your synergies, but it's gonna depend on the strategy and composition that you feel works best for you and your own preferences. And then you did mention Nightmare, let me just finish with saying, and this is anecdotal, but in our own Nightmare playthroughs, we actually find that the most challenging aspect to plan around isn't necessarily aggro management, but making sure you have coverage on all the various elemental damage types. So, I just say this for anyone planning to go into Nightmare - plan well.

KFM: Staying on the topic of combat, it was noticed during the high-level combat videos that weapons and armor seem to be tied to different factions. Are there bonuses or something similar involved if Rook is a Grey Warden while using Grey Warden equipment? Are these removed if a Shadow Dragon Rook is using Grey Warden equipment? 

CB: Oh, interesting. You know, everyone went deep on that gameplay video, hey, I’m glad you noticed that. Yeah, so, to answer this, you're going to be working really closely with the factions in the game, right? Like the threat you’re up against is a world-ending threat so you’re going to interact with each of these factions. So that means that you’re gonna get a lot of the gear that that faction tends to use, and especially the stronger you help them become, the more gear you’ll have available from that faction. So when you see a piece of gear that has like the Veil Jumper icon on it, that signifies that it is aligned with that faction, but you can use it regardless of if that’s your faction background or not. All it means is that, you know, if I want to maybe improve it or get more gear in that vein, or that looks similar, I can see it’s from the Veil Jumpers, I’m going to go back to the Veil Jumper quartermaster, and that’s where I will find more items of that type or upgrade possibilities. But it also leans into the thematic identity. So, you know, I think in that video we were using the transmog system, but if I’m using a Veil Jumper gear like an armor, it’s gonna look like it was crafted by the Veil Jumpers, and it’s gonna lean into the mechanical themes of the Veil Jumpers as well, which, one of those themes tends to be lightning damage. Now, I will also say, and this is a little specific, but occasionally you will find gear, or even like skill nodes, that will occasionally be empowered, they’ll get stronger relative to your strength with that given faction. So like if you find a piece of gear that’s really core to your build, and it strengthens the stronger the Veil Jumpers are, like that gives you a pretty good signifier that maybe that’s a faction you wanna focus on.

CB: Katey, I don't know if you're still there.

JE: Yeah.

CB: Did we lose you?

[there is silence on KFM’s line]

JE: Ope.

CB: We may have lost Katey, y’all. 

JE: We can start, just, you know, let’s - 

CB: Yeah. Why don’t, why don’t, I do have the list of questions here so why don’t I ask the next one until Katey comes back. I hope everything’s okay on your side Katey. Alright. Next question I see, the Evoker description on the blog-post highlights ice-based magic. Does that mean we will not be able to have lightning- and fire-themed playstyles as the Evoker? No, no, absolutely not. The Evoker can lean into all of the elements, in fact, all mages can to a degree. You probably have seen the skill trees, you’re gonna pick up abilities, perks, traits, of all elemental types, and powering up those elements. So just because you’re an Evoker, doesn’t mean you’re like pigeon-holed into ice spells. What I will say is, if you’re heading towards that specialization, you’re gonna pass through the section of the skill tree where you’re more easily going to be able to naturally pick up those ice spells, right? So it might lean towards ice, but you can expand it. The name of the game is agency here.

JE: Corinne, why don’t I ask you the question so we can still kinda do a Q&A thing? CB: Yeah, that, that sounds good.

JE: Corinne, can I set the gear to look however I want without losing stats? And that is a question from YoCallMeRob.

CB: Alright, well, y’all know, fashion’s the true end game. So, we did confirm we have a full transmog system, so what I’m gonna do is spend some time going a little more in-depth for y’all, so that we’re getting new information. So yeah, if anyone’s not aware, transmog basically is, I have a piece of gear, but I apply an appearance to it that makes it look like something else that I like better so I can be fabulous. So, how this is gonna work is you’re of course gonna find gear as you adventure through the world, and you can equip that. But any piece of gear you find is also going to unlock the appearance for that gear. So you might find something that you really like, and you wanna look that way, and then you replace it, anything that you’ve already acquired, you can apply the appearance to whatever gear you want. Additionally, and this is one of my favorite parts, is, you’ll also find some appearance-only cosmetics that are specifically used just for transmog. So sometimes these are some of the fancier or more niche pieces of gear, maybe end up looking like a training dummy for instance. So you’ll get these appearance datas from opening treasure chests, exploring the world, and more frequently from vendors. So, look, if you’re in it for fashion, check out those vendor inventories because they got you. I would also say that you can transmog your casual wear, so field wear and casual wear, fully transmoggable. If you wanna be platemail while you’re hanging around the Lighthouse as a mage, more power to you. And then if I were just to give you a practical example of this, like on the Blood Dragon Armor, the pre-order bonus, those are cosmetics, those are just appearance datas, right, so they’re effectively evergreen, you can use them anytime you like without compromising your stats.

JE: I will say that I don’t think I’ve spent as much time in any other menu other than transmog, because as Corinne mentioned at the beginning of this, fashion is the true end-game, so. Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

JE: Katey, have we gotcha back yet?

KFM: Am I back? Can you hear me?

JE: Yay, you’re back. 

CB: Katey, we did our best Katey.

JE: Yeah.

CB: But I don’t think we were very impressive -

KFM: No, I think you both did a great job. It was one of those weird situations where Discord force-quit, but I could still hear everything everyone was saying. I don’t really know what that was about, but.

CB: I just assumed you didn’t like my answer.

KFM: Yeah, I rage-quit actually Corinne, it’s all your fault.

JE: Taken by the Fade.

KFM: No, thank you for taking over while I was figuring that out. There is a non-zero chance that that happens again, so just keep an eye out. 

JE: We’ll keep an eye out for it, we gotcha.

KFM: Thank you.

KFM: So I’ll just pick it up from the next question. The latest, latest - wow, I can’t even talk anymore - video series mentioned how each companion can set up or detonate specific combos. Are those always set in stone or would we get opportunities to change it up, through the skill-trees or otherwise? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. I eat up these really specific combat questions. So first, let me give you an overview of how the primer-detonator relationship works between the classes. Like, this is very nitty-gritty y’all, if this is your jam, get your pencils out. So here’s the overview. Mages, and this whether, this is true of companions and Rook, mages apply weakened and overwhelmed debuffs, and those are two of the debuffs we call primers. Magers detonate the sundered debuff. Then if we go to rogues, rogues apply weakened and sundered debuffs, and rogues detonate overwhelmed. Warriors apply sundered and overwhelmed, and warriors detonate weakened. So you can see, kinda the interesting rock-paper-scissors relationship there. And when I talk about it as beneficial to bring one of each class? It’s just the inherent nature of that rock-paper-scissors relationship that I’m really thinking of. But, to answer your question, that is just the baseline, that is the default if you don’t modify it. Throughout the game, you will find opportunities, whether it’s from gear, skill-tree nodes, even runes, that allow you to break this paradigm. So when it comes to your companion builds, again it all comes down to the abilities you choose, what gear you’re equipping them with, how you allocate your skill points. Yeah, does that answer the question? There’s quite a bit of flexibility but there is a baseline paradigm as well.

KFM: Yeah, I think that answers the question.

KFM: Let’s see. The next one is, will we see a bit more the Lighthouse before release, as well as non-combat gameplay?

CB: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. We’ll keep it brief here because we are gonna be talking more about exploration and the Lighthouse next month, so forgive me, but I’ll say stay tuned on that one.

KFM: Alright. Then, this next one I believe is a little bit of a spoiler. I know that some people have, can’t hear me still for some reason, if you can’t, tell folks to quit Discord and rejoin it, but -

CB: Okay, minor spoiler y’all, if you can’t hear Katey, this one’s a minor spoiler.

KFM: Yes. Thanks Corinne. This one is, will we be able to give gifts to our companions, either generic or plot-specific?

CB: Yeah, you sure can! I actually wanna shout-out one of our lovely designers, Dusty. This was a passion project from him. He was advocating for this. So, the cool thing about this is, it’s not like a transactional thing, like where I’m gonna go farm a bunch of like nonsensical items and just like, mechanically turn them over. Out in the world, and there in various locations, so you kinda stumble upon them, you can buy a gift that is very personal to any one of the companions, and then you go, you turn that into them, you give it to them, they have a nice acknowledgement. And then, the thing that’s just like so sweet about it, we’ve talked about how the companion rooms evolve over time, but if you go and get them one of these, like, very personalized gifts, they’ll display it in their room. Like it doesn’t go into some stats void. It’s actually on display.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: This next question, I'll pitch it to John. Some of our companions like Neve, Emmrich and Lucanis have been in past short stories and comics and there's also a passing resemblance to some of the old concept art from years ago. What is the process like for making a character at some point and then planning to bring them back as a companion, or were they always written or designed and intended to be companions?

JE: Alright, that's a great question, and it's actually one I'm gonna go a little deep on. So, as we build the game, as we start writing companions we see how they fit in the story, see how they fit together. Some characters have been around, some character concepts have been around for quite some time, others come in a little bit later in development as we realise we have a gap, you know, something in the story that we need someone, who makes sense to fill that gap, to be that character. But part of it’s also just as the writers we want to make sure that the people who are writing these companions are passionate, and they're writing a character they want to write. We don't want to just say "we need X, Y and Z. Write a companion to fill these gaps", but it'll be "hey, in this story, it really doesn't make sense that we don't have somebody, ah, doing X, is there a character we can build for that?" And so, y'know, you'll see the old concept art and a lot of those concepts, y'know, a lot of those, kinda the core of those characters remains intact, we may have changed details of them, we may have decided "okay, they were going to be X but now Y makes a little bit more sense" - Or as a writer I'm a little bit more interested in why, y’know, what, this particular concept speaks to me more. In terms of comics, short stories and such, generally speaking - and this isn't universal - but generally speaking, writers are writing these short stories in particular, it’s a volunteer, we ask the team, like, "hey, does anyone - we've got this short story anthology, who wants to write something for it?”, so writers are going to pick characters that they're passionate about and in those cases they tend to be their companions, so for example. You know, Neve’s shown, is mentioned. Neve, Emmrich, Lucanis have all shown up. Those were written by people who are passionate about those characters and we had already intended for them to be companions. Other characters, though - I mean, and Harding is an excellent example - we create a character to fill a role. In the case of Harding, she was in Inquisition largely to be there to kind of connect those exploration spaces together and give you a sense of the Inquisition’s presence, and then we saw the fan reaction, but beyond that, Sheryl really wanted to explore Harding's arc more deeply, so she got promoted to be a companion as well, so, yeah, I mean, it's an organic process, and I mean again, it comes down to, we want to make sure the people who are building these characters, ah, not just the writers but also the artists, y'know, the cinematic designers, the editors, y'know, the gameplay people, are excited to build these characters. And you know, and actually, I'm gonna go a little bit side topic on that. Bellara's a great example where we knew what Bellara wanted to be, needed to be in the story, but gameplay-wise it took a bit to kinda land on how her gameplay and her character arc and who she was melded together. Y'know, Corinne’s talked earlier about the companions and how they show up in gameplay. A really big thing for us on this project is making sure that the gameplay reflects the characters, their arc and their personality as much as possible, so. Yeah, kind’ve a long answer to say, it depends, but yeah, generally if they show up, especially in something like a short story, we’ve already intended for them to be a companion because, those are the characters that people, the writers are most passionate about, so.

KFM: I love that.

KFM: Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that, now that stuff seems more overall universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough. Are there choices presented freely - are there choices presented that are impactful, that wildly different outcomes will come from, while - wow, wow, wow, let me start that one again. I think it’s just, I’m reading it straight off the sheet. 

JE: No worries.

KFM: I'll start from the top. Apart from wanting to try different classes, what are the main incentives for multiple playthroughs now that stuff seems more universal, to be attempted all in a single playthrough? Are there choices that are impactful and wildly different, and different outcomes and decision paths?

JE: So, I mean, there's a few incentives, one of which, is, and I mean, the most basic is, the three classes from a gameplay perspective do play differently and, you know, I’ve, it’s funny, Corinne was talking about how her favorite is the Veil Ranger but that might change. Mine literally changes every time I play, I start a new playthrough, I develop a new favorite class, which is the class I'm currently playing. But more generally, yeah there are choices in the game, there are different outcomes, there’s content that does, that you will see or won't see based on choices you make both within the critical path of the game but also with the followers themselves so, y'know. You're not going to see everything in a single playthrough, you're not even going to see everything necessarily in a couple of playthroughs, but, y'know, you want to see how your choices have different outcomes, that's the best way to do it. 

KFM: This question is - I understand mages having very magical-looking moves, but why do rogues and warriors also have very magical-looking moves? Was making every class look like a mage a purposeful choice? 

CB: Cool, cool, cool. So it's a multi-part answer, but yes, everything we've done has been with intention towards supporting the overall player experience. So I guess the first place I'd go to answer this is from a game-tuning and balance perspective. We knew that supporting multiple damage types like physical, fire, electric etc, that was gonna be an important factor in the strategic depth of the combat system, particularly as it leans into builds and the strategies you'd use to take on various enemies. It’s not the extent of it, but it's an important part of it. So that meant that making sure the various classes in some capacity have access to some or all of these damage types. And that then means that we need to make them read visually as such on the battlefield. So the first part is about making sure you have those strategic options on the battlefield. But there is more to it than that I'd say, we also found - and I've heard this from a lot of you, that some of our magical hybrid classes have been amongst the favorites. My goodness the discourse around Knight Enchanter - 

JE: M-hm -

CB: - So this felt like a very thematic way for us to support that goal if that makes sense, the goal of game balance but also leaning into the things that seem to resonate the most. If I was to just focus on the Warriors out there for a minute though, because we just released the warrior deep dive, we've actually long had a goal within the team of making them more visually interesting and impactful. We know, and I’ve heard from a bunch of you that warrior, y'know, tends not to be peoples’ first choice, but hey, any of the warrior fans out there - big props to you, because I love them, too. So this was like our chance, really, to show what a warrior can do, to make them feel like they have a presence on the battlefield that could be as interesting as some of the other classes, but I will say, I absolutely recognize that there are those of you that like, if you're playing a melee class, you even want a pure, like, physical-based warrior aesthetic, maybe something that's a little more grounded, you can generally make a build that's more physical-focused if that’s more your taste.

KFM: In addition to playing the first three games, what comic books or novels do you recommend reading before playing The Veilguard?

JE: Oh, that's a great question. I mean, generally speaking, one of the things we wanted to make sure with The Veilguard was that players could get into the story, understand what was going on without needing to, y'know, get into the ancillary material. I love the comics, I love the novels, I love the short stories, but they are intended to be kinda side content. One of the things that we hear loud and clear is sometimes folks don't really want that to feel like I need to have read this, I need to have seen this comic, I need to have watched that show for it to make sense. That said, I’d say The Missing, the most recent comic series. is a very clear lead-up to the beginning of The Veilguard, it's setting up events, it’s kinda setting up, y'know, Varric and Harding's search for Solas, it sets up some of the characters that you'll see in the game. Tevinter Nights is another one, not - we mentioned earlier that some of the companions show up there. Beyond just the companions, there’s some thematic stuff that comes out of that as well, some things that we kinda wanted to set up when we wrote those short stories, like, giving you an idea of what the worldstate is, how things have changed over time, and then I’d say, you know, more very recently, we have the podcast, Vows & Vengeance, which is intended to give you a taste of the companions and also, again, talk about the worldstate of Thedas at this point, you know, giving you kind’ve the lead-up to weeks before the events of the Veilguard, so you do have that sense of what’s going on, who are these people, and how, you know, when I first meet them in The Veilguard, you kinda have an idea of who they are. Again, though, this is all stuff that I think enhances the experience, but it’s not required, there’s never going to be, we’re never gonna put you in a situation where a character shows up and, you know, everyone makes a big deal out of it, and you’re sitting there wondering like, who, who is this person? Because they were introduced in other media. We always wanna make sure that you understand, that the only thing that you need to have done to understand The Veilguard is play The Veilguard, so.

KFM: Awesome. Also, yes, Vows & Vengeance is so good, so definitely, you know, give it a chance. The first episode is out now. I think a lot of people in the Vows & Vengeance Discord server, Discord channel are, are really stoked about it.

KFM: This next question. Will we be able to adjust how much damage the companions do in the accessibility settings?

CB: Yeah, so our customized difficulty, and accessibility settings as well, they’re more focused on how you the player experience the game while in control of Rook. So, things like enemy health, timing, things of that nature. So not in the settings, no, but if you really wanna be that kind of player that wants to amp up your companions, like have them do a greater share of the overall damage, there’s a number of ways to accomplish this. You’ll get gear that just strictly says, your companions do more damage. And then there are some unique buffs we support like Rally Party, so you as Rook can trigger this surge in your companions’ ability. So, again, we know how diverse the motivations are within the player-base, so we wanted to make sure those tools were there for y’all.

KFM: So now we’re getting back into spoiler territory. There’s minor spoilers, but, you know, definitely, take heed, for the next couple of minutes if you don’t wanna hear them. Okay, we ready? Will we finally meet Maevaris Tevani in Tevinter?

CB: Oh my goodness, y’all. Alright, you got the spoiler warning, so when I talk about cameos and appearances, don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay, this one’s very near and dear to my heart as a trans woman myself, I’m pretty open about that. Yeah, yeah, our dear Mae, she’s in the game, happy to confirm it, and I am, every time I see her I absolutely freak out. What I’m not gonna tell you though is what role or capacity she plays, so you’re just gonna have to wait and see. But Maevaris Tilani, she’s in.

KFM: I am living for chat right now. Like, I try not to look at it too much during these, because it’ll distract me, but I’m living for chat right now.

KFM: This next one is also a minor spoiler. Will we find out what happened to Lucanis' parents, for his grandmother to have had charge of him?

JE: Yeah, so I mean, Lucanis is an Antivan Crow. If you know anything about the Antivan Crows you know that they are, well, assassins, and assassins tend to have fairly deadly politics, and the daggers are a lot more literal than you would see somewhere like Orlais, so. That’s all I’m gonna say. You’ll find out, you’ll find out at some point for sure.

KFM: We’re doing a great job at not giving too much away.

KFM: Do we get any jealousy dialogues from any of the companions if you switch up your romance plans partway through? Are any of the romances hard-locked at any point?

JE: Yeah so, you can, I mean, once, there is an opportunity, or there is a place in a romance where you essentially commit to it being exclusive. And we really wanted to make sure that, A), we were very up front about the fact that you were committing to an exclusive romance at that point, and before that, it is portrayed as, you’re flirting, you’re kind’ve, you know, figuring out each other. So, not, there’s no jealousy dialogues, but there are - places where you commit, and we wanted to be very clear to fans. There’s also going to be a place, because I think I’m reading this right, where, there’s a point in the story where if you haven’t committed, if you haven’t said like, yeah, let’s, let’s, you know, I’m in for it, I’m up for this, let’s do this, where you no longer have that opportunity. We’re very clear about what that point is, because again, we don’t want people to be missing out on a romance, to think like, I’ve got some time, you know, I really wanna romance Neve, but, I’ve got a little, and then find out that no, in fact, you don’t have anymore time, so. 

KFM: Are class specializations locked to a particular faction, or can Rook only learn a specialization from a particular faction, like through a faction trainer?

JE: So, the specializations are a lot more thematically tied to the factions than they are a strict, you must be X faction, you must get it from this person. You know, for example, I’ll use the Veil Ranger is all themed, as Corinne said earlier, around electricity, around the use of the Veil, around the use of that kinda magic. So while they are thematically tied, there is no, you must be a Crow to be a Spellblade for example, and part of that is because, while we do like having that connection between gameplay and, you know, roleplay, we also don’t want you to feel like, well, I really wanted to be a Spellblade, but I also really want to be a Grey Warden. We don’t want those two things, sometimes we want gameplay to influence narrative, but we never want you to feel restricted by one against the other, if that makes sense.

KFM: Yeah, definitely

CB: Katey, can I go off-script really quickly?

KFM: Of course.

CB: Alright, so I saw someone post in chat, “okay, poly next time, though”. Let me just say, I cannot make promises, I cannot, but I’m with you. I’m with you. 

KFM: I love it. Anytime you wanna address anything that’s happening in chat, by all means.

JE: Oh, shit, copy that.

KFM: I mean, don’t go too crazy. Alright.

KFM: This next question is from Que Sera Sera. Will we be able to change the font size in the UI, subtitles etc?

CB: I can take that one. So, quick reminder, we are gonna do a deeper dive as we get closer to launch on accessibility settings, but let me just answer this one. Yeah, yeah you absolutely can. There are limits of course, but as a fellow person who often has to squint, I’m 42 y’all, my eyes are starting to go. I can play comfortably, I suspect most players will be able to play comfortably.

KFM: Will there be a way to save characters we make so we don't have to start from scratch each time?

CB: Heck yeah, you absolutely can. We, I mean, look, all of you playing Inquisition, you’re still sharing your OC and your characters ten years on. We know how much you love it, so yeah, yeah, absolutely. I do wanna have a, some caveats here though. So, it’s when you’re in the character creator, you can import the character appearance, it’s just gonna be the appearance data, from an existing save of yours. So when I say an existing save, just let me put a very fine point on it, that save has to be local to the machine. Remember, we’re an offline game, there’s no online character sharing built in. But for those of you that like, your OC, are very near and dear to your heart and every time you replay you like to have the same character, and you’ve spent hours and hours and hours working on it, yeah, you can import that.

JE: We saw how many of you were saving screenshots of sliders in DA:I, and that was not a great experience, as we’re well aware, so.

KFM: This next one is, are companion quests going to focus on internal factors or external personal events? Like will it be a growth in character and self-discovery, or are they firmly-rooted in their sense of self and will ask for/need help with their factions, interpersonal relationships, etc?

JE: So that’s a great, another great question. It’s a mix of both. I mean, each companion has their own personal arc over the course of the game. You know, you go on missions with them, you solve problems with them and the nature of those problems, you know, it’s, the problems are a lot, often-times very external in nature, you know, something’s happening that they need help with, but most of the time those problems are also tied to their own personal growth as a character. Again, you know, we really want to make sure that players feel invested in these characters, feel invested in their stories. And we also want to show that these characters do grow over the course of The Veilguard, this is, there aren’t characters that remain completely static from moment one to the end-game. These are characters who grow, and you help them grow. They’re still, their problems are still not going to like, they’re not sitting there saying, well, Rook, you need to do everything for me, but you are, you’re intended to be the leader of this group, but also, you can be their friend and help them with things that, their challenges, so. Yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s a mix of both, we really just, it comes down to the individual character and there is a lot of nuance in that answer I think too.

KFM: This next question from XenoGabby is a minor spoiler, so you’ve been warned once again. The question is, is Lucanis possessed?

JE: So, again, spoilers, everyone has been warned, fairly warned. So Lucanis Dellamorte is also known as The Demon of Vyrantium. And, he has spent a lot of time killing Venatori, who are mages, and who do know a lot about demons, so. Yeah, somebody decided that it might be a good idea to make that nickname stick.

KFM: And this next one, from a user named Crom, is there reactivity towards the specialization that you chose? Like some people might trust more Champions, or maybe freak, others will freak out with Death Callers or Reapers? 

CB: Yeah, what a good question, so, in general the reactivity is reserved for things that aren’t necessarily likely to change, things that can create a throughline that we can keep building and building upon, so like your faction, your lineage, your class, your choices. So that keeps a consistent narrative thread with those elements, and then we can assume that thread continues from A to B. So the answer is no, they don’t react to your specialization, but in part that’s because you can full refund, you can respec at any time, you might a Death Caller one moment and another specialization on the next encounter.

KFM: And, this next question. You mentioned encountering companions on their own missions in the world. If I keep my party mostly the same, does that mean that I miss out on their side missions, or are they unavailable to be picked up during that time? 

CB: Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean, you’re, you have all the tools that you’re not gonna miss out on quests based on who’s in your party. How would I answer this - so, there are certain plot elements that can change what quests are available to you, and in some cases, some quests that you might have in your journal can actually expire based on choices and how you advance the plot. So there are ways that quest content gets cut off, or alters. But in general you have the visibility and the tools so that you won’t miss out on it. I can give you a couple of examples, that might be helpful. So when you meet companions out in the world, there’s kinda like a couple of different ways that they can show up. In a recent playthrough, I was exploring Hossberg Wetlands. It was technically for a quest that should’ve been more oriented towards Davrin, but I didn’t have him in my party, and as I got close to the objective, he showed up with Assan and helped me clear the path forward. The other way this will happen, I was out in Arlathan, actually doing, on my way to do a main story mission, and I get to the far reaches of Arlathan Forest, and I already knew that Taash wanted to help me with some of the challenges of that arc. Well, Taash is right there waiting for me, so I actually chose to instead like, ah, Taash seems impatient, I’m gonna actually jump on that story arc right now instead of what I intended to do, so. Just some examples of the way that as you’re journeying through this world, opportunities are gonna show up, but they allow you just to express more agency, you’re generally not going to miss them.

KFM: Awesome. This next one is, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned. This next question is from Tazaba. What's the difference between the Veil Jumper faction and the Veil Ranger Specialization?

CB: Yeah, okay, so, yeah we just wanted to kinda flag this as a spoiler, just because there might be assumptions about how you take on specializations in this game. So John touched on this a little bit already, but specializations really represent the training and fighting styles used by a given faction. As John mentioned, you do not have to be a Veil Jumper to choose a specialization that’s associated with the Veil Jumpers. You’ve just been around them, you’re aware of their techniques, and you wanna take that on yourself. So, in this particular case, and I get the confusion because Veil Jumper and Veil Ranger sound very similar. If I’m playing as a rogue, using the Veil Ranger specialization, all that means is I’m fighting in the style of the Veil Jumpers, like they do, with bow and arrow, typically with electric damage, that sort’ve thing. So just, to be super clear, it’s not required that you have to play a Veil Jumper in order to be a Veil Ranger.

KFM: This next question is, where is the equator in Thedas, or the planet Thedas is on, relative to places we’ve explored?

JE: That is a great question. So, I will say that, you know, it’s funny until I saw this question, it’s not something I’d ever thought a lot about, but as I started thinking about it a little bit more deeply, based on how the climate changes across Thedas, you know, obviously, to the south are the Avvar and things get a little bit more wintry, and then up north is a lot more tropical, I’d say that Thedas is a southern continent on this world, so.

KFM: Are there any main story missions that require you to use a specific companion? Kinda similar to a previous question.

CB: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, there are a few, yes, again, in the warrior deep dive, I’m not gonna describe it, just in case anyone, you know, didn’t wanna have spoilers, you can see that a companion was required for that. However, that’s the exception rather than the rule. In general, we try to give players the agency to bring who they want for these moments. There are these times where a companion, either their faction or their story arc is so closely tied or intersects with the events of a main story mission that they do become required, but it’s not the standard. And then of course, in general, if you’re doing your companions’ arcs, those are the moments where they’re more than likely gonna be required.

KFM: Will we be - 

CB: It's pretty flexible, like if, if you’re worried about like, every mission I go through, like am I gonna have someone that is gonna be mandated? Generally not.

KFM: Sorry, I almost talked over you there Corinne, my bad.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to pause cutscenes? Will there be any kind of dialogue history to look back on if we miss what was said? 

JE: So, you can pause every cutscene in the game. Obviously, life happens, you know, somebody, maybe you’re cat’s, you know, just to use an example that definitely doesn’t happen to me regularly, my cat might be throwing up in the next room and I need to find a way to get her off the carpet and on to, you know, not the carpet, so you can pause any cutscene, and conversation. There is no dialogue history at the moment unfortunately, and that’s not something, we did look into it but it’s just based on how the dialogue is structured and how it’s built in this game, that’s not something that we are going to have unfortunately. 

KFM: I saw somebody say “cat vomiting is so real”, and I agree, sometimes when I’m playing games, my dog decides to do something insane.

KFM: So, this next question is, since companions can get into relationships with each other, is there a mechanic behind which companions get together? Can a companion leave due to your world decisions, and if so, will their partners leave with them?

JE: I’m gonna answer half this question, the other half is a spoiler that we’re not gonna get into right now. Companions, there is not actually a mechanic behind the companions getting together. We never wanted it to feel like a mechanical thing, and obviously, different companions are gonna have different attractions. One of the fun things is, as you’re going through, especially if you’re not flirting with one of the companions, you can see these relationships starting to develop, and the thing that actually allows them to, you know, completely develop is, generally committing to another relationship, or, you know, not being engaging, not engaging in a romance with those companions at all. So, yeah, I mean, there’s not a mechanic, it’s just what we felt made the most sense and, I think that’s honestly one of my favorite things about the companions is, they’re all written to feel like real people with real preferences and real, you know, attractions. So beyond just romances, they also develop friendships and even rivalries with each other, because of these, them feeling like these characters that exist outside of just the game, so. 

KFM: Awesome.

KFM: This question is all about Davrin. Hildrana would love to know more about Davrin. What’s his personality like, what kind of hobbies or things does he like, and what his relationship with Assan is like?

JE: So Davrin is one of my favorite, I mean, I say one of my favorite characters, honestly I love all seven companions so it’s challenging for me to say which. But Davrin is stern, thoughtful and considerate though, he has a soft side for sure. You see that develop over time as he starts to warm up to the other companions. He has, you know, a kindness to him that is brought out in particular by certain companions, and also a strong sense of pride and when he develops a rivalry with some of the companions. So there’s that sense of, he knows who he wants to be, he knows who he is, and a lot of his arc is making that journey. In terms of how he relates to Assan, you know, his relationship over, evolves over time, I’m not gonna get too deep into spoilers because there are spoilers for that in his quest. The other interesting thing about, about Davrin, and this shows up, we’ve talked about this before. He’s a monster hunter. He’s not just a Warden who sees fighting monsters as, you know, just part of the job. He believes in turning this into a skill-set that he alone, you know like, he has more than anyone else. Learning how to defeat monsters, learning their weaknesses, and that does show up a lot in his character arc, so.

KFM: This next question came through our askbox on Tumblr, so shoutout the BioWare Tumblr. Rosered is asking why do elves seem to not like wearing shoes? Is there a lore reason behind it? Are they not afraid of getting frostbite or stepping in something gross?

JE: So the shoeless elves thing is in part a, it’s a, Dalish are very close to nature, they walk, go around shoeless, in large part, to become closer to nature. It’s part of their culture, it’s part of who they are. But, you know, especially, and it’s not true of every Dalish clan, the Dalish are a tremendously widely-spread and widely-varied people, so. For example, Bellara does not go around shoeless. She wears boots. She’s climbing around on ancient ruins, walking through maybe a shattered eluvian, or a place where eluvian’s shattered, it’s a great way to get your feet sliced up on the hard rocks and on the hard glass. And in general Veil Jumpers are a little bit more, where they go and what they do really requires a lot more care and a lot more protection, so. I mean you’ll notice in Bellara’s visual design but also in the visual design of the other Veil Jumpers, they’re very practically minded, they know that what they’re doing is dangerous, and, you know, and, again, not every Dalish clan goes round shoeless, so.

KFM: ZJ wants to know, do all companions have aesthetic changes when in the Lighthouse and outside of the Lighthouse?

CB: Amazing. Yeah, yeah, they absolutely do. So, just like Rook, each of the companions has what we refer to as their casual wear. This is how they look in their downtime, their more relaxed moments. It’s definitely different from how they look headed into battle. And I’ll tell you this. If Emmrich’s casual wear doesn’t send you, I just don’t know what to tell you.

KFM: I’ve got a fun one coming up. Do they companions have favorite foods, and if so, what are they?

JE: Oh I love this one, so they do. Each of them does have favorite foods. It’s funny, I’d say that Dragon Age: The Veilguard is probably the most we’ve talked about food in a context of Dragon Age, ever. But yeah, I mean, you know, some of them are a little bit more, you know, they have simpler tastes, and in large part that’s because that’s what they’re used to or what they can cook. We talked, I’m gonna actually give a little bit of a, I don’t know if I consider this a spoiler, but maybe if you’re really sensitive to spoilers you don’t wanna listen to this last part. We’ve talked about how there’s people on the team who are better cooks and people on the team who maybe don’t have necessarily the skill-set, who could burn water. So one of the things I really love is, you know, Bellara and Lucanis actually end up being, essentially, the team cooks. Bellara, you know, spending a lot of time out in nature, learning a lot about, you know, different types of cooking, is really big on experimentation, she likes to, you know, try different things. Lucanis comes from the Crows, Lucanis is very big on the finer things, so between the two of them, there’s a point in the story where they basically decide, if we don’t do this, the entire team is going to starve, so let’s just call ourselves the cook, cooks, and make sure that nobody dies of food poisoning, so.

KFM: This next one, I believe we actually might’ve even touched on this in the first Q&A, but, Trev has noticed a lack of dwarves in our promotional material concerning Rook. Inquisition had them sharing facial hair options with humans. So their question is, will dwarves return to more braided, grander beards, or will the facial hair options be shared like previously?

CB: Yeah, we did touch on this briefly, so let me go a little bit deeper. Yeah, there are some grander dwarven beards, like braids, beads woven in, it’s really lovely and really thematic. And y’all have seen our Strand hair, how great that looks, I think it looks just as great for the beards. And I do know, we’re gonna, at some point leading up to launch, we are gonna be showing some dwarf Rooks. So, let’s see if we can’t get some beard options on display there. It actually really was quite the challenge to get the physics to work with all the armor variance we have on those beards. So I’ll tell you what y’all. The team loves hearing from you. Would it be okay if I just asked in chat, could we get some love for our character art and tech anim teams because they put their heart and soul into make sure this would work for y’all. 

JE: It is, it is incredible how good the beards look, like, it just, they did, the work that they’ve done is just spectacular.

CB: Aw y'all are too kind. And then I guess just to finish up this question, we try and let you use as many options as the character creator has for any character you wanna create. So we definitely created bears in mind that are more dwarven in nature. You can use that on a qunari if you want, or you can use a more traditional human beard on a dwarf if you want, but your options are there. Aw, y’all are lovely, thank you so much.

KFM: So we didn't tag this next one as a minor spoiler. I don’t think that it is. But, definitely want to flag it anyway. Will the Solavellans have a chance at a happy ending?

JE: Corinne, I’m gonna let you do this one. 

CB: Oh my goodness, this is the question. Look! I mean, I thought y’all wanted the pain? Didn’t you tell me you wanted the pain, that tortured romance that rips your heart out? Honestly though, I just wouldn’t feel right about spoiling anything there. I’ll just say this, I’ll just say this. Trick has done a fantastic job with Solas, they always do, this is some of ther best work I think. And then I’ll also say, as, for myself as the resident shipper on the leadership team, I’m repping y’all, but that’s all I’m gonna say.

KFM: That’s definitely what I meant by, not really a spoiler, but some people might’ve thought that in the beginning.  

KFM: Okay, next question is, since you can choose to be part of the same faction for most of the companions, will that give you an advantage when trying to befriend them?

JE: So you will get some unique dialogue with the companions that are part of your own faction. The first time you meet them, they may not all know you by face, but they’ve at least heard of you, I’ve heard of who you are, maybe even heard of you leaving the faction to go help Varric to track down Solas. But that said, you know the faction, you don’t necessarily as people. So they will know you but you still have to work to earn their trust and learn, you know, get them, help them with their problems.

KFM: Next question is, will there be more connections between the Veilguard? Like will we see them hanging out together without out us?

JE: Oh, I love this one. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I think I’ve said this twice already, but my favorite thing is how much the companions feel like a, end up feeling like a found family. They’re invested in each others problems, you know they’re, invested in each others’ success and failures, and this manifests through a bunch of different ways. Scenes, banter, even interactions in the Lighthouse itself. Because one of the things that I think is important, I know Corinne also thinks is super important, these worlds, these games feel the best when they don’t feel like they’re there as a theme-park just for you, just to exist for Rook as a protagonist. These are characters that have relationships, have, you know, things going on that don’t necessarily directly involve Rook all the time. They have their own relationships, their own feelings, and we really want them to feel like their own people, and feel like they do exist outside of just the sphere of Rook. So, you know, they’ll follow, you’re the one leading this fight, but the companions don’t just exist for you.

KFM: So this next one is a real minor spoiler warning. Will the companions have interactions with Solas? I imagine the companions will comment on Rook’s decisions regarding Solas, but was wondering if the potential relationship between Solas and the companions will play any part?

JE: Oh, this is a good question. So a lot of Solas’ relationship is with Rook. Rook and Solas have a connection, they have a bond, and part of that is, and I’ve said this before, but Solas sees a lot of himself in Rook. He sees, you know, the person, you know the person he was before, the person he thinks he is, in Rook, and becomes, you know, again, we, they develop a connection. You get to flavor how it is, you can make it more antagonistic, make it friendlier, but ultimately it is a connection between the two of you. Now, that said, the companions are much a part of Rook’s story as Solas is, and sometimes those relationships can cross over, as well as, there are followers who, you know, are going to have a more complicated connection and complicated relationship with just, Solas as an entity, you know, Bellara, for example, is an elf, she’s Dalish, and this a person from her pantheon, so. There’s going to be a lot more of a, I guess, like I said, complex relationship between the two of them. Davrin is another example, someone else who is Dalish, so, you know, their views on the gods in general are going to be a little bit different. And then on the other side,you have someone like Emmrich who is very big on magic and the Fade, so they’ll have their own [inaudible] and their own thoughts. 

KFM: Before I get to this next question I do wanna say we’ve got about a fifteen minute warning, we’ve got about fifteen minutes left, so we’ll get through as many questions as we can in that time. And with that said, our next one is, and, I feel like we might have actually touched on this one earlier, but, keep me honest. Would it be possible to hide some of the combat UI, such as companion trackers and enemy HP bars, for even more immersion? 

CB: Yeah, good question. It’s actually, it’s reasonably robust what you can do with your UI. So let me give you some examples. If, normally when you hit an enemy you’ll see damage floaties come off of it. If you wanna turn those off, you can. If you want to play without, say, the minimap or the wayfinding markers, have a more organic experience, you can. I challenged myself to do a, it was really difficult to do a really difficult run where I turned off my own health bar, you can do that too. And then, I know one of them that a lot of people have been asking about is, we do have the incoming attack indicators, that just help you react. But, if you’re the kind’ve player that wants to turn those off, cut down on the noise, yeah, you can do that too, so. You know, I can’t say that we support every single option that you might have in mind, but it’s reasonably robust. 

KFM: And then, another, just small, minor spoiler, you’ve been warned yet again, is there lock-picking in the game?

CB: Oh gosh lock-picking, notorious lock-picking. Well let me answer it this way. I think the approach we took in The Veilguard is that each companion has a unique, what we’re calling, exploration ability, or abilities, that you can use to solve puzzle, access new areas and find treasure. So, like in that regard it’s not actually dissimilar to lockpicking, it’s just that it is more thematic to the companions and their unique skill-sets within The Veilguard. It’s very specialized, I guess you could say. And, look, I’ve been there when you’re playing and you feel like you have to take a rogue, otherwise you’re not gonna be open the lockpick chests. Some players like that, some players dislike it, but the option that we wanted to give to y’all is that, you know, we did say this is a spoiler right? We did, yeah. So Rook does find a certain dagger and through it a method to channel these exploration abilities of their companions, even when the companion is not in your party. So like, look, if I’m exploring Hossberg, and there’s a puzzle and I know how to solve it, like I’m not running all the way back to like a party swap-point, you can just use the dagger.

KFM: This is not a spoiler, and it is actually something we confirmed a little bit earlier in the Q&A, but it doesn’t hurt to be clear. Can we freely reallocate or refund skillpoints?

CB: Yeah, so we’ve confirmed this, I’m just gonna keep it brief, yes, absolutely. Refund all, refund last, no cost. It’s an entirely friendly refund system. Go experiment, and then let me know what you do.

KFM: Will the acts be broken down into acts or stages at all? Mainly wondering for like spoiler discussion purposes, while they’re all playing and wanting to talk to one another about it?

JE: So while we don’t officially within the game say this is this act, this is the next act, there are some pretty obvious narrative breakpoints where the context changes, or there is, you know, events that make it clear that things are now advancing into a different stage. That’s now, to be clear, that’s largely around the critical path. Other content can largely be done at any time, but even there we do unlock certain things over the course of time, because, again, it makes, it maybe doesn’t make narrative sense in the context of, say, an earlier act, but now, you know, you’re into act two, it feels a lot more meaningful and makes a lot more sense in the world. You can do a lot of content in any order, but the critical path is largely broken into acts.

KFM: Now, I think this next question might be the most important question we can answer. A user by the name of doggiesnores says, would you please tell me happy birthday? 

JE: Happy birthday doggiesnores.

CB: Aww, happy birthday doggie - I feel weird saying doggiesnores. I mean, listen -

JE: You gotta roll with it Corinne.

CB: John, Katey, do we wanna sing? Do we wanna sing?

JE: No!

KFM: Oh we can - oh, okay.

JE: You can sing.

CB: Alright. [sings] Happy birthday to you -

KFM: - [sings] to you - [stops singing] are we gonna stop now? Okay.

CB: We’ll stop, we’ll stop. 

JE: Yeah, I think, yeah. 

CB: We gotta get back to the questions.

KFM: Yeah, we do have a time limit now.

KFM: Alright, next question, alright. This is from Guapa. Okay. I wanna know the helmet situation. Back in Inquisition, there were helmets exclusive to races, and to be honest, most helmets were exclusive to humans. Will elves and humans share helmets since their head shape seems to be more similar now, and will there be qunari helmets rather than just facepaints?

CB: Love this described as “the helmet situation”. I love it. Yeah, so let me describe this to you. All the helmets can be worn by all the lineages with one big exception. The qunari still use the vitaar face paint. So each helmet has a unique look, and if you’re using the vitaar variant of that instead, that too has a unique look, so you’ll wear that facepaint instead of the helmet. And we, we felt that this was just generally a good precedent following Inquisition and, really what led us to this decision is that, when you see horn customization, and hair customization with the horns in character creator, we didn’t want to sacrifice that aspect of it in character creator. It’s just effing cool, that’s all I can say about it. So, yeah, the qunari will use vitaar. All the other helmets can be worn by all lineages. We’ve talked a lot about transmog, so of course you can transmog them, you can hide your helmet, you can hide your helmet in certain situations. So I’d say, as a “situation”, we’re pretty happy with it.

KFM: This next question is, will we be able to tint and change the color of our armours, or have they, or do they have their default colors only?

CB: Oh cool, yeah, that kinda gets to transmog in a way. Gosh, what’s the, the best way to answer this I think is that each armor piece, like gear piece you have, will have bespoke colors, but for almost every single armor piece, while you can’t dye them, we have created color-variant cosmetics and they’re very often aligned with the various factions in the world, right? So like, there’s one, for instance, that has this like, incredible, like flowing cape, I use it all the time. There’s a variant of it for each faction with different faction, with different colors and logos and things of that nature. So you can’t dye, but it really is flexible and very thematic. And then I guess, going back to the Venatori armor question we had way at the beginning, while I wouldn’t say they’re explicitly Venatori, there are some very Venatori-like color schemes in some of the armors you’ll find.

KFM: I think this might be our last minor spoiler question, so once again, you’ve been warned. AelaFireheart asks, will we be seeing other griffons from The Last Flight? 

JE: So, again, just to be clear, spoilers, but yeah, Assan has brothers and sisters, so Assan is not the only griffon that shows up in Dragon Age: The Veilguard. 

CB: Hey, I just gotta respond to something in comment, that somebody says, wait, does that mean I can’t be pink? And I’m assuming we’re talking about armors. There are some pink armors. Don’t worry -

KFM: Confirmed.

CB: - there’s some pink.

KFM: As some of the companions come from media outside of the games, were they already chosen as companions for the game and then integrated into the additional media, or were they characters outside of the game, and the team wanted to bring them in?

JE: I think this is pretty similar to a question we answered earlier, so I mean, again, it depends, but if they showed up, especially in Tevinter Nights, they were already intended to be companions at that point, so.

KFM: Are there any lineage-based surnames or is it just based on the background?

JE: So surnames in this game are entirely based on your background choice. The reason for this is we do reference your surname in dialogue, a not inconsiderable amount, and we didn’t, at a certain point it becomes unsustainable in terms of how many different variations, so. We reference it based on your surnames, sorry, your background.

KFM: Is there any chance that we will be getting any audio snippets of some of the companions and Rook’s voicelines before release?

JE: Well that’s the great news about the, Vows & Vengeance, is that, each companion will show up in one of the episodes, and you’ll be able to hear their voice in there, so. First episode yesterday, and there’s more to come.  

KFM: Remember when I said that was the last, or we had already read the last minor spoiler, I was wrong, there is one more. So, once again, you’ve been warned, minor spoiler upcoming. This question is from SammyCherryLee. Considering Varric’s timeskip, looks are a direct, Varric’s timeskip looks are a direct translation of how he looked in the comics. What thought process went into Morrigan’s new design, and what do you usually consider when bringing in old beloved characters back, but also make sure to adapt them to the years that have passed within the game?

JE: So, in every case, any time we’re bringing back a character, we want to think about, what would, what’s changed for that character in the time since you’ve last saw them, so, Varric, Morrigan, any other characters we bring back, there is this thought of, okay, it’s been, in this case, you know, almost ten years, what’s changed for these characters in that intervening time? In the case of Morrigan, she’s coming to terms with a lot of truths about both herself but also her mother, you know, you see her with Flemeth’s crown, or a variation of it, and that’s speaking to her personal journey of, what I would call, kind’ve acceptance of who she is and how she connects to Flemeth, because ultimately we want this to feel like a real world. It’s, they’re not the same person they are ten years ago, none of us are, and we don’t want characters to feel like, either ten years have passed, and hey, I’m exactly the same, because that’s stagnation for the character, and it’s just not believable or, honestly, fun, for you. And it doesn’t do justice to those characters.

KFM: Can we clarify - ooh, fuck, I think my Discord just went down again.

JE: Yep, I can still hear you.

CB: We can, we can hear you Katey, so.

KFM: Oh, good!

CB: Yeah.

KFM: I’ll just keep talking!

CB: Great, let’s do it!

KFM: I’m so sorry for the f-bomb, I didn’t know you could still hear me. 

CB: Hey, we’ve all been there.

JE: Cursing, in our Discord, my goodness!

CB: How very human of you.

KFM: Ban me, ban me. This next question is, can you clarify if Spellblade will be forced to use a dagger, or can we still use staff as a melee combat weapon?

CB: Oh, heck yeah, let’s go. You know, I was wondering if this was gonna be clear in the combat video we put out, so I’ll speak about mage, but this is generally true of all the classes. So they each have two weapon sets, if you’ve seen the character sheet. So for mage, you’re gonna have your staff slot and then you’re gonna have the orb-and-dagger slot. So, at any point, like even between weapon swings, you can swap to your class alternate weapon set by hitting down on the D-pad. So you’re not locked down into one weapon set or the other, even if you’re in a given class or specialization. Now, like what I would say is that the Spellblade specialization has a lot of extra functionality and depth that like is augmented when using the orb-and-dagger, but, like if I give you an anecdote of how I play, the staff heavy-attack armor, I take this, or, the staff heavy attack charge, I take a trait where when I’m doing damage and playing, it’s building up that heavy attack charge on my staff. Even when I’m playing as my Spellblade. So I’ll be, just going to down with orb and dagger, I’ll notice that my staff is fully-charged, I’ll swap at a convenient moment, use my heavy staff attack, blast the enemies down, I was telling y’all, like, these Nightmare players, like planning around your elemental damage types, it’s really great to have weapons of multiple elemental types, right? So I go up against something that’s resistant to fire, I’m gonna hit down and maybe swap to my necrotic weapon.

KFM: I'm back, in record time. 

JE: Welcome back! 

KFM: Okay, did we get to the next one, or was that just the Spellblade question?

CB: Oh that was, sorry I was geeking out too much Katey.

KFM: Oh that’s okay, no, it’s great!

CB: We hit upon a favorite topic of mine.

KFM: That’s okay. Do we think we have time for one more, or do we think it’s time to wrap up?

JE: I can go a little late, we’ve got, I think we can do a couple more, for sure.

KFM: Okay, we do only have three left, so.

JE: Let’s finish the list!

KFM: Let’s do it.

KFM: Alright, next question. Since it was mentioned that playing as an elf in the Veil Jumpers will see you more of a, see you as more of a Dalish elf, and a City elf if you play as a Shadow Dragon, what kind of elf would you be in the other factions?

JE: So this is actually a really interesting question for me because I think one of the things I’d say is, while City Elf versus Dalish Elf is a lot more of a useful distinction in, you know, Ferelden, Orlais, we’re in northern Thedas, things are different up here. And a great example is Rivain. Dalish settlements, you know, they have Dalish settlements within cities, integrated into the cities, because, again, they don’t have that same bias, that same distinction. So it’s not really a City Elf versus Dalish Elf thing in a lot of those cases. It’s a lot more about, how you play into the faction, you know, and, in some cases it matters more that you’re an elf, in other cases it doesn’t actually matter to the people of that faction, they’re just looking for someone who could do the work. A great example, and I’ll just, very, very light spoilers, Mourn Watch is a great example where, they just care that you are capable of, you know, executing the duties that you’re given, so.

KFM: This next question, we’ve definitely confirmed a few times today already, but I’m sure there’s been a couple of people who cycled in and out. Will, when will we be releasing detailed information on the full list of accessibility features in the game?

JE: So yeah, so I mean, we mentioned, we’re not quite ready to talk about them, but we will be diving into them before launch. We wanna make sure as many people as possible can enjoy and play the game, so.

CB: Yeah, I think we’re doing a feature, some kind of blogpost on that, but, that’ll be a good format where we can be a little bit more in-depth.

JE: Yeah.

KFM: Alright, and the final question that I have on my list. It’s about localization. WoodenSmith says, I’d like to hear more about how localization works. What sorts of things have to be changed or adjusted so they make sense in different regions? Do localization teams have to be super careful when they translate to make sure they’re not accidentally revealing more than was intended in other versions? I’ve also always been very curious about accents in other versions. For example, do the, I’m gonna butcher this, do the Orl - Orlesian -

JE: Orlesian.

KFM: Orlesian, thank you, John. Character voice -

CB: That was really good, Katey!

KFM: I tried!

JE: Yeah, you tried, you got most of the way there, yeah!

KFM: For example, do the Orlesian character voice actors speak in a French accent in the Japanese version, or dwarf characters speak with an American accent in the French version?

JE: So I’m going to talk broadly about localization, and I’ll get a little bit into the accent question. So, localization is a thing that we’re doing constantly. We’re almost working with the teams, we have regular syncs with them, and a lot of that is because localization is not just, a lot of people think of it like, yeah, you’re just translating. Well, you’re not, you’re, you know, you’re, again, there’s different things to understand about different languages, they have different rules around grammar and, I will say, I think every writer has at least one story where they wrote, kind’ve, a fun double-entendre into a conversation, and then they got a ping from some of the localization teams saying, hey, can you very thoroughly explain what you meant there? And that’s what I like to describe as being hoist on your own petard because, sometimes, you’re like, oh I said this, it was really ribald, and now I don’t want to talk to this person who is very seriously and very concernedly, looking, it’s just like, ‘can you please tell us what that means?’ But yeah, I mean, in general, it’s an art-form of its own. You know, different sayings translate differently into different languages, different metaphors translate differently to different languages, and we always wanna make sure that other people, you know, people are playing this game in every language have an experience that feels authentic and meaningful, and doesn’t feel like it’s just kind’ve, you know, phoned in, we just, we just ran it through Google Translate or something, so. Again, localization is a huge part of what we do, the localization team we have is amazing, they do fantastic work, I love working with them. As far as accents, yeah, we do try to keep some consistency, it’s not always going to be a one to one, but we do try to say like, okay, so, this character, this group of characters needs to sound similar, and they’ll find an accent that works with the language that they’re trying, because, again, different accents work differently with different languages, and we wanna make sure that there’s that consistency, so, yeah.

KFM: We did it!

JE: Yeah!

KFM: That’s all of our questions that we’re able to get to you today. Wanna just say a quick thanks again to the community for submitting all of these really questions, it was a lot of fun going through them and, you know, making sure that we were able to give you some new stuff this time around. Yeah, anything you guys wanna say before we hop off?

CB: Yeah, can I just say, look, we love here, being here answering questions for you but the support, the interest you all show, it really fuels us in the team.

JE: Mhm.

CB: You all are a big part of us being able to make this game what it is, and I really hope we do you proud, so just, sincere thank you to everyone. 

JE: Yeah, just, I just wanna echo that. I’ve been on this project for a while, and it’s been a lot of, not getting to talk about it, and quietly saying I don’t know, are we making more new Dragon Age? So being able to actually have these conversations and give you the details that you want without spoiling the game, it’s, it’s a lot of fun. This is genuinely the funnest part of my week, so thank you everyone.

KFM: Awesome, well thank you both so much for your time, Corinne and John. And, yeah, we have recorded the audio for this, so we’re going to turn that into a transcription, and put that in the Q&A archive channel, which lives underneath ask-bioware. That will be coming, you know, in the next couple of days to a week or so, you know, we’ll, we’ll be working away at it as soon as possible, so just let, let me know if you have any questions.

JE: Awesome. Thank you so much everyone, have a good Friday, good weekend, and I’m gonna go eat a sandwich, so.

CB: Happy Friday!

KFM: Happy Friday, and happy sandwich day!

CB: Bye bye.

JE: Thank you.

KFM: Bye.

JE: Bye.

[source: the official BioWare Discord server, August 30th dev Q&A]

Update: If you would like to listen to the Q&A for yourself in video format, or listen to it again, Ghil Dirthalen recorded it and has now uploaded a video of it here.

[keravnous]

diet mountain dew; john wick/fem!reader (smut, 18+)

dating john wick - the playlist

The Boogeyman is out to get you. Little does he know, that you too are willing to do quite a bunch of things just to stay alive.

warnings: blood, guns, knives, injuries, physical violence/fighting, assassination attempt; dub-con, rough sex, unprotected sex, fingering, oral (female receiving), choking, dirty talk, spanking, a lot of manhandling bc for the love of god he doesn't know how to be soft anymore, gun kink, knife kink, size kink, strength kink, squirting, body worship if you blink, is this hate-fucking? idk; john has a horse cock change my mind; john is in his 50s, the reader is in her 20s; set somewhere after the series i guess? (I refuse to accept he's dead); problematic family relationship as a plot device; let's all collectively ignore the fact that he would actually never touch another woman or even dare to catch the smallest of feelings again; john gets off on the violence

word count: 10,6 k

thank you mel for a) listening to my ramblings and b) reading a good chunk of the first third of this dumpster fire and still going nuts about it, kissies and thank you v for listening to my keanu ramblings without losing faith in me

You wonder, if praying will help you. Probably not.

The sound of carnage, screams and gunshots in the hallway abruptly stops. You hear the assailant's heavy footsteps echoing off the floorboards outside of your hotel room mere seconds before the door bursts open, flies out of its hinges and rattles to the ground, wood creaking and breaking, splinters flying everywhere.

There had been a hit out on you for two days and every single soldier in your father's militia was ready to defend your life with their own.

Literally. You can tell by the man entering your suite.

You can tell by just how much he is covered in blood. You can tell by the way it drips down his forehead and how it soaks his white shirt - even the soles of his shoes creak with it. You can tell by the way he is totally and utterly drenched in red red red, and because you are certain it is not his.

They literally gave their life for you. The thought hits you like a blow to the head. People have died because of you. Fathers, brothers, sons. You recall your last conversation with your own father. They want us dead, they put out a contract on us - you had never seen him so nervous, so disheveled. What does that mean - his anxiety had been washing over you in seeping hot waves, sending cold shivers down your spine. It means, I need you out of the house - now.

Nausea bubbles in your stomach as the man now approaches you, casually strolls into the suite with his finger on the trigger of the gun dangling from his hand and you stare back at him - a deer in the headlights, frozen by fear in the eyes of its deadly predator. One of your father's men jumps from his cover, fires a shot and gets hit back with one straight between his eyes. It happens so quickly, that you can't turn your head away. You see the bullet piercing his forehead, blood splattering as soon as it exits the skull on the other side. His head flies back a little, and then his body goes limp, slack, as he falls to the ground with a heavy thud.

You want to scream. You want to vomit. You want to run. But there is nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide from him.

There's only one soldier left with you in the suite now and he is hiding around the corner, near the bathroom. The stranger - the assassin, the killer - does not lower the gun again, and does not let his eyes stray from you as he carefully enters the room. You feel terribly exposed, dressed only in your negligée, not daring to move.

Now, that the dim light of the suite's living room strikes his face, you can finally see him, see the man who has come to end you. He is older than you, maybe nearly twice your age, with dark hair and even darker eyes, matching his black suit. Lean and athletic, chest heaving slightly with physical exhaustion. The Boogeyman.

You do not know who or what you had expected, what cruel and dreadful images your brain had conjured up in the past 48 hours - 48 frightful hours of being moved around from hideout to hideout by your father's men, not staying in one place longer than necessary - but it certainly was not that. Not him. He is a lot more handsome than his reputation has led on. Seeing him on the subway around rush hour you would have never suspected him to be in this business. He looks nice. And that is exactly what makes him dangerous.

You have heard his name before. Echoing from the walls. Baba Yaga. Whispered with both: fear and respect. The Boogeyman. Blurted out: like a curse or like a blessing. Mister Wick: like redemption, like damnation. Jonathan, the king's son walking the earth as the devil.

John. The sound of his name is oddly human - disturbingly human - for someone looking as calm and collected, focused and concentrated as he does right now, while being drenched in blood and pointing a gun at you.

You must have said his name out loud, because his eyebrows twitch irritatedly, a movement so quick you barely missed it - must've sound desperate too, then.

Vision zeroing in on the barrel of his gun, your hands clutch the sofa's edge. There is so much adrenaline pumping through your veins right now that it freezes your limbs, has your ears ringing. The only thing responding to your brain fully are your eyes, and they snap away from the gun and over to the remaining soldier. It's a quick look, not even a second, but the hitman seems to recognize it and - with near inhumane speed - flicks his gun, and fires two shots. Blood splatters against the white door as the shots pin the soldier's body against it, and is it finally drops to the ground heavily it leaves a nasty trail, all wet and sticky and red.

Could be you.

You want to scream, but your body does not belong to you anymore, does not respond to your commands. It is a desperate, cruel sound that leaves your throat instead as you flinch with the sound of the gun being fired.

"Let's make this quick" his voice is gravelly and rough, like he has seen a thousand grim things and the pain of it has etched its way into his throat, left a nasty mark on every tone that ever dared to cross after.

That is when your fight or flight suddenly kicks in. Well, more specifically, it kicks in while he is speaking, as he starts to swap the empty clip of his gun.

He underestimates you. Everyone does. Your father, your brother. The countless men lying dead littered across the hotel's 25th floor. It will be his mistake.

You latch forward, grabbing the vase from the coffee table in front of you. The weight of it in your hand drags you down.

With all the strength you can muster, which is quite a lot considering the massive amounts of adrenaline that are currently amping up your body - you throw it at him. It connects with his forehead sharply; a deep, irritated noise bursting from his throat as it crashes, splinters and falls to the floor.

You are braver, braver than you should be as your assault does not end there, your body pushing you forward, leaping over the table and crashing into his broad shoulders.

I will not die today

Body ramming into his, he stumbles, as your fist connects with his chin. You have only been partially trained in hand-to-hand combat, after pleading your brother for months until he eventually gave in. Sadly, he wasn't nearly as thorough and honest with it as he was training his drug dealer and gun runners. But now, it is the only thing you can rely on.

There is nothing else; no one else left alive in that building who might be able to help you. It is up to you. So, you might as well try.

And Oh, does desperation fire up your blood.

I will not die today

The diversion does not last long and he - John John John only human only human only human - grabs you by you waist hard, fingers digging into your flesh and into the expensive silk, before he slams your body into the ground. All air leaves your lungs with a dull sound erupting from your chest, just as pain blooms around your ribs.

You cough and he looks down at you, confusion making his brows twitch, before cold-hearted determination takes over once more. John aims his gun at you once more, pulls back the hammer and you do not even think about it, your leg rising as you kick against his hand. The shot misses, buries itself deep into the expensive carpet a few inches next to your skull. You have no time to do either: panic or sigh in relief; instead, you deliver him a kick to his stomach, fighting yourself back onto your feet, punching him straight in the face.

John grunts and grabs your wrist, but you see it coming and throw yourself into his wide frame, wrapping your other arm around his back and thus hooking it underneath his right shoulder, dislocating his arm and preventing him from aiming his gun at you. You claw onto him as he twists your arm close to his stomach, while you wrap your legs around him, making it harder for John to shake you off.

I will not die today

You kick and dig the heel of your foot into his thighs and the back of his knees and he grunts and buckles a little, but turns wild and relentless quicker than you can blink, throws the two of you into the next wall. You gasp sharply as your back connects with the large mirror, splinters digging into your back - not deep enough to actually cut skin, but it stings nonetheless, the impact making you dizzy.

Sharp pain shoots through your back and your neck, but you are not willing to give up yet, as raw energy and rage and desperation surges through your body - one of your legs coming loose and your knee hitting his stomach repeatedly, making John grunt in pain and you use your momentum to dig your hand deep into his back, holding onto him and then swirling out of the deadlock he has got you in, jumping his back like a monkey.

His gun clatters to the ground and for a split second, the room falls silent. Then, roaring like an animal gone wild, he grabs your calves and slams his back into the nearest wall, has you screaming with the impact. You can feel blood pouring from your nose, feel it trickling down your lips.

I will not die today

John is stronger than you are, so so much stronger - the apex predator: all muscle, unbreakable focus and the sheer will to kill. But you are not only a little quicker; you also really want to stay alive. It is a force he rarely encounters. And quite frankly, it irritates him.

He may be older than you, taller than you and stronger than you but you have something he does not have: you actually still got something to lose.

And you fight like it, too. All scratches and sharp yells, as you punch and scrabble at his shoulders and tear at his tie, trying to strangle him with it. John is struggling against it, gasping for air and winding beneath your assault and then his grip around your claves grows hard like iron, seconds before he pulls - throws you over his head like you weigh nothing. You land on the expensive carpet with a heavy thud - groaning as you crash onto your side with sharp pain shooting through your shoulder, down your ribcage.

I will not die today

John sputters and stumbles forward, looking for his gun but you are quicker, kicking it away with your foot. It clatters back onto and slides over the wooden floorboards.

For a second you consider your choices, fighting yourself back onto your feet but John - a practiced and seasoned fighter - beats you to it and lands a blow to your upper back, sends you back down with him - a mess of sputtering saliva and painful groans. His body topples onto yours and he quickly rolls the two of you over the floor.

John is heavy and warm on top of you, as he keeps you in a tight headlock, your chest pressed to the floor and neck bend in a painful angle. He presses his strong forearm down onto your windpipe and you choke and cough, feet kicking, hands dragging across the wood, clawing at it feebly.

You can feel his breath on your cheek, hot and damp. You can feel his torso pressing against your back as he kneels behind you.

I will not die today

Mustering all your remaining strength, you trash against him, ramming your backside into his stomach. He grunts and for a split second, his grip loosens. It is all you need. Throwing your elbow back, you hit him in the chest and he caves in.

You cough, crawling forward and then scrambling back onto your feet, one of your negligée’s straps falling down your shoulder in the process. You hastily pull it back up, seconds before John launches a cascade of punches onto you.

A few of them hit you as you try to block them; dull pain igniting in your body, blooming in your face and arms. Your breath goes heavy as you stumble backwards. You cannot do this. There is no way. You just physically can't.

He is stronger. Taller. Heavier. Deadlier. Your body and every single muscle, bone, nerve in it aches and you wheeze but he is already onto you again, half-tackles you and grabs your waist, ready to smash you back onto the ground.

You cling onto him with all your remaining strength, struggling against his huge frame, wrapping your hands around his neck in an attempt to get him to stumble.

His hair tingles on your naked arms. Oh wait --

Tearing at his hair - which has him grunting in both, pain, and irritation at the unusual attempt - you clumsily pull yourself up onto his shoulders, cutting his face right above his eyebrow with your nails in the process until you finally wrap one leg around his throat and close it around there tightly, choking him. John tries to pull you off him and succeeds after quite the tussle, only to find your frame clinging to him, legs and arms wrapping around his body, hands scratching and feet kicking.

I will not fucking die today

In an attempt to either get rid of each other or submit the last blow, to finally kill the other, you two swirl through the room - a deadly dance of torn skin, smashed glass panes and mirrors, bruises and cuts. Somewhere in between kicks and punches, he managed to pick up his gun - and right now, you are mustering all of your exhausted strength to prevent the barrel from pressing against your skull.

Eventually, John crashes your bodies through a large wooden door, and is not quick enough - unable to stop his own oxe-like strength - to stop himself from stumbling into the room. The two of you only come a halt as his knees hit something soft and ironically that is what finally topples both of you over, landing onto the mattress of your bedroom with a soft thud and deep, exhausted grunts.

Your ears ring, and you are ready to lash out at him again despite the physical exhaustion, to strike him square across the face, as --

There is something hard pressing against your crotch.

The world falls silent.

No. No, there's no fucking way. It's got to bea hidden weapon. Must be.

But clearly, it is not. There, between your spread legs, his hard cock presses snugly against your panty-clad pussy.

And he just feels so huge - mouth-watering huge - that your body responds in its own way, hips snapping up, stuttering against the hard bulge. John lets go off a shaky, ragged breath, hand still clutching his gun. And you know, that this is your window.

Feeling the warmth that his body and his hard dick are radiating through his expensive suit, you roll your hips once - a languid, slow motion, rubbing your pussy over his bulge.

And he groans. A deep, primal sound that sounds a little coarse. John is looking at you, starring you down, but there is a shadow dancing over his eyes, turning his brown eyes into deep and dark, black pits that gives him away.

He is horny. The Boogeyman is fucking horny. You would laugh, if the realization wasn't knocking all air straight from your lungs. Because it just another reminder, proof of what he actually is: human.

And what a sight he is to see - eyes turning darker every second, his chest heaving with every breath and making it seem like his shirt is going to pop a button or two any second now, his cock prodding against its restraints and your clothed cunt.

It makes you want him. The thought leaves you dizzy, makes you gasp.

Apparently, that is all he needs to roll his hips back into yours. And that - that is just unfair. It's playing dirty. It's, it's -- His dick feels huge as it trails along your folds, has the muscles in your abdomen clenching.

"Fuck", you breathe, a little overwhelmed with and helpless at the sudden surge of lust that ignites your body, the wetness pooling between your legs.

John is not saying anything, just stares you down while he continues to slooowly roll his hips into yours, grinds his cock against your cunt. Your pelvis twitches upward as you start to meet his movements, and then you can hear it. He let's go of a deep breath, and it sounds like the faintest moan.

You need to hear more of that. You need more of him, your cunt aching and hole clenching around nothing already.

"John", and this time you say his name - consciously - it sounds a different way of desperate: your voice reduced to a small whisper, torn at the edges by a wanton whimper ripping from your throat.

If it throws him off-guard he does not show it, does not let you see it. Instead, he grabs your chin hard, gaze locking with yours. Dark pupils blown wide, swallowing the honey-brown of his eyes, and your breath hitches.

"Yeah?", he rasps, and it does not take more than one long look from you for him to lean in, to press his lips onto yours.

The kiss tastes of blood and adrenaline and doom, and you relish in it. Relishing the way his lips move against yours and his beard tickles a little, relishing how his tongue presses into your mouth. It feels like he is eating you whole, licking into your mouth, one hand dancing over your waist - featherlight, like he doesn't know how to touch a body without hurting someone, destroying someone.

I will not die today, motherfucker

Your whole body now sings with it, the security of an impending victory, as you roll your hips into his once more, your tongue now licking back into his mouth. For a second you think about how to strike again, now that he is seemingly distracted, but all will to fight leaves your body as one of his hands brushes over your knee, wanders further and eventually rests on your thigh.

The touch is electrifying and then his hand grows braver, his movements more certain, as he grabs your thigh, feels you up. It happens so suddenly, that you gasp into the kiss.

John parts from you, his lips a little plush already. "Oh God", you whisper as you stare Death Turned Human straight in the face, not a single thought remaining in your skull despite your lust.

He doesn't speak, as he gently let’s go off your leg and straightens back up and for a second you think he is going to hurt you, with the way his brows are furrowed - but he doesn't.

Instead, he moves in, right over your comparably tiny frame - a mountain of a man. John kneels above you, his weight pinning you down while he straddles your thighs and Jesus fucking Christ - what a sight he is to see.

Dark locks falling into his forehead, a little sticky with sweat and the bits of blood from the cut your nails gave him moments ago - right above his left eyebrow, still lazily trickling down into his lashes. His chest heaves with ragged breaths, as he hastily gets rid of his jacket, carelessly drops it to the ground. His black button-down clings to his muscular body underneath his waistcoat and his equally as muscular thighs pin you down to the bed, black fabric nearly tearing at the seams. And then there is his hard cock.

It looks as huge as it felt, with the way it bulges his pants, the outline of it clearly visible as it buckles proudly against its restraints. You are certain, you will not be able to close your hand around it fully - not a chance.

One of his hands - the one lacking a finger, which you only now notice and what sends shivers down your spine - wanders over your body, pulling your negligée down in the process, right tit spilling out of the soft silk. He immediately grabs it, cups it with his large hand and squeezes. You mewl, marveling at just how big his hand is, just as his whole body is in comparison to you. His fucked-up finger digs into the flesh, sending shivers down your spine.

John's hand gropes your tit, before he impatiently pulls the neckline down roughly. You sigh, arousal shooting down your spine and tingling in your lower belly, as two of his fingers nudge your nipple, pinch it.

He watches your face intently, as he continues to grope you, rolls your nipple between his fingers. You mewl, breath accelerating a little but it is just not enough and you buck your hips upwards. John grunts in, what you assume is an approving manner, and let's go off your tit, reaches to his belt at his loins.

Quickly pulling a knife from God-knows-where exactly, a sharp blade enters your vision.

You blink, panic seeping through your lust and your legs twitch a little with fear. If John notices it, he neither shows it nor does he say anything, just moves the knife closer to your body.

The blade shines in the dim light as it dances over your exposed thighs carefully, the metal cooly pressing against your skin, before he flicks it and cuts your negligée open. The thin, soft fabric cleanly cut in half it now lazily slides from your aching body, falls to its sides. Your chest heaves, shivers running down your arms and back.

It happens so quickly that you can only blink. As your brain finally catches up with your eyes, you come to realize that he is holding a real fucking tactical knife. You have thrown one once - they are sharp as hell and deadlier than a bullet. The sound of fabric tearing easily, like paper, proves your point.

And John's movements with the blade are so fast that your breath hitches, a little afraid he might cut you. But he does not, instead, he quickly pulls the torn silk off you and away from under you, carelessly tosses it into the dark of the room.

The edge of the blade dances over your skin and you do not dare to breathe, as he trails it up and down your curves, gently nudges your nipples. "I could kill you", he says calmly and then, in lightning speed, presses the blade into the crook of your neck. Your head sinks back into the mattress, in an instinct to flee the sharp edge.

All it does is to expose your neck further and something gleams in John's eyes, as he presses the sharp tip down slowly, carefully nudging your skin with it. The metal is cold and hard and sharp and your breath hitches. Just a little bit more and it might burst your skin, draw blood.

But, to your own confusion, you do not feel threatened anymore. Oddly enough, your nerves tingle with excitement. You blame it on the already high levels of adrenaline that still pump through your veins, rushing back and forth from your brain and your lungs, but a small voice inside of your head whisper gently, deviously, that you know That's not it. And he knows it, too.

It's in his eyes as well, the sheer excitement of it all, the fucked-up pleasure it evokes in the both of you lays heavy in the air.

It turns you fucking on. It turns you on, that the man who - minutes ago - tried you kill you and did hurt you very fucking badly in the process of it, now decides to let you live.

It turns you on, that you are at his mercy.

It turns you on, that he decided to spare you - just for now.

It turns you on, that these large and strong hands holding the knife have that sort of power over you. And thus, as the blade nudges your head back further, you moan.

"I could cut your throat", John's voice is heavy and thick with arousal and you can feel your heartbeat picking up, breath accelerating. His gaze drops down, watches the rapid rising and falling of your breasts hungrily, while another soft moan escapes from your lips.

"Don't", you breathe softly.

The knife practically burns on your skin, and you can feel arousal flooding your clothed pussy, rubbing your thighs together for any sort of friction. John can feel your squirming underneath him, but he can also see your eyes turning watery and dark with lust, pupils blown and a pretty pink spreading on your cheeks, your breath growing shallow. And he just really needs to fucking taste you right now.

As quickly as it appeared, the blade vanishes from your throat before he twirls the knife like the ruthless, reckless professional that he is, and buries it deep to the hilt in the mattress next to you. The sharp sound as it pierces the thick fabric has the hairs on your body standing up, goosebumps rolling over your skin.

"I'll do it later", he rumbles - casually, like he is talking about doing chores or picking up groceries - before hunching over you, grabbing your chin with his fucked-up hand, and kissing you again. His tongue immediately pushes into your mouth, like he is starving to taste you.

John eats you whole, with the way his lips move against yours. His hand cups your face, tongue licking into your mouth, toying with yours. His kiss steals your breath and you start to get dizzy with it, hips bucking. You can feel his lips curling up and then he parts from you, leaving you a gasping mess, spit pooling at the corners of your mouth.

"Let me touch you, John", you whisper, voice a little small because you do not know why you feel that way, and if he will even allow it. But you just need to feel him.

For a long moment his gaze dances over your face and something shifts behind his eyes, like a shadow gets lifted and then very quickly returns. Ultimately, he gives a court nod, so small you nearly miss it and gives you a little more room while straightening back up.

Carefully, as if not to spook him, you dart one hand out, place it on his chest. The muscle is firm underneath his suit and you run your hand along the lapel of his jacket, down and then back up, before it slips beneath it.

John's body radiates warmth under the black fabric of his shirt and your other hand comes up, before you shove the jacket off his shoulders and onto the floor next to the bed.

Your breath hitches.

He is wearing a holster, a reminder of his deadliness, of the gun laying somewhere next to you. Maybe, he sees the fear returning in your eyes, but he is quick to shrug the holster off, throws it into the dark where it clatters onto the wooden floor boards. What is left in front of you are broad shoulders and a muscular chest, the fabric nearly tearing at his movements.

As you run your hands over it, you cannot help yourself - you need to fucking feel him for real.

Quickly making work of his waistcoat and tie you toss both to the side carelessly, before your hands roam his broad chest. His button-down clings snugly against his upper body and you can feel the muscles work beneath the black fabric as your hands brush over them. You tug at the shirt, pulling its tails from his pants before hastily opening the first few buttons. The skin underneath is pale, littered by blue - red - black bruises, birthmarks scattered in between like stars. You pop open the rest of the buttons, greedy to touch him. And as the shirt falls to the sides your hands are already onto his chest, roaming over and admiring the muscular, defined canvas of strength, that violence has painted a pretty picture on.

John is watching you intently as you undress him and then explore his body, your pupils blown wide and dark, mouth agape a little. He is a little taken aback by it - by someone not seeing his body as the ultimate tool of death that it is, but as something else, that he cannot really pinpoint because he can't even look in the mirror without seeing destruction and decay. But the way your gaze wanders over his body, the way you touch him, is different from that and he has not felt anything like it in years.

And John wants. Carnal desire tugs at his brain, shoots arousal between his legs, makes his cock twitch and a low growl escaping his throat.

The sound gets you going: pushing yourself up with one hand, the other wrapping around his strong neck for leverage as you sit up, mouth immediately clutching to his throat. He tastes of sweat and after-shave - sharp and musky - and you run your tongue over his skin greedily, licking and sucking at the skin while your naked body presses against his.

It disarms him. The gentle touch that you put his body up to, while everything still aches from plowing through the better half of your father's militia and beating the hell out of you, confuses him. Your touch, your lips on his skin are soft and not aiming to hurt - instead, they grow more and more needy, wanton and hasty, as you lick over his bruised skin, tasting his sweat. Your hands over his abdomen caress his defined muscles, in awe of his utter strength, thumbs brushing through the soft and dark trail of hair leading beneath the waistband of his trousers. And all John can do, is watch, his gaze locking with yours as goosebumps erupt on his skin.

And you - oh you; your head swims with the way you turn this animal into a human again, unlock a different set of animalistic needs within him and hearing John's breath growing heavy really fucking does it for you, feeling his scarred and beaten-up skin underneath your hands, wrapping them around the deadly machine that is his body. It makes you want more.

Shedding his blood-stained shirt off of his shoulders, your hands roam over his upper back - feeling the scars there: of knives, larger and small ones and round ones of bullets that once pierced his skin. There is something else, a burn scar, in the shape of a cross and he hisses as your fingers brush over it, nails digging into the stunted skin.

It pulls John out of his stasis, reminds him of who he is and you can feel the air swinging with it seconds before he moves. His large hands wrap around your shoulders and then he pulls you off him, throws you back onto the mattress. You yelp, eyes growing wide as you watch his face as it turns from lightly dazed back to stern, wild, with his brows furrowed.

"That's enough", he says, voice coarse and it still feels like a small victory, even though he spreads your legs roughly, hands digging deep into your thighs - hard enough to bruise - before he kneels between them. He yanks your body forward at the back of your knees, watches your tits bounce and then leans in, his lips immediately attacking your throat, your neck.

His lips are surprisingly soft against your skin, his beard tickling a little as it brushes over your tits, your stomach, your thighs while his tongue licks fat stripes over your nipples and down down down your upper body, right to your navel. One of his hands creeps up your body once more and roughly cups your tit, squeezes, and gropes it, rolls your hardened nipple between his index and middle finger. His stunted ring-finger digs deep into your tit and you gasp, hips bucking. John's lips suck and nibble at your skin, before eventually ghosting over your pubic bone, teasing you before assaulting your thighs again, teeth biting down gently into the soft flesh. You gasp and moan while he gropes your body, inhales your scent - as you watch how his lips, tongue, and teeth dance over your thighs, moving closer to your cunt.

John finally, finally, puts his mouth onto your pussy, peppers open-mouthed kisses around your clit, before clothing his lips around it and sucking on it hard through your panties. Your hips buck as a high-pitched moan erupts from your throat, hands flying into his greying locks.

"Fuck", you whine, feeling fresh wetness flooding your folds, dampening the thin fabric further. John can see the outlines of your wet pussy pressing against your panties and parts from your clit momentarily, only to lick a fat stripe over your clothed cunt, watching it twitch.

"That's fucking pretty", he rasps, gaze locking with yours and you feel all air leaving your lungs. His eyes are so fucking dark, like gleaming black pits swallowing you whole, his breath a little flat with arousal.

You want him to fuck you. Really fuck you. To plow you open, rail you until you cannot sit nor walk. He is already so so close to you, but too far away at the same time. "Please", is all you manage to utter out. And it seems to be sufficient enough for him; seems to get across what you want, what you need.

John's fingers wrap around the front of your lace slip, tugging at the fabric - that rubs along your cunt at the sudden motion and has you gasping quietly - and then he pulls. The lace tears easily as he rips it apart, and cool air hits your wet and hot pussy, as he practically peels you out of your underwear, throws it to the side. The look on his face is wild and you can hear him taking a deep breath, smelling your arousal, before he spreads your folds apart with his thumbs, gaze wandering over your plump and flushed cunt.

Teasingly brushing over your clit with his thumb, John watches your reaction intently. And fuck, you do not disappoint. Throwing your head back, you moan, drawing in a deep breath through your opened mouth that heaves your chest, your eyelids fluttering.

You are dying for him to touch you and as he does, it feels like your body catches fire - lust washing away the dull pain in your limbs and near your ribs.

"Oh God", you breathe out as his thumb draws another wide and slow circle over your clit, your hands darting out and grabbing the sheets "Please."

And John complies, his thumb rubbing over your clit in a slow but steady rhythm.

Gasping, your hands clutch the sheets, knees darting away from each other, giving him more space. John accepts the invitation, grabs one thigh hard, fucked up ring-finger digging deep into your skin. His fingers move further, abandons your clit and dance over your folds, down to your hole. It flutters as two of his digits tease it, gently circling around it.

"Please", you whine once more, lifting your hips a little, a desperate noise leaving your throat. John smirks to himself, before pushing two of his fingers into you.

The stretch is sudden and bigger than expected and you moan coarsely, as he pushes his digits along your walls deeply and nestles them into your seeping hot cunt up to his knuckles. And Jesus, you feel so full already; your head swimming as you consider how big his cock must feel, then.

Your breath goes quick and shallowly as he starts to move them, and then he leans in. Nudges your clit with the tip of his tongue, licks over it.

You feel like combusting on the spot: your nerves tingling with arousal, your whole body still aching from the beating you gave each other earlier - the pain in your back blooming as you stretch it with your hips desperately shoving themselves near his touch - your pussy squeezing his fingers.

John pumps his thick fingers in and out of you, his tongue rubbing and circling your clit and soft, needy moans fall from your lips. Obscene, wet sounds fill the air, mingle with your moans and heavy breathing. His lips close in around your clit, sucking at it while his fingers rub along your spongy walls and your cunt squeezes them hard as fresh wetness floods your folds, your squirt wetting his beard and dripping down on the sheets below.

You can hear - feel - John humming against your pussy, peppering the wet skin with open mouthed kisses, licking over it, and tasting your slick.

You feel so fucking good - lust pulsating through your veins, loins on fire - and your head falls to the side, body rocking with sharp gasps and your mouth agape, eyelids fluttering as --

There's the gun. And the knife.

You could easily grab either one or the other next to you, pull the blade out of the matress or the hammer back; put a bullet right between his eyes or plow the blade deep deep into his skull. Killing the Boogeyman. Killing Baba Yaga.

That would do wonders to your family's business. It would emancipate you from it, you would be free. Free to rule.

"Thinking 'bout killing me?", John rumbles, tongue licking a fat stripe over your cunt, nudging your clit. Your gaze flickers back to him: hair a mess, eyes gleaming darkly, hands on your thighs to keep your legs spread. He does not look surprised. Neither does he look worried.

Realization hits you like a blow to the head: he is toying with you. Has been the whole fucking time. The wolf hunting the deer, running a few rounds through the woods to weaken it; its breath whistling with exhaustion, long legs buckling before it collapses - an easy kill. An easy kill for an old wolf, one, that can't quite handle a real hunt anymore.

But maybe, just maybe - judging from the look in his eyes - he got lost in his own game. Its reins slipped from his bloody hands, the wolf tumbling to the ground.

Looking back at him, your lips curl into a sweet smile. "Not anymore", your hand darts out, brushing the loose strands of dark hair from his face - the soft gesture leaving him visibly confused -, "John."

Two can play this game. And maybe, just maybe, the deer can tire the wolf out first.

Something gleams in John's eyes, dances over them like a shadow and he seems to accept the challenge - readying to tire you out - tongue licking over your clit once more, making you shiver and mewl, as he pulls his fingers out of your dripping hole. You feel empty and --

"Do you really think, you could kill me?", he rumbles, voice deep and rough around the edges, "Stupid slut."

And then, quicker than your brain can process it, his hand comes down on your dripping wet pussy.

Your breath hitches, topples over and leaves your throat as a raw, needy moan. Softly stinging pain blooms between your folds and sets your nerves on fire. Blame it on the bruises, blame it on the pain you both inflicted on each other moments ago, but: it riles you up. Mingles with your aching bones and aching cunt, has you arching your back.

"Y'really think you could kill me", he doesn't sound offended, not even amused - voice plain, like he is inquiring if you really believed the earth to be flat. Like you really are stupid.

And you start to feel stupid, too. There was never a chance. You never had a chance. Your death was sealed, determined the second John stepped into the hotel.

You were stupid to believe you could outrun or beat him. You are stupid. And John has every right to show you, teach you, punish you for it.

Giving your cunt another firm slap, John watches your hips twitch, hears your pussy squelching and soft moans falling from your lips. "Shit", you sigh and he slaps your wet pussy once more, feels your slick folds wetting the palm of his hand.

"D'you like that, girl?", and as your only response are wanton gasps falling from your mouth John chuckles deeply, gives your pulsating cunt another two firm slaps. Seeing how he is pulling you apart, how good he makes you feel really seems to do it for him, gets him quite talkative.

"Uh-huh", you make dumbly, quite illiterate, watching him stroking your flushed, hot cunt with two of his fingers. Shivers run down your spine.

And then he leans back in, licks a fat stripe over your sensitive, flushed cunt, from the hole up to the clit.

You squirm, mewl as his beard brushes over your overstimulated skin, leaving a slight burn that mingles deliciously with a fresh wave of arousal that floods your body scalp to toes.

The muscles in your abdomen clench as two of his fingers circle your fluttering hole and then push in, rubbing along your plush walls agonizingly slowly and you can feel yourself tightening around it. Your juices squelch from your cunt as you squirt against his tongue and your slick runs down your folds, wets his fingers and palm while his tongue laps at your pussy, tasting your sweetness.

John pushes is fingers deeper as you moan and sigh, hands fisting his hair and hips moving against his tongue, his digits thrusting into you.

"Oh god", you huff as his lips close in around your clit, sucking on it and the tip of his tongue flicking against it occasionally.

Another wave of fresh wetness floods your cunt as you squirt once more, wetting the sheets below, your slick running down John's wrist.

John parts from your clit, nudges it with his tongue, his beard glistening with your juices.

"Yeah, that's fucking it", another one of his thick fingers pumps itself into your tight little hole and his other hand - also slick with your juices - grabs your thigh, "That's a good girl."

You feel so full, your spine feels like it's on fire and your brain tingles with it, sends wave of pleasure down down down your body; muscles in your loins clenching, chest heaving. It becomes all too much as he leans back in, rubs his tongue over your clit, lips sucking and teasing your folds.

The slight burn of John's beard tickling your plush, hot cunt. His fingers working your open and stretching your tight little hole open far and wide, obscene squelching sounds filling the air as he works you open, brushing against your g-spot occasionally and making you see stars.

But it's too little. It's just not enough.

"Fuck", you whine as John's thick fingers brush over your g-spot with quite some force, tongue lapping at your seeping cunt, "Shit, please. Please, just fuck me, please!"

You can feel him grinning against your wet cunt, beard a little sticky with your juices, letting go of your pussy with an obscene pop. "Yeah", he licks his lips, tastes you on his tongue, "D'you want my cock?"

And that - that might be what makes you lose your mind. Because yes. Yes, you do.

You have been craving to touch it, to feel it since it had pressed against your clothed pussy earlier. Thus, all dignity leaves your body with one, clean whine that breaks free from your throat.

"Yes, fuck - oh god, John", you brabble, legs falling apart further, inviting him in, his digits sinking deeper into your soaking wet hole, "Shit, please fuck me, John - please, please, please --"

Pleas are still falling from your lips like a chant, as a surprising noise breaks the silence, so strangely beautiful that it has you nearly shuddering: John is laughing. It's a nice baritone sound, and the fine lines around his eyes crinkle with it - it's so beautiful, that it drowns the world out. You watch him in awe, as he shakes his head, avoids your gaze.

"Jesus. Look at you", he huffs, voice dripping thickly with amusement, "If you need it that badly--"

Straightening back up and kneeling between your legs, John slips his fingers from your cunt and makes quick work of his belt, trousers, and boxers. The second he frees is cock, you start to drool like a fucking pavlovian-dog.

His dick is so fucking huge. It is nicely curved and cut, the bulbous pink head glistening with pre-cum and a thick, pumping vein at the bottom that rakes from the base to the tip, as it rests between trimmed, dark pubic hair. His cock bobs against his abdomen as it bounces free, smears the pre-cum along the pale skin, twitches at the sudden contact. And Jesus fucking Christ, you just want to fucking touch it, feel its velvety skin in your palm. But you just know that you won't even be able to wrap your hand around its base fully, it's impossible, it--

"I-it won't fit", you whisper, a little taken aback by his sheer size.

"Oh, I'll make it fit, baby."

John takes his cock in one hand, thumb right beneath its head, and rubs it against your slit. And Jesus fucking Christ. Your hips snap up, meet his movements, and he grunts while he spreads his pre-cum along your cunt, gathers your slick. The thick head of his dick prods against your entrance and you take a deep breath, looking down between your legs. You watch how he slooowly pushes in and you gasp at the sudden intrusion, the delicious stretch making you moan.

His cock feels so fucking big, hot, and heavy, as he nestles the tip in, your hole clenching around it. John's brows furrow, and he doesn't wait long until he pushes his cock in further.

The thick base starts to stretch your slim rings of muscles, a sharp pain shooting through it. He can feel your hole protesting, can see you wincing. "Breathe, baby", he hums, "Let me do the rest."

His coarse voice mingles with his words and the waves of pleasure shooting through your body despite the dull pain, conjures up a pretty pretty image that floods your brain - there's sunlight everywhere, orange rays of it hitting a bed covered in white sheets, sweaty bodies on top of it; limbs entangled, hands intertwined with their golden rings shining brightly in the warm light, heavy breathing and sloppy kisses, and lazy thrusts as his cock fucks you awake. The thought makes you dizzy, your legs falling apart and hole fluttering open, inviting him in.

The slight burn leaves you a gasping, whimpering mess as he pushes himself in deep, nestles his huge cock in between your aching, hot, and tight walls.

And John feels like he is going to pass out. No blow to the head, no bullet to the chest, no knife to the stomach could ever make him feel as dizzy as the feeling of your hot cunt squeezing him does right now. His whole body is vibrating with want and lust and he just really hopes that you don't notice that he has gotten a little rusty. The thought quickly gets drowned-out as he looks down, where his thick cock practically splits you open, vanishes in your hole.

"Shit", he huffs out, places one large hand on your stomach and thrusts. Feeling himself moving inside of you has him moaning, gaze shooting up to you, meeting your eyes, as his hand presses down. "You feel me right here, baby?", he rasps and you nod, mouth agape by the sheer force of his thrust, tip of his cock prodding your cervix.

John can see his cock moving inside of you, the way your stomach bulges a little. He gets a little dizzy with, and then his eyes make the mistake of moving up to your face. And it takes a whole lot of fucking will-power of him to not just thrust and thrust and thrust and fuck you until you cry, bleed.

You are so fucking pretty. Mouth agape you watch how his cock vanishes between your legs, splits your cunt open, with his eyes heavy-lidded and cheeks flushed. Your lips are plush and red from his assault.

Your hands grip the sheets and your breasts heave with your deep breaths, that grow a little more flaccid. Next to you lays his gun, knife still buried into the mattress. His eyes drop to the weapons and his breath hitches. And for a split second, like a flash of light, he wonders what in God's name he's doing here. He is a professional. The Ballerina works like that. He doesn't.

A sweet, sweet noise rips him out of his thoughts. "J-john", you mewl, eyes still trained on his massive dick splitting you open, "I-it, it's --"

"Yeah?", he breathes, the sound all soft and careful around the edges.

"Heavy", you breathe.

"Does it hurt?", he kind of wants it to. Make you pay for what you did to him. He kind of doesn't want it to. Make you enjoy what he's got to give.

John realizes he is fucked.

You nod, head flying back into the cushions, while your brows dart together.

John's free hand flies to your clit, nudges it gently, before slowly rubbing wide circles over it. You gasp, as you feel fresh wetness flooding your cunt and dripping down your folds to where his cock splits your hole open, pools around it. He carefully pulls out a little and then pushes back in, assisted by your slick. The way you moan spurs him on and the circles on your clit grow faster and smaller.

Aching your back, you lean into the touch. "That's a good girl", he whispers, voice raw and coarse, dripping with lust and the exhaustion of holding back. John bottoms out, while continuing to rub your clit and he can feel your walls growing plush, your hole fluttering around his dick, relaxing with your hot, seeping cunt inviting him in. "Feels good?"

"Yeah, fuck", you feel like you are being split open, with his thick cock filling you to the brim and rubbing along your walls with every little movement, the thick head prodding gently against your cervix, "Shit, John."

It feels so fucking good, all thoughts being washed away from your brain as he starts to move carefully, thrusts into you once, twice. You moan, lips slightly parted, before your gaze flies to him.

And Fuck. John's chest is flushed a little, muscles of his abdomen flexing with every thrust while his gaze is trained down to where his cock fucks into you, brows darted together a little and his breathing audible.

"John?", you whisper, and his gaze immediately shoots up to you as your comparably tiny hand wraps around the wrist of his hand that is still rubbing your clit.

"Yeah?"

"Fuck me."

For a long moment, he just looks at you and you think - no, you are convinced - that you can see a glimpse of the human being he once was. Caring, sweet and gentle; as he seems to really take it into consideration if you are ready yet, if you know what you are begging for.

Apparently, he does deem you prepared enough, and the soft gaze gets replaced by a dark gleam as all gentleness vanishes from his face once more. Without a warning, John rolls his hips back only to thrust into you again, deep, and hard, immediately picking up a quick rhythm.

It comes as a genuine surprise to you and you gasp, mewling but it quickly feels just so fucking good, practically lights your body up and leaves every nerve-ending on fire, each thrust has you moaning loudly.

It spurs him on, makes him grunt and for a while, you both just watch him gliding in and out of your tight hole, with him feeling your muscles squeezing him and you feeling his cock stretching your open further and further. Your lips as slightly parted and his brows are furrowed as he rolls his hips into yours and you feel time getting lost on you, the only thing of importance remaining is the feeling of him filling you up. John's hands roam your body, wandering over your thighs and your stomach, your hips before angling your leg, pushing the heel of your foot on his shoulder, and grabbing your ankle with one hand, his dick slips into you even further, balls slapping against your ass heavily with each thrust.

You can tell that John has not fucked in a long, long time. It's not the way he does it - all fluid, languid thrust of his hips, muscles dancing under the soft skin. It's mostly the way he pants and grunts - sounds just as desperate as you feel. And still, he has the stamina of a racehorse.

You can feel that he wants to prove it, too, as his free hand grabs your thigh and hoists your other leg over his hip bone, practically pulling your lower half off the bed in the process. Your pelvis now clings to his, obscene sounds of his cock fucking into your wet pussy filling the air while he huffs with his thrusts, yet does not slow down.

The grip on both, your ankle and your thigh are hard, and you are certain his hands will leave a bruise but you just cannot bring yourself to care. Deep down you know, that someone will see them: your maids, your friends, your family.

But all thoughts, all worries get swapped from your brain as your gaze wanders up from where John's dick hammers into you steadily, rakes over his defined stomach and chest and finally, finally lands on his face.

He looks downright, utterly, and breathtakingly -- pornographic.

John's dark pupils blown wide gleaming with arousal, his cheeks are slightly blushed and a thin layer of sweat makes him glow in the dim light of the living room falling onto the bed. It surrounds him like a halo, a Saint of Death and Decay, with his dark hair falling into his forehead and onto his shoulders. He brushes it out of the way with his stunted hand, a ragged breath making his chest heave. There is still some of your slick wetting his beard.

You can't help your mind from going there, from wondering how different things could have been. What it would be like if you had met me in a bar instead of him entering your suite, leaving the hallway behind him looking like a slaughterhouse. Maybe he would have laughed at your jokes, in the dim light of your favorite bar in the city. Maybe he would have liked the same music as you do. Maybe, just maybe, he would have brought you home only to stay the night and fuck you until you would have lost your goddamn mind.

Your hand wanders down your body, strokes your waist and hip in the process, before it languidly drops between your spread legs, two fingers darting out and rubbing circles over your sensitive clit.

John moves quickly, his usual deadly precision shattering your peaceful fantasy, his hand ditching your thigh and closing in around your waist. "Don't you fuckin' touch yourself", he growls, and it's the first time you hear real, actual emotion dwelling in his throat - not his toneless, cold and mechanical rumble. He sounds pissed. Offended.

And the best part is: it seems to get him fucking going.

John leans in, your calf still resting on his shoulder and the slight pain of the stretch is delicious as he nearly folds your body in half. You can feel his dick sliding in even deeper into your hole and you gasp and whine, one hand coming up to dig into his biceps to just hold on. Hold on, while he pounds into you with perfectly angled, deep and strong thrusts, hitting your g-spot with every single one of them.

You know that the suite's door is in shambles, that anyone could walk in here and see you having your brains fucked out by the man who is here to kill you - but you don't care. Part of it is, because the gun is still resting next to your head on the sheets. You could just grab it and shoot anyone dead in heartbeat, whoever is trying to disturb the pleasure that shoots through your body.

But it is also him.

It's the way John is towering over you, back hunched, looking all wide and powerful and deadly, with the way he shields your body from view and harm as he thrusts into you. As he pushes all his rage, adrenaline, and strength into your tight hole, groans, and pants into your ear.

There is nothing you can do, despite holding onto him, nails digging into his back, clutching his broad shoulders, fingers running over his tattoos desperately. He is fucking the living daylight out of you, your body moving like a ragdoll underneath the mountain of muscles and strength. Your cunt is being split open by his cock, as you feel him hammering into you and you feel like you are going to lose your mind, panting and moaning with each of his thrusts.

"John, fuck", you moan sweetly, eyes rolling into your skull as he pounds into you, "You feel so fucking good, shit --"

"Yeah", he huffs, his forehead slowly sinking onto yours, "You too, baby."

You can see his eyelids fluttering, feel his upper body heaving beneath your hands, smell the blood on his skin, mingling with his musky scent. Blaming it on the sickening cocktail of hormones that is flooding both - your brain and your body - you lean in, your lips desperately smacking against his.

And Jesus Fucking Christ. Does John kiss you.

Kisses you like he is starving for it, licking back into your mouth - his body pressing yours into the mattress with his whole weight and muscle, while still thrusting into you.

Your hands tangle into his hair, tugging at it. John moans against your lips and your stomach flutters at the sound, and you want more. One hand moves to lay at the crook of his neck and your tongue presses against his, licking back into his mouth. Adding some force to his neck you invite John deeper into the kiss, and he follows suite, steals you the last bit of air your lungs were holding. Panting you part from him, thumb brushing over the crook of his neck.

Greedily breathing against his lips, you can't help yourself. You feel so alive and you want him to wreck you, to leave something behind that you will remember for every day your heart continues to beat. Greedily breathing against his lips, you can't help yourself but to whisper: "Harder."

John blinks, hips stuttering. And then, he grunts. His hand digs into your waist as he grabs you there, hold you in place will his hips rut into you. Picking up a near brutal rhythm, obscene sounds of your slick being pushed in and out and in out of your hole as he jackhammers into your g-spot, the bedframe rattling as John's thrusts pound it into the wall - leaving you a gasping and moaning mess. His belt clinks with his thrusts and you cling onto him, sharp whines escaping your throat.

"John John John", his name leaves your mouth like a mantra, sharp and high-pitched. His head falls forward, dark locks brushing over your cheek as his temple rests against yours and then you hear it.

John moans.

It's a deep, carnal sound. Your stomach flutters and lust shoots through your body at the noise, your tight cunt squeezing his thick cock as you squirt around his cock like a broken fucking hose, wetting his pubic hair. You can feel it rubbing along your wet folds, the sensation making you mewl, leaves your hips shuddering.

"Shit", you breathe, hands cradling his muscular back and then you can feel his dick twitching inside of you, accompanied by yet another one of his sweet, sweet moans, "Fuck, John--"

He raises his head and your gazes connect, before he leans in, presses his lips onto yours once more. The kiss is surprisingly soft and in stark contrast to the way he ruts and pounds into you and then he hits the spot once more and -

Everything goes white as your muscles clench and unclench suddenly, as you nearly scream against his lips; your hole practically milking his cock as you cum, pussy gushing and squirting around him like a broken hose.

John continues to fuck you through your orgasm and his heavy breathing reaches your ears through the cotton candy, that slowly wraps you in as everything turns light and bright. He moans deeply against your cheek as he comes, too - shoots hot ropes of cum into you and paints your walls with it.

His movements still as he buries himself deep into you, cock twitching with each thick rope of his cum and you can feel him fill you up, as his massive frame slowly sinks down onto you.

Your legs grow heavy and the stretch of your left leg is turning painful and you - a little clumsily - pull it away from his shoulder, stretch it out. Your limbs start to shake and you close your eyes, drawing in deep breaths through your nose.

The room is silent, the air heavy with the musky scent of sex.

Your chest still heaves with the remains of your orgasm, bliss still spreading in your brain and your veins, making you feel like you are flying. Your heart is still racing, as you feel him moving again.

Blinking up at him, you can see him grabbing the gun.

"Don't", you say softly, voice coarse from screaming your lungs out in pleasure just moments ago, "Please, don't." You are not ready to scream yet again. Not ready to scream in pain, instead of pleasure.

John does not reply. He pulls the hammer back, checks the chamber - all with one hand.

"Kill him instead, please."

He freezes, eyes locking with yours. "Who?", he sounds just as exhausted as you. The wolf, tired out. The deer, bleeding, limping.

Call it Post Nut Clarity, call it Finally Taking Your Future In Your Own Hands, call it Emancipating Yourself. Call it Having Wrapped A Deadly Assassin Around Your Pinky.

You were not safer here. You never were. Just more isolated. Easier to locate.

Easier to kill.

Realization hits you like a blow to the head, your vision swimming.

See? I will not die today.

"My father. Kill him."