#her knobby knees!!

[fiery-emblems]

Today's warmup

I finally continued my Mage Alear run in Engage today! Is this run a good idea? No. Do I get to monopolize Emblem Soren for myself? Yes!

Worth it

[molly-pocket]

i wish i could dream forever

[soureggs]

my experience in playing dereks rout.

i was told i was not the only only one......

[ruthytwoshakes]

French and Fag my two favorite tf2 characters

hey make sure you do your daily click for Palestine at: https://arab.org/click-to-help/palestine/

Regret to inform everyone that I’ve formed some weird fucking obsession over spy. wanna put his ass in the blender!!!! also wish he was my dad or something. I hate him so much I wish he was real in real life and a mentor figure to me.

[vaselineaddict1345]

for a virgin who gets petrified at the mere sight of a human boy, i do think about sex a lottt.

[zooone]

bye summer good riddance so glad it was cold today

[cherryiswineing]

what isn’t the temperature going down ? i thought we were done with hell week WHYISNTITGOINGDOWN

[ultravionna]

"I hate summer, I hate her crooked teeth. I hate her 1960s haircut. I hate her knobby knees. I hate her.” is dallas coded bc he’s in denial abt his feelings for y/n

hi, angel!

omg- i actually 100% agree w this. so here are some headcannons + tiny cute fics between each to tickle your fancy.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston first notices you when you’re hanging out with two-bit’s sister.

you’re sitting on the couch, laughing at something on television, and dallas leans against the doorway, arms crossed. the sound of your laughter catches him off guard—he’s never really paid attention to two-bit’s sister’s friends before. as he watches you, he can’t help but smirk, but he quickly brushes it off, thinking, It’s just a laugh, man. get a grip.

“hey, you two,” he says, trying to sound casual as he steps into the room, “what’s so funny?”

you glance over at him, still smiling, and your girl friend chimes in, “just this dumb show we’re watching, dal.”

“yeah, right,” dallas replies, his eyes lingering on you for a moment longer than he intended. he turns away, heading for the kitchen, but he can’t shake the sound of your laugh from his head.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston doesn’t realize it at first, but he starts looking forward to the times you come over.

one afternoon, he’s lounging in the kitchen, pretending to be uninterested as sodapop mentions you’re coming by with two-bit and his sister.

“when’s she gettin’ here?” he asks, trying to sound like he doesn’t care.

“why? you plannin’ to be somewhere else?” ponyboy teases.

“yeah, yeah, maybe,” dallas mutters, but he doesn’t go anywhere. instead, he hangs around, leaning against the counter with an apple in hand. when you finally walk through the door, his mood shifts instantly.

“hey, doll face,” he greets, his eyes flicking to you as you step into the room.

you give him a playful smile. “hey, dal.”

he watches as you join the curtis’s in the living room, telling himself he’s just sticking around to annoy the gang. but deep down, he knows it’s because he likes having you around, even if he won’t admit it.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston finds himself thinking about you at random times.

he’s sitting in the curtis’s backyard, a cigarette dangling from his lips, when your face suddenly pops into his mind. he frowns, flicking the ash away, trying to focus on the conversation between ponyboy and johnny, but your image stays with him.

“damn it, man,” he mutters under his breath, annoyed with himself.

johnny glances over, concerned. “somethin’ wrong, dal?”

“nah, ‘s nothin’,” dallas grumbles, taking a long drag from his cigarette. but no matter how much he tries to shake it, he can’t get you out of his head—the way you looked the last time he saw you, the way you smiled at him like you knew something he didn’t.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston gets annoyed with himself for how much you’re on his mind.

it’s late at night, and he’s lying in bed, staring up at the ceiling. he’s never been one to get all worked up over a girl, and he sure as hell doesn’t like the idea of starting now.

he punches his pillow in frustration. “get outta my head, man,” he mutters to himself. but even as he says it, he knows it’s pointless. the more he tries to push you out of his mind, the more you linger—your smile, your laugh, the way you look at him when you think he’s not paying attention.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston starts to notice the little things about you.

sitting across from him at the curtis’s dinner table, you twirl a strand of hair around your finger as you talk about a book you’ve been reading. dallas pretends to be disinterested, but he’s secretly watching every movement, every expression on your face.

he leans back in his chair, arms crossed, smirking. “that book really that good, doll face?”

you glance up, meeting his gaze. “what, surprised I can read, dal?”

“nah, just surprised you’d waste time on somethin’ that ain’t real,” he teases, but his eyes stay on you, noticing the way your lips curl into a smile.

he tells himself it’s just because he’s observant, that he notices things other guys don’t. but deep down, he knows it’s more than that—he just doesn’t want to admit it.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston tries to act indifferent around you.

you’re in the living room with everyone else, and dallas is leaning against the wall, watching you from a distance. when you glance his way, he smirks and gives you a little nod, acting like he’s too cool to care.

“hey,” he says when you catch his eye, keeping his voice casual.

you smile back. “hey, dal.”

he shrugs, trying to act like it’s no big deal, but inside, he’s kicking himself for being so obvious. he wants to step closer, to talk to you, but instead, he keeps his distance, reminding himself not to let his guard down.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston feels a surge of jealousy when he sees you laughing with other guys.

you’re at the drive-in with the gang, and you’re chatting with two-bit, laughing at one of his jokes. dallas leans against the wall nearby, arms crossed, his jaw clenched tight.

“piece uh’ shit,” he mutters under his breath, scowling.

two-but catches his eye, smirking. “what’s eatin’ you, dal?”

“nothin’,” dallas snaps, pushing himself off the wall with his foot and walking away. but it’s not nothing. it bothers him more than he’d like to admit, seeing you with someone else, even if it’s just two-bit being his usual clownish self.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston convinces himself that you’re just a passing interest.

he’s at buck’s place, downing a drink and trying to forget how much you’ve been on his mind. He’s been with plenty of girls before—girls who were easy to forget once the thrill was gone.

“why should you be any different?” he mutters to himself, taking another swig. but even as he says it, he knows he’s lying. there’s something about you that’s stuck with him, something that won’t go away no matter how much he tries to drown it out.

“damn it, man,” he grumbles, slamming the empty bottle on the counter. he knows he’s in deeper than he wants to be, but he’s not ready to face it yet.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston starts to notice how much he enjoys the sound of your voice.

you’re talking to his sister in the kitchen, your voice drifting through the house. dallas, who’s in the other room, stops what he’s doing just to listen.

“hey, man,” he calls out, stepping into the kitchen, “you guys talkin’ ‘bout somethin’ interestin’?”

you look up at him, smiling. “just catching up, dal.”

he leans against the doorway, crossing his arms. “yeah? keep talkin’, then.”

you raise an eyebrow, but continue your conversation, unaware that dallas is only half-listening to the words. It’s your voice that keeps him there, that makes him want to stay longer than he intended. it’s just a voice, he tells himself, but coming from you, it feels like something more.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston finds excuses to be around you more often.

you’re at the park with two-bit’s sister, and dallas just happens to show up, claiming he was in the neighborhood. he spots you sitting on a bench, and without missing a beat, he walks over, hands shoved in his pockets.

“hey, toots,” he greets, giving you a lopsided grin. “you mind if i join?”

you roll your eyes, but smile. “sure, dal.”

he plops down beside you, making some sarcastic comment about the weather just to get a reaction out of you. when you laugh, he feels a strange satisfaction, knowing he made you smile. it’s not much, but it’s enough to keep him coming back, finding reasons to be near you whenever he can.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston struggles with the idea of admitting he likes you.

he’s sitting on the hood of his car, staring out at the darkened streets of tulsa, thinking about you. the idea of being vulnerable, of letting someone in, makes him uncomfortable.

“jesus, man,” he mutters to himself, rubbing the back of his neck, “you’re just complicatin’ things.”

but the more he thinks about you, the harder it becomes to deny that he cares. it’s not just some passing crush—there’s something real there, something he’s not used to feeling. he takes a deep breath, trying to push it down, but it’s like trying to hold back a tide.

“damn it,” he sighs, knowing he’s in trouble.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston tries to convince himself that he’s just protective of you, not that he actually likes you.

whenever you’re out with the gang, he finds himself keeping an eye on you, making sure you’re safe. he tells himself it’s just because you’re his friend’s sister’s friend, and he doesn’t want anything to happen to you on his watch.

one night, you’re walking home with him, and one of those loser socs gives you a look that dallas doesn’t like. he steps in front of you, his expression darkening.

“you got a problem, man?” he growls at the guy, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket.

the soc backs off, and you glance at dallas, a bit surprised by his reaction. “thanks, dal, but i could’ve handled that.”

“yeah, right,” he mutters, still glaring at the soc as he walked off. he tries to shrug it off, telling himself he’s just being protective, that it’s not because he actually cares about you. but as you walk beside him, he can’t help but feel that his protective instinct comes from something deeper—something he’s not ready to admit yet.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston tells himself that he’s only spending time with you because you’re always around, not because he actually wants to.

he’ll find excuses to hang out with you, telling himself it’s just convenient or that he’s bored, but deep down, he knows it’s more than that.

one afternoon, he shows up at your place unannounced, leaning against the doorframe with a smirk. “hey, swee’heart, you busy?”

you answer in a heartbeat, surprised to see him. “not really. what’s up?”

“nothin’. just figured we could hang out or somethin’,” he says casually, as if he hasn’t been thinking about it all day.

you smile and invite him in, and as he plops down on your couch, he tries to ignore the flutter in his chest. it’s just hangin’ out, he tells himself, nothin’ special. but the way he keeps sneaking glances at you when you’re not looking says otherwise.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston can’t stand the idea of anyone else getting close to you, but he won’t admit that it’s because he’s jealous.

he’ll tease you about your other friends, making offhand comments about them, but it’s only because the thought of you with someone else drives him crazy.

one day, he catches you laughing with another guy, and something inside him snaps. “what’s so funny, huh?” he asks, his tone a bit sharper than usual.

you look at him, confused. “oh, just somethin’ funny he said.”

dallas narrows his eyes, trying to act like he doesn’t care. “yeah, well, he ain’t that funny.”

you raise an eyebrow, catching the edge in his voice. “what’s it to you?”

“nothin’,” he mutters, looking away. ‘it ain’t jus’ nothin’, he thinks, clenching his fists, it’s everything. but he won’t say it out loud, not even to himself.

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ dallas winston tries to convince himself that you’re just like everyone else, but every time he sees you, he can’t help but feel like you’re different.

he’ll catch himself thinking about you at the most random times and then quickly push the thoughts away, refusing to acknowledge what they mean.

one night, after a long day, he’s lying in bed at buck’s, staring at the ceiling. he’s tired, but he can’t sleep. your face keeps popping into his head, and he groans, turning over. ‘why the hell do i keep thinkin’ about her?’ he wonders, frustrated.

he tries to distract himself, thinking about other things, other girls even, but nothing works. eventually, he sits up, running a hand through his hair. damn it, he mutters to himself. i don’t like her, i don’t. but even as he says it, he knows it’s a lie.

thanks for this send in!

hope you like it <3

[astralnymphh]

Okay I have this little thought of fucking ellie in lotus position and I literally can’t get it out of my head

Sorry if this is weird I just feel like you could do it justice if you’re comfortable😭

omgg lotus position. that's like.. perfect for ellie cause she loves you straddling her and boobs.. and grabbing handfuls of ass meat. I'll do a little blurb on this but honestly might incorporate this position in a future fic. this feels a bit lazy but i swear im just saving my brain as i start saccharine saturations 2. MDNI ౨ৎ

lotus position with ellie ౨ৎ

let me paint the perspective on this blank canvas. the girl before you, ruby–eared as the budding roses of spring and swamping her sights in you, intoxication, a budding lust to be. the absolute hormone spurts you get whenever ellie drags you atop her lap is utterly intoxicating, utterly. you, sitting vis–à–vis. both of you undertaking the nude. her knees, bent to a perfect splay that opens a little seat just for you, a fleshy, cushiony, linen bedsheet crater. fair skin awash in tawny light, courtesy of the floor lamp abutting to the bed. a light that also reflects a shimmer string off the solid base of her strap, diagonally rested between those manspread legs. chartreuse green encapsulated in a bedroom–eye droopy–lid gaze surrounded by reeds of her deep amber esque lashes curving so softly from her puffy waterlines. an expression that says 'come sit on my lap pretty girl.' while she loiters one of those lusty hands to pose and dab her thigh gently– rippling the tight skin barely and croaking a smoky whisper, "c'mon baby, m' all ready for you now." as her lip corners tug a toothy smirk, folding the bottom lip under to bite. it coils back out, so pliantly, she lures you in tender.

ellie would fuck you so good in lotus. maddenly so, spires of her knobby digits grapple and hook on your ass, soothing softness leaven as milk bread. hairs on her arms, bitsy and tickle inducing, lie plumb from your thighs to your hips and are clasped in the soft layer of elasticity. she kneads your butt like malleable dough and spreads you wide on her pumping cock, lubricous laces lashing from your stuffed slit. the pressure exuded in her fingertips line your ass so perfectly to her roll of hip, she can fuck up into your cunt just right. in this angle, she deepens within you, and you take her unconditionally. plop, plop, palp, the slickening of cum glazes your underside thoroughly and crafts a wet slap whenever her dense hips rut into your cushy pussy lips. in your blurred numbness she finds a mania in seeing you all dog–panting and white–eyed, craning close and curling those sun–baked lips flush on your breast, "fuck that pussy back on me, mhmm, good girl.." brushing skin with her muffled coax. you bounce your bottom in sync with hers, creating a on beat rhythm, but in return her cock bottoms out deeper inside to the point of bulging a knob in your belly. on an ellie's perspective note, she fucking loves suckling upon your tender, risen nipples during sex, so this position basically emboldened her to put those eager lips to use. her gob caves an 'o' shape over your nipple and excitedly flicks her textured tongue over the nub, ever the more inflaming your pussy with euphoria. you card knuckles in her tuft of auburn hair, yanking a grip of locks to which ellie gives your nipple a teensy bite, getting you to yelp. ugh, can't you just visualize that view? a thin gap between your humping bodies, skin clumping and swelling, her perky boobs jiggling with the movements produced, peak of her russet pubes browsing over the harness base– slap! a red sting of fury nips you in the buttcheek, literally. ellie can't get enough of your rump, popping off your breast a moment and slanting her body aside to catch a glimpse of it, freak, indulging another slap. anyways, holding your hips captive to where she needs them, she pipes all the delectable cream she can out of you, grazing that bumpy vein shaft along your ribbed walls with a passion to spite 'unpassions', she coagulates a burning knot inside you, haste without chaste. girl will commit ungodly things to prove how helpless to climax you are on her thickset dick, popping her mouth off your tit to provoke in words of hypocrisy, "feels so good, huh? going dumb on my cock? yeahh? haha, god, can't even see your eyes, fuck." i claim hypocrisy, because we all know damn well with our combined minds that this girl gets dumb on your pussy, folding up her lips to contain the slobber threatening to make her look pussydrunk.

and she is most definetely pussydrunk, moreso in this position, climbing up to a high real fast. chromatically, her moan rises, "uhhhhhhh, yeahahhaaa.. ohh fuck."

how she looks cumming in this position? electrifying. her fawn freckled cheeks overcast in a flush of coral pink, gaping her lips wide and scrunching skin in all the right areas. the chafing pleasure tweaking her clit makes for a good fucking orgasm. her lids embracing the reflex of scantly shutting and gazing up at you, the green in her eyes somehow more vibrant and her pupils blown to a new moon. she just whines a grunty, "hahhh– mhhh, mhhh, yeessss." in a warble while twitching her last final blows against your beaten cervix, cockhead mashing that gummy donut. scarred as your shoulderblades take the toll ten clawing nails can bestow, her fingers whiten away the pigment with the strength issued into your flesh. her own pussy convulses and gathers up a bit of milky cum to streamline in strings along her perineum, dripping like dew onto the bed. you're ways from comparable, though, spraying your clear orgasm all over her. she'll praise you through her tale of moans, groaning, "uhhh yeah, get that cock all filthy– filthy, filthy, filthhh– fuuckkkk.." strands of her hair stick in an untidy manner beyond her hairline, shadowing that gloss of sweat narrowly. then, she dwindles down to a smile, a smile to bury. burying kisses in your sternum, she peppers up and up with a sudden awash of elation walking hand–in–hand with exhaustion. shaky nubs of her fingertips press and drag sweaty over the blushed marks given in her high, almost writing an apology to the poor scratches. looser skin of your back bulges and ribs between her waxy digits, cooling with a pasty ache. the weeping of pores after sex was no joke, no lie. and ellie intended to lick every puny dollop of it from your body. "l'mme clean you up.." she mumbles droney as a meadow bee barming your ears with a measly melody, voice muted in your neck. you reply, fumbly out of breath, "oh, a bath? i could really use a–" the chambré stamp of her tongue unfurls blunt to your neck, nudging up a spit trail along the skin. by clean you up, she just means lick you like a dog. i personally live for ellie doing that. you bumble, "ellie?" and she just garbles back, lips obviously occupied, "let me, mhh, clean you up.." and slipping a gritty chuckle in the depths of her throat, shrugging her shoulders a bit.

don't even get me started on ellie licking you up and down after sex.

[bambiesfics]

Sub!Ellie Williams x Tease!reader

You pouty little bitch, you loved it didn’t you? You were in your prime, being on your hands and knees underneath Ellie’s desk, the one that held the multivariable calculus homework the pathetic brunette had left open & neglected. The one that you were currently tucked away under.

It held homework that Ellie wasn’t paying any attention to at all—matter of fact— it was homework that she had neglected in favor of unbuckling her belt—pulling it flat against her hips until the prongs popped out—in a haste attempt to shove her underwear and pants past her slim hips, and over the jut of her hip bones and creamy thighs.

Ellie had parted her thighs and carded her knobby fingers through the top of your hair to get a good. solid. grip. to prepare for what was to come.

And there you were, licking up her pink slit like the good little girlfriend you were. Like the good little girlfriend you always want to be, only for Ellie. Your pretty eyes were nearly rolled to the back of your fuzzy brained head, as you greedily milked the musk and slick dripping from Ellie’s cunt onto your tongue. It left you wholesomely fog-brained and pussydrunk. Ellie muttered a litany of crude curses under her breath, curses that could make a Pacific sailor blush pink.

A constant onslaught of “Fuck” and “YES! Ungh” and “Fucking love that little mouth” trembled from between her bitten red lips.

You wanted to be a good little girlfriend to her—a sweet, well-behaved one. But really, you were wholly the opposite. You were the reason she was here, glassy eyed with her clit twitching in your face instead of finishing an assignment that was due in three hours. You were a naughty fucking tease. You were always distracting your girlfriend away from her responsibilities, teasing her with your tits pushed in her face as she ducked her head down to read over notes. Or teasing her with the outline of your ass pressed against your thin sleep pants. Pathetically bending over to throw out balled up paper in the tiny trash bin next to her, as if Ellie was an idiot. Yet the worst of it, the thing that really made you an absolute tease: Was that you were teasing her with that pink little tongue you kept digging into her twitching hole.

You kept up the long licks over her clit, and down over the dip of her vagina until Ellie got so sexually frustrated with your pathetic performance at eating her out, that she grabbed both your chubby cheeks in her mean grip—lifted her hips off the wheeled computer chair and grinded her clit aggressively into your drooling tongue. Dirty, whiny moans garbled from your throat. And quick short breaths came from hers as she came all over her Dickie’s work pants, where she was face fucking you.

You continued to suckle on her spent clit until the sensitivity had overwhelmed her so much she had to grab your puffy cheeks again.

“Baby.”

“Hmm, El?” You responded earnestly, while kneeled between her caged legs, on her carpeted floor.

She dropped her head until it met her chest, her body deflated in the seat.

“Fuck. Just….fuck.”

[lex-hj0519]

what do you think we’d do, let them starve?

Just a little drabble based on this line in OOTP, cause it always makes me think, "well, that is pretty much what you did to Harry..."

“And as for who’s going to look after Ron and Ginny if you and Arthur died,” said Lupin, smiling slightly, “what do you think we’d do, let them starve?”

Mrs. Weasley smiled tremulously.

As Mrs. Weasley mopped her eyes and muttered that she was being silly, Lupin’s words washed over Harry.

“What do you think we’d do; let them starve?”

That’s what they did to him, Harry thought bitterly. They’d dropped him off on his aunt and uncle’s doorstep and left him there for ten years. Nobody had cared about the days and nights he spent in his cupboard with his stomach grumbling, hoping that he could sneak out to steal food from the kitchen after the Dursleys fell asleep.

A sharp feeling of hurt shot through him as Lupin continued to comfort Mrs. Weasley, and Harry abruptly turned on his heel and left the room. He climbed the stairs two-at-a-time, desperate to get away from the others before they noticed that something was wrong. He climbed the stairs until there were no more stairs to climb, ending up in the attic. It was cluttered with furniture, trunks, boxes, and other knick-knacks, but Harry found a clear spot and squished himself in between a battered steamer trunk and a side table that had legs carved to look like snakes.

He tucked his knees up, wrapped his arms around his legs, and buried his face in his knobby knees. He was not going to cry. He was not going to get upset. He was going to sit here and breathe until all of these stupid emotions stopped stirring around in his chest, and then he was going to go back downstairs with no one the wiser.

Off in the distance, he could hear another set of footsteps climbing the stairs. He waited for them to stop off at one of the floors, but they kept coming and coming until the attic door creaked open. Harry didn’t move. He didn’t even lift his head. Maybe if he stayed squished here in this spot, whoever it was wouldn’t notice.

“Mind if I join you?”

Harry didn’t want to see anyone. But of all the people who had come after him, he was glad it was his godfather. Harry shrugged awkwardly, still not looking up. Sirius picked his way through the clutter, pushed the steamer trunk aside, and sank down beside Harry so they were sitting shoulder to shoulder.

Sirius bumped his shoulder gently. “Are you all right, Harry? That boggart scared me, seeing your dead body laying there.”

Harry slowly raised his head to look at his godfather. Sirius looked even more pale and drawn than he usually did. Harry hadn’t even thought of how the boggart would have affected him.

“I’m all right,” Harry muttered.

Harry was grateful when Sirius didn’t push him to say more. They sat in a comfortable silence for a long while, with Harry slowly slumping and leaning into Sirius’s side. Sirius tucked one long, skinny arm around Harry’s back and pulled him closer into his side.

“If you want to talk about it, I’m happy to listen,” Sirius said gently.

“Talk about what?” Harry asked grumpily.

“About why you ran off like there was a Hungarian Horntail on your tail,” Sirius replied. “Was it just the boggart?”

“No,” Harry admitted after another long silence. “It was something else.”

“Thought so,” Sirius said. Harry wanted to roll his eyes at his godfather’s smug tone.

“It was what Lupin said after,” Harry said.

“What Remus said after?”

Harry tilted his head to look up at his godfather, who was looking down at him with a furrowed brow.

“Mrs. Weasley was worried about what would happen to Ron and Ginny if she and Mr. Weasley died. And Lupin said that they wouldn’t let them starve,” Harry repeated.

“And that upset you?” Sirius asked curiously.

Harry shrugged and looked down at his hands, twisting the edge of his t-shirt.

“It didn’t matter when it was me,” Harry mumbled after a long silence. “I – I was hungry all the time growing up. And nobody ever checked on me.”

Sirius swallowed hard and tucked Harry even closer into his side. Harry buried his face in his godfather’s shoulder to hide the tears that he could feel prickling in the back of his eyes.

“I used to sit in my cupboard and dream about someone coming to save me. But no one ever did. Not until Hagrid brought my Hogwarts letter. And even then, I still had to go back. I always have to go back.”

“Oh, Harry,” Sirius whispered into his hair. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you then. But I’m here for you now. And I’m not going to let you go back.”

Harry didn’t want to get his hopes up. He had before, and they had been torn away from him as fast as a hippogriff could fly. But as he sank into Sirius’s comforting embrace in the dusty old attic of Grimmauld Place, he so badly wanted to believe that this could be it: this could be the day that he was finally saved.

[yeyinde]

WILLOW TREE MARCH

John Price x Reader | Fae!AU

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go."  "Why?" You asked, blinking at her.  "Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 

—WARNINGS: 18+ | SMUT fae shenanigans, mythological nonsense; unsafe sex, smut in random places, slight exhibition kink if you squint; Dom-ish Price, soft Price, pining Price; fae trickery (dubious consent on account of the trickery but not really); unreliable narrator; ahhhhhh, body horror (??????????) —TAGS: Fluff, AU, mythology —WORD COUNT: 8,5k —Based on this ask

There's a thick forest at the edge of your town. It curves along the coastline, breaching the yawning maw of the inlet—the last safe haven before the open ocean—and can be found almost nowhere else in the entire world. A unique ecosystem comprising vaguely familiar flora and fauna. Brown and Black bears. Wolves. Sitka-black-tailed deer. Ravens. The waters that crest through the forest are full of salmon, steelhead, and river otters. On the coast of the inlet, you can find whales, sea lions, seals, orcas, and porpoises swimming offshore. 

It's protected, in large part, by its sheer vastitude. Spanning a massive chunk of your home, it stretches far north with curling fingers cutting through the granite of the crumbling coast, and as deep south as its knobby knees can reach. 

From above, it looks like a child curled on its side, knees tucked to its chest. It's this pose alone that makes others revere it as some sacred being, slumbering mindlessly until the day it cracks open its eyes, and awakens to the new world. A child god made of conifers, red cedar, spruce, fir, pine, birch, and hemlock. Mossy caves of granite and limestone. Thick colonies of moss, liverworts, plume moss, and common haircap. 

The forest is linked to your town only by a small strip of land that juts out from a raging ravine with currents too dangerous, too deadly, to try and traverse. An archipelago all on its own, untouched by greedy, human, hands because of its placement. 

It's insulated by the vast ocean on its front, and a series of insidious looking mountains ready to swallow wandering mountaineers whole if they get too close to the sleeping child. Protected and safe by anyone who might try to harm it. 

You used to dream about the forest. A nightmare dredged up about whispers and calls. Lured close to the edge of the river where a man would hand you his heart—sap-stained, and charred; a brittle piece of Bristlecone pine that felt fragile and worn—and told you to come back for him. To wait for him. 

You'd wake in a cold sweat each time, heart pounding so fast that it almost felt like you were dying.

(Maybe you were. Maybe you did.)

You don't know if you believe the stories told about people wandering into the gaping chasm of the forest and never coming out. It's not uncommon for people to get lost, after all. But it feels distinct and archaic. Old. Something about the way the wind howls sounds different from the other woodlands scattered around your home. 

It sounds like a beckoning call. A mother calling their child home for dinner. Come to me, the Chinook bellows. Come home now, dear. 

You never venture too close. You know all too well what happens to children who do.

His name is—was now, you suppose—Kyle, but no one called him that. To everyone in town, he was simply known as Gaz. 

Newcomers to the isolated archipelago are a rarity—so much so that news of the new family's arrival sent waves through the community, making Gaz an instant star overnight, all without him even setting foot on the shores. 

None of that mattered, though. He fit in with an ease that seems almost preternatural when you think about it, as if he was meant to be there. And maybe he was. Maybe the soft rolling valleys were destined to be his home where flowers bloomed in the spring, and Arctic tern trilled from the branches. 

Gaz was unique, different. 

He picked dandelions with the same intensity that picked fights with the bullies in the neighbouring town, the ones who tried to pick on the smaller kids in the community. 

With his fists always covered in dandelion oil and bruises, face caught between a grimace and a grin, like he was never sure if he wanted to spit at their feet or tell a joke, he stood against the onslaught with an anger that seemed to crackle in the air like fireworks. Ready for battle. Thirsty for blood. 

His anger never waned even when he turned back to the group, eyes cresting in satisfaction, and body trembling with adrenaline, and you could scent the rage in his smile, hear it in the soft words he muttered to the kids, telling them everything would be alright. 

Gaz was everyone's friend. The person you told your deepest secrets to, the one you planned adventures with. He was a rock—always armed with snappy jokes to make you smile, and advice when you needed it. 

He was everyone's friend—yours especially—but you can't remember if anyone was his best friend. He was polite. Distant. 

It started in the summer. His hands were always cold, and he kept them shoved deep in his pockets, clenched tight around the latchkey his parents gave him. 

He started to seem almost liquid then. Temporal. You'd reach for him, brushing your hands against his arms or shoulders just to assure yourself that he was really there.

You noticed that his eyes would list sideways, head tilted, slanting toward the forest. It looked to you as if he was listening to something. To some unheard noise or call that only he could hear. 

When you asked about it, he'd always blink, surprised, as if you'd woken him up from a dream quite suddenly. Then, he'd smile, and shake his head. 

"Don't worry about it," he'd say, shrugging. "Just the wind."

He'd bend down and pick a dandelion for you, holding it out between pudgy fingers with a grin that seemed to mimic the cresting moon. 

"For you."

He picked them for three springs before he, too, became another victim of the endless forest. Another empty tomb in the overcrowded graveyard.

Missing, they said, but not forgotten. 

You think about him often. 

(Even more so when you, too, begin to hear your name echoing through the forest.)

Beware the woods, your grandma says. Especially when it calls your name. 

(You never understood why something that sounds so comforting, so sweet, could ever be dangerous. It sounds like an old friend calling you over to play. 

"Never go," she snaps, her hands lashing out to grip your arms tight. You feel her knobby fingers digging into your bones. "Never listen, and stay away—"

"You're hurting me, gran—"

Her rheumy eyes burn into yours. "Stay away—!"

(You wisely never speak about the whispers in your head, keeping them to yourself. A secret just for you.)

You leave town when you're old enough, when the hisses in your head grow too loud to ignore, and it feels as though they're scratching at your skull. 

(Clawing at the walls.)

"Crazy weather, eh?" The first mate mutters nervously, eyes tilted upward as the sky darkens into an angry grey. "Came outta nowhere." 

You leave, and you don't look back. 

(But oh, how the forest screams.)

She calls you back several years later with a phone call. Your gran has passed. 

You think you should mourn, but it's been so long since you thought of home, that you don't remember what she looks like anymore. The sound of her voice is a whisper in your head—the cadence gone, the tone flat. 

But you don't cry, and you don't grieve—she's been dead for a long time now, after all. Ever since your mum went missing all those years ago, she's always seemed more of a ghost than a person. Living as if her body hadn't realised her heart was long dead. 

You go back only because you think your mum would have wanted you to. 

(And pretend it isn't because the silence in your head is suffocating. Without the whispers, it feels as if you're missing something. A part of yourself forever lost in the forest.

You wonder if anyone has found it by now.)

Nothing has changed since you turned your back on the town that raised you, the forest that stole from you. 

It's the same buildings. The same market. The same roads. The same houses. 

The people, too, seem largely unchanged by the years that have passed. 

The friends from your childhood who stayed meet you at the graveyard, eyes filled with sympathy as they ask how you're doing. 

She'll be missed, they lie sweetly to you. Everyone loved her. 

She was a hermit, you want to scream. A woman driven mad by ghosts and fairytales and terror. 

You nod, instead, and let them lead you around the town on a grand tour as if anything about this beautiful, haunting place had changed since you ran away. 

It gets easier to force a smile when they ask if you're okay. 

"Fine," you murmur and wonder if your voice even carries over the whispers. "Just—yeah. Fine."

North of the town is where the river separating the lonely forest carves a path, not at all dissimilar to an idyllic trough, through bedrock and sand, and flows into the sea. 

The estuary is dangerous in high tide when the rapid ascent of water on the sandy shores hides the rip current that is known to form when the two bodies of water meet. 

It's a dangerous place to get caught in. 

This beach was impressed upon you as deadly from a young age, almost in equal—if not greater—measure than the rapacious forest across the river. You know the dangers of standing on the slippery bedrock. 

But as the sun glows a burnt orange in the distance, and the endless ocean before you darkens into an almost unfathomable black, you can't help but find the view from the cliff's edge to be the most mesmerising thing you've ever seen. 

It looks like a painting. A brush stroke of tigers eye in the centre of the cresting sun that gradually fades out into xanthous, and rings of hazy peach; the light of diminishing star smears coruscating rings of persimmons into the indigo water. The gradual fade into gradients as the waves lap closer to the shore is reminiscent of liquid sapphire and smelting amethyst. 

The picturesque view is more befitting of a pastel postcard, an ethereal pastiche of the Ninth Wave—a moment of life imitating art, or—perhaps—the same view Ivan Aivazovsky stumbled upon when he set out to render the haunting beauty of the ocean in oil. 

The cresting waves arch into curled petals of white before setting upon the sloping beach with frenzy. It's the roar of those hungry waves that seem to, if only for a moment, drown out everything in your head. 

There are no whispers. No songs. No screams. Vengeful hissing can't climb to a higher decibel than the frothing waters slamming against jagged bedrock. 

All is quiet—except the sea. 

You lean into it. The closer you get to that precipice, the quieter everything in your head goes. Sounded sucked into the vacuum of the ocean. The endless song of the sea. 

Another step. Another. 

For a moment, you're free. 

The forest doesn't scream for you. Your grandmother doesn't dig her teeth into your gyri, hands clawing at the space behind your eyes. You don't think of her, or your mother, or Gaz, or anyone else unfortunate enough to get consumed by this damnable place where fairy tales split the seams apart, and merge with reality. 

It's peaceful. 

You take another step—

A hand curls over your shoulder, tugging you back. 

Anger pools, thick and acidic, on your tongue, but the flash of your ire, your vexation, is dashed by the sound the waves make when it slams into the spot you were just standing. 

It slashes across the concrete as the stranger pulls you into his broad chest, heat nearly liquifying your spine. 

He sucks in a breath. You feel his chest expand with it. When he breathes out, you taste gunpowder on your tongue. 

"Gotta be more careful n'that, love." 

You've had near-misses before. Flirted with the reaper. Ripped yourself from the jowls of death himself. 

This isn't anything new.

And yet—

Your eyes drag up, meeting flat black boring down at you. His hood is pulled over his forehead, casting shadows down to his jaw. 

"You—"

Your teeth sink into your tongue. Emotions lash through you like the flick of a bullwhip, shredding your skin until it's raw and oozing. The tail pulls away whenever you try to wrap your fingers around one of them—relief: you're not dead; embarrassment: how could you be so stupid; shame: saved by a stranger; and—

Visceral terror. Panic. 

It bludgeons its fist down your throat, barbed knuckles clawing at the soft tissue of your esophagus until you taste blood on your tongue. 

Panic tastes of ozone and leaks, thick and warm like molasse, down your throat. 

"Hey," he murmurs, and the sound of his voice, his low timbre, is porous, calcined. The rough scratch scours through the haze of fear threading through your sternum. "C'mon on, now. Gotta breathe, yeah?" 

It's his hands on your shoulder—hotter than grenade fire—and the thick scent of musk, of stale smoke and kerosene sweat, that break through the gossamer of your acrid panic. He spins you around to face him, eyes fixed on your face. 

"That's it," he says, soft, soothing. "Keep breathin'. You ain't dead yet." 

You come to yourself in pieces. The world bleeds with startling clarity around the blurred edges. Home, you think. Maybe.

Once upon a time. 

You blink. Blink again. 

The hand still on you—heavier, you find, than an anvil—lifts, his thumb brushing over the curve of your jaw, swiping over the sweat-stained skin.

You can't see his eyes through the shadows cast over his face. A stranger. You've never seen him before. 

They didn't say anyone new moved to town. 

"Who are you—?"

"You don't know?" 

And then his hand is gone, taking all the heat in your body with him. 

It lifts to his vest, thick fingers, gloved in yellow, curling over the butt of his cigar. 

You must make a face. A grimace. A whisper of bemusement. Whatever it is, it makes his lips twitch under the shorn burnt umber of his beard. 

"I'd share," he mutters, teething sinking into the hilt as he pats himself down for a lighter. "But I ain't got the time."

"Shouldn't be smoking in a provincial park, anyway." 

The words are dragged out of you. Numbed, gritty. 

It makes him snort. "Maybe—;" he cups his hand around the end, thumb striking the ignition of the lighter. He inhales, and the red circle at the tip illuminates the cerulean blue tucked away into the folds of his hood. The plume of smoke curls over him like a shroud. "But I doubt a cigar is gonna bring the whole forest down, mm? 'sides, we all have our vices, don't we?"

With that, he leaves you standing in the tendrils of smoke that billow out from his caustic mouth. No goodbye. No name. Nothing except the hum of his touch buzzing through your veins. 

Your head is numb. Thoughts congealing into hardened clay. 

Yeah, you think sluggishly, eyes dropping to the drenched pavement where the ocean narrowly missed you. Swallowed you whole. We do. 

(Yours is bad decisions that reek of napalm. 

Men who scour your hands raw when you touch their coarse surface.)

You find him again in some desolate pub on the fringes of town a few days later. It looks like it's one strong gust of wind away from blowing down. Dilapidated. Rusted from the harsh salt of the ocean to the north. 

He lifts his head when you slide into the empty chair on the left, but says nothing about your unexpected company. 

Instead, his lips curl over the cigar sawed between his teeth. A grin, you think. 

You wonder if he was expecting you. 

(Wonder, then, with a touch of something warm gnarling in your belly, if you surprised him.)

The barkeep wanders past, brows lifting at you in question. 

"Um, a vodka soda—"

The man, Price you learned from the locals with a great of digging, snorts. 

"Ain't got none of that here, love. Two scotches. Neat." He leans over, thick fingers grasping the middle of the cigar, an inch away from the bristles on his upper lip, and pulls it away, ashing it in the tray in front of him. "And a bottle of spring water." 

"Scotch?" You echo, leaning your elbow on the sticky counter. He reeks of smoke. Sweat. Blood. Gunpowder. You veer closer, soaking in the astringent tang of him. Everyone on this island smells of daffodils and cotton; clean and neat and innocent. He reeks of danger. Everything inside of you screams to stay away. "I don't drink scotch."

The cigar burns in the tray. He pulls back, shifting in the chair. His elbow rests on the counter, the other arm is slung over the back of his seat. The picture of appeasement, of a satiated tiger eying a little mouse sniffing past it. There's no immediate danger, and his posture is relaxed. Open. But his eyes—

Price turns to you, then. His legs are spread, knees notched apart, taking up more space than you offer him. A looming presence. Dominating. Confident. He's not doing it on purpose, you don't think, he's just—

Big. 

His legs are too long. Thighs are too thick. 

Something gnarls behind your ribs when you take in his bare face. It's different, smaller, without the bulky black hood thrown low on his brow. His hands bare, leaving him in only casual clothes that stretch taut around his broad body. 

The beanie on his head, pulled low on his forehead, makes him look roguish, rough. The picturesque presentation of a bad boy down to the pelt-brown leather Levi jacket stretched taut around his broad shoulders. 

He looks older, somehow, without the tenebrous of night shading him in dark indigo. Aged like a fine whisky. All burnt umber and ivory. 

The charcoal colouring brightens the heavy blue of his eyes—crushed bluebonnets and powdered graphite; a black hole centre—and the frame of his brown lashes dusting over his clean cheeks makes something pool in your lower belly. 

(You wonder if he'd taste of whisky sour.)

"Well," he murmurs, brow lifting. It makes the skin on his forehead crinkle. He has laugh lines cresting around the corners of his eyes. They stand out to you, now. Void of the shadows you're used to. "You do when I'm paying."

The scotch, the cigar, the dingy pub that reeks of stale cigarettes and is perfumed in a dusting of nicotine that films every surface coalesces into incipient vice. 

His hand moves from where it's loosely curled around his glass, and rests, heavy and warm, on your thigh. 

When he leans in, you taste calcine on his breath. 

The acrid tang is a balm to the blisters in your raw esophagus. You meet him in the middle, smaller hands curling over the wool lapels of his jacket, tugging him into you. 

"Never thanked you for saving me," you murmur, his beard grazing your lips. A tickle. A brush. 

Price sucks in a deep breath, eyes liquifying into an intense azure. "No need to thank me, love. As much as I love the ocean, you don't belong there, do you? No," he adds, decisively. Sure. "You belong on land. The earth. You're wild, like the forest, aren't you?"

It's an out. An escape. An option to flee from the cosm that folds around you like a nebulous cloud. 

You could take it. Back up, away. Walk out of this dingy pub on the wrong side of town, and forget the man who reeks of nicotine, smoke; who leaves ashes behind on your skin when he touches you. 

The only one who stares at you from the unfathomable black of his eyes, lashes shrouded in tenebrous, and makes you falter. Makes your heart lurch, jumping to sit at the bottom of your throat.

You should pull away. Stay away from the man who leaks ethanol and nitroglycerine. From the man who smells of acrid smoke. Gunfire. 

You should. 

But your fingers tighten in the lapels of his jacket, pulling him closer. Closer. 

The bridge of his nose is warm when it presses against your own. 

His eyes spark, wildfires. A blazing forest. 

"You said something about vices." His chest rumbles in response to your hushed words. 

"So I did." 

Smoke singes your nose when you brush your lips over his. Warm. Chapped. Dry. You taste ash. Humus. The bitter tang of dandelion oil. 

"Got some time tonight?" 

"Thought you said I shouldn't be smoking."

"We're not in a park, near flammable trees," your hand falls to his chest. His heart thuds beneath your palm. Thick, full. Your eyes lift to his, lidded and heavy. You gaze at him from under your lashes, coy. Demure. You wonder if he can see how eager you are beneath the sly cut of your lids. "Are we, Price?"

The use of his name makes his lips quirk. A small, secretive thing that you can't read. 

"No, we're not." His hand slides down, curling over your knee. "Don't know what you're gettin' into, love." 

"Oh, no?" You taunt, breathless. Even through all your layers, you still feel his searing heat on your skin. His eyes drop when your tongue lashes out, wetting your lower lip. "And what's that?" 

A frisson shudders over his face. Lashes fluttering. He leans forward, resting the rim of his beanie on your forehead. 

When his eyes slide open, all you see is arsenic white pooled around Prussian blue. "More than you could ever dream of." 

Your trembling fingers curl into the lapels of his jacket. For leverage, maybe; or to hide the quiver in your joints from his widening eyes. 

And so, you kiss him. 

A messy punch to the mouth with your sun-blistered lips. 

His mouth parts, wry curls flutter when he inhales sharply. And then—

He devours you. 

It's messy. More sealed lips glueing together than it ever could be considered a proper kiss, but it feels more like a homecoming than stepping off the boat, and you tuck that inside your pounding chest. 

(The whispers in your head seem to sing when his lips touch yours.)

You taste bark on your tongue when it slips over his. Loam. Moss. Something earthy and rich. His beard scratches your chin, your lips, but you pull him closer, hungry for more—for the taste of wilderness on his tongue, for the respite from the whispers, the screams. Like the ocean, he, too, is a vacuum, swallowing everything whole until just you remain, stripped down to nothing but sensation and want. Bare, raw. 

Your teeth ache when you pull away, fingers curling into the coarse hair along his chin. The whips of his wry curls scratch your palm. 

You never want to let go. 

Price's eyes are noctilucent clouds; a storm over a rainforest. He'll ruin you. Devour. Destroy. Take, and take, and take until there is nothing left. 

Your lips tremble when you speak, words tremulous with your desire, your eagerness, when they slip past your bruised mouth. 

"I can think of a few that are better than smoking." 

Price shudders. 

"Where did you go?" Your friend asks, eyes swinging from the cards spread out in front of him—the Idiot, Solitaire—to you. They burn into the side of your face, the same place Price touched with bare knuckles, and said you belong to the forest, don't you? "Missed dinner."

You ate Doro Wat in a small shop after Price fucked you stupid in the dingy bathroom of the pub, face scraping against the waterlogged wallpaper that chipped with each brutal thrust of his hips. 

Like that, hmm? Can barely take me, love, but you're so fuckin' greedy for it, ain't you? 

You're sure the barkeep heard your moans as they bounced off the jaundiced walls. 

(You still hear him hissing in your ear. Still feel him splitting you apart.)

You try not to shiver. 

"Ate already," you shrug, bundling your sleep clothes tight in your trembling hands. When you stand, his eyes follow you. "So. Um—"

"You okay?" 

"Yeah," you say, shifting on the balls of your feet. "I've—" You think of his eyes, gyre white, and wonder if this is what it feels like to get swallowed by the sea. "I've never been better."

"Good," he says, smiling. "I worry about you, you know?"

You nod. "Yeah," you say. "Me, too."

You break apart in the shower, falling into pieces as you make yourself finish, thinking about nothing but the phantom stretch of his cock seated deep inside of you, the taste of his come pooling on your tongue.

It balms the residual burn in your esophagus, and you know, then, when you throb, still wanting his touch on your skin, that you've always been terrible at telling yourself no. 

It can't happen. It can't.  

There's a strange magnetism about him—an uncanny sense of mystery and familiarity sutured together. 

It feels a little bit like staring at the looming maw, the event horizon, of a black hole. Unfathomable black. No way out. 

There's something that feels a bit like forewarning inside your chest when he brushes against you, and presses his lips on the skin behind your ear—a secret place only he knows, where only his fingerprints have ever been. You feel his touch even when he's gone. Haunted by the memory of his rough hands and rasping tenor. 

Running would make sense, you think, watching the ferries come and go. You have enough money for a ticket, and you've yet to even unpack your bag. 

You don't know who he is, but you've given him everything. All of it. There's nothing left inside of you to hand over, but he keeps looking at you as if he's waiting for more. 

"Waiting for a ride?" 

You glance back at the operator with a divot between your brow and cotton inside your ears. 

You want to say yes, but you shake your head instead. 

"No." I can't leave. "Just enjoying the view."

You find birch branches stripped of leaves, juniper berries, maple leaves, spindles of dogwood, bushels of fir, and bouquets of bog rosemary, northern bluebell, fireweed, and wintergreen on your doorstep each morning, laid gently against the old welcome mat. 

You should toss them out, and throw them away. How does he know where you live, anyway? It would make the most sense; be the wisest decision. 

Instead, you tuck them inside your notebook, pressing them against the pages where they'll be safe. 

(You try not to think too much about why they never die.)

It happens again. And again. Again—

It becomes a ritual for the few months you're back in town. The leaves, twigs, petals, pines, and seeds all show up at your door each morning and come nightfall, you're drawn to him like a moth to a flame. 

He finds the nastiest looking pub in the city, and you find him there after dark. 

He sits, smokes a cigar. Orders two scotches, and a bottle of spring water. Teaches you how to drink it properly—none of that sugary cocktail shite; just pure whisky, love, as it should be—and lets you puff on the damp end of his cigar, eyes gleaming in the soft yellow light above as he takes in the way your lips curl over the wet tip.

He stares at you like he's indulging you. 

Like he knows. 

And maybe, he does. 

Maybe he sees the way your jaw works, tongue lashing over the tip just to chase his taste. The heat in your cheeks, your eyes, as you gaze at him, open and raw and wanting. The way you list toward him. Eager for it. For him. His touch, his smell. 

He must, you think, but he's a right bastard. 

He doesn't give it until the end of the evening, when everyone has gone home. When it's just you and him and the barkeep that glowers at you something ugly when you stand on shaky legs, and whisper you're going to the washroom. 

Your fingers curl over the chipped porcelain, back arched as you stare at the face in the mirror. 

You can't remember if it's you. 

Whisky has polluted your synapses. The thick scent of smoke, the tobacco from the cigar, has congealed into resin over that little bundle of axons and nerves that control your impulse, logic. 

Stupid. 

You stare at the thing in the mirror, and wonder if the basal want on your face was so apparent to him as it is to you. If he saw the dark gleam of hunger, greed, impatience, swimming in your ink-smudged depths. 

The door rattles. Clicks. 

The squeak of the hinges is the only warning you get before Price is there, liquified in the doorway and clouded in smoke. 

His hand curls over the worn, peeling frame. Eyes dance with the same hunger, same want, as the ones that flicker across the surface of the mirror. 

"Couldn't wait for me, eh, love?" He breathes, his chest expands with his exhale. Scenting you, you think. You wonder if he can smell the slick pooling in your panties. The desperation brimming in your veins. "Wanted it that bad, huh?"

He moves. A mountain of a man now filling up the entirety of your gaze until all you see is him. 

You used to want to climb mountains. In training, they always warned of summit fever. Of that little part of your head that just wanted it to be over, to reach the very top of the precipice. Impatient, it couldn't wait. It made you spring up, and climb higher and higher before you were ready, prepared. 

You think of it now when your hands lift, curling over his broad shoulders. 

("Summit fever will get you killed," they say.)

"Just shut up and fuck me, Price." 

His eyes flash. "Greedy little thing, aren't you?"

You are. Painfully so. 

It etches in your ribs like a sickness, festering in your mouldering bones. Rotting you from the inside out. 

A crutch in the searing heat of skin, sweat, and sin. The feeling of him taking you apart, breaking you down into atoms and molecules that bubble in the lining of your head becomes so commonplace, so often forget who you are when you're pushed up against a wall, being filled to the brim by him.

He leaves madness behind when he goes, and the world that divides fantasy from reality begins to crack, to splinter. 

You hear his voice in your head late at night when the wind blows through the window, carrying the scent of the forest.

"Come home," he rasps in your ear. 

The scratch of his beard seems to scrape against the little thread keeping you tied down to reality. It's frayed and worn by his hands. You wonder when he'll sink his teeth in the silk, and snap the line. Untethering you from your binds.

Come home to me. Come back to where you belong—

Price takes you out to dinner three months after this—whatever it is—starts. After your house becomes more of a garden, writ with the wild remnants of the forest, after each passing day. Full of bushes, and branches. Twigs and precious gems. He gives you raw gold, and open geodes full of amethyst, and sapphire. Canopy leaves, and bark from the trees. 

He leaves a whittled deer made from the red wood of a giant sequoia, and the likeness of the little fawn makes you believe that one day, it'll come to life in your living room.

(You leave a dish of water near the doorway—just in case—and wonder if you're becoming just as mad as your gran.)

He shows up at your doorstep, the bleached antlers of a great pronghorn in his hands. It's decorated with vines and moss weaved over the ivory in intricate braids and knots that you can't even begin to unravel. You marvel at the gift as he tells you he's taking you out for dinner. 

There is no discussion. He doesn't ask, he just—

Does. 

"Found a spot," he says, arms crossed over his broad chest. The cable-knit sweater pulls, stretched taut over his bulk. "Think you'd like it."

You don't know what to say. The antlers feel heavier in your hands, and warm to the touch. You try not to shiver when you set it down beside the little fawn.

"Oh," you say, but know you've never turned him down yet. It's all—

So much. 

Your home is slowly becoming one with nature, with vines growing on the walls in great blooms of wisteria and lilac; the old floor boards under your feet shudder and creak as little saplings sprout through the cracks. You wake up at night and taste earth in your throat, feel the grass beneath your fingers. The breeze in your hair. The call of an arctic tern. 

You dream of running through the forest. Of being chased. You breathe and feel the little seeds inside of your lungs start to take root. Soon you'll bloom with dandelions.

"Okay," you say, and wonder if the madness rummaging around your head will turn into a beautiful sequoia in the end. "Let's go."

The tavern is busy on a weeknight, crowded with a swell of mainlanders who'd ventured out for a camping trip over the long weekend. 

You sit with your back straight, and listen to him talk about a hike he wants to take with you in the morning. Through the woods, he says, and you don't ask which one. You know. You know. 

(It's time. It's time.)

There are alarm bells ringing in your head, but they're drowned out by the crooning whispers. 

But the line is only frayed and worn, and despite the lure in his voice, the itch in your head to say yes, you hesitate. Falter. 

The woods are dangerous. 

You don't want to go. 

He seems to sense it. His brows knot together. 

"You want to, don't you?" 

You fiddle with your napkin and try not to meet his arsenic stare. "It's… dangerous."

"I'll keep you safe."

"It's probably time for me to leave, anyway." 

The air in the room turns frigid all at once. You think you can see white plumes of condensation when you shakily breathe out, teeth chattering. 

"Price—"

"Didn't wanna do this, love," he says, voice hushed. Barely a whisper. His eyes are lavascapes. "But you ain't givin' me much of a choice, are you?"

"What—?"

The words die on your tongue when movement flashes in the corner of your eye. A man weaves, liquid, through the mindless crowd, cutting a path like the parting red sea. 

His eyes are honeycombs. In his hand, he holds a limp dandelion. 

It takes you a moment to make out the strange man who looms in the background. A splash of colour among sfumato. 

It's Gaz.

The childish swell of his cheeks has sunken into angled, sharp bone. Slender fingers twirl the flower around, around, around—

It's hypnotic. You stare, horrified and awed—a strange amalgam of emotions that slip down your spine: worry, elation, panic, comfort—as his pink lips part into an easy, familiar grin. The cresting sun breaching the horizon. Eyes slanting in playful derision. 

He looks like he's torn between telling a joke and spitting vitriol. Making you laugh, and then making you cry. 

It buzzes in the air, electrified fingers dancing down your spine, and then just as quickly as the boy who disappeared reemerges into the land of the living, into this bastardised reality, he gives one last sharp, fanged grin, a mordant wink, and then he's gone.

He slips through the door, and without hesitating, you give chase. 

Price says nothing when you go. Or maybe he does, but you can't hear anything except the rustling of leaves in your head. 

Gaz, it whispers. Gaz, Gaz, Gaz.

(It's time for the lost little boy to come home.)

The rocks sit in a zigzag pattern through the frothing waters, a deceptive bridge that connects the valley to the coast. You feel the tremulous rattle of the water slicing against the hollow cavern beneath your feet. A ledge chiselled from the blunt erosion of the rapid currents below. One day, they say, the granite shelf will give and a massive hole filled with howling water will fill it. 

Try not to be the idiot standing on the ledge. 

You feel the power of the currents even on the peat-covered edge. 

The water in front of you is deceptive. A calm, rolling surface at the shoreline almost seems to beckon you inside. Come take a dip in the cool waters. Grow fins and gills and chase the river otters through the currents. Feast on the wily salmon, and see if your feet can touch the sandy streambed. 

But the river's fatality is nearly assured. No one has survived a dip in these waters that act as a serrated knife, carving chasms and channels through the granite below. The currents will rip into you, pulling you until your body is crushed against the wall, or into an unsearchable cave. 

One slip, you think. Just one. 

But—

The man in the bar flickers through your mind. His honeycomb eyes, fanged grin. Ethereal in his beauty like a painting of a god in oil and raw canvas. Carved likeness of a Stygian prince. 

It was Kyle. It was Gaz. You know it. Know it deep within your bones, your marrow.

Taking the first step to the jutting slate that peaks just a few precious inches from the raging waters is easier, then, when you think of the boy who plucked a dandelion from the earth, and tucked it behind your ear. It makes the risk less daunting when it's for him. 

For his parents who sunk into themselves, into the crater his absence left behind. A deep depression into the earth that swallowed them whole.

They moved last year after laying down a bouquet of flowers at the mouth of the forest. 

You toe your shoes off, leaving them at the embankment, and then you leap. The perch is slick with waterlogged moss, slimy. It wobbles under you, but you catch yourself, stabilising. Steady. You huff. One down, four more to go. 

Up close, they look so far apart. A chasm between each rock. An endless abyss that will rip you into pieces. 

Still. Still. You have to find him. Have to. 

You step, toes sliding in the algae. The rock beneath is stained green. It wobbles again when you bring your other foot down on top of it. The loud clack of rock scraping against rock is heard, unmuffled by the roaring water that tugs on the stone. You feel the push against your feet. 

Two more. Two more. 

You take another step, and then—

You fall—

The world drips into focus, a steady trickle of cognisance that paints the world in shades of greens and browns. An eagle soars above the canopy, their shadow swooping through the thick tangle of conifers reaching to the heavens.

The bed of moss beneath you is damp—lush with dew and softer than your mattress at home. You sink into the ground when you breathe, caught in an embrace. The vines curl over your wrists, your ankles, as if refusing to let go. 

It should scare you—and maybe it does—but there's something against your head, fingers digging into your temples, and you feel nothing except a warm serenity leaking in. Thought spool into liquid gold, threads that weave together in a knotted clump. Indistinguishable from each other, and unreachable when they slip deeper into the honeyed-thick fog that curls around your mind. A temper from logic, from fear. Anything that isn't pure, artificial comfort is filtered through and cast aside. 

You don't know why you're here. 

One moment, you felt the coils of the raging currents sinking its claws into your flesh, pulling you under the deep waters, and then—

Heat on your face. The sun's desperate attempt to filter through the corded canopy and touch the forest floor. The shrill call of an eagle on the prowl. The tender caress of the moss below cushions your body. 

You should be underwater. Pressed tight against the side of the rocks until you were swept downstream and spat out in the inlet, waterlogged and dead. 

You draw humid air into your lungs until it swells against your ribcage. The steady thud of your heart tells you that somehow, somehow, you're alive. An empty brag—thud, thud; thud, thud—that seems to call out to the birds in the emergent layer, the ones nestled in their branches as they watch your feeble attempt to reconcile how you survived. 

It's strange, you think, but the soporific warmth coursing through your veins does not let you panic. 

You are—

"Foolish." 

The warmth turns molten. You try to sit up, but the vines tighten around your limbs. If you weren't so vulnerable, you think it would almost feel like a hug. 

The soft crunch of the moss tells you the voice—the man—is moving forward, toward you. You want to scream, but your tongue is thick, and your mouth is numb. 

"What you did there was stupid," he says, and the forest around you seems to come alive in his anger. Pulsing. The branches sway and the leaves rattle without any wind. The trees bend down, coming inward. You hear the scream of a fox in the distance. The chuff of an agitated brown bear. 

Primordial signs tell you to run.

But you're trapped. 

Price steps closer, falling to his knees beside you. You can see him now, and suddenly you wish you'd been swallowed by the waves. 

His face is writ with anger, brows tightening together in displeasure. 

He seems imbued with the forest. One with the lush green that swells around you. Burnt umber and icy blue. Ethereal, unnatural. Something in your hindbrain tells you to run from that man that looks as if he could swallow you whole.

"Tryin' t'die on me, hmm?" 

His hand lifts, and you feel his warm knuckles graze your temple. Soft, gentle, despite the ire in his eyes, and the irritation clenched in his jaw. 

"Gonna hav'ta try harder than that, love." 

You weren't trying very hard at all, you think, dazed, dizzy. You weren't trying at all. 

"You're mine," his eyes flash, and you feel the press of gravity against your skin, pulling you down to the soft earth. Your fingers twitch. The fog inside your head clears. 

Blinking up at him, you catch the scattering supernovae echoing in the corners of his eyes; galaxies of pine and cedar, humus and tussock. They bloom from the black hole in the centre, surrounded by sapphire blue. He's not human, you think, but it doesn't surprise you because you already knew. Have known, really—ever since you asked around for his name and watched the same strange fog seep into their eyes as they struggled to remember a man they claimed to know. 

Ever since you found bushels of figs on your doorstep. 

A crown of pine needles and crow feathers. 

Price leans over you, brows knotted together like the gnarled, weaving trunk of a Great Basin Bristlecone Pine. 

There's a forest fire in his eyes. "You're mine, aren't you?" 

You think about the trinkets left on your doorstep. The whispers, the screams. 

"Did you ever give me a choice?" 

The tension in his brow snaps taut. Agony frissons through the spaced canyons; whet from ire and slick from sorrow. He bends down, and shakes his head. 

"I've always given you a choice," his words are smouldering logs, crackling with his pain. "I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?"

Price takes you on the mossy forest floor, fingers digging into the peat as you sink, down, down, down—

His hand under your head, cradling the back of your skull, keeps you from getting swallowed by the grass knoll that breathes and trill against your spine. 

Fire licks in the crevasses of his eyes, molten desperation you can't ignore. He rages above you, quivering in the fading glow of the sunset struggling to slip through the canopy. No longer a man but a myth. He hangs over you with his canines bared, and flashes of anger and sorrow scorch the path his teeth leave behind on your skin. 

You're becoming unmoored. Each touch, and brush; each sweep of his tongue soothing the indents of his razor-sharp teeth all seem to loosen the ties that thread through your soul, anchoring you to the world that stands in full bloom before you. 

The forest shudders with his frantic pace; each piston of his hips leaks his fervent anguish and makes the trees croon, and creak as they bow their foliage in sorrow. His pain lashes through their roots, and rent the air in two. A fox mourns his loss in the distance. A wolf yowls in agony. His brethren lifting their muzzle to the sleepy moon, and howling out the melody of their despair. 

It's too much, too much, and you fall into pieces in his hands, shivering beneath him as the woods around you tremble and quake. It's a mesmerising dance. 

He finishes with a grunt that makes the world shudder anew, spending himself as deep inside of you as he can, as if he could overwrite your empty spaces with himself. Fill you to the brim until you are bursting with him, with life. Tulips for your eyes. Furze for veins. Moss for hair. Peat soil for blood. 

When he speaks, the world falls silent. 

"You don't know it yet, but you will. You've always been mine. Always belonged to the forest, to the earth. To me."

Despite his words, he lets you go. 

And you run, run, run—

Your toes dig into the wet soil near the stream. The desperate catapult across the ravine halted at the very last moment, leaving you winded and shaking. Hands clenched into tight balls by your side. Quivering with fear, with the adrenaline rush still roaring in your veins. 

You don't know what you're doing. 

The whispers in your head go silent. 

The absence of sound makes you mourn, and you think about his agony. The pain when he took you, the resignation when he let you go. 

You think of him, and you know. 

I've always told you to go, but you couldn't stay away, could you?

You scent napalm in the air, cloying despite the acrid burn that scalds your lungs when you breathe in deep, holding it there. 

You think of the chest inside your closet. The pieces of yourself you left behind. The way he fits you like a puzzle, like he was made for you. Designed with your rough edges in mind. Softening your hard lines; scouring your gritty surface it was smooth and shiny like fire Opal and precious gems. 

Ever since you felt his hand on your shoulder, you haven't been able to let go. 

(You don't even think you ever really tried.)

Come to me, the forest says, honey in your ears. It sounds like the rapid beat of a million birds' wings, ready to take flight. Pulsing and alive and full of wonder, childish glee. 

The earth blooms in your chest. You feel the soft, tender caress of the leaves against your skin, the moss sinking between your toes. Clinging to your flesh, desperate to get inside, and take refuge in your heart. Come home to us.

Your grandmother warned you to stay out of the forest, that it was dangerous. Deadly. Wrong. But how can it ever harm you when it touches you so sweetly? 

The branches curl around your ankles as you walk, leading you, guiding you, to the place where you belong. The forest opens around you, spreads apart and makes room for you to pass, touching you as you go, taking little pieces of you. Strands of your hair, the salt from your tears. Pieces of clothes. Parts of your soul. 

You pluck your heart out of your chest, and leave it beneath a gnarled sequoia. She will protect it forever. 

Moss grows inside of the empty space. A tern makes a nest inside of it, filling it with a bed of pine needles, and twigs from the junipers. You feel a mouse make a home in your rib cage, burrowing between your bones. You place your hand over your side, and feel her nuzzle against your palm. 

"You're safe now," you say. "We're almost home."

It's Gaz who greets you with a crown made of sugi. When he cups your face, you feel raging rivers and streams in his palms, and now that you are home. 

"Missed you, dandelion," he breathes, and his voice turns into a Chinook that crests over the mountains. "But there's someone who wants to see you."

His hands slide down to your wrists, and you feel the sun grazing your skin when he spins you around, around, around—

"Now," he leans down, pressing his lips to the shell of your ear. You hear the Falcons nesting in his chest, and smell pine in his breath. "He's been an impatient bastard, you know? Just moping about ever since you left—"

A scoff. You lift your head and feel the swell of the earth beneath your feet. Dizzying. Wanting. 

He waits for you in the thicket, eyes made of sapphire and stone. When he breathes, the forest swells with his breath, and you taste loam when you swallow. 

"A sorry sap, thinkin' you were runnin' away, and all. But you won't, will you?" Gaz pushes you forward, and his laughter rings in your ears. "Not anymore."

Price meets you in the middle, his eyes sparkling embers. A baptism in fire. You feel the heat on your skin, and shiver. 

You used to be afraid of forest fires, but you know, now, that sometimes trees need to burn before they can truly grow. 

Lodgepole roots bud under his skin, rippling veins across a ravine. He rests his hand against your cheek, thumb brushing the dawn redwood needles that bloom under your skin. 

"Welcome home."

"They'll give you gifts," your gran says, shaking her head. "Things from their realm. Little trinkets and gems—" geodes, sapphires and diamonds, raw gold and coral; "—and you must never accept them," a whittled deer made of sequoia under your pillow; crow bones buried in the garden."Because if you do, if you do, they'll never let you go." 

"Why?" You asked, blinking at her. 

"Because it's a courting ritual, and to accept means… well," her mouth twists in wry disdain. "Just don't." 

You don't tell her that you already have. You don't mention the sticks and precious stones that always ended up on your windowsill. The whispers of the forest calling your name. 

You nod sagely instead, fingers tightening around the sap stained heart chiselled from Bristlecone Pine. The charred ends are warm in your palm. You feel it pulse. 

Will you accept this? My heart? Will you keep it safe for me? 

"I will."

This was meant to be light and fluffy and smutty but now it's. This. And um. Oops. I hope you enjoyed it!

JOHN PRICE MASTERLIST | NAVIGATION PART THREE OF COD X MYTHOLOGY ⁞ SOAP ● DRAGON PRICE

[dreamtofus]

Broken Tension

Author's Ramble: i kinda did a spin on it cus it was hard to imagine daryl doing anything ever (im delu). anyways i'm literally struggling but i guess writing is like a fresh breath!! i actually write poetry but im insane so i'd rather post my stories for crazy people rather than my beautiful knotted strings of words. (guys someone tell me if second person present or third person past is better)

Prompt: Daryl x Reader smut but the kids interrupt (there's no smut sorreee)

Summary: You and Daryl seem to have something going on and try to take it upstairs, only to find a surprise awaiting you

Contains: Slight mention of alcohol, pretty gender neutral I think , Carl and Judith mentioned

Word Count: 435

The stairs creek with pressure as your hands intertwine, leading him up the stairs, a light jog set in your pace. You recall the moment previously shared with Daryl, only to feel the apples of your cheeks warm in response. You're grateful the hallway is dim.

Flushing your brain for the recent memory, you had found yourself grabbing his neck to push him closer, protected from Deanna's partygoers by a sturdy green bush. The rough pebbles and debris poked your knees, but how could you mind when Daryl was compressing his rose lips against yours? When the two of you decided the lack of privacy was suffocating, you wrapped his hand in yours, leading to your house.

Your foot lands on the final step of the wooden planks, resulting in a whining screech. Your back hits the wall as a large chest presses you against the wall. He's sloppy, messy, sensual, and maybe slightly buzzed. Once you press away he takes the hint, leading you to your bedroom.

The wide knobby oak plank door is pushed open by a sturdy hand. You follow him, only to hit your nose between his lower shoulder blades. Taken aback by the sudden halt, you look around him to meet a surprising duo.

Judith smiles sweetly at you, while Carl adorns a jackass smile.

You take a stride away from Daryl and into the room.

"Hey, what's up?" You smile bashfully, like a child caught in the act of something forbidden.

A flustered red adorns the apples of your face.

Carl slightly wiggles his eyebrows, slowly giving you a sly smile as his eyes slowly dart between you and Daryl. Judith doesn't suspect anything, much to your relief. Daryl situates himself against the door frame, biting the side of his thumb.

Judith casually looks up at you, "We left my books here. Sorry..."

"It's quite late. I'm sure your parents would like you both home soon." Your lips purse into a tight and awkward slight.

The little girl nods and collects her books, you pat her back when she walks past you. Daryl shifts, allowing Judith to exit with Carl on her heels. Carl doesn't miss the opportunity to wink at Daryl (getting a shy grunt in return), before closing the door behind him.

An idle moment of silence passes between the two of you, allowing the sound of the front door shutting to be heard. You pace towards Daryl and cup his face between your hands in a schmaltzy manner. You lean into a slotted soul kiss as his hands find the waist of your figure.

Tags: @kdogreads

[jackshomoeroticthoughts]

I hate Marla. I hate her crooked teeth. I hate her 1960s haircut. I hate her knobby knees. I hate her cockroach-shaped splotch on her neck. I hate the way she smacks her lips before she talks. And I hate the way she sounds when she laughs.

[fanfoolishness]

Senescence

Clones have always lived on borrowed time. On a trip home from the Rebellion, Omega and her family reach a new understanding. Bittersweet soft family feels, ~2700 words. Written for the @summer-of-bad-batch prompts "Just when were you planning on telling us me that?" and "Yeah, kid, we're fine."

---

Don’t go in blasters blazing, Omega thought, despite the fact that she felt so furious she thought she might climb out of her skin. She thought of Mon Mothma, working in the Imperial Senate and keeping her face calm even when she was lying through her teeth. She could do it too. She keyed in the code and her brothers’ front door opened up.

Hunter was sitting on the couch, his bandaged leg propped up on a footstool. A new walker stood nearby.  A guilty expression lodged immediately on his face, and he threw a blanket over his leg, trying to conceal it. “Hey, look who’s back!” he said warmly, though his eyes still looked furtive.

Batcher woofed slightly, creaking to her feet and shambling towards her. Omega sank to her knees in the entry area, patting Batcher furiously. She could feel the knobbiness of Batcher’s spine through her fur now, aged muscles having wasted, but Batcher was just as pleased to see her as ever. Omega closed her eyes, taking a deep breath and feeling heartened by Batcher’s excitement. “Thanks, girl,” she whispered.

She got to her feet, setting her things down.. She heard the bedroom door open and Wrecker came down the hall, calling to Hunter as he came, his cane stumping down the hall. “Hey, who’s that at the -- Omega!” He closed the distance to her, setting his cane against the wall and flinging his arms wide for a massive hug, teetering slightly as he did so. Some of her anger dissipated as she went to him and threw her arms around him, bracing herself to lend him a little extra support. She rested her head against his shoulder, sighing gratefully.

“Didn’t know you were comin’ home,” Wrecker said softly, his voice thick. He always got choked up when she came home. She hugged him extra tight. “I’d of baked a cake.”

Omega gave him one last squeeze, then pulled back. Stay calm. “Well,” she said carefully, “I wasn’t planning on it… until a little mynock told me about Hunter’s leg.”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” Hunter said in exasperation from the living room. 

“Oh, really?” Omega came to stand in front of him, crossing her arms over her chest and frowning down at him. He gave her an uneasy smile, then winced. Scrapes and abrasions crisscrossed his chin and nose, along with a bruise along his untattooed cheekbone. He reached up to brush his gray and white hair back from his face, looking sheepish. “So who told you? Phee? Shep? Vik?”

“Phee,” Omega admitted. “She thought I already knew. Said she’d keep an eye on you for me after your accident.” She gave them both a tight smile. “You should’ve seen my face when she told me.” 

“He’s fine,” Wrecker said quickly, sitting down beside Hunter. “Honest. AZI’s been takin’ care of him, and me and Crosshair, too.”

“It was just a little fall,” Hunter said, ducking his head defensively. “It could’ve happened to anyone. You know what the stairs are like when it rains --”

“And just when were you planning on telling me that this ‘little fall’ broke your leg?” she asked. She knew she was raising her voice, her attempt at a calm exterior starting to fail. She turned away from them, taking deep breaths. 

She gazed down at the little alcove opposite the couch, where she had put Tech’s goggles when they first moved in. Now that her brother’s goggles had a place of honor in the Marauder II, the alcove held other things: holoscans of her family through the years, portraits that Crosshair had painted of Tech and Echo, a decorative weaving from Wrecker in Lula’s colors, jewelry Omega had made. And from Hunter, a wooden carving of a familiar skull emblem.

Seeing it all again, her composure broke, and she turned back to them, angrily wiping away tears. 

“Look, kid, we didn’t want to worry you,” Hunter said. “I know you’re mad I didn’t tell you. But I’m gonna be fine. AZI’s got me taken care of, the villagers are helping out with some of our work, it’s not a big deal. Things happen,” he said, giving her one of those steady, calm looks she had so cherished when she was small.

For a moment, she almost believed him.

But she wasn’t small anymore. She was a grown woman blessed with normal aging, but her brothers weren’t, and it was catching up to them. She knew a year or two ago, Hunter could still have caught himself easily from a trip or a fall, could have bounced back with just a little stiffness and a tweaked ankle or wrist. Instead, looking at the scrapes on his face, she realized he’d not only fallen, but hadn’t been able to break the fall at all.

“Omega?” Wrecker asked. He patted the couch beside him, where there was an empty seat between himself and Hunter.

She reluctantly sat down between them, then flung her arms around Hunter, pulling him to her as hard as she could. She tried to fight back tears but they spilled out anyway, hot and damp into the collar of his shirt. He held her, whispering, “I’m sorry, kid. It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay.”

“Is it?” Omega asked, looking hard into his brown eyes, then into Wrecker’s. She laid a hand on Wrecker’s cheek against his scruffy white beard and gave him a watery smile. She turned back to Hunter, leaning forward to rest her forehead against his. “You’re getting older so fast,” she whispered. “All of you. And I’m… I’m scared.”

She and Hunter breathed in, breathed out, like they’d done a hundred times before.  But that was different; that was back when she was a kid. She pulled away from him to rest her face in her hands. “We’re… losing a lot of people. Our base on Hoth was overrun, and it was a total mess. We’re doing our best but the Empire’s so massive. And when it gets hard I think of all of you. It’s like, at least there’s somewhere safe out there, somewhere the Empire can’t touch, where I know the people I love are going to be all right. Except I don’t know that now.”

Wrecker rested his hand on her shoulder, and Hunter reached out, resting one hand on her knee. “We take care of each other, kid,” Wrecker said. “An’ when we can’t… well, we’re figurin’ out how to ask for help. We’re not alone here, and we’re not the first people to ever get old.” He managed a chuckle, though his eyes were watery. “We’re just doin’ it a little faster than usual.”

“It isn’t fair,” Omega said, as much as she knew it made her sound like a kid. She shook her head at herself, laughing ruefully. “I know life isn’t fair. But this is hard. I wish I was here with you.”

“No you don’t,” Hunter said in a gruff voice, which he followed with a soft smile. “You thought Wrecker talked too much about bodily functions before, you should hear him get going now that he’s got actual ailments.”

“Hey,” Wrecker said, sticking out his tongue. “At least you know what mine are. Crosshair’s always moanin’ under his breath, but when you ask him why, he just goes ‘ohhh it’s nothing.’ That’s worse!”

“And I just get cranky when something’s bothering me. Like this leg,” Hunter admitted. He twitched aside the blanket covering his leg, revealing a cast that went almost to his knee. 

Omega sighed, smiling at him. “You have been extra cranky the last call or two.” She nudged him in the shoulder. “I should have realized something was up, but I was a little distracted with the whole saving the galaxy thing.”

The front door opened, and they turned to see Crosshair come in, carrying a bag of fresh fruit and a well-worn leather satchel. He stopped immediately at seeing Omega. “Omega,” he said, a smile spreading over his deeply lined face. Then he scanned the couch and saw that Hunter’s cast and the walker were visible. His shoulders slumped. “So you know about Hunter’s little spill.”

“I know you didn’t tell me either,” Omega accused, though her anger had nearly faded away. She got to her feet, giving him a fierce look for a moment as he set down the fruit and his satchel of art supplies. She tried to look as stern as possible, though a smile kept threatening to break out on her face.

Crosshair held out both hands in supplication, one flesh, one metal. His metal hand seemed to be working smoothly; she’d check with him before she left in case it needed any tuning up. He sighed. “Truce? Hunter swore me to secrecy.”

“Me too,” Wrecker pointed out. 

“So this is all Hunter’s fault?” Omega asked, looking around at all three of them.

“As usual,” said Crosshair.

Hunter shrugged. “Guilty.”

“Well, now that that’s settled,” said Crosshair, raising his eyebrows at Omega. “I believe you owe me a hug.” 

“Oh, of course I do,” Omega said. She strode to the kitchen, pulling her youngest brother into an embrace. He lowered his head slightly, resting his cheek against hers, his white beard soft against her skin. “Love you, little brother,” she whispered.

“Love you, Omega,” he whispered, quietly enough that only she could hear him.

She pulled back, letting him go. “C’mon.”

“Come on, what?”

“House meeting,” she said. “Now. I know I don’t technically live here anymore --”

“Excuse me, you’ll always have a room here, kid!”

“But there’s some things we need to talk about.”  

---

It was late, and they’d talked through Batcher’s afternoon walk, into dinnertime, well past moonrise. Through the large window in the living room Omega could see the stars spangling the night sky, a fraction of all that lay beyond them. The waning moon wheeled high. She turned to her brothers, stifling a yawn.

“Sure you can’t stay longer?” Hunter asked. “At least a few days.”

“I told you, Hunter, I’m expected back at 1200 tomorrow. I’ll have to leave first thing in the morning,” Omega said. “Hera’s working off some new intel and she’ll need backup. I can’t let her down.” She smiled tiredly. “But I didn’t want to let all of you down, either.”

“You couldn’t possibly,” said Crosshair. His glasses slipped down the bridge of his nose, and he nudged them up. Not for the first time she wondered how much he and Tech might have looked alike by this age, a bittersweet thought.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you myself, kid,” Hunter said. “But we’ll agree to your demands.”

“When’d you get so good at negotiating?” Wrecker asked, shaking his head.

“Just one of my many skills,” Omega laughed. “So you mean it? If one of you, including Batcher, gets seriously sick or injured, will you actually tell me next time?”

“As long as it’s worse than a sniffle,” Hunter amended. “You don’t need to worry about every little ache and pain. We’re going to get older. That’s just how it works.” He gave her a sad smile. “Clones have always lived on borrowed time. We’ve gotten more than most.”

She swallowed, her throat tight. As much as she wanted her brothers to slow everything down, to age slowly and gently like Shep and Phee, she knew that no one possessed the power to undo what the Kaminoans had created. She had to accept that someday, sooner than she could bear, all of them would follow Tech and Echo before them. 

But her brothers were brave. They always had been. She would be, too.

Omega nodded. “I understand. I know this is what we’ve been dealt. And I know we’ve been so, so lucky to have had the time we did.” She wiped at her eyes, blinking back more tears. “So stupid. I told myself I wasn’t going to cry again.”

“We’re not dyin’ right now,” Wrecker laughed. He was crying again, too, fresh tears on his cheeks, but his laugh was as big and booming as ever. “So don’t worry too much about us just yet.”

“Yeah, kid,” said Hunter, giving her a kind smile, his eyes a little too bright. “We’re fine. Honest.”

Crosshair brought out a fresh toothpick, angling it between his teeth. He puffed up his chest. “Don’t worry, Omega. I’ll keep an eye on these old-timers.”

“You know you’re only the youngest by a standard week, right?” Omega said, giggling.

“With accelerated aging, it could be a few weeks,” said Crosshair loftily. “I’ll make the most of it.”

“Oh sure, laugh it up, whippersnapper,” Hunter snorted.

“Okay, okay, you grumpy old men, some of us have to get to bed and go fight a rebellion,” Omega laughed. “Come on. Let me give you all another hug.”

“Won’t say no to that,” said Wrecker. He went to foist himself up from the couch, then paused, holding up his hand. “Mind giving me a hand? Back’s been killing me.”

“Any time, Wrecker.” She braced herself, holding out her hand for him to grip. Together they got him to his feet, and she handed him his cane automatically. He leaned against it, holding out his other arm as wide as he could, engulfing her in a massive hug. Her ear was pressed against his chest, and she listened to his heartbeat, its rhythm strong and steady.  “Love you, you know.”

“‘Course I know. Love you, too,” he murmured. “Keep takin’ good care of Lula for me.”

Crosshair was next. Even though Crosshair wasn’t as thin as he used to be, it was still always funny going from hugging Wrecker to hugging him. Her arms wrapped securely around him, and he held her close. He’d shrunk a little, and she’d grown, to the point there were only a few centimeters between their heights now. “Drawing anything new?” she murmured into his ear.

“Some of the birds from around the island,” he confessed. He still got shy sometimes about his work, even though he was always learning new things. “I can show you next time.”

“Of course. Looking forward to it, Crosshair.”

Hunter was last. She sat down on the couch beside him, resting her head on his shoulder as he put his arm around her. She slipped one arm behind his back and curled up beside him. “How does your leg feel?” she asked quietly.

“It hurts, but it’s manageable,” said Hunter. “I’ll follow all of AZI’s instructions. Promise.”

“You’d better. I’m sure Batcher misses her walks with you.”

“She’s adapting. But I miss them too,” he admitted. “So I’ll work hard to heal this. And we’ll let you know if there’s a problem.”

“Okay.”

“Okay.”

She snuggled in closer to him, feeling safer than she had in a long time. “I love you, Hunter.”

“Love you so much, kid.”

---

She lay on her back in her bed in her childhood bedroom, watching the stars glow and twinkle across the ceiling. Batcher snored contentedly on the floor beside her, flopped peacefully on her side. Everything here was as Omega had left it, though she had told them they could use the space for other things if they needed. Clearly her brothers had their own idea.

It had been hard for them when she left, she knew that, but it was something she needed to do. It was going to be hard to leave this time, too, knowing that every time she came home, they’d be a little bit older, a little bit frailer. 

Knowing that maybe someday she’d lose them, without getting to say goodbye.

Omega closed her eyes. She remembered the green smells of Kashyyyk, the sound of Pabu’s waves, Crosshair’s hand in hers, years ago. She took a deep breath, reminding herself that she was here, and so were her brothers. The future hadn’t arrived yet; there was only the present. And in the present she knew her brothers loved her, and they knew she loved them in return.

That would never change. She was more sure of it than anything. 

Omega smiled, and she carried that thought in every breath, in every heartbeat, until at last she fell asleep.

[jackoshadows]

In the books:

White Harbor

“Was ever snow so black?” asked Lord Wyman. “Ramsay took Lord Hornwood’s lands by forcibly wedding his widow, then locked her in a tower and forgot her. It is said she ate her own fingers in her extremity…and the Lannister notion of king’s justice is to reward her killer with Ned Stark’s little girl.” - Davos, ADwD

Winterfell:

"The bride weeps," Lady Dustin said, as they made their way down, step by careful step. "Our little Lady Arya." ... What do you think passes through their heads when they hear the new bride weeping? Valiant Ned's precious little girl." ... "Lady Arya's sobs do us more harm than all of Lord Stannis's swords and spears. - The Turncloak, ADwD

The Boltons about the Northmen marching with Stannis:

“Even ruined and broken, Winterfell remains Lady Arya’s home. What better place to wed her, bed her, and stake your claim? Let Stannis march on us. He is too cautious to come to Barrowton…but he must come to Winterfell. His clansmen will not abandon the daughter of their precious Ned to such as you. - - Reek, ADwD

The northmen marching with Stannis:

"Winter is almost upon us, boy. And winter is death. I would sooner my men die fighting for the Ned’s little girl than alone and hungry in the snow, weeping tears that freeze upon their cheeks. No one sings songs of men who die like that. As for me, I am old. This will be my last winter. Let me bathe in Bolton blood before I die. I want to feel it spatter across my face when my axe bites deep into a Bolton skull. I want to lick it off my lips and die with the taste of it on my tongue." - The King's Prize, ADwD

Stannis to Lord Commander Jon Snow:

… more northmen coming in as word spreads of our victory. Fisherfolk, freeriders, hillmen, crofters from the deep of the wolfswood and villagers who fled their homes along the stony shore to escape the ironmen, survivors from the battle outside the gates of Winterfell, men once sworn to the Hornwoods, the Cerwyns, and the Tallharts. We are five thousand strong as I write, our numbers swelling every day. And word has come to us that Roose Bolton moves toward Winterfell with all his power, there to wed his bastard to your half sister. He must not be allowed to restore the castle to its former strength. We march against him. Arnolf Karstark and Mors Umber will join us. I will save your sister if I can, and find a better match for her than Ramsay Snow. You and your brothers must hold the Wall until I can return. - Jon, ADwD

Lord Commander Jon Snow on the Wall:

"He's to marry Arya Stark. My little sister." Jon could almost see her in that moment, long-faced and gawky, all knobby knees and sharp elbows, with her dirty face and tangled hair. They would wash the one and comb the other, he did not doubt, but he could not imagine Arya in a wedding gown, nor Ramsay Bolton's bed. No matter how afraid she is, she will not show it. If he tries to lay a hand on her, she'll fight him. "Your sister," Iron Emmett said, "how old is …" By now she'd be eleven, Jon thought. Still a child. "I have no sister. Only brothers. Only you." Lady Catelyn would have rejoiced to hear those words, he knew. That did not make them easier to say. His fingers closed around the parchment. Would that they could crush Ramsay Bolton's throat as easily. - Jon, ADwD

You know nothing, Jon Snow. He thought of Arya, her hair as tangled as a bird's nest. I made him a warm cloak from the skins of the six whores who came with him to Winterfell … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … I want my bride back … "I think we had best change the plan," Jon Snow said.

The roar was all he could have hoped for, the tumult so loud that the two old shields tumbled from the walls. Soren Shieldbreaker was on his feet, the Wanderer as well. Toregg the Tall, Brogg, Harle the Huntsman and Harle the Handsome both, Ygon Oldfather, Blind Doss, even the Great Walrus. I have my swords, thought Jon Snow, and we are coming for you, Bastard. - Jon, ADwD

Stannis sending Arya to Jon Snow for a debt owed

"Oh, and take the Stark girl with you. Deliver her to Lord Commander Snow on your way to Eastwatch." Stannis tapped the parchment that lay before him. "A true king pays his debts." Pay it, aye, thought Theon. Pay it with false coin. Jon Snow would see through the imposter at once. Lord Stark's sullen bastard had known Jeyne Poole, and he had always been fond of his little half-sister Arya. - Theon, TWoW

Even the traitors Karstark pretending like the others:

Lord Arnolf shoved himself up, a vulture rising from its prey. One spotted hand clutched at his son’s shoulder for support. “We’ll take (Winterfell) for the Ned and for his daughter.” - The Sacrifice, ADwD

Us reading A Dance for Dragons: The North is marching for Lady Arya Stark of Winterfell, daughter of Ned Stark. Arya Stark is a pivotal character, a Key to the North around whom the North plot revolves. Various Northern factions are uniting behind her, the Lord Commander broke several oaths of neutrality and died trying to save her, two kings tried to save her.

Sansa stans/Jonsa shippers:

They hate it so much that the North plot revolves around Arya that the only thing they can do again and again is gaslight the fandom with this false equivalence that talking about Arya's importance to the North is making light of Jeyne's rape and abuse.

Also, Ramsay marries Arya Stark to give legitimacy to his stake over the North as Lord of Winterfell. Which is why Manderly wants Rickon because his claim supersedes Arya's. These morons pretending that discussing this plot is an insult to Arya while they hand over all of Arya's book themes, characterization and relationships to their fave is hilarious.

Like every other day there is a post of how Sansa is the MOST IMPORTANT because EVERYONE WANTS TO MARRY HER and she is the ONLY KEY TO THE NORTH - because the Lannisters, Tyrells and LF are all plotting to marry her off etc. The whole Jonsa shite is about Sansa deigning to make the poor bastard Jon legitimate by marrying him etc. Their world revolves around Sansa's marriage. But apparently discussing how Arya's marriage to Ramsay to hold the North is driving the Northern plot is insulting to Arya's character 🤣

When even the author has given all these interviews pointing out that replacing Jeyne with Sansa on the TV show changed the entire story because 'Fake Arya' is essential to what is happening in the North, these stans can only regurgitate this tired old nonsense and attack book readers for discussing what is actually in the books instead of making up headcanons on how their unqualified fave is the only candidate to be QITN