thisapplepielife · 2 days ago
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Written for the @corrodedcoffinfest Seven Deadly Sins pop-up event.
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Prompt: Wrath | Word Count: 1313 | Rating: T | CW: Language, Property Damage | POV: Goodie | Relationship(s): Steddie, Background Buckingham | Tags: Modern Setting, Famous Corroded Coffin, Pissed Off Eddie Munson, Lavender Marriage, Steve & Chrissy, Secret Relationships, The Goddamn Prying Paparazzi, Chosen Families: No Matter How Unconventional
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Goodie scrolls and scrolls and scrolls. His phone screen is getting hot in his hand because he's been reading so long. Continuously scouring for more information. Refresh. Refresh. Refresh. This can't be happening. Eddie's gonna lose his fucking mind. There are blind items, and a copy of Alex's birth certificate being posted for the world to see.
And the tweets. 
Not to mention the fucking Reddit threads. Comment after comment. 
Goodie wants to kill them all. Rain down a pox on them and theirs for doing this. For digging. For getting into things that are of no goddamn concern of theirs. They need to mind their own fucking business.
Eddie's gonna explode. The shower is still running, and Goodie's standing guard outside of the door. Staying between Eddie and his phone. Goodie'd reached in and swiped it off the vanity, just to be extra careful.
Jeff and Gareth better get their asses here, and soon. See if they can limit the fallout. Eddie's off social media, but this dam is gonna break and word is gonna trickle to him if they don't hurry up and get there first.
"Eddie," Gareth says, and they've corralled Eddie. Cornered him, and now all they can do is watch him rage. He's destroying his hotel room. But none of them are about to tell him to knock it the fuck off. Not today. Not over this. 
He bounces off the wall and Goodie braces for impact. Catches and releases him in one fluid motion.
"Eddie, you can't do this," Jeff says, but Eddie's not listening. 
But Eddie's got a temper, a short fuse, always has. But it's never manifested like this before. 
"You're too old to act like this!" Gareth screams, and fuck if he isn't right.
But they've also never dealt with anything this personal before, either. And it spiraled into a major scandal in one afternoon. Their PR is working on a spin, but Goodie's not sure how they're gonna get Eddie out of this one. Enough of it's true, a straight denial is never gonna work. Eddie is on the birth certificate of a brand new baby. With a woman married to someone else. Living in the suburbs, with three other kids at home. 
Those are just facts. There's no getting around 'em. Everything about this is bad optics. 
It's just the context these fucking vultures don't know, and honestly, don't deserve to know.
Chrissy's been married to Steve for nearly twenty years, but he's been with Eddie longer. Chrissy, with Robin. Those kids? Shared in a way Goodie can't understand. It's a fucking mess, and not anything Goodie would want any part of, personally, but they did what they thought they needed to do back then. And until now it had worked. 
Only this time, they used Eddie's sperm and his name on the birth certificate. Not realizing people would dig around, gleefully releasing that info. 
A good marriage, as lavender as it may be, about to be blown to fucking smithereens. 
Eddie, slandered, shamed. 
Steve's not here. Steve's in the fucking Palisades, at home. Probably getting ready for a PTA meeting or practice. The perfect stay-at-home dad, with the perfect wife, who loves her job and works long hours.
Eddie screams at the top of his lungs, and they're gonna get complaints. Even in the middle of the day. 
Gareth goes in, wrapping his arms around Eddie, trying to hold on, trying to calm him down. But Eddie shoves him off, and Goodie takes a fucking knee with a thud that fucking hurts, goddammit, but he makes it down in time to catch Gareth. The last thing they need is Gareth with two broken arms from catching himself on the floor under this thin carpet.
"Thanks," Gareth breathes, hands squeezing both of Goodie's shoulders, sprawled on top of him. It knocked the wind out of Goodie, but neither of them are hurt, and Jeff helps both of them right themselves. As much as they can, right now, anyway.
They might be done for a little while. This might not blow over. Eddie might get arrested if he can't pull his shit together. Quick.
Goodie supposes that depends on the route Steve and Eddie and Chrissy and Robin want to take. Come clean, or batten the hatches and take the onslaught until something more scandalous comes along in the news cycle.
"Sorry," Eddie says, reaching for Gareth, and Gareth reaches back, wrapping him in a hug. One that Eddie is ready for, this time. "I'm just so mad," he says, under his breath, but it's enough for them all to hear. "I know," Jeff says, "we'll find a way to fix it. We will. You'll see."
Goodie goes back to his own room and calls Steve.
"Oh, yeah, they're here," Steve says, and describes the paparazzi standing outside of the gated house. 
"At least they aren't on the lawn?"
Steve laughs, and Steve's not worked up in the slightest, it seems.
"Eddie's having some sort of mental breakdown, and you're just, what, fine?" Goodie asks.
"I'm not fine, but there's no reason to get so fucking worked up. Can you put him on the phone?"
"He's not in here, but I'll get him to call you."
"Tell him it's fine. We're fine. Whatever happens, it's all fine. I'm fine. Chrissy's fine. The kids are fine. Robin's fine. Tell him we're all good over here."
"I will," Goodie says, and he's not sure Eddie will accept good as an answer today, but he'll try.
They are past the point that being queer is gonna tank Eddie's career. So, Goodie doesn't think it's the coming out that has Eddie in such a goddamn tizzy. Goodie's pretty sure it's the loss of normalcy for the kids, for Steve, Chrissy, and Robin that he's furious about, that he's mourning. Steve loves Eddie, but he wanted a family, a life and a home.
He didn't want to spend a lifetime on the road. So, a plan was hatched. A deal in place, and it's worked so damn well. For decades. Eddie had a homebase nobody knew about, Steve has his three kids and a pool-full of age-groupers to coach.
Maybe if they were coming of age now, they wouldn't have taken this route. Adoption for two queer men would have been an option. But, twenty years ago, this was the best idea they had. 
And now here they are. Freaks. Front page news.
Goodie basically scruffs Eddie like an angry cat, even if he's not currently shredding the curtains, and marches him right to his phone.
"Call Steve. He's good. You'll feel better after you do."
"What if our phones are bugged?" Eddie asks.
"Jesus H. Christ, Ed, so what if they are? Fuck 'em. There's no tap dancing out of this one. Some sort of the truth is gonna have to be announced. Don't fuck things up with your family because you're mad things aren't exactly as you want them to be."  
That's a problem Eddie has, and they all know it. It's his way, or the highway, always. And they've all stupidly catered to it maybe a little too much over the years.
But Goodie watches him dial, and waits until he's sure he's connected and calm. 
"Hi," Eddie says, then adds, "Anything new going on?"
And Goodie can hear Steve laughing through the phone, and Goodie's blood pressure plummets back to normal. It's gonna be fine.
Steve's got it from here. 
Back in the safety of his own room, Goodie crashes into the chair, and pulls out his own phone. It's finally cooled down, though the battery is depleting.
He calls home, too.
"You're famous," she says, and he laughs.
"Fucking Eddie. My knee hurts," he says, and then starts gossiping in the way you only can with your spouse. Telling her everything he knows.
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If you want to write your own, or see more entries for this challenge, pop on over to @corrodedcoffinfest and follow along with the fun! 🦇
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smalltimidbean · 8 months ago
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I was trying to draw something else, but this sketch was too cute not to finish
#1340 has a pouch by default, so he might as well use it by letting one of Pea Pod's twins snooze in there, and let the tired Mama have a nap too
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astarlightmonbebe · 4 days ago
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the dynamics and characters in fangs of fortune are already serving so hard only two episodes in. the allure to zhu yan and also the distrust we as the audience feel along with wen xiao and yichen - you want to believe him, but on the basis of his being a demon and the conception that comes with you always feel like there's a catch. is he lying? is he telling the truth? is he twisting the truth? there's obviously an ulterior motive hidden behind his words, and yet he knows exactly what to say to trap both of them in promises that they will surely regret.
yichen being forced to work with the demon he believes, knows, killed his family. the way he struggles to uphold his family name, fighting to succeed a legacy passed onto him incomplete with his father's untimely passing. giving up his home because it lost all its meaning to him. the curse being seen as a blessing, either way an inevitability. he will kill zhu yan.
wen xiao's hidden pain. her trying to do good, but also so clear headed underneath, wise beyond her ears. the way her flirtatious nature can ovetake her, but she never lets anyone get the best of her otherwise. her testing of zhu yan is relentless; she's the vulnerable one, but she refuses to let it show.
the way they're going to build a family with a demon, a girl who has stepped away from everything she once believed, a miracle doctor who's really just a teenager. how this will teach them humanity and loss and everything will not be what it seems. how the tension is cut so easily, so naturally, then builds back up with climbing orchestral music. everything is beautiful and deep and so multi layered and i am so sat for this show.
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cuteniaarts · 2 months ago
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@katkastrofa, circa 40-ish hours ago: Hey, what if our newest bunch of OCs adopted a baby from one of the other brothel girls who knew she couldn’t afford to raise one? That would make for some fun shenanigans :D
Me, with a notoriously non existent sleep schedule, instinct of self preservation or concern for my poor wrist: Alright, bet. Watch how fast I can make you fall in love with this hypothetical baby >:)
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Daneli as a gentle and loving caretaker-turned-adoptive-mother is something that can be So Personal, actually, and originally I was going to leave it at this quick sketch, but then I got carried away thinking about what this child will grow up to be like raised by this little gang of misfits, so…
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Here she is!! A little older and so, so beautiful, I need more of her in my life immediately, she’s way too precious
And, because I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t also add a sapphic element to this absolute cinnamon roll, a small crack ship that I’m only half serious about for when she’s a little older still:
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All in all, we may be getting impossibly far from canon, but I for one already cannot get enough of sweet darling Kumisai <3
(I fully drew three pieces from scratch in 9 hours I cannot feel my brain or my hands anymore send help)
#my art#artists on tumblr#the legend of korra#original characters#jinora#wow. nia drew a canon character? what is this?? who was I replaced by???#but joking aside. a small explanation for this crack ship#originally it was me editing my timeline and realising that Kumisai would be around 14/15 during book 4. the same age as Jinora#so my mind immediately went 👀👀👀 and I decided to go for it#since in sotrl I sorta implied Jinora had a gay awakening by watching Suiren. so.. why not go all out and make her another baby queer?#no offence to Kai. what they had was rather cute tbh. but it felt kinda out of nowhere and just added for the sake of parental drama#plus she was a young girl meeting someone her age for the first time. of course she got a crush#doesn’t mean she has to stick with it you know?#anyway. as for how they would meet. Midori could introduce them :D#Kumisai is Daneli’s daughter. who’s a friend of Summiya’s. who’s Zaheer’s sister. who’s Midori’s uncle. who’s friends with Jinora#and spirits know Jinora deserves to act her age a little more often. she has way too many responsibilities on her shoulders#so maybe Midori would think that a friend her age would do her some good#and don’t even try to tell me these two wouldn’t be absolutely adorable puppy crushing on each other. look how cute Jinora turned out here#might be the first time I’ve drawn her? not sure. maybe I did before but it was A LONG time ago. 2019 ish#but okay. enough rambling about Jinora. back to Kumisai#I don’t really have too many headcanons about her yet. but she’s probably rather happy and carefree#having a large support system as a result of being raised communally#I think she considers Daneli her mom and the others are her aunties. auntie Shezan in particular is a notoriously bad influence :)#and maybe one day she’d get to meet her bio mom. but only if that’s something both of them want. not sure yet#I feel like she’s rather disconnected from her water tribe heritage since everyone around her is Earth Kingdom. save Phailin who’s half FN#but she still has small hints of blue in her clothing. the colour matching her beautiful eyes. maybe she is curious about her bio dad a bit#since unlike with her bio mom no one knew him and can’t tell her anything. that’s bound to come as a natural curiosity at some point right?#maybe that can be part of her story when she’s an adult. trying to find her bio dad. but ultimately it doesn’t matter that much#because Daneli is her mom and the only parent she needs <3 I’m really just throwing out suggestions here to fill the tag space#kaaatttt come discuss all this stuff with me I waited all night for you to wake up >:) distract me from my grandma’s tv watching
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volivolition · 6 months ago
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Idk if you saw or not but a new chapter of the fury of a shattered mirror dropped last night! I haven’t read it yet but I thought I should let you know 😎👍
awughgh HELL YEAH!! ive been away from my laptop for a while so i didnt see, thank you birdy!! :] this is the best news ive had all day hkjgh <33 excited very excited going to read it now <33
#volta transmissions#SKILLS ARE BACK BABEYYYYYYY!! ehehehehe :] oh i LOVE seeing them come back from just ''??????'' SMILES REALLY HAPPILY#welcome back to the world little ones... oh im so happy to see them... :'] ''You do you softie'' EHEHE... skills interactions :D! yay!!!!!#okay i'll add more liveblogging in the tags as i go probably hkjhg <33 i appreciate you very much birdy <33#''the avant-garde prick is just making shit up again'' HAKJDHKJ... ''You did us proud holding out til the end'' WAH... ENDURANCE... ;O;#WELCOME BACK ENCY SMILES!!! no motorics skills yet though thats to be expected hkjh <3 ency ''you have the facts'' and#empathy ''and the emotions'' HKJGH IS THAT A FACTSFEELINGS SKILLSPOSTING REFERENCE /J lots of voli talking!!! very happy about this <3#VOLITION - ''if we had the logician here...'' ''...'' ''damnit i thought that would work'' HAHAJKSHDSKJH SMILES. HA.#''Punch something. maybe Coach will show up'' HHFKJH... oh my god this makes me so happy... cmon we gotta get the gang back together...#half light!! hello!! my darling!! LETS GO!! ough buT NOT ENOUGH TO GET ARMS BACK NOOUIGHJ MOTORICS WHERE ARE YOU LITTLE BUDDIES???#''try to get eyes back online'' ''come on come on--'' OUGH I LOVE... i love how theyre all supporting each other as they come back online..#TEAMWORK!! CMON LETS GET EVERYONE BACK!! YEAH BOI WE GOT A MOTORICS BACK UP!! HELLO PERCEP! calm down! you need composure in here!!#THE JOYWIRE... OUGH STOP STOP IM SO FOND... VOLI CMON. nooo ourgh takes damage... ''You were really gonna cut me out?'' AWAH... WAHHH!!!!!#ow my heart my HEART. chemi baby my little darling... hugging him kissing his forehead... THERES OUR LOGICIAN HELLO DARLING!!#hkjh trying to cue in interfacing DAMN :'] good metaphor anyway concept it was very well laid. voli keeping track of each of them too hehe#HI DRAMA YAYY! platonic love story! friends!!! ''Neuroplasticity's off the charts.'' ''I'm surprised you know a word that long that isn't-#'''amphetamines''' ''Dextromethorphan asshole'' HAJKSH YOU FUCKING TELL 'EM! YOU'RE NOT E-CHEMISTRY FOR NOTHING!!!#again with trying to get Phys back in hkjhg INLANDDD SMILES HI THERE DREAMER!! Logic just like ''yeah. i hate it here.'' ''have you tried?'#okay this is the 20th tag. hopefully a reblog will be enough to finish out my thoughts but god knows i have so much to say hjhg#esprit: Birdy
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korattata · 2 years ago
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Its so weird acknowledging the parent-child relationships in my rat groups sometimes like. No this rat was a teenage mom and i adopted them BOTH so they are sisters now.
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krosiefics · 3 months ago
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his hoodie • bang chan
M D N I 18+
Synopsis: chan goes to surprise you at your apartment but catches you touching yourself, in his hoodie…moaning out his name.
WC: 1.4k
Tags: smut, afab!reader, bsf!chan, perv!chan kinda, softdom!chan, best friends to lovers, piv, unprotected sex (plz be careful), masturbation, oral sex (f receiving), pet names (baby, pretty), praise kink, fingering (f receiving), mutual pinning, lwk pwp (little plot)…probably forgetting some sorry
The door to your apartment creaked open, your best friend, Chan, peeking his head through the door, hoping you hadn’t noticed him enter. He pushed the door open, wide enough for his body to slip through. In his hands were two bags of random snacks and drinks he knew you liked.
A sudden noise from your bedroom made your presence known to him. The curly haired boy quietly places the plastic bags on your kitchen counter before making his way to your bedroom door giddily, excitement filling up his body. Chan’s always loved the way you smiled, he loved it even more when he was the reason behind your smile.
He noticed that the door was slightly open already so he reached for the doorknob, a soft smile on his lips, but just as his fingers grazed the knob he heard it…a soft moan of his name. The smile he so proudly wore fell, his brows furrowing with confusion. ‘The fuck was that?’ Chan thinks to himself. He gets closer to the door and hears the noise again. Adjusting his gaze to the slight crack, he scans the room for you. There he sees you propped up in your bed resting against the headrest, knees bent open, no underwear, your fingers trailing between your legs as your face scrunched in pleasure.
The sight alone made a rush of arousal go straight to Chan’s cock, his face heating up at the situation he just found himself in. Chan knows he should look away, but he can’t bring himself to, not when you whimper his name so sweetly. Fuck you’re whimpering his name. Chan subconsciously rubs his bulge with his hand, watching you through your door. He feels like a pervert, guilt flooding his body, but another one of your moans washes that guilt out.
“Mm, Chan.” You whine out, your face flushed and your lip caught between your teeth. He can’t take it anymore, Chan pushes the door open softly, leaning against the doorframe. “This isn’t something I expected to walk into.” He cocks his head to the side. Finally noticing your best friend’s presence, you yelp, face paling before grabbing a nearby pillow for coverage. Chan tsks before nearing you.
“Shit you’re in my hoodie too.” Chan practically groans, now he has a good view of you, he sees you in his black hoodie, one that he left here a few days ago. “Oh c’mon. Don’t be shy baby, what happened to the girl who was moaning my name a few seconds ago?” You turn you face away, avoiding eye contact with him.
Chan taps your knee, you glance over at him as he offers you a look, a look that’s asking if what he’s doing is okay. Only then do you realize that his other hand is slowly removing the pillow from your lap.
“This okay?” He asks verbally this time. Your heart is pounding so hard you can feel it in your ears. ‘Is this really happening?!’ You scream internally. You nod again allowing him to reveal yourself to him- again.
Once Chan moved the pillow, throwing it somewhere to the side, his eyes fixated on what had been covered. You glistening cunt that throbbed, yearning to be touched. Chan cursed under his breath as he saw you, exposed and splayed out. He brings his hands to the side of your head, leaning down to your ear before asking, “Can I be the one to make you moan my name, not your fingers.”
“Please.” An instinctive moan erupts from you as his hands trail along your thighs, squeezing them every now and then. “God, you’re so pretty.” Chan grunts as his fingers glide along the edge of your wet folds, making your toes curl in pleasure. He moves his fram lower so that his face is up close to your pussy, he watches as it clenches around nothing, waiting to be filled.
You stare down at him with doe eyes, your face flushed a pink shade, your brows furrowed ever so slightly. Chan shifted his gaze to you, he could feel his heart hammering against his chest, he never wanted this moment to end. He leans in and places a kiss on your clit, suckling and licking at it as you squirm underneath him. Your hands entangle themselves in his curls, hips threatening to grind into his mouth. Chan stabilizes your movement by holding down your hips.
His tongue did wonders, you never wanted him to stop. “Chan, ugh fuck!” You whimpered as his free hand circled your entrance. His fingers worked their way in and out of you, stretching you out, hitting all the right spots. Chan suddenly pulls away from your cunt, leaning forward and placing a kiss on your cheek.
“You’re so pretty love, fuck, I’ve wanted this for so long you have no idea.” Chan buries his face into your neck out of embarrassment of his confession. “Channie,” Your hands cup his face, pulling him away from your neck, “I love you so much…love you so much more than a friend.” You say before being cut off with a kiss. You moan into Chan’s mouth as his fingers rut into you at a faster pace, Chan licks at your mouth, allowing his tongue to enter.
“I love you too baby,” Chan grunts, moving away from the kiss, “lemme show you how much, yeah?”
He says, his hands rubbing at his sweatpants, you could see the outline of his hard bulge. “Fuck yeah.” You breath out shakily. Chan pulls the waistband of his sweats and boxers down, leaving him equally exposed. His hands wrap around his torso, hooking at the hem of his black t-shirt, sliding it over his head and onto the floor somewhere.
You practically drool at the sight of his abs, muscles flexing under your touch as you caress his abdomen with your hands. “Fuck.” You sigh, running your hands up and down his chest. Chan lolls his head back as you feel him up. You wrap your arms around his neck, pulling him closer as your legs hook around his waist, prompting him to grind his cock onto your bare cunt.
His cock sliding easily against your slick, his head poking at your clit makes you throw your head back in pleasure. You make a move to pull his your hoodie off, but Chan’s hands block your own, “Leave the hoodie. Wanna fuck you in my hoodie.” He says as he bites his lower lip.
“Channie, please hurry and fuck me then.” You whine, growing impatient. “Don’t have to tell me twice.” Chan chuckles, lining himself up with your entrance before pushing himself into your pussy, which envelopes him so well.
Chan rolls his hips slowly into you so that you can adjust to his size, he’s not too big but definitely above average. You give him a small nod, a quiet squeak escaping your lips as a go-ahead for him. Chan starts rutting his hips at a slow speed, speeding up when you whine for more stimulation.
“Fuck, you’re so beautiful, so fucking sexy.” Chan grunts at each snap of his hips, thrusts hitting you directly at your g-spot. You moan erotically at his praises, clenching around his throbbing cock.
“S’good Channie,” You manage to say between moans, “Imma cum, holy shit, fuck-“ The sounds of your moans, squelching noises, and slapping of skin echoing off your bedroom wall. You were so glad your apartment has somewhat thicker walls than usual. Your hands dig into the skin of his back, but Chan didn’t mind, if anything it turned him on more, the thought of waking up to marks from the night before excited him. “God I love you.” Chan groans into your ear, thrust becoming sloppy as he nears his high.
“Oh fuck I’m cumming.” You cry out, warm cum spilling out of your cunt onto Chan’s cock. The feeling of your warmth, your cum, and your orgasmic clenching, overwhelmed Chan. As he began to pull out, you were quick with pulling him closer with your legs, “I want it inside.” You groan, the overstimulation starting to be uncomfortable. With your words Chan spilled inside of you with a low moan, his head falling into the crevice of your neck, leaving small kisses there.
A few minutes later after Chan pulled out of you, the two of you cleaned yourselves and the bed up, turned on the tv and cuddled. Chan held you as you laid on his chest, you could hear his heart beating against his ribcage. “I love you,” Chan suddenly breaks the silence over the tv, you turn your head facing him, “I love you too.” a soft smile rests on his lips, “I guess I’ve gotta give you more of my hoodies.”
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yeyinde · 4 months ago
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STRAW HOUSE, STRAW DOG
Baby Trap + Soap x Fem!Reader : or, Johnny finds a wife in the woods and decides to take her home.
18+ | DEAD DOVE, DO NOT EAT: noncon, kidnapping, breeding/baby trapping. somnophilia. implied stalking. obsessive behaviour. forced reliance/dependency. non-con drug use (implied). vulnerable character (injured reader) being preyed upon by an opportunistic scavenger.
Somehow, getting hurt in the remote wilderness of Nahanni National Park without any immediate rescue is the least of your worries when a rugged man shows up and claims he's going to help. Out here, you've been told your biggest fear should be bears, steep canyons, and a swift death with fangs and claws.
But maybe you should have been more concerned about strange men with crowlike smiles and blistering eyes.
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ADDITIONAL TAGS: descriptions of injury. implied head trauma. bearded Soap. smut. this is my love letter to NWT and a what not to do in a national park.
BABY TRAP MASTER LIST | AO3 LINK
It happens in an instant. 
The trek up the fjord narrows suddenly. Chossy growing slick from rainfall the night prior. You pace yourself, stepping carefully on the wobbling slate, testing its resilience before you take another step. Climbing higher. Higher.
There's a storm brewing in the distance. Its burgeoning pace grows rapidly, nipping at your heels as cool winds whistle through the steep valley below.
The park wardens at the visitors centre warned you about it when you set out into the rugged wilderness of Nahanni this morning. Brows pinched, wary, when you'd come to them—all alone—and signed your name on the barren ledger collecting dust on the counter. A fact that drew your attention when you flipped through the empty pages. 
Don't get too many visitors around here, the man murmured, eyes cresting in apprehension at your question. Not the most isolated or remote, no. That's probably higher up. Quttinirpaaq, maybe? Heard from some buddies up there that they had no visitors last year. We do pretty well. About one thousand a year? Usually filmmakers and the like. Adventurous types. Gets kinda lonely up here. Ain't no Banff, that's for sure.
They added that the weather was unpredictable this time of year. All year, really. Nahanni is known for sudden swells and white-outs, for weather that can turn in an instant, going from calm to cataclysmic within seconds. 
(“Storms,” the man huffs, and you think the sigh was meant to be a laugh. One that falls flat when he takes in your hiking boots (too big, but the sales lady at the sporting goods warehouse assured you it was fine, that you would grow into them), and your cheap Lululemon knock-off tights. Your flimsy rucksack. The tinge of green around your ears; the stench of an overeager novice. “And, uh, it’s urban legends.”)
Valley of the Headless Men, he intones, squinting up at you when you ask about them. Adding: be careful out there when you turn to leave.
Dauntless, you still set out into the park, determined to at least make it to your campground before it set in. But the majesty surrounding you on all sides distracted you from your pace. Eyes caught on the Xanadu of an untempered wilderness slowing your trek to a crawl as you took in the steep, rolling batholiths reaching high into the aether, their sides sloping down in a dizzying, vertiginous drop to a lush valley below of scheele’s green below. It all looked so perfectly symmetrical from the high point in the valley where you stood, breathing in the scents that perfumed the air. With the rugged mountains cupped around a winding white line where the river sawed through. 
A lone moose grazed at the bottom of a rolling fell. The sight of her stopping you in your tracks long enough that the plume of darkened clouds—all a terrifying burnt sage—had time to catch up to you, crackling overhead as thunder rumbled through the canyons. 
Your campground is at the top of this ravine. Three nights spent inside a cabin with nothing but yourself and several paperbacks for company. Into the Wild amongst them—a morbid parting gift from a friend on what not to do—and its inspirational predecessor, On the Road. 
You won't read it. You never do. But it sits, a humourous paperweight, in your rucksack as you clamber up the ravine. An anchoring comfort. A piece of home. Something that reminds you you're not completely alone even though you are. 
The book, your friends, and the encroaching loneliness that you feel prickling behind your eyes, all weigh on your mind. Spooling out before you in loose, loop threads. You follow them eagerly, glad for something to abate the unnatural silence, and—
A sound.
It comes from the left, hidden in the thick tangle of furze. A click. It shatters through the eerie quiet of the sprawling boscage. An animal, maybe. Hopefully. 
It must be, you think, heart hammering thunderously in your chest. There's a sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach. You hold your breath. Eyes glued on the thatch of green shrubs lining the base of the dense forest. 
Nothing happens. You blink, shifting on your feet—
A red line pierces through the gap between the leaves, aimed straight at your ankle. It's thin, diaphanous. Slips over the scraggy rock like liquid.
It's so out of place here that it takes you a second to familiarise yourself with its unexpected presence. A laser—
An explosive boom fills the ravine the moment the thought connects. A rifle. Aimed right at you. It happens fast. The world turning over itself, spinning right off its axis. You fall against the ledge in a crumpled, heavy heap, legs so close to dangling off the precipice. 
Gravity is a choking weight on your sternum, pushing you down, down, toward the jagged, rocky shoreline. A fall like that—
You curl into yourself instinctively. 
“Ah, shite—” is all you hear amid the roar in your ears. “Y’alright? ah didnae see ye thare—”
In your tear-stained periphery, a man appears. He stands into the glare of the waning sun, limned in a halo of gold. There's a pinch between his dark, thick brows. A steep ravine.  He's ragged. Wild. Tuffs of black hair hang loose past his ears and nape, curling slightly at the ends. It blends, almost seamlessly, into his thick, scraggly beard. He pushes a hand through the top, grabbing a fistful in his palm.
“Easn't expecting anybody oot 'ere. Nae this far intae th' woods.”
He seems to be speaking to himself more so than he's talking to you. There's anger writ in the fine lines of his face, but this ire isn't turned toward you. It's inward. Self-admonishment. His eyes darken when they flicker down to your ankle, as if reminding you of the hurt there when you'd been so focused on how out of place his accent is in the Northwest Territories.
The ache in your ankle brings you crashing back into reality. The pain seems to vibrate from within your marrow, riveting up your bones. 
You chance a glance—
You swallow down the drum of panic. A trick of the light. It must be. 
A dream. A nightmare. 
But the man appears. His hand falls onto your knee, holding you steady. 
“Ah will hae tae put oan a tourniquet. Will hurt a lot, doe.” 
Absently, you nod. Keep nodding. Can't stop. 
There's a hole cut through your ankle. Tore thro' yer Achilles, he's saying, words water in your ears. He instructs you to wiggle your toes.
"Ah know it hurts, but just dae it fer me, okay?"
You do. You—
Nausea buds in your guts, churning your stomach. The apple you ate earlier is choked out into the bushes dotting along the ravine. Insides purging themselves, replacing everything—food, water, coffee from earlier, bile—until nothing but shaky panic remains. It tastes like iron in the back of your throat. 
“Ah know, doe,” he's saying, fingers knotting into your slick hiking trousers. Lululemon knockoffs from an outdoor warehouse in the city. A pocket knife follows, and cuts a seamless line inches below your hip. 
Sad tae see ‘em go, he murmurs, accent thickening around the words. Saturating them in a drawl that's too liquid for your unpractised ears to catch. He makes a mournful sound when he slides the blade down your leg, adds, “hugged yer arse like a dream, doe.”
Another trick. The mountains do funny things to sound, you know. It must be all in your head. All—
“Don't worry,” he's shushing you now as he peels the fabric off your legs, groaning low in his throat. “Ah have ye. Ah will take care o'ye, tae, doe. Bonny thing, aren't ye? a' alone. Nae anymore, doe. Jus' me 'n' ye now. Jus' us —”
You always thought you'd have your wits about you in a traumatic situation. Be able to think clearly, rationally. Make appropriate decisions that befit the situation unfolding. Life saving ones. Practical. 
To gear up for this trip, you watched survival videos on YouTube. How to make a fire. How to make drinking water. How to build a shelter. Tips on weathering down for a sudden storm. Tucked it all inside your head, and thought, I got this. 
Had to, really, because everything you've read about Nahanni says it's unpredictable. Calm weather, gorgeous views one moment, and then a sudden deluge the next. Snow falling quicker than you keep up with. Animals blend in seamlessly with the landscape. Slips, falls. It's so easy to get lost, someone wrote. 
But as he uses the scrap of your trousers to wrap around the wound on your broken, mangled ankle, you realise all that planning was for nothing. This was one of those moments when you discovered just how much you bit off. That panic made you mute, made you freeze up. 
The pain is almost secondary to the surge of adrenaline. Fear.
You need to go home. You tell him this, slowly. Muttered through numb lips. 
There's something almost like pity in his eyes when he glances up at you. 
There was a mix-up, he says, slowly. Cautiously. You got yourself turned around in the opposite direction. There's no campground on the fjord above. All the lodges and cabins are in the opposite direction. 
Y'got lost, he tells you. Turned the wrong way out. Ye'r in th' backcountry.
“I'll go back,” you press, urgent. Insistent. Panic is acidic in your throat. Corrosive. It burns when you swallow. “Please, just tell me which way to go, and I’ll—”
"Cannae dae tha'."
“Why?”
“Storm,” he points in the distance where a plume of cloud gathers. So dark, they're almost black. Ominous. “Gonnae skelp solid. Na choice but tae git oot."
“I don't have anywhere to go—”
He rakes his hand through his hair. “Ah kin take ye tae mines. Git a cabin in th' woods. Juist ootdoors o' Nahanni Butte.” 
“No, I—”
His hand squeezes tight around your ankle. The pain makes itself known in a visceral, awful throb that travels up your leg, curdling at the base of your spine. Wrong, wrong. Something is wrong. Your body is trying to reject the agony. The breaking of your bone. It's foreign, it doesn't belong. But there's nowhere for it to go. 
Pain pulses in tandem with your heartbeat. 
You don't realise you're screaming until you hear the echoes of it rebound against the limestone walls. And then there's a whisper in your ear. You feel the scratch of his beard against your cheek.
"Shush, bonnie. Cannae let ye go oot oan yer own. Gonnae take ye home, yeah?"
Home. Home. You nod furiously, and it's only when the scraggly black curls covering his chin and jaw catch on damp skin do you realise you're crying. 
He leans away from you, arm stretching toward the rucksack behind him. 
The rifle leans against it. You feel sick all over again. 
“Drink this,” he says, unscrewing the cap. “It'll make ye feel better.” 
He presses the lip to your mouth, a hand slipping over the back of your head, tilting your chin up. “Drink,” he says again, and it's firmer this time. A command. “Ah promise ye'll feel better, doe.” 
It tastes bitter. You swallow it down. Keep swallowing.
“Good,” he rasps, hand sliding down the length of your spine until it rests against your lower back. “Keep drinkin’, sweet thing.”
It pools in your belly, sloshing uncomfortably when you move, but it washes the bitterness from between your teeth. You keep drinking. Swallowing it down. You know you shouldn't, that you might get sick again, but it's a distraction from the mess that is your ankle—bloody, twisted, mangled—
Nausea swells. You choke it down until you can breathe without feeling as though you were going to be sick again. 
“You'll be okay,” he's saying, moving around you with a practised efficiency for something so broad. It's almost graceful. Agile. 
He patches you up as much as he can with the supplies he has, but you refuse to look again at your ankle. It's broken, that much is clear. You can feel your bones grinding, sliding against each other. The sensation is horrific. Wrong. You turn your head to the ledge you were standing on just to distract yourself from the agony of it all. 
You're surprised you're not crying. Screaming. The urge is there, just beneath the surface. But for some odd, unfathomable reason you find you can't. Your chest feels heavy. Lungs sluggish. Slow. 
It must be an adrenaline crash, you think. Why else would you feel so tired, so exhausted. 
“I'm—” you start, but you feel dizzy. “‘m—”
“Shush, doe.” He mutters, and it sounds far away. Garbled. “You need yer rest. Had a traumatic accident. But don't worry. Ye can trust me. A wouldnae let anythin' ill happen tae ye ever again."
“Yeah,” you breathe, nodding. Nodding. You can't stop, can't—
“Lay back. Git some rest. A'm almost done, 'n' then ah will hae ye back home in no time—”
You come to on a groggy whimper, head buried in the messy locks curtained over his nape. There's a soft, pulsing thud in the back of your head when you try to lift it up. It feels heavier than it should. Leadened. You groan again, fighting against the currents dragging you back down to those soporific depths—
Your head is a slurried marsh. Thoughts ephemeral, broken. Fragmented. They slip through your fingers when you reach for them, diaphanous wisps you can't seem to catch. 
“Don't worry, doe—” your world quivers when he speaks. Words vibrating through your chest, catching on the heavy rails of your ribs. The seismic vibrations rumble in your ear, coming to life as a mere echo in your head. “Ah will keep ye safe.”
It's comforting. A raft in squall, something to cling to as the waves make futile attempts to drag you under. Your arms, dangling loosely over his shoulders, sluggishly flatten to his chest, linking over his chest. 
He grunts at your touch, palms slick on your skin. 
“Thank you,” you slur, words thick in your throat. Sluggish. “Thank you for helpin’ me. Fer savin’ me—”
Your body shakes when he trembles. With your forehead against his nape, you hear his thick swallow. The air ghosting out of his lungs in a soundless whisper. 
His hands flex around the backs of your knees. Squeezing tight. The man doesn't say anything for a moment. In the silence, the pursuing somnolence catches up to you. It digs heavy fingers into your eyes, dragging you back down into the sticky, thick tar. 
Sleep finds you in an instant. 
You try to read his words in the quiver of your bones when he speaks. Make sense of the tremble reverberating through the hollow gaps, tangling in the pulpy mess. 
But there's a mistranslation somewhere. A missing decibel. A forgotten wavelength.
It almost sounds like he says—
“Wouldn't leave mah wife alone in th' woods like tha’.”
How funny, you think, and hide a giggle into the hardened ridge of his shoulder blade. 
Cognisance is a transient flicker.
You're not sure how long he matches through the thicket with you on his back, navigating the unending chaparral with an ease that feels innate rather than practised. You stare down at the ground, world hazy around the edges, and think, suddenly, intrusively, that you ought to remember the steps. Every left, every right. 
You get to seven lefts, three rights—a small ravine, a flattened coppice; a gnarled spruce sat alone in a valley of lush green and clumps of topaz podzol—before your eyes are too heavy to keep open. They slip shut. And you think, only for a moment. Just a second, I just need to rest my eyes, and then come to at the sound of a groggy engine growling to life. 
The world morphs from a dense forest intercut with sheer cliffs looming, indomitable, in the grey distance, to the faded beige felt covering the ceiling of an old truck. 
Your blink is a slow crawl, lashes weighed down by anchors dredging over the seafloor. Gritty, raw. It hurts, now, to hold them open. A furious throb jabs at your temple. It aches like a bruise. But it's nothing compared to the nauseating agony that floods your core each time your foot is jostled. Nerves being lit aflame in an endless throe of pain unlike you'd ever experienced before. 
Your mouth feels sealed when you go to speak. Lips glued together. Sluggishly, you squeeze your tongue through the crack between your teeth, licking along the seam. 
A plastic bottle appears in your periphery, nozzle tipped toward your mouth. A hand curls around the body of it. Fingers overlapping. It looks small in this big hand. Tiny. Long wisps of black hair cover their ruddy knuckles, spreading in a dense crop up their forearm, growing thicker at the wrist. 
Their skin is pale, tinged slightly pink. Even through the brume, the lambent light of the sun catches on their skin. Illuminating small scars, cuts. Little scratches from the snagging furze. 
Their hand shakes. The dark veins that branch off from the white-capped peaks of their bent knuckles pulse under the thin skin when they move. 
“Drink, hen,” he murmurs, bringing the bottle to the jut of your lower lip. “Ye’ll need it.” 
A plastic bottle is an odd choice to bring into the backcountry, but as you peer through the translucent skin, you find the water inside is cloudy. Chalky. 
“Donnae worry—” he gives the bottle another shake, disturbing the sediment congealing at the bottom. “It's electrolytes, ken. Nothing fishy.”
Your teeth ache from the cold when he slips the rim between your lips, prying them apart. With your head already tilted back in the seat, the water slips in. A slow trickle. He feeds it to you, humming in appeasement when you swallow. 
“Tha’s a good girl.” 
It carves a jagged tunnel through the murk in your head. The praise slipping in, liquid, until it coats your burgeoning trepidation in a sudden swell of endorphins. With their unpractised, gauche hands, they paint a mockery of Sargent in the gaps of your synapses, stuffing the spaces between with oversaturated hues of teal, white, yellow, orange, and pink. 
Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose. 
But despite the shoddily crafted pastiche, it works. 
Your eyes flutter, bones growing heavier, heavier, as they're forced to carry the weight of your liquified flesh. This molten heat in your chest turns your insides into putty.  
Water dribbles down your chin. He sees it and coos.
“Ah, doe. Right mess ye are now. Ah will hae ye home in no time. Git ye a' cleaned up."
The idea of home melts you further. You sigh in the seat, soft and drawn out, and shake your head slowly when he wriggles the bottle in front of you again. 
“Get some rest, doe,” his hand falls, heavy and warm, on your thigh. Thumb stroking along the curve of your leg, fingers curling into the seam, digging deep. Resting there. 
It's too high to be appropriate. You know this. Went through lesson upon lesson in school of bad touches and what's considered friendly, polite. But when you try to open your mouth to say something about it, you catch the spread of his palm over your flesh. Wide, broad. Masculine. It catches in your throat, and gets tangled in the mush at the base. 
It should be fine, you think, dizzy over the way his hand swallows you whole. He saved you, after all. 
But it burrows. Digs deep. Some sense of wrongness permeates out from the firm grasp he has on you. It feels possessive. The sort of thing you might expect between people who are intimate with each other. A couple. You've known him for—
Hours, maybe? 
Most of it was spent in a pain-induced hypnagogia. 
It curdles in your stomach. Rotten, spoiled milk. 
But—
He saved you. 
You'll choke yourself on it if you keep thinking about it. So, you don't. You push it down. Cover it beneath the sediment, and bury it deep. 
He's just a man. 
Kind. Helpful. 
As you dig a hole for this unease, he keeps his hand fixed on your thigh. The other is pressed against the steering wheel, the ball of his palm under the curve at the top of the wheel. Relaxed. Easy. You try to adopt his nonchalant disposition and glance out at the blurry world around you. 
You feel exhausted. Unsettled. The sort of fatigue that comes with a raging fever. There's sand in your mouth. Your throat is dry. 
You don't ask for water. 
In the lull, he pitches the truck forward with a grave rumble. The silence is broken by the crunch of vegetation and gravel beneath the wheels as he ploughs forward. 
There are public roads to get to Nahanni. The floatplane you entered into the park on was chartered by Parks Canada. And yet—
He commandeers the truck around a flatbed of rock and dirt. Muskeg dots the tops in some places, and he veers expertly to avoid them. 
It's less of a traditional road and more so a forged desire path. You know the highway has to be close by, the link between Fort Liard and Fort Simpson, but as you peer out the window, the world around you looks overgrown. Wild. Alien. 
Sloping hills in lush green stretch out into the distance, meeting with the dense montane forests dotted along the stretch of land. The grassy coppice under his wheels is matted down, and interspersed with clumps of brown, wet muskeg and crushed slate. 
Over the grey peaks of the mountains in the distance, a thick, black cloud looms. The sky turns gunmetal, almost indistinguishable from the monoliths jutting beneath them. 
At some points, he takes his hand off your thigh to navigate winding turns better, but it always ends up back on you. And always a little higher than it was before. 
Your mouth is filled with lead. Tongue thick, malleable. Tensile like mercury. You can't speak. So you just ignore it. Dig your crown into the headrest, and breathe in the woodsy scent of him. Laurel, tree moss. Coumarin. Rotting pine. Sweet acacia. It tickles the back of your throat. Sticks there, glued in the syrupy mess. 
You'd hoped it would get easier to ignore, but it stays there, a constant weight, even as the world outside fades into a hazy twilight. 
In the hush of the cabin, he squeezes your thigh. “Cannae wait tae get ye home, doe.”
Against the staggering backdrop of a black, jagged mountain, a doe stands in the talus. Her fawn fur and tuffs of white spots stick out against the charcoal-coloured cliffs, and you watch, some distance away, as she bends down to fossick through the scree in search of food. 
With the looming clouds of gunmetal and ash gathering around the craggy peaks, her presence here feels dangerously out of place. Jarring. She shouldn't be here. She doesn't belong. 
But the beauty of this moment is breathtaking. Mesmerising. You stare in muted horror, awe, as she grazes in the rubble, slender neck bent in a graceful arch. The sloping handle of fine china. Her wet, black eyes are so open, so kind. Puddles of ignorance, naïvety, as she flicks her tongue out against the desolate rock, a fruitless search for grass in which to mull on. 
Thunder crackles over the snow-capped ridges. Her ears flicker, but she doesn't run. You should warn her. Scare her away. But you can't move. Can't speak. You're a mute spectator, a piece of dross on the ground watching the approaching calamity without a mouth. Horror churns. You want so badly to tell the doe to run—
An impossibility, you know. It's much too late for her to do anything at all. 
Around the doe’s leg is a shackle. 
Your skin rips, tears, as you force your jaws apart, blood pooling in your mouth. If you can make a sound, she’ll—
A boom echoes through the canyon's cradle. 
The scream gurgles in the back of your throat. 
Agony rips through your leg—
—you wake with a gasp. 
Sputtering, choking on the saliva pooled in your mouth. It tastes bitter, brackish. You feel something gritty between your teeth. It sticks to the backs, granular specks that dissolve, sour and chalky, on your tongue when you run it along the ridges of your gums.
You swallow it down, grimacing at the acidic taste. 
“Awake, aye?” His voice chips through the dense fog. You blink the haze away, glancing sideways at him through bleary, heavy eyes. 
His profile is lit by the harsh glare of high noon. The sharp jut of his ball cap. The curve of his nose set in the thick bushel of his scraggly beard and moustache. His broad chest concealed most of the view from the driver's side window. The lax bridge of his arm, knuckles loosely curled around the steering wheel.
He tilts his head toward you. “How're ye feelin’?”
Sluggish. Awful. There's sand in your eyes. Cotton in your head. You feel like you've been left out in the hot sun all day. Dizzy and sunburnt. Feverish. Heatsick. Your throat is dry, but you don't ask for water. You don't answer him at all. Can't. Your tongue is laden. Lips numb. 
It takes you a moment to reorient yourself, squinting through the glare of the sun—
That reels you back. Breaks through the fog. 
You know that the concept of day and night in the summer is different here. Twenty hours of daylight with twilight lasting all night. But even with the skewed perception of time and the heavy molasses thickening around the edges of your cognisance, you know that something is wrong. 
When you left the park, it was close to five in the evening. It should be twilight, not—
Your gaze lists sluggishly to the clock on the dashboard. Through the haze, the unmistakable gleam of one-fifteen stares back at you. 
It was the right time last night. 
“Wha—?”
You're not sure what you're asking. It's not even really a word, but a garbled sound. A noise of distress, confusion, in the back of your throat. 
He seems to understand it all the same. 
“Park had a bad storm,” he answers, pitch far too light for the severity of your situation, of what you're feeling. It makes you frown, sharp and sudden. “Washed through th’ river. Where ye were—well. Wouldnae ‘ave made it out, ye see. Would’ve gotten all torn up in th’ storm—”
You read that storms in Nahanni are vicious, sudden. Weather can turn in an instant, going from moderate to devastating in a blink. But—
What he's saying doesn't make sense. You remember bits, pieces, from earlier. He said you got turned around. Wandered too far off the trail, lost in the deep wilderness of Nahanni’s sprawling valley. 
“Where are we?”
“Nearly home.”
You push the wave of nausea down. “I need to go to a hospital.”
“Can't dae tha't'.”
“Why not?”
He doesn't answer for a beat, eyes fixed on the dirt path. Unblinking. 
Finally, he mutters: “had tae leave th' park oan th' opposite side when th' storm came in. No roads take us tae town.”
“I have—” you're not sure where your bag is. You hope he had the wherewithal to snatch it up after you fell. Hope. “I have a satellite phone. I can just call—”
“Sorry, hen. Yer bag flew off th' ledge. Ah coudnae grab it 'n' ye. Ah dinnae hae a phone oot 'ere. Never needed one—”
Hopeless. Hopeless. 
“How—how could you survive out here without one?”
“Nahanni Butte is a few hours awa'. Go intae town when th’ winter road is open. Inaccessible now. Th’ rivers flooded it. Cannae cross it. Can hunt, 'n' ah hae everything a'm needin' oot here.”
“So…” the reality of your situation is beginning to dawn on you. Helpless. Hopeless. “I'm stuck here until—winter?”
“Ah hae a friend flying oot fae Yellowknife. Comes tae drop off supplies 'n' th' lik'. He'll be 'ere in two months—”
“Two months?” This whole situation feels impossible. Wrong. You're so close to people—Fort Liard, Nahanni Butte, Fort Simpson. How could you be stuck here for two months? The idea of it is absurd. “You're not—you can't be serious.”
“Aye. I am.” 
There's a pinch between his brow. You wonder if it's meant to convey the severity of the situation, but as it grows deeper, deeper, you have the sudden sense that it's not an emotional decree of his sincerity. That it's, instead, a sudden twist of anger. 
It scares you. 
“I want to go home.” You mean for it to be forceful, but it comes out in a whimper. 
The man nods. The punch in his brow lessens. “Aye, me tae.” 
“Where are you from?” You pry, needing the distraction from the endless trawl of green and slate and permafrost enclosing in on you. “You're not from around here, are you?” At the gentle raise of his brows, you add, hurried, rushed: “you just. Have an accent, and I—”
“Fae Scotland,” he answers, and there's a quick grin on his face. Roguish. Charming. The sight of it has your start thudding in an uneasy gallop. “Edinburgh."
“Oh. Far from home.”
“Aye—” the grin fades, twisting into something ugly. “Had an—accident,” he spits the word out, brows pinching once more. Anger is writ in the hard clench of his muscles, his jaw. His knuckles blanche around the steering wheel, and you think you should have just kept your mouth shut. “Sent me here.”
There's a multitude of questions you want to ask. Vying for the top is the most obvious—why did this happen? why isn't he letting you go?—but what comes out instead is, “why?”
Just that. Nothing else. 
“Military.” 
He adds nothing, either. 
“Military?”
A nod. “Go’ hurt. Had rehab. Sent me here tae clear ma heid, and well—” his eyes flicker to you. You can't read his expression. “Got a fresh mission, dinnae I?”
“You don't—”
“I cannae leave ye. Both oo' us are stuck 'ere 'til someone comes tae pick us up, 'n' take us home.” 
The idea that somehow he's just as trapped as you are hasn't occurred. Why would it when he has a rifle, a truck, freedom—
But what good is all of that when you're landlocked in a place known for winter roads. Permafrost. The forced shift in perspective doesn't quell the anxiety roiling in your guts, but it lessens it. Somewhat. 
“Two months?”
He nods. “Aye.”
“And you have no cellphone? No satellite?”
“Ye can check it—” he makes a flippant motion toward the glove box in front of you. “Deader than ever.”
You hesitate only briefly. Long enough to level him with a searching look that yields no results before you reach for the compartment, gingerly pulling it open, and—
Sometimes, things get overlooked by their surroundings. Swallowed in the vacuum. Blending seamlessly into the muddle, the commotion. 
This isn't like that. 
It sits on top of a manila folder. Sleek black and cold silver. You're not terribly well-versed in guns—the extent of your knowledge stemming mostly from formulaic crime shows aired late at night; CSI, NCIS, Criminal Minds—but you recognise this one instantly. Some sort of handgun. Police issued, you think. It's bigger than you'd expected. Looks heavier, too. 
Your heart stutters. The air galloping out of your lungs in a stammering rush. 
He makes a noise, soft and nonchalant, as if keeping handguns in the glove box of his old, burnt orange truck is perfectly normal. 
“Fer protection,” he mumbles. You catch the jerk of his chin in your periphery. “Forgot I had it in here. Been usin’ th’ rifle fer huntin’ mostly. Or th’ shotgun.”
Three guns. You swallow. “Why—” your voice comes out in a brittle whisper. You clear your throat. “Why, um, why do you need three?”
“Not fae around here, are ye?” He echoes your words with a wry twist of his mouth, eyes slanting in the sunlight. “Tha’,” he takes his hand off your thigh to jab his finger at the handgun. “Is fer wolverines.” His index finger falls, his thumb juts out. He jerks it over his shoulder. “Tha’ is fer huntin’. The shotgun back home is fer bears.” 
You try to move out of the way when his hand falls back to your thigh, but the pain radiating up your leg immobilizes you. There's not much you can do in this situation but endure.
Military. Wounded in action. Three guns. Touchy. 
You're not sure what to think. It would be easier if you couldn't. 
“What do you hunt?” You ask instead, glancing out the window to the barren landscape rolling out around you. There doesn't seem to be much in the jagged hills, and towering mountains. 
“Gettin’ hungry? Donnae worry, doe. Go’ tha’ pesky hare I was tryin’ tae shoot oan th' ledge fer dinner tonight.” 
It's not much of a comfort. The idea of being injured—by accident, he claims—to such an extent over a rabbit makes you feel a little sick. 
“That's it?”
“I can make a mean steak oot o' anythin'. Stews fer tougher meat. Fish—whitefish, arctic grayling, and lake trout. Learned how tae make a nasty fishfry from th’ locals in Nahanni Butte. Bannock, too. Got berries ‘round ma cabin. Caribou, Moose. Taste better in tacos or burgers. Mountain goat, Dall’s sheep. Been eatin’ better ‘ere than ah did at home.”
“And you're—just allowed to hunt them?” The website advised about a permit through some special outfit needed to hunt when you requested your pass into the park. Said that only aboriginals were allowed to do so. “You're not—”
“Aye,” he cuts you off with a small nod. “No huntin’ in th’ park. But. We're nae in th' park anymore.”
“Where are we?” You ask again, firmer this time. 
“I told ye. Nearly home.”
“And where is home?” 
The way he sucks his teeth makes you recoil slightly. Wet. Irritated. As if he's tired of this conversation already. 
“Close.”
You don't let his flat tone deter you. “Are we—are we still in the Northwest Territories?”
“Thereabouts.” 
It's not an answer. It doesn't reassure you in the slightest. 
You open your mouth to say so, words curling on your tongue when he jerks his chin toward the handgun, brow furrowed. 
“Thought ye wanted tae check oan th' satellite phone.”
His tone is severe. A growl curdling the ends, pitching it down, down. Displeasure, irritation, blooms in the gnarled petals of witch hazel when he narrows them into slits. 
You swallow, wrenching your gaze from the storm brewing over fields of wheat, and set your jaw. Masking your fear for annoyance. Confidence. 
But your hand shakes when you reach for the black box shoved into the corner. Palms slick with sweat. You try not to touch the gun, doing your best to curve around it. It feels—
Real. 
A real gun. In the real world. In a place you came to get away for a weekend, experience something you'd never had before. Freedom. Reliance on nobody but yourself. And now—
Somewhere in the Northwest Territories. Injured. Locked inside of a truck with a man who wavers between warmth—an unending heat, a furnace; a beacon of light—and severity like a swinging pendulum. You feel safe with him. You commit every turn to memory. He's in the military. He's going to take care of you. You think he's lying to you. He'll—
He'll let you go. 
You're sick. You're paranoid. You're taking all of your grievances out on this poor man who is just as trapped as you are, turning him into a monster for no reason at all. At the end of this, when he drops you off at the airport in Yellowknife, you'll have to grovel on your knees for his forgiveness. Sorry I thought you were a bad man. 
It could be worse, you suppose. He hasn't done anything untoward to you—touching your thigh like he's owed the right aside—and you shove it down. A problem to deal with later even though the suspicion tucks itself into your head, folded up against your skull. Metastatic. It eats all of his expressions, turning them over and over again for hidden clues. 
If he does something, you'll run. 
You'll—
“Almost there,” he murmurs, and you hear the rasp of exhaustion glued to the hinge of his jaw. You wonder how long he's been driving for. And why didn't he just go back to Nahanni Butte. Flooded he said. Too deep into the park. Never would have made it. 
If that's the truth, you suppose you should thank him. 
It sits in the back of your throat. You swallow around it, reaching for the phone instead. 
There's a small thread of hope in your chest that it'll work. That he's wrong, doesn't know how to work it, and all you have to do is press a button and it'll crackle to life. Freedom within reach. 
But when you press down on the button, the phone doesn't even whimper. Broke, as he said. Dead. 
“Can you—can you charge it?”
“Tried. Must’ve blown somethin’ inside. Fried it.” 
His words are a prison sentence carrying a punishment of two months. You knew this, of course. He said so himself. But the reality of it breaking over you is different from blind belief. The realisation of your predicament is a jagged knife cutting through tissue, letting corrosive panic entrench you as it spills out. 
This is the sort of thing you’d only read about. Novels, and biographies. Memoirs. Movies. An extraordinary event that could never happen to you. Never. 
And you're aware of it. Optimism bias. The not-me fallacy. But everything in your life thus far had been so unequivocally mundane that the possibility of it not happening seemed to eclipse any chance of it occurring at all. 
The crux of the bias, you suppose. Though it does little to stem the disbelief surrounding it all. Even when you told your friends, and your family, that you were going on this trip, the most mordant of them said you'd get eaten by a bear or end up lost in the wilderness. 
Injured, unable to walk, and stuck with a man you only marginally know (trust) seems like the plot of a lifetime movie. 
But—
Two months. 
You're sure in the meantime, someone will notice your absence. Raise the alarm. Call the police. They'll launch an investigation, and come searching for you. It's just a waiting game. 
And—
(You glance at the man once more, his profile limned in a halo of gold. The rim of his hat casts shadows over his face, eyes concealed in the thickening tenebrous that enshrouds him down to his broad chest, dense with corded muscles. Athletic. Trim. Big.)
—staying alive. 
Survival. 
If only for just two months. 
But the facts are cold, unforgiving. You are alone with a man you don't know. A man with three guns. Military. His experience in this wilderness vastly eclipses your own. 
He's fine. Fine. Touchy, sure. But he hasn't asked for anything. 
—his hand is on your thigh—
You'll be okay. 
It hurts to swallow. “Thank you,” you murmur, hoping the conciliatory lilt eats the panic you feel. “For saving me.” 
His gaze darts to you so sharply that the truck veers slightly to the left, tires crunching over thick beds of furze that line the forged road. The action is sudden—surprised, maybe, by your reedy gratitude. A deviation from the demeanour he'd shown you so far—calm friendliness. Affability. It jars you. Scares you. You grip the seat cushion tight in your fists as he mutters something sharp you can't discern under his breath. 
It only takes him only seconds to correct, rippling his hand away from you to commandeer the truck back into the centre of the beaten path. Even keeled now. Almost as if nothing amiss had happened at all. 
But it's undeniable. Congeals in the air, tense and unignorable. A vacuum that siphons the breath from your lungs. It sits in the whites of his knuckles, arsenic bones jutting from thin, rough skin, demanding to be seen; the terse set to his shoulders. To the grind of his jaw as he clenches his teeth. 
You take him in with bated breath, swallowing whole each microcosm that buds to the surface of his demeanour. Wary. Watchful. Squeezing the satellite phone tight in your hands. But he doesn't meet your wide-eyed stare, choosing instead to keep his gaze fixed on the dirt road. Knuckles popping, brows furrowed. Silent. 
But it's heavy. Oppressive. The same unrelenting chill as outside. You fight back a shiver in the blooming cold, wishing you'd packed more than just a pair of hiking tights (in tatters, now) and a thermal windbreaker for the trip. 
The hum of the engine, and the cracking of rock and muskeg crushed under the wheel, are the only noise that fills the cabin. You stifle your breath. Hold it in your throat. Skewer your eyes to the landscape yawning out around you. The deep, thickening sense of unease grows in the pit of your stomach. Metastasizing. 
Outside is a sprawling taiga forest. Emaciated spruce, balsam fir, jut out from the muskeg, dusted in a sparse layer of sphagnum. You can almost hear the trickle of a stream. The dirt road is wet under the tires now. A creek must be close by. A river. Flat River. South Nahanni. Further out might be Slave River. The Liard. Little Buffalo. Great Slave Lake, even. 
Narrowing it down seems impossible when nearly the entire south corridor of the Northwest Territories is wet marsh and snaking bodies of water. 
It both worries and reassures you at the same time. Getting to Nahanni alone was a challenge. With most of the surrounding area limited to a few year-round highways, there are not many places he could go without reaching dead-ends or winter roads closed for the season, inaccessible in the warmer summer months as the snow melts. 
Though—these highways arch as high as they can. From Yellowknife to Tuktoyaktuk, right on the coast of the Arctic Ocean. 
But he hasn't driven on any stretch of highway since you woke up. The road is unpaved, wild. You're confident you're still south, but the exact location eludes you. Northwest Territories. Yukon. Northern Alberta. It's overwhelming. Daunting. 
You try to commit the geography to memory. Sifting through an endless trawl of nothing to find something familiar. A mountain range. A sign. Anything. Anything—
“Ye mean tha’?”
The sound of his voice draws your attention, raspy. Hoarse from disuse. 
He swallows. There's something raw in his expression, fractured. Yearning, you think. For something. What that something is, however, you can't place. 
It stays on as he slowly slides his tongue out, licking over the bristles of hair covering his lip. 
You offer a shallow nod, unsure why this matters to him suddenly. 
“Yeah, I'd be—” 
You pause, words turning to smoke in your throat. Uninjured, is the first thought. Without him, your leg wouldn't be—
Whatever it is. Ankle broken. Achilles torn. A gunshot wound clean through tendon and tissue. 
But at the same time—
All turned around, he said. Lost. He was hunting, too. You must have somehow wandered outside of the park limits. Must have because the sound of a rifle would have drawn attention from nearby wardens. They'd have come to investigate. 
You swallow down the bloom of unbridled panic. The aftertaste is bitter in your mouth. The thought of being outside of the borders, all on your own—
“I’d be dead if it wasn't for you.” 
The hush that falls is immediate. Your own mortality dangling by a thin thread. Happenstance keeping you alive. 
He clears his throat again. Your fingers tighten around the metal until it hurts. 
“Names Johnny.” He twists in his seat, facing you. “Johnny MacTavish.” 
It's a bit late for introductions, but you take it in all the same. Johnny. Johnny.
(saviour—)
His eyes grow wide when you slowly, haltingly, breathe yours out. Letting it sit in the air where it dissolves into the silence, the weight of it somehow more damning than being alone in the woods. There's power in a name. In knowing it. Military. You're not sure why it matters, but it does. 
You fight another shiver when he says it back after a beat, much too fond, adoring, for the sparse companionship you've barely begun to build. 
“I'll keep ye safe,” he says your name again, accent curling in between the bridges of each letter. There's a heat in his eyes; pyretic. A sickness. “Don't hae tae worry aboot anything.” 
He turns back slowly, angling the wheel around a sudden bend in the thicket. The path is clearer here, looking more like an established dirt road than a sparse coppice. It twists upward, cutting a meandering line through a dense cropping of spruce. The canopy above—as thick as it is—curls over the road, enclosing it in a bed of conifers branching overhead. Concealing it from view. 
The sight fills you with a new bloom of unease. How quickly the wild swallows you whole, shielding you from prying eyes, prickles against the nape of your neck, dripping like hot oil down your spine. 
“Where are we?” It comes out in a whisper. 
He makes a noise in the back of his throat. In your periphery, you see him lift his hand off the wheel, but sit, paralyzed, when he brings it down to your thigh, giving what attempts to be a pacifying squeeze. 
“Home,” he answers, making the turn. 
A log cabin comes into view. It’s situated at the end of the clearing, covered by the same dense tangle of trees as the path. The forest seems to bend around the single-storey home, enclosing in a cradled embrace of intermixing wry jack pine, bold tamarack, dark spruce, and white birch. Trembling aspen peaks above the heads of the other trees, hiding the smoked black spruce roof from view above. 
It might look homey under different circumstances, but the thick, stripped logs—made of varnished white spruce—jutting out half-crescents to form the walls seem brooding. Claustrophobic. It's small—just a storey and a half. A camper's cabin not meant for longtime use. It wears its age in wood rot and peeling varnish. The scent of wet wood clings to the air when he rolls the window down, coming to a stop a few paces away from the single step leading to the porch. 
Firewood stacked high to the awning on both sides of the blue door, encased in metal to keep it dry. Moss-covered concrete foundations lift the house off of the ground, keeping it from melting the permafrost below. The remains of a snuffed, charred campfire is perched to the left of the winding path leading to the door. Felled lumber lays on its side, the top whittled down onto a seat. A wooden rack leans against a tree close by. The hide of an animal is stretched taut across the panels. Leather-making materials sit in a bucket beside it. 
A metal box—bear-proof, you're sure—is half-buried in the soil. Storage, perhaps, for the unusable remains of the animals he hunts. 
It's fairly standard for a cabin up north, you think. But something about this place makes you feel anxious. Trapped. You can't see anything at all through the dense cluster of trees, but you can hear the sound of running water. A river, maybe. A stream. It splashes against the rock, the current too quick for you to even think about swimming in it. 
It only adds to your unease. 
“This is home,” he says, jerking his chin toward the house. 
Home is a cabin nestled somewhere in the unorganised wilderness of the Northwest Territories. Nahanni National Park is several hours in another direction. Too few communities exist on highway seven for you to even stumble onto them—
Assuming, of course, that you could walk there to begin with.
The lingering pain in your ankle, the heavy bandage wrapped around it—it's an immediate certainty that you can't walk. Broken, you know, from the glimpse you'd taken before. Milkwhite against raspberry red—
You don't think about that. 
You don't think about much at all. 
“Right.” You murmur. This place is the furthest thing from home you could imagine. 
He moves in your periphery, reaching for you. You jerk back, driven by instincts. The need for distance, space—
The jostling of your foot makes you hiss in pain, and he offers a conciliatory hum. 
“Ye’ll be alright, bonnie. Lets jus’ get ye inside now.” 
The inside is made of varnished wood. A mix of black and white spruce. It's cosy, you suppose. 
It opens up to a living room immediately upon walking in the door. A mat sits under your feet. A small closet to the right with the door slightly ajar. Along the length of the left wall is a doorway spilling into a small kitchen. From your vantage point, you make out a sink, and then another door to the right. 
Along the back wall beside the arching doorway is a brick fireplace. Soft fur is spread out on the ground in front of it. An old, weathered couch is pushed against the left wall, a shawl tossed over the back. 
There's no television. A stack of books and magazines sit above the couch—used more for an end table than entertainment, you note, spotting the glass of water resting on the pile. A pack of cigarettes beside it. An ashtray on the floor. Bottles of beer sit on the small table shoved under the window. One of the chairs is covered in clothes. 
It's lived in, you note, but lifeless. 
There are no pictures on the wall. No personal artefacts littered around. It's—
Perfunctory. 
He comes home, shucks his boots off by the front door, and drinks warm beer on the couch until he falls asleep. An inference, of course; but as he carries you further into the house (his insistence—ye cannae walk oan tha’, doe, stop bein’ stubborn and lemme carry ye), your notion gains credence. It's sparse. Threadbare. 
There's a single plate in the sink. The old stove, separated from the sink by a small countertop, is covered in a layer of dust. A fridge is pushed against the back wall. 
The door you glimpsed in the kitchen leads to the washroom. It's tight. A shower, a sink, a toilet. No windows. A towel is hung over the curtain rail, still damp from his shower before. A single mat covers most of the tiled floor below. A tube of toothpaste sits in the porcelain basin of the sink. 
Beside the washroom is the master bedroom. The bed is unmade. An untouched glass of water is left on the end table beside a worn leather book and a bible. 
An open closet sits across from the bed. The window is open. The breeze flutters the old, jaundiced curtain. 
He gives you his room and says he'll take the couch. Under normal circumstances, you might have fought it. Insisted that he sleep in his bed. You're a guest. You couldn't put him out like that. But the door has a lock. 
“Thank you,” you murmur, and he seems to tremble at your words before nodding. 
“O' coorse.” 
Johnny places you on the bed before he sets to work rebandaging your ankle. You're all too aware of the fact that you need to know. You need to see what you're dealing with, and how bad the damage is, but the pain that cuts through you when he rests your ankle—as gingerly as he can—on top of an extra pillow makes you yowl in agony. 
It's vicious. Whitehot. The pain rattles through your bones. 
He shushes you as he unwraps the clumsy brace he put on in the park, murmuring incomprehensible things under his breath that you think must be Gaelic. Words of comfort, perhaps. 
You feel none of it except an uneasy dread pooling in the empty pit of your stomach. 
“How bad is it?”
He hums, brow pinching tight. “Th' hare took most o' th' damage,” he says, eyes tracing along the congealing blood on your ankle. Dark cherry red. You swallow down a gag. “Tore yer achilles, though. Clean. Doesn't seem tae be any fragments. Broke your ankle, though. But,” he taps your calf, just above the bend of your foot. It doesn’t hurt. “It’s a clean break. Maybe just a fracture. Shuid heal up in no time.”
“And what about infections?”
“Got some stuff oan hand if that happens,” he leans back, and gives you a wink. It feels out of place considering the severity of your predicament. Garish, almost. “But ah was a good nurse. Patched ye up nicely.” 
You don't ask anything else, and silence trickles in as he refocuses his attention back to cleaning your wound and redressing it. The bed is soft under you. Giving. You lean back, staring up at the log ceiling, and will yourself not to think at all. Each slight jostle of the wet cloth running along your ankle feels like fire licking at your skin. If you had anything at all in your belly left, you might have thrown it up on the side of the bed. 
This pain is consuming. Persistent. 
Your fingers knot into the soft blankets below, gripping tight until your knuckles ache. A futile attempt to exchange this pain for a lesser one. Something you can ignore, forget. 
Through the open window, you can hear the playful caws of a raven searching for food. You want it to distract you, to pull you away from the sickening sensation of your ankle separating from the heel, but it doesn't.
All you can think about is the fresh pain. Your flesh ripped apart. Torn achilles, he'd said. You feel it as he moves, washing away the dried blood, the viscera. The break in your tibia. It's a nauseating feeling. Visceral. It screams at you that something is wrong, reverberating through your bones. 
The raven caws again. 
“Gonnae ‘ave tae stitch yer heel up.” 
You make a sound—a pathetic whimper choked in the back of your throat. 
“Fine,” you rasp, tensing. “Just—”
Get it over with. 
Johnny seems to understand, offering a consolatory pat on your shin. “Ye'll be fine. Ah know what am doin’.”
You glance back at him, avoiding whatever is happening below his elbows. Refusing to look. 
He reaches up, fingers stained pink with your blood, and pulls the ballcap off his head, shaking the matted hair loose. His hair is thick, curling at the ends. Dark brown. Soft. You take in his expression, him, as he works, using it to churn your thoughts away from the prickling sensation of him pressing your torn skin back together, readying it for the needle. 
He's intense, focused, as he works. Eyes lidded to half-mast. Long lashes fanning out over the dark circles beneath his eyelids. Bruises that speak of long, sleepless nights. The empty bottles of beer and the full ashtray within arm's reach make a little more sense as you see the extent of his fatigue. 
It doesn't concern you. You rip your gaze away from the thin, twisting rivers of red that snake through the jaundiced whites of his eyes; the possibility of his vulnerability notches something inside your chest you don't want to think about. Can't. 
Your saviour, you think again, veering sharply on the edge of too cruel—
“Might pinch a bit, doe,” he mutters low, soft. His thick, even brows pull together at the centre. You feel the prick of the needle pushing through your skin—
Down his brows. The oblique curve of his nose. Bottled to a point. The thick bed of hair beneath his nostrils. Thin, pink lips jutting from the thatch of black bristles. The wisps curl down the slope of his neck, thinning at the hollow below before thickening back into a dense crop on the scant patch of his skin visible from his unbuttoned shirt. 
Another prick—
A thin, gold chain loops around his neck. Tucked against his sternum is a Latin cross. It's plain. Traditional. Solid gold, maybe. But not purely for decoration. Where the arms meet the body, the surface is smoothed down. Worn. In the reflection, you can see the thin, circular lines of a fingerprint. 
The bible on his dresser makes sense. You glance over at it, taking in the folds and creases on the leather cover. Aged and well-loved. Used. Pages are dog-eared. Waterlogged. Scotch tape holds the spine together. 
The Holy Bible gleams in faded gold lettering. Douay–Rheims is etched into the surface. 
The sight of a worn-down book and thumbed cross shouldn't relax you, but it does. A good ol’ boy, then. You turn back to him, eyes caught on the gleaming gold flush against tanned skin. It's tight to his sternum. Hung delicately around his neck. 
Seeing it now feels a touch voyeuristic. It wasn't intentionally bared to you. Wasn't offered up willingly for you to gawk at, mind looping around thou shalt not kill and do unto others as you yourself would want done unto you, and finding comfort in the ordered morality of its symbolism—however fickle that could end up being. 
You know a man is not as moral as his religion demands of him, but he looks devout. 
A good Catholic boy. 
Still—
You peel your gaze away from his chest as the thread slides through. The sensation is uncomfortable. Ticklish. Forcing your attention back to him, well above the neckline. His nose. Nostrils flaring when your knee jerks. His hands close over your shin. Mouth parting slightly just to say, keep still, doe. Donnae want tae hurt ye. 
His hair is slightly greasy near his scalp. Sweat from earlier dampens his locks, flattening it tongue head. It's longer at the top compared to the sides. An odd, asymmetrical hairstyle that doesn't feel like an aesthetic choice at all. Maybe he had a mullet. Or—
You see it when he tilts his head down, chin angled toward your foot. 
A scar stretches from his temple back, thinning the hair that lines his scalp on the right. The flesh is jagged, uneven. Cratered. It forms a ravine. The canyon walls clumped scar tissue. The nullah in the centre is all pink and raw. 
You think of a shooting star. Meteor showers in the indigo sky. 
You think of his words from earlier—ah know what am doin’—and the depth of his medical knowledge. It stands out now. You suppose he would, wouldn't he?
The thought has shame dripping down your spine like hot, slick oil. Burning. Tarry. You remember what he said in the truck about being wounded in action, the misery in his words, the anger, and choke yourself on the regret that swarms your throat. 
He looks up, then, catching whatever awful amalgamation of self-hatred, shame, and regret makes of your expression, and the words—sorry, I'm so sorry—tear through your throat until it's bloody and raw. Pulp. Unspeakable, now. 
It dampens his brow, but there's no embarrassment in his eyes when he holds them to yours. Nothing except an intense, dizzying sense of curiosity. Of—
Intrigue. 
It doesn't have a place here, and the sight of it is sobering. 
Why is he looking at you like that when you're gawking at his injury? Confusion knots deep. Uncertainty coiling around your ribcage. Maybe he didn't notice. Doesn't care. 
Is too used to it to worry about whatever conclusions you might draw from the jagged skin barely knitted back together. But his eyes flash. Understanding edging out the unfathomable greed lurking in hazel plains, nestled, restive, in the shade that falls over the sloping boscage. 
You almost miss the shadow when it appears. Wrought with Leashed ghosts. Tempered anger. Wild, frenetic. The chains holding it at bay tremble. Shake—
And then it's gone.
Dissolve back into passive cordiality. All ire stayed behind a wall. 
You want to apologize, but the words are ash in your throat. Unspeakable. Johnny doesn't address it. He dips his head down once more, silently refocusing his attention to your ankle, and offering no explanation for the scar on his head. 
You don't ask. Don't pry. It's not your place. But your eyes are still glued to it. 
It's a horrific injury. Survival from such a terrible wound seems like an impossibility. A gunshot, you're sure. Seeing the small chasm carved into skin, narrowly missing his eye socket, fills you with a blistering sense of pity for this man, and you quietly, quickly, peel your eyes away from the jagged surface, letting your gaze run across the room. A meagre sense of privacy, you're sure, but it lets you breathe a little easier when you can't see the way his temple split apart to make room for a bullet—
“Had a mohawk,” he says. “They cut it off when this happened.” 
A mohawk. The asymmetry of his hair makes sense now, and you can almost picture it as you stare at him. The edges shorn, the top long. Unruly. His hair has a slight curl to the ends, but is mostly straight for the first few inches. 
As wild as he looks now—untamed, rugged; the thick tangle of uncharted wilderness—the mohawk must have made him roguish. Boorish. With his broad shoulders, thick biceps, and piercing blue eyes, the mohawk would have added to the playful appeal. Boyishly charming with his cropped hair and puckish grin. The draw of a bad boy, a vandal. 
But as you try and shape this around him, you catch the strain in his shoulders. The terse set to his jaw. 
“You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to.”
“Was shot.” 
It's said without a preamble as if he was waiting for you to ask. But the words are spat out like they're something foul in his mouth; like he's ridding the taste of it between his teeth. The anger, the aggression cows you slightly, but you offer a small, warbling smile you hope is conciliatory. Apologetic. 
“I'm sorry,” you offer around a stuttering exhale. You can't imagine what that must be like. Shot in the head. The idea is unthinkable. Improbable. And yet, the evidence slashes across his temple; a meteor shower carved into his flesh. 
He lifts his chin, staring down at you from the bridge of his nose. “Wasnae yer fault, doe.” 
“I know, I just—” 
Johnny gives a nod in response, ending the bubble of words and apologies building up behind your teeth. It is what it is, he mutters when you blink at him, flummoxed. This sort of reveal seems like it should necessitate a bigger conversation, a deeper one. Questions buoy to the surface—from prying (how did it happen, how did you survive) to intrusive (what did it feel like, does it hurt still)—but you trample them until they sit, a building mass lodged in your throat. 
He seems content, then, to continue with what he was doing, and says nothing more about it. And it's not your place to pry. To chisel into his trauma. 
You let it pass. Let it moulder. 
The raven caws once more. You lean back in his bed, staring through the fluttering curtains, mind reeling at this discovery. 
Stupidly, you feel more at ease in his presence. As if this show of vulnerability somehow negated the distress of your predicament, and the infeasible nature of how you ended up here, in his home. Gazing through the thick canopy of green to the golden sky above. A whole world away from your home. Broken. Injured. But the cross, the thumbed-through bible, and his human fragility seem to curl along the vicious dread curling inside your guts, soothing over the distrust with gentle, sweeping brushes. 
Quelling a frightened child after a nightmare. 
How strange, you think, but let yourself relax in his presence all the same, breathing in the scent of stale smoke, sweat. Coumarin. Tree moss. Fresh pine. It smells like the valley. Soft, waning detergent. Masculine. 
You pretend you're watching for the raven as you sneak small glances at him. Taking in everything with a new perspective. The broadness of his shoulders. The thickness of his waist. There's power in his arms, in his thighs. Sculpted musculature, honed and refined. Despite the thickness of his fingers, he has a delicate touch. Deft and sure, as if he's used to working his bulk around small parts. 
He's unkempt. The ballcap hid most of his dishevelled state, but he's not sloven. It reminds you of the outdoorsy explorers. The hikers you met on your trip out. Roughhewn and unconcerned about their overgrown beards and their tousled hair. 
There's something potently masculine about it, and you can't deny that even with the garish wound on his head, all mangled scar tissue, he's handsome. Rougish. The scar elevating it somehow—a testament, perhaps, to his resiliency. 
He catches your stare on the next glance, holding it as he leans back with a quirk of his lips. It's not quite the grins he aimed at you before, but the shadow of it lingers. 
“Now,” he utters, the severity in his tone makes you flinch. Sobering quickly under the weight of his solemnity. “Th' bad part.”
“Bad part?” You echo, confused. “What could be worse than that?”
He taps two fingers against your swollen ankle, urging you to look. You swallow and force yourself to glance at where he rests his fingers. 
With your split heel stitched up and wrapped in bandages, the sight of your leg doesn't make you want to curl into the fetal position and cry. But it's still horrifying to look at. 
A mass half the side of a baseball juts out from your skin. 
“Ankles dislocated,” he murmurs, sliding his fingers over the mound. “Gotta pop it back into place.” 
“That's not—” you shake your head. “That's impossible.” 
“S’okay, doe. I gotcha.”
“That's not the point. That's not—”
“Look,” his pitch lowers dangerously, firm now. “Gotta do it or you'll have problems later on. Much worse than a bit o’pain.”
“But—”
He inhales sharply. “Can't let it go, doe. Gotta fix it.”
You understand the logic in that. Leaving a dislocated ankle will undoubtedly cause problems later on. But—
“Will it hurt?” 
Your fear quiets the irritation brewing in steeled hazel. “Aye. I won't lie tae ye, doe. It will hurt.” 
You swallow around a whimper. 
“But,” he leans over, his hand sliding over your cheek. Cradling your face in the palm of his hand. “I'll do mah best tae be quick. Ah won't hurt ye, doe.” 
It must be the way he carries himself that puts you at ease, so assured in his abilities; confident in what he can do without any sense of grandiosity. 
“Fine.” The word is juttered out of your chest. “Just—”
His thumb catches the tears that spill over your lashline, swiping them away with a tenderness that makes you shiver. 
“Ah’ll be quick.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out two chalky white pills. Tylenol, he mutters, catching the furrow of your brow. It abates the unease somewhat, and you let him drop the pills into the flat of your palm, rolling them over with your thumb as he grabs the water on the end table. They're circular with a slit down the middle. 
“It'll take the pain away.” He says, holding the water up to you. “Ready?” It's uttered so severely, so seriously, that your breath hitches in your lungs. Mirth blooming between your teeth. 
“As I'll ever be,” you rasp out before popping the pills into your mouth, cradling them on your tongue protectively as you reach for the glass he holds out. They're bitter. 
You wash it down with a mouthful of stale water before leaning back on the bed, letting the scent of his sheets wash over you once more. 
Outside, the raven trills. 
The pain of popping your ankle back into place leaves you a weeping mess in his sheets, but Johnny doesn't seem to mind the shuddering sobs. He pets down your back, shushing you quietly under his breath as he mutters something in Gaelic that you're sure is meant to be soothing. 
“Ye’ll be fine,” he says, tracing figure-eights down your spine until the Tylenol kicks in, and the agony tapers off into an aching throb. “Jus’ breathe. Ah’ll get ye somethin' tae eat.”
He leaves soon after. You let the numbed, drowsiness of the pain medication lull you into a doze, listening to Johnny move in the kitchen. The squealing slide of unvarnished wood rubbing against old metal. The thud of a knife. The scent of hot oil. Muttered curses. A playful raven's caw. 
You're not sure how long you slip in and out of this dreamless state, but Johnny appears in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest as he leans against the frame. He watches you with hooded eyes, a small, secretive smile tugging on his lips.
Blearily, you yawn, somehow still exhausted despite how long you slept between yesterday evening and today. Trauma, you suppose, and say nothing at all about it when he helps you sit up in the bed. 
Dinner consists of leftover bannock—the fried dough soft in your mouth, the flavour buttery; smokey—and hare stew. He pulls a chair from the living room into the bedroom, eating on the edge of the bed with you. 
He's sloppy about it. Slurps all the meat and potatoes out of the bowl before sopping chunks of bannock into the gravy, shoveling it into his mouth with a grunt. It dribbles down his chin, and dirties his beard. This slovenly display might have churned your stomach before, but you're just as ravenous. 
And it's good. 
The bread leaves grease stains on your fingers, but the toes on your uninjured foot curl when you bite into the crispy surface, teeth sinking into the pillowy dough below. 
“This is bannock, you said?” You ask, dabbing the napkin he offered with a wink when you finish. At his nod, you continue. “It's good.”
“Aye,” he grunts around a mouthful. “S’the best. Make it every mornin’ so ah go’ fresh bannock tae go.” He swipes the back of his hand over his mouth, slurring out: “s’good wit’ jam.” 
“Did the locals teach you how to make it?”
He nods. “Scottish dish, originally. Made wit’ oats. Drier, too. But—fuck. S’good—nae. Better like this. Ol’ couple taught me when ah first came. Paler ‘n’ shite, they said. ‘n didnae ken a fuckin' thing about surviving oot ‘ere. Big man, Jim, taught me ‘ow tae hunt. Where tae fish. An’ ‘ow to cook it. Made this cabin, aye. He, ah, and his son. Offered ‘er up tae me when they realised ah didnae come wit’ shite all but a bad attitude.” 
“That was nice of them.”
“Most folk up ‘ere are. Quiet, ken? People take care’a ‘emselves, most. Take care’a others, too.” 
You mull over his words as he leans back in the chair with a satisfied groan, legs spread wide. His hands folded over his belly. The picture of ease. Contentment. This freedom of motion makes you slightly envious. 
“An’ wha’ about ye?” His eyes are lidded, leonine, and fixed on you. The intensity is always on the side of too much. Too dizzying. Consuming. 
You stamp it down, running your thumb along the inseam of his gingham throw. “What about me?”
“Why’d ye come here?”
His question throws you off balance. “It’s a pretty park,” you offer with a shallow laugh. “Who wouldn't come here?”
“Lots of pretty parks. Why this one?”
“Dunno. It was—”
“‘ave ye ever been tae any other parks? Anything like this?”
“I hiked a bit, and, um—”
He sucks out a piece of meat from between his teeth. “A bit, aye?” 
“Yeah. A bit. Why—”
“Ye came all the way here fer what? A pretty park? With no experience at all? And alone?”
The shift in his posture reads as angry, irate. You blink, bewildered by this sudden change. 
“Well. It was supposed to be an experience.”
“An experience, aye? Survival skills of a lemming.” 
It's derisive, cutting. You bristle through the sting of humiliation, grappling through the slurry of fatigue to cobble together some form of defence against this lambasting of your—admittedly—ill-thought adventure, but he's already moving on. Fingers tapping an off-rhythm beat against his belly as he levels you with a sober look. More serious than you'd ever seen him before. 
“An’ yer family? They just let ye come here oan yer own?”
The mention of your family makes guilt well to the surface, buoying above the indignant anger at his mocking words. Cowed, you shrug. 
“Sure.” 
Something cracks in the severe mein he carries; fracturing through the blatant disapproval. Cutting it like a knife. 
He sighs through his nose before reaching up and scrubbing his hands over his face. “Shite. Ye really needed me, aye?” 
You blink at the odd choice of words, brows drawing together in a tight knot. It's indefensible, of course. In many ways, he's right. If he hadn't found you—
Well. 
You temper that thought before it forms. You're too out of it, spatially unaware and unmoored, to let yourself fall into an existential pit of despair when you know you won't be able to climb out. Thinking of your assured doom out there, all because of a misstep somewhere along the path, makes dread bloom in the pit of your stomach. Nauseous, roiling. It froths over the basin, ready to spill over and drag you under. 
Swallowing around the surge of panic—mortality a fickle thing in a place like this—you offer a despondent shrug in response. Unable to scrape together any sense of a defence that won't make you sound childish and idiotic. 
You ready yourself for more mockery, having become the very thing the park rangers tried to warn you about when you showed, alone, in hiking boots much too big for you. 
But then he's shifting, expression clearing. The anger folded back behind a quick grin. 
“Pretty here, isn't it?” 
You're not sure what to make of his mercurial temperament; emotions cascading by, quicksilver and sudden. The flashes of anger, intensity, curiosity, and this, all happening within such a short period. It's overwhelming. 
It unsettles you. But—
“Yeah,” you mutter, unable to stem the awe from leaking through. 
The change in conversation is freeing. Sometimes it's just easier to let sleeping dogs lie, and that's exactly what you do. Tucking his odd behaviour behind a plexiglass of indifference, pretending it wasn't there, lurking just out of sight. Something to unravel later, when your heart wasn't on the verge of buckling under the strain of your anxiety. When your chest didn't feel like it was slowly being crushed. Your stomach is all twisted up in knots too tight to untie with your bare hands. 
It's easy to let yourself heave through jittering lungs, and pretend you couldn't feel the rot festering on the sides of them. Eating holes through delicate tissue. 
The majesty of this place hasn't quite worn off, and you use that as an excuse to drift. To close the doors on the overwhelming deluge of hysteria creeping up on you. 
You still think of the jutting fjords instead. The steep ravines, the moose in the distance—her colours sharp against the green backdrop—and let the untempered sense of reverence split you down the middle. 
It comes out in a flood, then—as if you've been biting back the words this whole time. 
You tell him about the valley. The waterfall. The white river. The marmot you saw poking its head out. No bears, you sigh; the forlorn lilt to your tone seeped with a touch of relief, an aspect he pokes at with a crooked smirk until you huff, rolling your eyes to the ceiling at his gentle ribbing. Huffily, you admit that as much as you want to see a bear, you're not quite ready to face them in the wild. 
Lots’a bears ‘round ‘ere, he taunts, rolling his knees out further as he sinks deeper into the chair. 
He dodges your next question of where, exactly, is here with a silky grin and a need tae know rolling off his lips before they tug downward in a sudden frown. 
You must be acclimating to the strange ebb and flow of his emotions because the lour grimace on his face doesn't deter you as much as it did moments ago. You pick up the slack when the conversation lulls, telling him about the places you've been and how they compare to Nahanni.
“They just—don’t.” 
It's hard to encapsulate the scale of it all into simple words; digestible pieces someone else can swallow. The park isn't too far from Yellowknife, and yet it feels like a world on its own. The remoteness, the vastitude of it all, is hard to describe, but Johnny seems to understand. 
He listens with a slight quirk to his lips. A smile you'd almost call fond. He gets it, you know. The words you can't say. The ones that feel too lacklustre when you do. 
“That really why ye came?” 
You hesitate for a moment, looping a loose thread around your finger. Contemplating. Mulling it over. You've never told anyone the reason for the trip outside of a new experience for yourself. Testing your mettle. But with Johnny—
There's a sense of kinship, you find. An understanding. 
“It seemed so—” he waits for you to find the words. “Lonely, I guess.” 
“Lonely,” the way he says the word is ruminative. Rolling it around between his teeth; testing the weight of it. “Ah suppose it is.”
“You don't think so?”
“It's—” he pauses, eyes listing to the side as he mulls over what he wants to convey. 
He does this sometimes, you think. Gets lost. Loses himself. Retreats inward. You can't help but wonder if this is a manifestation of his trauma—a head injury such as this would be classified as a traumatic brain injury, wouldn't it? You're not well-versed in this area, and it feels a little mean, cruel, to have this thought, but it blooms as his eyes fog over. As he struggles, almost, to find the words he wants to say, to give voice to what he feels, thinks. 
“Lonely, aye,” he grinds out after a beat, but he looks frustrated about it, and glares down at his lap, silently fuming. Annoyed. “Big.”
The word is ripped out from between his teeth, and you nod, hastily, to both quell the looming anger brimming in the terse set to his shoulders and to let him know you understand. Can read between the lines—if only just. 
“Is that why you came?” 
The shrug he offers is noncommittal but you can see the tension pooling in his brow despite your efforts to quash it. “Couldnae go home after this—” he lifts his hand, tapping his fingers against the scar tissue on his temple. “Wasn't safe. Had tae give up everything after. Maw. Da. Sisters. Cannae ever see them again.”
It doesn't make sense. None of it does. The innate understanding between you is shattered by the impossibility of this moment, and his half-formed words. What you gave up seems paltry in comparison to what he's confessing to. His family. His whole family—
“Might see them one day. Once that fuckin' prick is in th' ground, but 'til then—” he shrugs again, easy. As if the look on his face wasn't cataclysmic in its anger. It's rage. Sorrow. Hatred. You flinch back as if the blackhole of these awful emotions will eat you alive. 
Johnny sees it, and reaches for you, making soothing noises under his breath as his hand wraps around your thigh. “Ah, doe, don’t worry. He wilnae find us—” 
You're not sure what to say to that, but the grip he has on you is firm. Unyielding. There's a scowl etching over his lips, as if the mere thought of such a thing fills him with disgust, fury, and you shake your head slowly. 
“I'm not—I’m not worried.” You don't know how to tell him that this phantom prick from his past isn't what made you reel back, but the intensity of his wrath. The sudden infliction of his ire. So you don't. You give in with what you hope is a conciliatory smile. “I, uh, I trust you.”
It's loose. Shaky. Your conviction wanes around the edges, falling flat and hollow when it trembles out. If Johnny notices the brittleness around it, he doesn't show it. If anything, he seems to take it as a sudden gospel. 
“D’ye—” There's a crack in his voice. He swallows, then. Adam's apple bobbing harshly against the skin of his throat. You wonder if you've upset him. Angered him. But he's leaning down, eyes widening. Feverish. Blue lagoons. “Ye trust me.”
It's not a question, but he poses it as such. You nod slowly and unsure. 
Johnny ducks his head, then. Lifts one hand to rub at the bristles around his chin and upper lip. Lost in thought, maybe—
It's when he reaches around, scrubbing at the nape of his neck, do you see the flush peeking out from beneath the thick bed of hair covering his cheeks. The sight is jarring. Unexpected. 
You're not sure what to make of it. Of this strange reaction. But it passes almost as quickly as it started. The red is replaced by a wide, blinding grin. He squeezes your thigh. 
“Hah, doe. Ye really know what tae say tae cheer me up—”
You haven't said anything at all, but this, too, goes unacknowledged. And before you can even try to draw attention to it, he breathes in deeply as he sits up in the chair. 
“Ye finished?” He motions to the bowl and plate on the bed. You nod. “Alright. Ah'll put ‘em away. Get ye some tea.”
“Oh, I'm fine—”
“Nah, hen. Tea is good for ye. Will help ye heal.” 
He leaves without another word, carrying away your dirty dishes. The unfinished conversation lingers in the air around you, but beneath the loose strands of everything unsaid, you feel something tangle inside your chest as you replay his words in the back of your head. 
All alone in Nahanni, unable to see his family. You're sure the prick he's referring to is the one who gave him that horrific scar, nearly taking his life. 
Somewhere in the loop, a knot of pity begins to take shape. 
Johnny brings you Labrador tea—a speciality he learned how to make from Ethel and Jim, the couple from Wrigley who took him in. It's good. It tastes sweet, earthy. Honey and pine. You sip at it as he grabs sleep clothes from his dresser, watching him with a muted sense of listlessness. 
You can't imagine the next sixty days that loom before you. Restlessness, claustrophobia—it coalesces into this strange, itchy feeling that sits, uncomfortably, atop your chest; an increasing pressure. You wish you could pick it off like a loose scab. Dig your nail under the hard clot and tug—
Peel it all off until just silken new skin remains. 
Johnny looks antsy when you finish the tea. Eyes bright. Wide. 
As you contemplate the surrealism of your predicament over Labrador tea, he grins like a shark and tells you he only has one toothbrush. 
“Dinnae mind sharin’, doe,” he offers, too jovial, eager, for the notion of lending his toothbrush to a stranger he met less than twenty-four hours ago. Ah ‘ave good hygiene, he adds, as if that might make this any better. 
Putting away the disgust, the idea of sharing a toothbrush feels much too intimate to you. Something befitting a long-term partner, or kin, before a man you know only the bare bones of. 
But like most things lately, what choice do you have? 
Johnny grins brightly at your acquiescence. All teeth. He hands you an old sweater—his favourite football team, he adds with a wink when you blink at it—and then moves toward you with a wicked gleam in his eyes you try to pretend is just overeager hospitality. 
“Wait—” you start, jerking back instinctively as he looms over the bed. “What are you doing?”
A dip forms between his brows, and he cocks his head quizzically at you. “What're ye talkin’ ‘bout, doe? Need'tae brush yer teeth, don't ye?” 
“I—I can walk—”
He snorts. “Oan yer broken ankle? Will only hurt yerself more.” 
Despite the truth in this statement, the flippancy in his voice stings. Prickles under your skin. Your loss of mobility, of being wholly dependent on another person, is a bitter thing to try and swallow. Especially when you're here for the literal antithesis of it. To be free. Self-reliant. 
Not needing anyone at all except the grit in your bones and the determination to see things through. 
Having all of that ripped into pieces in front of you, by a man who says it with such nonchalant disregard—as if your efforts were meaningless, insubstantial for what it got it—is humiliating. 
You can't remember the last time you needed someone for something so simple as walking to the washroom to brush your teeth, to wash up. The loss of this minute freedom makes you want to cry; to break down. Rage. Break things with your bare hands just to show the world you still can. To fight against these shackles locking around your ankles, and run—
Johnny's hand falls on your knee, thumb brushing the torn edge of your tights, grazing the skin beneath the loose threads with each pass. 
“Don't worry. Ah'll take care 'o ye.” 
That's the problem, you think, chest burning. This awful feeling inside is churning. Frothingly acidic, corrosive. You don't want him to. You don't want to need this man at all. Ever. For anything. 
But—
“Thanks,” you choke out. It tastes like iron. Like defeat. 
He carries you to the washroom, cooing the whole time about how ye ‘ave nothin’ tae be embarrassed ‘bout while you blister from mortification, from shame. 
You came here to be self-reliant. To grind your mettle against the wilderness and come out on the other side victorious and better for it. But what you've accomplished so far is getting lost, getting hurt, imposing on a man you barely know—
One who has to sit down on the ledge of the bathtub with you cradled in his lap like a child, injured foot elevated on the lid of the toilet seat. He cups his hand under your mouth as you scrub at your teeth, trying to catch any of the foam from the toothpaste that spills from your mouth. 
It's mortifying. 
You've never felt so vulnerable in your whole life. 
“Sorry,” you choke out around the brush—his brush—as he slowly commanders the weight of you around enough to spit in the sink. 
He waves you off with a noise. “S’alright, doe. Ye can lean oan me all ye like.” 
So he says. But you feel the rapid inhales behind you. The soft pants spilling from his lips, lungs expanding, broadening his chest into your back. Exertion, you think, slightly cowed and humiliated. Desperately trying to hold some of your weight on your uninjured foot. 
“Nah, ah,” he breathes, arm slinking around your middle, tugging you firmly into his lap. “Ye jus’ worry about gettin’ ready tae go tae bed now. Ah got ye.”
He soothes his palm up and down the length of your arm as you finish up in a fruitless effort to calm your nerves, but it doesn't work. Can't. Because you know what's coming next. 
“Can I, um—” your tongue is thick in your mouth. “I need to use the washroom to–to, uh, washup, and stuff—”
His thigh jerks beneath you. When he speaks, his voice is rougher than normal. “Okay.”
But he stays where he is. 
“I think I can do it on my own—”
“And if ye step oan yer leg?” He tuts, arm tightening around you. “Only gonnae hurt yerself more, doe.”
“I'll be careful, but I really have to—” 
“S’okay,” he coos. “S’only me.” 
That's the problem, you think wildly. Hysterical. That's the whole problem, isn't it? 
“No, you don't understand. I need to, um, go.” He makes another noise, soft. Agreeable. Fuck. “I need to pee.” 
It comes out in a hiss. Feral, like a cat. Embarrassment turns you into more animal than man. 
Again, he hums. “I know, doe. Donnae worry, ah’ll hold yer leg.”
“Can't I just keep it, um, on the ledge?” 
“No, no. If ye put weight oan it, doe, ye’ll be in serious trouble. Dislocated. Broken. Jesus, ye cuid slip the bone out of place—”
No. No.
The idea of him holding your ankle as you piss is beyond any measure of shame you've ever felt before. You like your privacy. Crave it, sometimes. You don't think you've ever done this in front of someone since you were a child. 
You need—
A moment.
Time. A pause. 
But he doesn't give you a chance. 
Johnny's other arm loops under your knees, and with a small huff he stands, holding you aloft with an arm anchored across your belly. It's quick. Mercilessly so. He steps back and lifts his foot to toe the lid off the toilet seat, unbothered by the loud clang it makes when it hits the tank. 
“There we go,” he mutters, and sounds almost breathless for it. “Let's get ye ready.” 
It should be awkward. Clumsy. But he moves with a surprising agility that belies the firmness of his muscles, the bulk. He lets your uninjured leg drop to the floor, murmuring for you to put some weight on it as he cradles your shin in his hands, careful not to let your foot move more than it needs to. 
The strange dance ends with him holding your shin in his hands, stretching your thighs out more than they'd ever been before. An image that might have been comical under different circumstances but just makes you flounder at the suggestiveness of the pose. Added, in large part, by the firm hold he has on you. There's not an ounce of give. No threat of falling. 
You gasp when he moves, shuffling backwards to pivot you around until the back of your shin meets the cold porcelain. 
“Alright now, doe,” he motions toward the seat as he slowly bends down to a crouch on the floor, your foot still held in his grasp. 
You follow him down until you meet the seat, trying to avoid his gaze as you clumsily paw at your tattered pants, slipping the down your thighs in a hurry. Your panties follow after a moment of hesitation. 
When his breath catches, you say nothing at all. Pointedly avoid whatever face he might be making as you stare, fixed, at the panels on the wall behind his head. Wallpaper. Probably moisture-resistant. It's peeling in some places. Decades ago, it might have been a soft canary yellow. 
His breathing is shallow. You ball your hands into fists and press the flat of your knuckles against your thighs. 
It's hard to focus when you can feel the scorching heat of his body bleeding into your leg, your knee. Close enough that all he has to do is bend down a little more, and his face would be pressed against your thighs. 
There's no room, no privacy. 
You close your eyes and pretend you can't hear how his breath seems to fill the entirety of the small washroom, ghosting over your skin. Virginia Falls comes to mind—a roaring rush of water—but even in the solitude of your mind, you can't ignore the way his stare drills through your skin. 
You swallow. You can't do it. Can't do this. 
“Can you—” back off, go away. Stop breathing so heavily because you might get the wrong idea, like this whole thing excites him somehow—
His voice is rough when he speaks. Ragged. “Cannae ah what, doe?”
“Turn the tap on? I can't—I can't concentrate.”
“S’only me, bonnie girl,” he murmurs, but does what you ask. Leaning over you, broad torso swallowing you up entirely under his bulk. You can feel the soft give of his belly on your knee as he presses it into you, but it only lasts a second before you meet a wall of solid muscle beneath. He braces a warm, rough palm on your naked thigh, leaning in as he reaches over to the sink above. 
It's barely a fraction of his weight but the drag of it makes you blink in surprise. His skin is burning. Redhot. 
Opening your eyes brings you close to his chest, nose only a hair away from the tanned skin stretched over his collarbones. The metal chain gleams in the flushed light hanging overhead, sitting in a golden contrast to his sunkissed flesh. Its reflection casts beads of glittering lambency over the slope of his neck. 
Pretty, you think, watching as it coruscates in a mesmerising dance each time he moves. 
The faucet turns with a metallic squeak, breaking you from your reverie. Water gurgles up from the pipes, spitting into the basin with a hiss. You pull back, twisting your head to the side as heat floods your chest. 
“Thanks,” you mutter, unable to meet his stare.
His fingers tighten around your flesh. His voice is raw when he mumbles, “anytime.” 
The trickling rush of water reverberates around the room, and it's easy to close your eyes and pretend you're alone.
So that's exactly what you do. 
His palm grows slick on your skin. Damp. But you ignore it, focusing on nothing but the urgency of getting this over with as quickly as you can. It works, marginally—
(Johnny makes another noise in the back of his throat. 
That, too, you ignore.)
“Finished?” His voice is thick, wet. You nod slowly, peeking out from the sliver between your lashes to paw at the wall for the toilet paper roll. “Here, ah’ll help ye out of fer pants—”
Your head feels heavy. Limbs laden. The embarrassment crushes you into a fine powder; malleable, putty. You let Johnny take the lead after. Let him slip your tattered tights down your thighs, and say nothing at all when too much of his palm glides along your skin as he pulls. Needlessly, of course, when just two fingers would do. 
But it's fine. Fine. Maybe he's never taken off tights before. Maybe the material is too thin and he's worried about it catching on the scrapes over your knees, the bandage wrapped up to mid-calf. 
Your shirt, too. When he slips his fingers under the hem, splaying them wide over your belly before dragging them up until it bunches around his wrist. Tugging, tugging. Hands gliding over your skin, fitting along the contours of your body.
He keeps one hand moulded to your neck, fingers brushing your jaw, as he gingerly pulls the shirt over your head. The ragged pants in your ear, the soft groans when you slip into his old shirt—
It's exertion, really. Must be. He's tired from holding you up the whole time you brushed your teeth, washed your face in the sink. It's all fine. He's being gentle. Doesn't want to hurt you.
He's just being nice. 
(And when you notice that your panties are missing from the pile of dirty clothes he shoves into the corner behind the door, that, too, you ignore.)
Exhaustion takes you soon after Johnny tucks you into bed, dragging you under once again. He tells you he'll be on the couch. To holler if you need anything. Sluggishly, you nod. Thank him when he places a glass of water on the bedside table for you. 
(Bite your tongue when he brushes his fingers over your cheek as he bids you goodnight.)
Through the gossamer of sleep, you can hear the floorboards creak in the doorway, but when you look, there's nothing there. Just an empty kitchen. The soft flicker of the fireplace smouldering in the living room. 
Nothing, you think. It's nothing at all—
There's a weight on your chest. 
Warm, searing. It dampens your skin where it sits, heavy, on your breast, cold air ghosting along the sweat building up each time it moves. 
You stir. The pressure takes shape. A hand. A man's hand. Rough, calloused, and hot. In his palm, he holds your breast, thumb brushing along the curve of it. Sliding, sliding—
You come awake with a gasp. 
There's a twinge in your ankle when you move, and the pain grounds you, silences you. His thumb twitches on your nipple, but he, too, stills. Quietens. An impasse. 
And you suppose this would be where you'd scream. Rage. Slap him across the face, rip his hand off your breast. Curse at him for being a creep, and a pervert, and nasty, disgusting man because there's nothing at all that could justify the reason for why the shirt he gave you to wear to bed is tucked up over your chest. The bruising press of something hard digging into your hip negates any excuse he might try to give. This is unmistakable. You should scream, cry, and—
Leave. 
This is what glues your lips together. Keeps you from moving at all, from making a sound. Where would you go? How would you even get there to begin with? 
It's this—the uncertainty, your vulnerability—that paralyzes you. Keeps you still, silent, as his hands brush over your skin, touching, fondling. His palms are rough, calloused. Pyretic. He squeezes, kneading your flesh in his sweat-slicked hand like he's owed the right to touch you. Like he's allowed. 
He pants against your temple, breath warm, humid on your skin. Heaves like a dog in your ear, grunting low as he ruts his hips into your side, smearing something hot, tacky across your skin. Something you try not to think about, to inch away from. But he catches you quick, and stops your meagre protests before they form. 
His thumb and forefinger close over your pebbled nipple, pinching softly at your budded flesh. The shock of pleasure is unwanted. Awful. It churns your stomach, and you fight the urge to weep—
He leans up, ragged exhales growing heavier as he moves until milk-warmed breath shudders over your bare breasts. His excitement throbs against your hip. You swallow down around the sudden wave of disgust, the sickness knotting itself together in your belly. It devours the lingering pity you'd felt earlier. The safety, the comfort, that brimmed inside of you for him. 
(bleeding heart—
he gorges himself on it.)
Stay still, you think. And maybe he'll go away. 
But he doesn't. Of course, he doesn't. 
Johnny leans down, mouth closes over your nipple. It's all searing heat. Wet, soft. A sudden jolt of pleasure shoots down your spine when he sucks in tandem with the soft, rolling pinches he doles out on your tiger nipple, and you hate your treacherous body a little bit more for it. For how good it makes you feel when he flicks his tongue over your hardened peek, laving it sloppily. Messily. Drooling all over you—the big fucking dog—
You wonder how long he's been doing this. Touching you in your sleep. The thought sits like hot oil in your guts; sloshing against the soft lining of your stomach until it aches. Burns. You blame it on that when he grunts against your breast, the vibrations send a shiver down your spine. Have to, don't you? Because the alternative is to admit that you're slick, soft between your thighs already; folds soaked, inner thigh damp. Wet. Blame it on him, and the burden in your chest eases when you feel the stirrings of desire, lust, thicken in your lower belly. Bodily reaction becomes your clutch, your lifeline when he lays his upper body against you, the weight, the heft, of his bulk forcing the air from your lungs. 
Johnny lifts his head suddenly, eyes drilling into yours before you can feign sleep to avoid looking at him. You don't want this. Your body thrums with reluctance, with fear, but you can't drag your gaze away from him. The rapturous look in his eyes, burning in the low simmer of a never-ending twilight, is paralyzing. Electric. You can't remember a time in your life when another person has ever looked at you with such raw want. Desire. Need. It's covetous. Ugly. Marbled with heady streams of hunger, of awe, as if he's not sure whether or not he wants to eat you alive or savour you for aeons. Taking bites, nibbles, when this urge becomes too burdensome to bear; when the ravenous chasm in his guts threatens to devour itself, bones and all, like a man-made black hole. Under this heavy, unrelenting stare you wither. Submit. Your head rolls until your cheek is pressed against the pillow, neck bared. Offered up to him. 
(anything, you think, to run away from the naked want on his face. because with his mouth slack, lips slick, glistening with spit, he looks predatory like this. animal. bathed in gloam and flushed a deep roseate.)
He props himself up on his elbow, watching you. Feasting. Your quiet submission makes him moan; hips juttering at the slow reveal of your vulnerable neck. A paroxysm. As if he just can't help himself to hump against you like a beast in rut. 
He swallows. You watch his throat work from the corner of your eye, Adam's apple bobbing up and down, up and down—
Then:
He lifts himself up higher, angling his body until it's bracketed over you. Sliding between your legs until your slit is pressed against the coarse hair that covers his thighs. He keeps his elbow propped on the pillow, sliding up, up, until his forearm comes to rest beside your face. It boxes you in completely under his weight, and the position forces your legs to spread open to accommodate him. Not given up freely, of course; but your compliance in this is inessential, it seems. He moulds you how he likes, mindful of your injured ankle the whole time. A kindness that makes something molten thicken in your throat, stifling the scream that claws its way up your esophagus. 
You try not to stare when he clambers over you, chest bare against yours. Hips chiselling a gorge between your thighs wide enough for him to fit. To press his fattened length on the insides of your sticky thighs; groins drawing together. Your legs slung loosely around his tapered waist. A dreadful pastiche of lovemaking. Intimacy. 
But even as a mockery—bastardised as it is—it’s embarrassing how easily you open up for him. Legs falling, spreading further apart. Hot, sticky at the apex of your thighs. Wanting. 
Blame it on sleep, on this endless hypnagogia you've been feeling since he leaned over you on the cliff edge, and said, pretty thing, aren't ye? All alone. No’ anymore, doe. Jus’ me an’ ye, now. Jus’ us—
You swallow, fighting the urge to cry. Blinking rapidly against the tears that pebble against your lashline, but you're helpless to stop the flood even though the levee doesn't break, doesn't spill over. It just sits, a sorrowful lagoon with nowhere to go. 
In your attempt to hold back the deluge, you let your gaze wander away from the piercing blue that drills into your face—seemingly unbothered by the tears in your eyes, the ones that clot over your irises, stinging and hot—and stare down at his broad chest. A mistake, maybe, because you catch sight of the gold cross dangling around his neck. Like a pendulum, it swings. The motion is mesmerising. Hypnotic. 
It distracts you for a moment. Or maybe you've just grown accustomed to his touch, to the heat of his hand on your skin. Whatever the reason, it's enough to pull you away from the feverish trail his fingers leave as they make a steady drag downward. It's only when they dance over your belly button do you realise the muted tickle is Johnny, and by then—
“Shush, s’alright, doe,” he's cooing, warm breath ghosting over the plains of your face. It might be comforting if he didn't rest his weight on his elbow, freeing his other hand just to bring it over your mouth, thumb brushing under your eye. A warning maybe. Don't scream. “Ah go’ ye. Ah’ll make ye feel so good—”
There's a fever in his eyes. Wildfires spreading through the yawning boscage, burning everything in sight. The heat is hot enough to char bone; to blacken meat into a dessicated husk. Eating away at everything in its path. 
You know, almost immediately, that Johnny's beyond reason. Or, rather—
He's gone, turned inward; delusional enough to think that this is something he has to do. 
You'd seen all the warnings of the kindling fire before. Something you'd decided to ignore even as the hunger in his eyes surged; as the shape of it morphed into a frothing devotion that felt ill-fitting for two strangers stuck together like this. 
Stupidly, you thought you could outrun it. That he was a good man beneath it all, and wouldn't succumb to touching you in your sleep, to lulling you into a false sense of security—
Except. He hadn't, had he? 
He'd been blunt about it all since the beginning. My wife—
How silly, you thought. 
But the humour fades when he teases over your hips, resting his palm over your mound, middle finger perched above your clit. Just holding. Touching. The possessiveness of the action is unmistakable, unignorable. 
It shouldn't send a shiver down your spine when you'd rather he didn't touch you at all, but it does. There's something about him, you think. Electric. A lightning storm. It crackles in the air around you, humming low in the atmosphere; this unavoidable surge, natural phenomenon. Maybe that's what he is. 
More storm than man. A force you can't outrun, but can only endure—
His eyes flash when he slides his fingers further down your slit and finds your skin soft, hot. Drenched. When he groans your name out, it sounds like a prayer. An orison. 
“So wet, doe,” he's heaving out in a whisper, eyes nearly rolling back into his head as his touch grows bolder, more insistent. As if the softness of your flesh, the wetness that sticks to your inner thighs, is all the consent he needs. “So fuckin’ wet fer me, aye? Been waitin’ fer this, haven't ye?” 
You want to shake your head no but it's futile. He drops his head to look down the chasm between your bodies, watching his hand slide along your skin. Legs spread around his waist, inviting. He curses foul under his breath when he sees how wet his fingers are from just a touch, words mangled in the back of his throat. They sound less coherent as he roams your body, parting your folds and stroking through the slick spilling out of you, dragging it up to your clit. 
His voice is closer now. Lips bruising against the shell of your ear. Butchered English. Gaelic. An amalgamation of low whines, and rasping grunts. He sounds more animal than man. A booming thundercloud groaning above you, as if touching you is enough to please him, too. Siphoning it from your body as he presses his fingers against your clit, circling, stroking. 
It’s good. So good. And that's the problem, you think. It's easy to give in like this when he pets your pussy like the feeling of your fluttering heat on his hand is enough to make him cum. No one has ever touched you like they were starving for it. Needed it as badly as you did. 
The sensation is almost too much. The notion of it getting tangled in the back of your head, looping around the part of you still screaming to run. To go home. To push him away. 
(your arms are laden. your tongue is a puddle of mercury in your mouth—)
But just as the pleasure blooming in your belly raises with each pass of his thumb, he pulls away. Slides down, down—
Circles your hole with the tips of his slick fingers, petting with the same desperation he showed your clit until he deems you soft enough for him. He slowly sinks his finger inside of you to the knuckle, stretching your walls around him as he moans into your ear about how good ye feel around him, all tight. Hot. So fuckin' wet, do. So wet fer me—
He pulls out just as slowly, shushing the soft gasp you make when the ridge of his palm catches on your clit. 
“Ah told ye, didnae ah? Ah’ll take care’a ye.”
He presses two fingers inside of you as he peppers kisses over your cheek, cooing low about how badly you need him. Only him. 
Johnny fucks you slowly on two fingers. Gently. Deeply. Sliding into the last knuckle, petting against your slick walls, like he's owed the privilege and not touching you in your sleep.  
He brings you to the edge, takes you right there, and—
Pulls away. His fingers slide down as your hips flit, lifting to make them catch on your clit again. It's embarrassing how badly you want him to touch you. Shameful. 
He leans up and catches your mouth in a messy kiss. It's all tongue, wet, no finesse. The wild, unkempt tangle of hair abrades your skin, rubbing it raw as he devours you. Scoops out your tongue with his own, enticing it into his mouth. His teeth close on the thick of it, lips pursing. Sucking on the tip. 
His kisses are doglike and obscene. Leaves drool dribbling down your chin, soaking into your neck. He can't seem to decide what he wants to do, so he tries to do it all. Everything. Biting your lips, trying to choke you on his tongue. Slurping up the taste of you until his mouth is stained with it. Beard matted down, drenched. 
Despite it all, he's a good kisser. His pace is fast, breakneck. You can't keep up, but you try. Struggling along as he seems hellbent on eating you alive. But it's sporadic. He pauses just long enough to settle into an easy rhythm that makes you arch into it, silently begging for more as he fucks you on his fingers. Nips your tongue as he slides in a third, swallowing the gasp you let out, savouring your moans between his teeth. 
Johnny ruins you with just a kiss. Leaves you panting, unmoored. Mouth slack, open wide for him to do what he pleases because the taste of him is divine. 
“C’mon,” he urges, spreading his fingers inside of your cunt until you keen, whining his name. “Suck my tongue, bonnie.” 
It's disgusting. You do it, anyway. 
Your quiet acquiescence makes him moan, hips rutting against you. The hard press of his cock into your skin is bruising. It aches. Your inner thighs are tacky with your slick and the smears of pre-cum he leaves behind as he humps against you. 
He sounds mournful when he pulls away, mouth messy with spit, and whispers, “fuck, wish ah could taste ye again, doe—” You don't know what he means until his eyes drop down to his hand, working insistently between your thighs. 
Your stomach drops. Plummets. You thought this started when he was touching your chest, when you woke up to his hand on your breast—
“Ye didnae wake when ah did it before,” he says, as if sounding mournful, sad, over the fact that you didn't wake up to him eating your pussy while you were asleep, was normal. “Must’a had too much tea—”
You wish, so suddenly, so viciously, that he'd stop talking. You can't hear this. Can't bear to listen to him confess to all the needling worries that bloomed in the back of your head, ones you stamped down with a heavy foot and a potent sense of guilt, shame, for condemning a man who was just trying to help. 
It makes you want to cry. 
“Oh, doe, don't cry—” he coos the words out, contrite and conciliatory, but you can feel the way his cock twitches against your thigh. The unmistakable heat mushrooming in his eyes as the sight of tears streaming down your face. 
He seems to take it as misery over not feeling his mouth on your cunt, a plaintive assertion he whispers into your ear (poor thing, jus’ wannae feel ma mouth on you, aye? wannae feel me lick yer sweet pussy again?), and decides to rectify your sorrow by kissing his way down your body. 
His fingers slip out when he moves, resting them on your knee as he kneels back on his haunches. 
You spare a glance toward him, nervous with trepidation, and—
This whole time, his cock had been this phantom sensation against your skin, bruising and hot. Leaving wet smears over your thighs. Hidden from view. But like this, it's the first thing you see as it hangs, heavy and thick, from between his thighs. 
The sight is—
Something. 
You don't want to think about the heat in your belly. The nervous flit of your heartbeat. 
A pearlescent strand dribbles down the weeping, slick head, dropping to the sheets below. The shaft of his cock is similarly drenched, smeared with what seems like a copious amount of precum. It gathers at the base, a startling contrast of thick, black hair and globs of milky white. 
Something about it makes you recoil. Almost instinctively, primal. 
Your flinch just makes his cock twitch, spitting more out. 
The motion seems to unveil more of it to you, adding to the growing unease you feel because his cock is the furthest thing from pretty. 
It's flushed a daunting vermillion and purpling like a bruise around the engorged glands. Thickening at the base. Streaked with dark veins that run the length of it, like rivers intersecting and jutting up from his skin. Blotches of red, pink, purple, and peach make up the colouring of it. Marbled like a black eye. A busted lip. 
It bobs when he moves. Ugly, garish. You don't want it anywhere near you—
But Johnny’s wet hand on your knee keeps you from moving. Holds you in place as he bends down, resting on elbow to bring his face as close to your pussy as he can get. 
Johnny stares—unabashedly—at your bare cunt when he finally settles between your thighs, widening them further to fit the broad stretch of his shoulders. Eyes lit with a heady greed, a hunger, that knocks the air from your lungs. 
“Missed ma mouth, didnae ye?” 
For a moment, you think he's talking to you. Confusion colours the panic you feel, dampening the dread down until it's flattened by sheer bewilderment when you realise his eyes haven't left your slit. 
“Such a bonnie girl,” he purrs, breath ghosting over your cunt. “Been so lonely without me, aye? Poor thing.”
It heats you up from the inside out. The mesmerised, almost unfettered look of pure adoration shaded alongside the raw want on his face twists a sense of desire inside of you. Has anyone looked at you with such naked need on their face? As if the idea of not having a taste was somehow the most agonising thing they could experience? The way Johnny looks at you is enough to make you ache. And with anyone else, having him address your pussy instead of you would be awkward, humiliating, but somehow, him doing it makes you burn white-hot. Makes you want—
“Johnny,” you whisper, paper-thin, and his head shoots up, brows inching high on his brow. You're acutely aware that this is the first thing you've said since this started. Since you woke up to him groping you, touching you, in your sleep. And it's his name. Johnny. 
Not no, don't. Stop. Please. Just—
“Johnny.”
It's not consent. You're not sure you're fully capable of doing so right now, if ever. But it's the closest you think you could come to saying yes. Admitting that you want his mouth on you, even though the situation leading up to this still makes something ugly and awful twist in your guts, is as much as you can give. He seems to see this. To know. 
But Johnny takes it between his teeth as an unequivocal yes despite that, groaning low in his throat, midnight eyes rolling back into his head. The hands on you tremble. Shake. 
He breathes in deeply through his nose, the sound whistling as a great plume of air is forced through small channels, filling his lungs. Perfuming them with the heady scent of you, of sex, clotting in the air. 
“Fuck, doe. Gonnae give ye what ye need.” 
And then he bends his head, eyes lidded still, half rolled, and without any preamble, glues his lips to your drenched slit, forcing it between your soft folds. 
The first touch of his tongue is molten. Soft, tensile, he laves it over the whole of your slit from the sensitive skin beneath your hole, to the crest of your clit. Digs his tongue in, swirling it over and under your folds leaving no part of you untouched. Feasting. Devouring. 
It makes you mewl. Your back arches off the sheets, ankle throbbing in a heady, pulsing pain at the sudden movement, adding to the shrill whine in your voice. 
He notices, and pets your knee once before sliding his bicep under your leg, looping his hand around to secure your thigh in the crook of his below. Locked in tight. Immoveable. The other he pushes down with the flat of his palm, until your joints ache from the stretch. Your knee is almost flush with the mattress. Widening you further for his searing, eager mouth. 
If his kisses are dogish—wet, messy; sloppy with drool—then the way he eats your cunt is foul. Slobbering down his chin, slurping up the mess he makes with a series of chewed-off moans and muffled whines. He paws at you as if he was denied the pleasure of drink for aeons, feasting like a man half-delirious and starved. There's no finesse. No skill to speak of. Just a desperate man lapping at you like a beast. Worshipping you. 
He nuzzles his chin and cheeks against your cunt, drenching himself until his beard is matted to his skin. The feeling of his coarse hair grazing your sensitive flesh is overwhelming. Too much. Too ticklish. But—
It feels good. 
The contrast of his fleshy tongue rolling over your clit, and the rough brush of his hair when he nuzzles you with the point of his chin, cooing softly about how pretty this little pussy is, getting him all wet, is cataclysmic. The heat floods your belly, and you clench around nothing. Achingly empty. Moaning at the feeling of him bringing you right there, right to the brink, with nothing by the hair on his cheek. It's unreal. Inescapable. Your head drops, mouth lax, open wide as you pant and whimper through the madness of Johnny MacTavish trying to find a way to suck your clit and fuck you with his tongue at the same time. An impossible goal, you know, but he doesn't seem to care about logic or reason with his head buried between your thighs, mouth never leaving you once. He merely nods his head up and down, refusing to pull away.
It's divine. It's worship. It's—
He pushes two of his fingers inside of you, lapping at your taut rim to stem the sting of his sudden intrusion, and you think, for a moment, that you see Nirvana behind your eyelids. 
It's embarrassingly how quickly he brings to you the brink, slurping messily as he drills his fingers into your hole, petting against your walls in a mockery of what he'll do to you once he's had his fill. Satiated his hunger with the taste of your pussy. 
Something he can't seem to get enough of.
Your thighs draw together, crushing him between your legs. Arching into his mouth, nearly smothering him as you rut clumsily against his face, moaning at the rough scrape of his beard against your skin. You're not normally so aggressive, but he loses himself in it, eyes rolling as he grabs your hips and pulls you closer to his wanting mouth, encouraging you to use his tongue, his lips, to meet your end as you see fit. Riding his face as much as you can with your leg locked tight between his shoulder and bicep. 
And it's in between his loud grunts, his whines—almost caterwauling into your slit—where you shatter. The sound of his pleasure, the feeling of his mouth on you—it’s all too much. You break when he sucks your clit into his mouth, keening in the back of his throat as he works another finger into you. It feels good. Too good. 
Johnny works you through it. Lets you take, and take as your muscles spasm with the force of your release. Fingers digging into his shoulders, fisting the sheets. He moans along with you, eagerly lapping at your cunt until you whine, begging him to stop. You've had enough. Can't take anymore—
He only pulls away when you melt into the sheets, shuddering with the aftershocks bubbling through your body. Leaning back on his haunches once more, the hair around his mouth slick and wet. The evidence of your pleasure dripping down his chin, droplets still clinging to his beard.
He crawls over you once more, eyes boring into yours. Pits of coal. An endless black hole.
In this strange space, liminal, you lose yourself. Shed pieces of who you were before when he slots his hips between your thighs, cock heavy in his hand, and presses it to your slit. 
This is happening. He's going to fuck you. 
You wish the thought didn't make your knees fall apart a little wider for him. Make your hips flit, lifting slightly into the air. Eager. Hungry for it. For him.
It's loneliness, you think. Desperation. 
Madness is addictive. It feeds itself and infects those around it. Noxious. An all-consuming black hole that eats, and eats. It must have bitten you, too. Dug infectious teeth into your skin, severing flesh to imbed its jowls in your marrow. Clinging. Poisoning you from the inside out. 
There's no other reason for why you reach for him, hands sliding over his sweat-slicked skin as he falls into the open brackets of your arms, grunting when the head of his cock catches on your rim. He's a wall of heat. Firm muscles. Your nails dig into the thick cords of his shoulders just to feel the reluctant give of his skin. 
Nothing about this man is soft. His waist, his thighs, his chest, his arms, the hard ridge of his cock. It's all unyielding muscle. Burning. Searing into your skin when it drags against his. 
“Gonnae fuck ye, doe,” he whispers, words pitching low. Damp wood, felled timber. Rough. You shiver from the heat of it. The warning, the plea; both extremes coalescing together to make truism more potent. Weighty. “Gonnae fuck this pretty pussy, and yer gonnae beg me fer it.” 
Despite the surety in assertion, he doesn't wait for you to plead with him to split you apart, taking the initiative instead to sink the head of his cock into you. The stretch stings already, and only his glands have sunk in, a fact he grunts into your ear as he drives forward another inch. Another—
You don't think you've ever been this unmoored before. Rendered this docile. A mere domicile for him to burrow inside of; to carve a home from the sanctum of your walls wrapped tight around him. And carve he does. Splitting you apart as he grunts with the efforting of forcing his cock into you, feeding it further with blunt jerks of his hips, his hands feverish on your skin. Sweat slicked already even though he's barely halfway inside of you. 
“Feels so good,” he slurs into your ear, face pinching. Twisting up as pleasure blooms over his brow. “So fuckin’ good, doe, fuck—”
It does. Beyond the blunt pressure of him forcing his cock inside of you, the sting of the stretch, there's an intense, dizzying pleasure in the fullness you feel. In the press of him notching against something inside that makes heat bloom in your belly, turns your bones liquid. It might be the previous climax rendering you oversensitive, but the feeling of him splitting you apart is euphoric. 
It's aided by the moans he lets out as you take more and more of him, as if the sound of his pleasure is funnelled into yours. By the look on his face, eyes widened, feverish, as he darts his gaze between your face and your pussy, unable to decide if he wants to watch his cock disappear into you or watch your face, pinched up in pleasure, in flickering pain, as you take him fully. 
This sort of bliss, this pleasure, is addicting. Narrowed down to the sharp nudge of his cock grazing places inside of you that light your nerves on fire, burn through your synapses until your thoughts are muddled, mush. No coherency, no logic—just the fat length of him bludgeoning into your walls; the tap of his heavy, full sack slapping against your ass as he finally, finally, roots deep.
He must feel it, too. This strange, overwhelming pleasure loops around your lower belly, twisting itself into knots because when he pushes the last few inches inside of you, he nearly collapses on top of you, his whole body shuddering. Trembling. Presses his damp face to your cheek, matted, slick hair tickling your skin, and groans from deep within his chest at the feeling of you wrapped around him. The noise shivers through you. His pleasure is enough to make you clench down, tightening up around him. Already on the verge and all he did was slide his cock inside of you. 
A fact he seems to luxuriate in, huffing shakily into your ear as he quenches himself on the soft, fluttering pulses of your walls around him. Content to grind his hips into yours in shallow gyrations that make your eyes roll into the back of your head. The tension in your belly coiling tighter and tighter, the pleasure ameliorating the shame you'd felt before, burning it into cinders. 
As long as he keeps his cock inside of you, as long as he keeps pushing the blunt head into that spot that makes your vision whiteout, you think could cum just like this. Right now—
He doesn't. 
Johnny lifts himself off of your chest, elbow coming to rest beside your head, taking the brunt of his weight. His eyes are bright, burning. He stares down at you, and the look of sheer adoration on his face is daunting, overwhelming. It threatens to eat you alive. Devour you whole. Pure rapture. Devotion. 
You flush, face stinging with embarrassment. Prickling with unease. No one has ever stared at you like this, so hungrily, and the fact that it's him makes your head spin. Looping endlessly in circles of disbelief and fear. 
He might be omnipotent, you think, with the way his lips tug sharply downward, brow bunching together as if he can hear your thoughts, taste your disquiet in the air. 
Johnny rolls his hips back slowly, inching out of you with a hum until just the tip remains. The loss has your hands scrambling down his chest, fingers tangling in the coarse, drenched hairs at the soft incline of his belly. The other sliding around the thick breadth of his ribs, nails digging into the slick skin covering his spine. Pressing. Biting. 
More, you don't say. Please. 
The knot in his brow dissipates. Eases into something almost playful, impish. 
“Want ma cock, doe?” He whispers it waggishly, like a cloy secret, and you pretend the tease in his voice doesn't make your heart lurch in your chest. “Didnae anyone teach ye some manners? Gotta ask politely.” 
You won't. You won't. 
Your reluctance makes him sigh. The chain around his neck swinging when he moves. His hips pull back, and he reaches down with his free hand, and grabs his cock, pulling it out of you, and sliding it against your slit. The head bumps into your clit, and you nearly choke on the gasp that's ripped from your chest. The pleasure is too much, too—
He pulls away, denying you the euphoria of release. 
“No, no, please,” you babble, resolve crumbling into ash. “Please, Johnny, please—”
“That’s more like it,” he coos, and lets his cock dip back inside of your fluttering hole, rim stretched taut around him once more. The sting is lessened now, but still there as the thick glands force you open for him. “Sound so pretty when yer desperate for ma cock.” 
He leans down, catching your mouth in another sloppy kiss as he slams his cock back inside of you hard enough to bruise. To make you see stars. Cockhead bludgeoning into your cervix in a dizzying amalgamation of pleasure and pain that makes you whine, the whimper snatched up between his teeth as he burrows them into your lip with an echoing groan. 
He fucks you hard, working his cock into you at a maddening pace. Bestial, now. All animal. The tenderness from before dissolves into an choppy desperation. An eagerness to seek his own end as you fall to pieces beneath him, shaking from the force of taking him over and over again, each piston, each hard thrust driving the thoughts from your head until all you have left is sensation. An absence of everything except the way he feels above you, inside of you. 
Sweat builds up along your hairline, gathers at the base of your spine, and soaks the sheets below. You feel liquid under him. A ragdoll for him to sink his jowls into, to toss around as he likes. 
Johnny is all sensation and a cacophony of sound. 
He ruts into you clumsily, groaning in your ear. Moaning out how good you feel around him. Pretty pussy made just for him. 
“Oh, fuck, doe—” he moans, arching into the next thrust. Drool dribbles down his chin when he curves his spine, dropping his forehead onto your temple. “Feels so good. Feels like my cock is meltin’ instead ye—”
The lewd squelch of his cock pistoning into you seems to echo through the room, louder somehow than the ragged moans that spill from his mouth. 
“Been so long,” he shudders against you, rooting his cock deep. Burying himself inside of you as his cockhead bullies into your cervix. The flash of pain is whitehot, blinding, but the bloom of pleasure eats it whole before it can pollute the puddle of bliss pooling in your belly. “Been savin’ it all jus’ fer ye—”
His hand slides from your hip, burrowing between your bodies as rubs at your clit. It feels so good that it nips sharply into pain, into agony. Too much, too much—
But he doesn't relent. Fingers toying, circling your clit in time with each jarring thrust, tightening the coil inside of you until it whines from the tension, the pressure—
It snaps when he growls into your ear—cum fer me, doe; wannae feel this pussy squeezin’ ma cock—and releases in a flood, a deluge of molten heat. Back arching, toes curling. You're barely cognisant of the ache in your injured foot, the throbbing pain. It's swallowed by the surge of endorphins roaring through you, ringing in your ears. Blotting everything out except the way you pulse around the thick of him still lodged deep inside of you. 
You barely have time to come down before he starts again, forcing you to take him as he thrusts in harder than before, mindlessly seeking his own end as you gush around him, nails raking across his flesh. 
He's babbling above you, spitting words into your ear about how he's going to take care of you. All of you. Take you back to Scotland with him so you can raise your children—
It slices through the haze, ripping a hole through the fog clouding your mind. 
“No,” you whimper, devastation flooding your chest alongside the vicious pleasure still rolling around inside of you. “No, please—”
Children, he breathes like you hadn't spoken at all. Lots. Lots of them. Brothers and sisters. Two, maybe three, of each. But he's not picky, bonnie, he'll take whatever you give him. And keep fucking you over and over again until he gets what he wants. A whole family to raise. To surround himself with. Been lonely, you think he says. Needed something to keep him busy. 
You don't want this. Can't. But he doesn't stop, doesn't relent. He breathes life into the picture he paints with the soft flutter of your cunt clenching tight around him at words, once again betrayed by your own body. 
Despite the nausea that bleeds to the surface at his words, your eyes roll back into your head once more, driven mad with the thunderous pleasure that rips through you as he forces every last inch of his cock into you. 
Johnny grinds his hips against yours, moaning, loud and untethered, muscles jerking, twitching, as he cums deep inside of you. 
The aftershocks of his pleasure make him tremble, body spasming as he drives himself tight against the seal of your womb. A new heat grows inside of you as Johnny slumps against you, panting in your ear. 
“Ah’ll be so good tae ya,” he promises in a rasping growl, shoving his head into the crook of your neck. Gyves close around you as he nuzzles his mouth into your flesh, licking at the sweat that beads on your skin. 
“All mine. All fuckin’ mine—” The confessional is tainted with the sickness that leaks from the craggy hole chiselled into the side of his head. Obsessive devotion hewing ruinous dogma into the fibrils of your head. Tenderised, softened, by the blunt, unyielding touch of his hand. A slurry that this polluted notion slips inside, tainting your resolve until it's thickened into his whim. His wants. 
You sob into his chest as he wraps you up in his arms, shackled against the man who carved a place inside of you just wide enough for himself to fit. Who spat poison in the hollow crevasses, and called it absolution. Love. 
All you can do is heave through corrupted lungs as he smothers you under the weight of his madness. 
“No’ gonnae let anyone touch ye. Ah'll kill anyone who tries to tae take ye away from me, doe—”
The conviction in his tone is bound in steel. In feverish blue. 
“Ah’ll take care’a ye,” he rasps, voice thick in his throat. “Donnae worry about a thing, doe.”
“Will you let me go?”
He doesn't answer at first. Just digs his nose into your hairline, breathing in deep until the wide breadth of his chest expands across your back. Mulling it over, maybe. Coming up with an excuse for his behaviour. Something to negotiate with on reasons why you shouldn't call the police the moment he does. 
And for a moment, a startling, terrible moment, there's hope. The assurance wells on your tongue. Some unfathomable amalgamation of please and i’ll never tell. Maybe you were going to tell him he was an honest man who did something bad. That there was still good within him. All of those hideous clichès bubble up through the cracks—
But it's all dashed when his hand drops down from its perch beneath your bare breasts, sliding over your skin until it curls possessively over your lower belly. 
He breathes out and the hope inside you is snuffed under the gale of delusion, his obsession. “Why would ah do a thing like that?” He prompts, and the genuine confusion in his voice makes you shiver, as if the idea of it is so outlandish, so absurd, it negates everything he'd done to get to this point. You feel hollow. But not—
Not empty. 
As if he hears the thought thundering in the ruins of your mind, he presses a tender kiss to your temple that you think is meant to be soothing. Shushing you softly when you begin to shake. “After it took me this long to find ye, doe. Am no’ lettin’ ye go fer the world, ken. Yer mine. All mine.”
And then he closes his jowls around your throat. 
Time feels artificial here. 
You wake up several hours later, groggy and disoriented, but the sun doesn't seem like it moved from where it was perched last night at all. Fixed in place. Lost in some strange, eternal twilight zone where the sun is a warden, watching you tirelessly through the window. 
Cardboard cutout hung amongst the stars.
Your ankle aches horribly—an agonising throb. You must have turned in your sleep, jostled it. You're further away from the spot you were last night, too. Rolled over in your sleep, maybe. The burn brings tears to your eyes that you swallow down with a groan. 
As you awkwardly settle your leg in a way that hurts slightly less than it did before, you let cognisance slip back in to keep your mind off of the horrible ache that tremors through your bones. Your neck. 
Between your thighs—
It's then that you hear Johnny. 
He's whistling in the kitchen. You peer out through the crack in the door, catching the broad expanse of his naked back as he works over the stove. Flexing. Muscles bunching. He hums a tune you can't recognise as he scrapes the spatula over the cast iron pan. 
His grey sweats sit low on his hips. The divots above the hem—dimples of Apollo, you recall—are stark against the hollow ravine of his spine. You can't help but stare. Gawk. Limned in the soft light of the morning sun that spills through the open window, he looks almost ethereal. Unreal. Like something out of a magazine and not the middle of nowhere in Canada where the sun doesn't set this time of year. 
He feels surreal. A man too good to be true. All sculpted musculature that looks like it could just as well be handmade by an amalgamation of both David’s by Michelangelo and Gian Lorenzo Bernini. All sharp, angled lines; beautiful in their fluidity. 
It's unfair, you think suddenly. To be stuck with a man you feel nauseous thinking about but can’t seem to take your eyes off of. Some paradoxical madness. Retribution for a time in a past life where you swindled fate and got away unscathed. All of your karmic sins pile down on top of you as the events last night flicker past, drenched in seafoam. Ghosts linger in the cracks; in memories. 
The phantom weight of something slung over your waist, knotted tight between your breasts. Scorching heat glued to your spine. A heavy hand cradling your lower belly. Words whispered into your nape—
He turns, then. Catches your eye like he knew it was there the whole time. Stands there like the picture of ease, of a satiated man puttering around a small space while his sweetheart lounged in the bed, lazing the day away. 
Like this wasn’t illegal. Immoral. He treats you like a lover even though you’d only met less than a day ago—
And already his cum was drying on your inner thighs, thick and sticky. His madness pooling in your head, words uttered into your ear about this cabin he has back home, back in Scotland. He’ll take you there, he said. It’s time he came home, he thinks. His head is on straight again, and he finally feels like he can breathe without shattering into a million pieces—
(He put your hands on his head last night, palm cradling the ugly scar on his temple, and whispered, fervent and insane, ye keep ma head together, doe. Ye make me feel whole again—)
Knows a man, he told you. A good bloke who’d help him get you home, too. 
His smile is bright. Blinding.
“Mornin’, doe. Ah made breakfast.” 
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luludeluluramblings · 14 days ago
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I’m the anon who sent the pregnant Reader ask! And omg Sugar Baby! Reader is such a delight. Imagine the absolute 😦😧😨 journey on Bruce’s face upon realizing this man who is closer to him in age, old enough to be his daughter’s dad not only MARRIED but had the audacity to knock her up to. I can see little menace Damian asking Husband plenty of indiscreet questions and being straight up rude. Bruce lets him, and he has plenty of questions for the husband, too. How dare he seduce Bruce’s young, impressionable and sheltered daughter, has he no shame?
And of course they offer for Reader and husband to stay at Wayne manor while she recovers. All the hotels in Gotham are suddenly booked so they have to stay over, right? Husband can go right back to work too, Reader will be fine with her family. And why don’t they look at midwives or some of the best hospitals in Gotham, consider giving birth here? Not that they all wouldn’t track the rest of her pregnancy and fly out when she gives birth, but it keeps things simpler.
The sad thing about this concept, fun as it is, it’s that the Batfam is absolutely going to ruin Reader’s relationship either by sabotaging her husband, his business, maybe plant cheating evidence for her to find like Meta! Reader’s prom date. Obviously they will all be there to help pick up the pieces and aid Reader in recovering as well as caring for the baby.
Bruce holding his grandchild and Damian as an uncle too! Wholesome despite the circumstances.
Adding to this and adding a slight NSFW warning for at the end!
☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️
See, I feel like the counter to this would be Husband having a begrudging Alfred in his corner. Like, Alfred isn’t happy about this guy being married to Reader. But, unfortunately, this is the healthiest relationship anyone in the family has ever been in and he doesn’t wanna ruin that for Reader.
Although, the petty passive aggressive bullshit Hubby’s gonna go through at the manor will probably escalate to the point of them sabotaging his business or making Hubby and Reader snap at the family together.
☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️
Reader’s not stupid enough to fall for planted cheating evidence. They know their husband (man’s too old to be trying that nonsense and they also take good care of him themselves.) Plus, they probably told Hubby about how neglected they were by their family. Hubby’s gonna be prepared mentally for the bullshit, even if it does eventually overwhelm him.
But, if you want angst, which I’m guessing you do. I’d say Hubby could tragically die. The family either went to far with the sabotage or an accident happened at work.
(Or, because the dude I imagined Hubby being is Philip Graves, he has to fake his death temporarily for work reasons. Oooo, hubby can grovel and show the Bat family how it’s done when he comes back.)
Either way, you have a distraught Reader. But, I would also add Reader has a difficult pregnancy . That’s why hubby was spoiling her so much.
Imagine the bat family dealing with a hormonal pregnant reader that blames them for their husband’s subsequent death while also being in pain?
☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️
Also, if the family ended up insisting y’all stay at the manor you KNOW your husband would fuck you on every available surface without fucking care. He’d clean you and the place up right after, but everyone in that house would know how good he’d be dicking you down.
Alfred don’t care, he dealt with horny Bruce. Bruce, though, he just sit in his bed silently screaming in his own personal hell. Everyone else is traumatized. Especially when you be calling hubby daddy when he be hitting it just right.
☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️☁️
(I’m tagging this as SugarBaby!Reader and this is going to have to be a series at this point. One day, one day.)
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eupheme · 9 months ago
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— Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
Hancock (FO4) x Sole Survivor!F!Reader
Rated E - 5.8k
Tags - 3rd person very loose pov, sole survivor!f!reader (no descriptors), canon-typical raider violence & death, mutual pining, teasing, partners to lovers, two idiots in love, waiting out a storm, mention of food/eating, SS!reader gets dicked down wearing Hancock’s coat, the hat stays on, fingering, oral (f receiving), spitting, manual restraints, multiple orgasms, PiV, creampie, mention of a cigarette/smoking, references to chems 
started this while doing research for wasteland, baby - and was consumed with thoughts of a slightly softer “oh fuck, I’m in love” Hancock
It’s a dangerous thing - to have feelings for the person you’re traveling with. Too many things can go wrong in an instant and yet…  here they are. Steadfastly ignoring the something that has been building, thick enough to taste. 
Luckily, an incoming rad storm might just be the push they need. 
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He’s fucked.
Figuratively, not literally. Unfortunately.
That’s part of the problem, if he could call it that. And he probably shouldn’t - because it’s not her fault. Just his. 
It was a rookie move, falling for his traveling companion. Should have kept it just professional - strictly business. No ‘get to know you’s, no inside jokes. 
But he had never been the professional type. Not his style. 
And somewhere along the way - between getting the shit kicked out of them, the close calls, the long miles of barren road - something had started to grow. Curling around his ribs and filling his guts up like ripe tarberries. 
Letting it grow and flourish. 
Unable to shake it. 
It hadn’t been long before he had known something was up.
That it was something besides that urge to get away from it all, to wander, that kept him sticking with her.
That along the way, the idea of this stranger having his back became comforting. That he knew he had hers - even if he half-thinks she have a death wish, with the way she rushs into things half-cocked.
He can’t understand, but he tries. The bits he’s gleaned from late nights - passing the bottle of whisky back and forth even though it makes her grimace. The pieces of her past that have slowly been revealed, forming a half-completed picture.
It’s enough to make his blood boil, that scorching feeling of vengeance curling in his chest, eating up his insides. It’s been a long time since he felt that way - making him think back to the night where he had stained his hands with all that red. 
He’d do it again, for her. 
It’s that realization made him think that just maybe - he cares.
And not just in a friendly kind of way. 
He thinks it began in the middle of a firefight.
Bullet whizzing past their heads. A nest of raiders flowing out from a jutting wreck of scaffolding they had missed.
Several downed already, lost among the ruins. A souped-up pistol in her hand, as the other shielded shrapnel from a hand-made grenade.
Missing the two that snuck up, flanking them. 
He had taken one down. A nasty shot to the gut, the Raider gurlging as his legs gave out. Her shot going wide - he can still remember the look on her face as she reached for the gun on her back.
The other Raider taking the moment to bowl him over, a padded shoulder to the chest. Knocking them both against a piece of metal fencing that creaked under their weight - his shotgun clattering to the pavement. 
An arm pressed against his throat, choking him - as the other fumbled for a knife. Ironic, he thought, that he’d be gutted, after all he’s done. 
But she had swooped down. Fingers twisted around the barrel and forestock of her rifle. Bringing it down on the raiders head like it was a louisville slugger, snarling like she herself had gone feral.
Her hand, warm in his as she hauled him up, the other splaying across his chest. Face streaked with grease and splattered with blood but in that moment, she was the prettiest thing he had ever seen.
“Thanks, sunshine.” He had murmured.
Her smile had been small, as she pressed the gun back into his hand, “Can’t have you getting stabbed. I’d miss that mouth of yours.”
Such a small thing - her own joke. The way he filled the space with chatter on the road. But he’d been smitten. 
He had been good looking, before. He wasn’t half-bad now. Charisma could get you a long way, and his silver tongue hadn’t rotted like the rest of him. 
Charming words - flirty and sometimes filthy - slid easily from him in the heat of battle, the wind-down after. When he was feeling good about things, the words coming without thought.
Choking on them, when she turned to give him a look - embarrassed, sometimes. So goddamn cute and flustered, it made him want to do it more. 
Other times - a look, that was soft and lingering. 
“Yeah?” 
Almost a challenge in the way she said it.
He could never follow it up. 
Follow through. 
Because back home, it wasn’t an issue. A rejection meant nothing other than a soft blow to his ego. Brushed off with a hit of a favorite indulgence, finding company in another.
But here - it had a weight. It could ruin something he truly has enjoyed. Throwing in with her had been one of the best decisions he had made. He couldn’t fuck that up. Not this time. 
So he swallowed his words - before she was racing off, and he was following at her heels. Off to trouble that could be their last, and here he was - that clever tongue tied in a knot. 
That’s when he knew that he had it bad. 
Bad enough that out of the two of them, he had been the one peering up at the sky overhead. Where the muted hazy grey was rolling into a sickly green, rain starting to drop down. A rumble of thunder.
The first to suggest stopping at the next place they could, as the spaces between the raindrops started to dwindle.
“We can make it.” She had shrugged, as his jog slowed to a walk.
Catching her arm at the elbow, gesturing with the muzzle of his shotgun to the side.
“Not if you don’t want to end up like me, sister.”
Ignoring - but not missing - the chastising look she shot him. His head tilting towards the roof that looms just over the ridge.
An old diner - rusting chrome and shattered windows, but it would do. Well past soaked by the time they scrambled over the hill and down. Grateful to find that it was abandoned. 
Picked over, for sure - but as long as there was a roof over their heads, he hadn’t cared. Combing through junk was her thing, anyways. He was just the pack mule.
Now - he’s multi-tasking. Trying not to think about what he’s thinking about.
About her changing in the room behind him. Peeling the patchwork raider gear off her curves. All that soft, smooth skin underneath.
Distracting himself by eyeing the radroach that is skittering across the pavement outside the front door - just out of range of his shotgun.
Because of course, out of everything in the wasteland, that was the thing she was scared of. Not super mutants, not even the pack of mirelucks that had them cornered, just the week before. 
A goddamn bug. 
He laughs, a soft hushed thing. Catching himself with a grimace. 
Because, like he said.
He’s fucked. 
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The rain that patters overhead would be calming - if it had been 200 years ago, and not dripping with radiation.
She shivers, draping the tattered pants and worn shirt over the back of two rotting, wooden chairs - a makeshift drying rack. Missing that insulated warmth of her Vault Suit, trading it back at Sanctuary for worn clothes - old and salvaged Raider gear.
It had become hard to blend in, in all that blue.
It had made sense at the time, but in the dark and chilly backroom, she finds herself regretting it. Thinking that next time - she’ll pack it with her.
Trying to find the dampest parts of the packed gear to lay out, next. Lining up the bedroll next to the glow of the lantern. 
Don’t need any more must or mold than there already was. 
Pawing through her bag afterwards, coming up with something to pass for dinner. A can of cram, their only good fork wedged between two knuckles. A sweet roll split in two - the sticky crumbs clinging to her fingers as she nudged the door open.
Feeling vulnerable in the faded undergarments she wore underneath. Dreading facing him, not because of what he’ll say - that part, she is actually curious to hear. 
She’d given up on the idea of modesty long ago. Traveling on the road and through the dirt and blood and grime will do that. 
It was almost freeing.
No. It’s because - it makes her hope. Makes her think that dressing down might actually get him to notice her, in a way that’s more than the surface-level, flirty conversation she’s seen him have with dozens of people. 
In the old world, maybe she’d wear a dress for him. Something red and cut low in the front - bare arms and legs.
Now, it’s faded cotton and vulnerability.
A “I can trust you like this” and a “Maybe if you like it, it will make me brave enough to ask.”
Rejection dressed like this would sting, surely. Even if it’s her fault, for having a crush on someone who doesn’t see her that way. 
Her eyes linger on his back, where he stands watch. Where he hadn’t heard her open the door just yet, drifting to the other side of the counter to watch the rumbling, green storm roll in.
The tin clatters on the counter, drawing his attention. A flicker of lightning illuminating his profile as he turns, eyes widening. 
Hancock’s eyes drop automatically. Quickly and then a slow drag - it’s like watching him after she’s taken a hit of Psycho. 
Dark and glittering under her own careful watch, before they’re snapping back up, and he’s blinking. 
Pulling himself back. 
“Is that dinner?” He asks, clearing his throat when the words come out rough and low. 
Her face falls, just for an instant. A small smile replacing it, as she scoops up the tin of cram before tossing it his way. He catches it neatly - popping the lid open, plucking the fork from her fingers. 
She should have known better. 
Hancock was just a flirt, never taking her bait. It was a good thing, she thought. Honorable, despite the grey that’s soaked into both of their moral codes. 
He digs the fork in, breaking off a piece of the preserved meat. Handing the first bite to her, unable to help another quick look as he lowers himself to one of the stools that curves around the diner countertop. 
Not that he hasn’t seen her before. Never quite this bare - but close enough, from the quick times they’ve had to change clothes.
It didn’t mean anything. 
“So uh, what’s with the getup?” Hancock can’t resist asking, his tone deceptively light, “Or should I say, lack thereof?
“Clothes are soaked,” She snorts around the mouthful, trying to sound disinterested, “Besides, you’re always telling me it’s not good to let the rads soak in.”
He’s curious now, catching that slight edge. Not usually so defensive - that expression she makes when she’s flustered. It makes him want to nudge at it, poke at that little crack. 
“Hey, you don’t hear me complain’, sister.” Hancock grins, taking the fork back, “That’s a real good look for you.”
Always a joke. 
Her eyes roll as she sits down on the stool to his left, her knee knocking against his. The halves of sweet roll balanced on the curling, discarded tin, for after. 
They share the makeshift dinner. Passing the fork back and forth, trying not to think about how easy it feels to be like this. 
Companionable silence, beneath the rumbling, dark green sky. Tucked away and sheltered from the storm.
She stares out across the wasteland, lost in thought. Moving on to other things, already planning for the morning. If there’s any stops they need to make on the way back to Sanctuary. 
While his eyes wander - a sideways glance that drifts down her form greedily, only to shift away when her own lift. 
A breeze cuts through the building where windows once lived, making her shiver. Arms moving from the countertop to wrap around a bare middle, curling in on herself.
“You cold, sunshine?” He asks with concern, bringing her back.
She hadn’t noticed, but now she does. The chill starting to sink in, now that she’s not moving, not covered in the layers and padded armor. 
Goosebumps raise on her skin. Arms crossing tighter across her chest, as her lips part to answer.
But Hancock is already shrugging off his maroon frock, swiveling in his seat to swing it around her shoulders. 
She rarely seen him without it. Fuck, he even sleeps in the damn thing - a prized possession, if he ever had one.
“Thanks.” The word is layered with sincerity, as she pulls it close around her, the high collar brushing her cheek. 
Warmer already. The inside is soft against her skin, the fabric worn and stained and smelling like him.
Silence lingers for a moment, as they stare at the darkening sky. The heavy blanket of rain that still patters on the rooftop, a slow drip down to the tile floor on the other side of the room.
"Hope this lets up by morning," She says as she leans, warmer now - elbows pressing into the stained laminate counter.
Eyes out of focus, thoughts already running off without her. "Stop by Sanctuary, pick up some things for Tenpines. Haven't been there in a bit, been wondering how they've been holding up."
He mirrors her - feeling bare without his coat. A heavy lean on his left elbow, the swivel of the chair bumping his knee against hers, "’m sure they're fine. Gotta be better off than they were before."
A smirk crosses his features, a glance from the corner of his eye, "'Sides, not every day you get saved by the fearless leader of the Minutemen. That oughta keep 'em going for a while."
There's a groan as she slumps, the heels of her hands pressing into her eyes. Garvey's enthusiasm and her recent promotion to General a source of embarrassment, even if she bore the weight of it well.
"Yes, the fearless leader," She mocks, her head turning his way. Pushing herself up, her arms spreading wide, "If only they could see me now."
And they might not be able to, but he can.
Not just the soft expanse of her skin, peeking out from beneath his coat. The hollow of her throat, the curve of her breast and the strain of her tits against worn fabric that will be forever seared into his mind.
Not only just that, though. That something that he can see inside her - that was there when he had decided to leave Goodneighbor. That lingers with him, tethering them together as he follows at her side. And yes, he does stretch the truth - who doesn’t? He wouldn’t make half as many deals, otherwise. 
But he’s isn’t, now. 
She is unaware of the thoughts that tumble through his mind, quick as old snapshots. A curling amber film strip, tucked into a canister. 
Instead, there’s a roll of her eyes as her comment of "really, only you could pull this coat off" lands on ears that had been muted, in the way his mind drifts. How the low pooling of warmth in his belly turns sharp and cramps, at the thought of Preston Garvey spending time in such company. Like this - without him.
"I wouldn’t say that." He hears himself saying. Voice a little lower, raspier, than usual.
Maybe it's bravery. Maybe it's him finally seeing her intent - maybe it's the moment where he's realizing that after tonight, she's no longer just his again.
His eyes drag over her again, slower this time. And he lets her catch them.
"From here, things are looking pretty good."
She stills, eyes rounding. A swivel of her chair until knee-to-knee becomes thigh-to-thigh- something akin to hope slipping into her tone.
“Yeah?”
He reaches - fingers tracing the collar of his coat, thumb rubbing against the hollow of her throat.
“I’d say so.” Hancock tells her, “Look like a goddamn dream, if I’m being honest.”
She’s tired of waiting. She’s done enough of it. Eyes on his as her chin tilts up, just hovering.
He’s tired, too.
With a lean, he takes the offering. Ruined lips press against soft ones. Ones that part for him, a soft sound at the greedy dart and swipe of his tongue, until she’s meeting him.
She’s sweet - he can taste the sugar on her tongue, melding with the taste of her. Fingers press against his chest, where his heart hammers. Sliding over lithe shoulders until they’re wrapping around, pulling him closer.
He’s stronger than he looks. The seat squeaks when he leans, his palms tracing her waist, her hips. Tucking beneath her thighs - right against the curve of her ass as Hancock lifts his hips, taking her with him.
She moves, his name a soft sound in her throat. Letting him lead, letting him ease her onto the edge of the counter. A sense of relief and hope floods through her, dripping down to settle warm and wanting between the thighs that spread open so he can step between them. 
His cock swells, where it’s trapped inside his pants. Easing the ache with a roll of his hips, pressing himself against the thin fabric covering her core. The breath she inhales in response is shaky. Another soft sound, so different than the assured tone he’s used to. 
He wants to hear it again.
It’s easy to set the pace - the pointed press of his hips. Her hand finding his, drawing it up to her breast. Letting him cup her, the soft weight. Letting him press his thumb against that tight peak, catch it between his fingers until she’s gasping against his grinning mouth. 
Her mouth drops, catching his chin. The tip of a tongue between parted lips press against his cheek, warmth breath against his jaw making him growl. 
“Please-” She’s murmuring, against his skin. Against muscle and sinew, as his own lips follow.
Fingers biting into his skin, as his teeth graze her jaw. Her head tilting back, baring her throat to him, as her hips rock to meet his. Eyes fluttering shut as her chest heaves, as his other hand curls against the curve of her hip, keeping her close. 
His tongue peeks out, dragging against sweat and rain-dewed skin. A groan rattles in his throat, his own voice distant and rasping.
“Fuck, I need to taste you.” He can feel her moan, against his lips at his words, “Lean back for me, doll.”
She’s soft, pliable. Unwinding herself from him as she obeys, only for those hazy eyes to open - meeting his beetle-black ones. 
“Wait,” She’s protesting, hands slipping to press flat against on his chest. A sudden realization - shoulder curling back so his coat slides off it, “Let me take this off.”
“Leave it.” Hancock’s head lifts to kiss her again, his hand curling around the back of her neck. 
She huffs against his mouth, before it turns into a sigh. His tongue brushing against her lower lip, before she pulls back again.
Not wanting to forget her train of thought.
“What if I make a mess on your coat?”
He groans at that, the hand on her hip drifting lower. Cupping her over the thin piece of fabric, fingers pressing down. 
“Don’t threaten me with a good time.” He husks, “I’d fuckin’ love that. Never gonna take it off.”
It makes her scoff, cheeks burning, “You never do, anyways. You-”
He shuts her up with his fingers - tugging at the elastic waistband, pulling them down until she’s bare. Letting her kick them off, before he’s pushing her back against the counter.
Arching over her soft form as his mouth wanders, his hips grinding against hers. Teeth nipping at her throat, lips brushing where her heartbeat flutters. Clever fingers tracing the seam of her sex, brushing over soft lips - teasing. 
She’s so fucking wet, he can feel how his fingers glide over her skin. How it smears on her thighs, as they spread wider for him. 
“What do you want?” 
It makes her sigh - that voice, so low and rasping - and she’s clenching around nothing already.
“You,” She’s unable to help but whine, “Please, you-”
His laugh is rough, a rattling chuckle in his throat, “You have me, sunshine.”
Middle finger parting her, teasing at her entrance, the calloused pad of his thumb circling around the bud of her clit. Sinking into the wet heat as she groans, starting a slow pump of his textured finger.
Pressing deep with a slow thrust. Another, and then another, until she’s taking a second. Stretching her wide, as her fingers twist in his stained shirt. Grasping for his shoulders as her hips buck into his touch. 
“Should say how do you want it?” The kiss he presses against her throat is almost reverent, “Because I don’t think I have it in me to go slow right now.”
“Slow, later.,” She moans, as his fingers press deep, “Need you.”
He grins, “Love how you think, sweetheart.” 
Hancock’s head ducks, moving down to her collarbone, then lower. She’s already reaching to tug the cups of her bra down, baring the curves of her breasts to him.
“Fuckin’ beautiful.” He hums, fingers brushing over the soft weight again, cupping one in his hand. Still fucking her open with the other, curling and stroking until she’s panting. 
Tongue peeking out to flatten, and then drag across the tight peak of her nipple. Her hands grasping for him again, as there’s the briefest pinch of teeth.
“Hancock.” She grits out, a swivel of her hips against his, grinding into his fingers. 
His own rocking against the back of his hand, where he’s hard and aching. Never thinking he’d know what it’s like to have his partner begging like this. 
He wants to hear more. Every little sound she makes, as his mouth moves lower. Licking wet stripes against her stomach and abdomen.
Until he’s plunking down on the padded chrome stool he’s been straddling. Gazing at where she’s wrapped around his glossy fingers. 
Watching how she twitches and bucks and gasps when his thumb swipes across her clit, his name on parted lips again.
“Love hearin’ you say my name like that.” He purrs, “Can’t wait to hear how it sounds when you come.”
Leaning forward, inhaling her scent before his tongue swipes above his fingers. Her hips leave the countertop, the moan loud as he laughs - his other hand pressing flat against her stomach. 
Holding her down, as he teases her again. Short, pointed licks against her throbbing clit. Her cunt is as sweet as her mouth, his own groan caught in his throat as his tongue dips inside her. 
Mourning all the nights he could have spent like this. Spending the time as evening turns to night, then again as night turns to dawn. Drowning in the taste of her instead of clenching his teeth until his jaw aches, as he tries to keep quiet. Dreaming of this. 
He leans back, just enough to press a wet kiss against her clit. The soft suck a sharp contrast with the texture of his rough fingers as he fucks her open. 
She was right - it’s messy. Dripping down the curve of her thighs, the damp stain mixing with others on his weathered coat. 
Everything is so dry, in the wasteland. Dirt roads and dead trees. He relishes in the wet suck of her cunt, how it’s this way right now because of him.
His cheeks hollow, a swirl of his tongue before he’s adding to it. Leaning back to let his spit drip down, his thumb dragging it across the tight bud.
She’s whimpering. It’s been ages since she’s had anyone - the low throb in her belly swiftly building. 
In the before - she thinks she’d be embarrassed to be splayed out like this. Stripped near-bare on the counter of a diner, thighs spread wide as his fingers pump into her aching cunt.
But he eats her like a meal, left hand moving from her belly. Wrapping around a thigh to tug her closer, hiking it over a shoulder.
Groaning into her pussy as his tongue flicks against her clit, smearing slick across his chin. Pressing closer, unhindered by the usual curve of cartilage and flesh as he molds himself against her. 
“Hancock.” His name is a sharp gasp, as she clenches around him. Breath held in her throat as she watched with half-lidded eyes.
Focused on the tight string that winds with each careful curl of his fingers. He slips in a third and she all but sobs, chasing her pleasure with a needy rock of her hips.
Chanting him name as it curls low in her belly.
“Hancock. Hancock-”
And then, the prettiest of all.
“John. Fuck, John, I’m going to come-”
It’s goddamn music to his metaphorical ears. Better than that - better than the sing of gunfire in his favor, of the sweet rush and hum of that first hit of Jet.
He watches through those dark eyes as she falls apart. Her cry loud in the empty diner, as she’s struck - the livewire crackle of her orgasm ripping through her.
Better than she can ever remember. Thighs squeeze around his neck but it only makes him moan - breath hot against her cunt as his fingers continue to pump. And his tongue dips to taste her, slipping between knuckles. 
The pleasure throbs - the stained ceiling spinning, looking like the clouded stars high above them to her hazy mind. 
A disbelieving and dazed laugh caught in her throat as his mouth moves. Pressing against her mound, the sensitive curve where thigh meets hip. 
It’s only then that she’s unhooking her thighs - a heat blazing in her cheeks at the brazenness. Too caught up in the moment to see herself - splayed out across the countertop, heels digging into his spine. 
But she does see him - the need etched across his face under the tip of his hat, the wet shine against his lips and chin. Deadly in a new kind of way, mixing with the prowess he shows on the battlefield.
There’s another low throb, deep inside her. The lithe way he moves, rising - a hand planting next to her hip, the other working the heavy buckle open.
She meets him - pushing herself up. A hand coming to cup him, feeling the hard length that strains against his trousers. Tasting herself on his tongue when her head ducks to kiss him, swallowing his groan as her fingers palm and squeeze. 
“Drivin’ me crazy, sunshine.” His voice is like gravel, as he works at the zipper - her fingers slipping past to wrap around hot skin, “Enough to make a ghoul go feral, you know that?”
Her smile is pretty - pleasure-drunk, and he hasn’t even fucked her yet. Her hand soft and warm where she eases him out, the brush of her thumb over the head making his cock throb. 
“Me too. I need you.” She begs, and he knows it’s more than that just that.
That it’s not just fucking, right now. That a line has been crossed, that they’ll never be able to not want this again. More than ready to tumble over into the unknown, together.
“My mouth wasn’t enough?” Hancock grins. Fully intending to have her every way she’ll let him. Unable to resist making her squirm.
The look she gives him makes him chuckle - the gentle pull of her fist, the little frown. The way her thighs spread again, aiming the flushed tip of his cock over slick skin. Against the tight nub of her clit as she shivers, lips parting with a gasp.
“Hancock, don’t tease-” Some of that bite is back, desperate. Not begging but it’s close, as her hips lift against him again. 
“I’ll give you anything you want.” He promises, “Just like hearing you say it. Come on, sweetheart.” 
It’s hard to hold himself back, when she’s notching him against her opening. His hands sliding to her hips, liking the way his fingers sink into her skin.
How it dents around his calloused ones, soft as the rest of her.
“Fuck me.” Her eyes are on his, watching where they drag from his fingers to her pussy. Watching how his chest heaves beneath his vest, where his chest peeks from loosened buttons. 
“I need you in me. I need you to fuck me, I want to come on your cock-”
“Fuck.” He groans, and then his hips are snapping forward. Feeling the tight, warm squeeze as he buries himself in her, as she cries out at the intrusion. 
“Goddamn, sunshine.” He has to hold himself there for a moment, hilted inside her. Feeling the way she clenches down around him, fingers mirroring it where they wrap in his shirt. 
Almost sharing a breath as he inches out, only to press deep again. Again, and then again - until there’s the slick slap, the creak of the floorboards beneath his heavy boots as his feet spread wider. 
It’s better than his fingers. He’s deeper, filling her completely, stealing her breath. Those hands tugging at her hips, urging her to meet each thrust, as he picks up speed.
Hearing the changes in her pretty sounds - the gasps and the scrape of fingernails against his skin. Spearing her on his cock, where she can feel the worn and rough ridges gliding against a spot that has been sighing. 
But, he wants more. Wants her like before - splayed out. At his mercy, in a way that he knows she’d only do for him. Knowing that she trusts him - wondering if he would be worried that the thought makes his cock jerk inside her. 
“Give me your hands.” He rasps - and slowly, her finger uncurl from the edge of the counter, the vice-like grip on his shirt.
Hancock grasps at her wrists, joining them together with one of his own. Pushing her back, dragging them above her head and pressing them down hard against the countertop.
Arching over her as his eyes sweep over soft curves and bare skin. His coat spread out beneath her, the worn red so pretty next to her skin. Better than his best fantasy, and he’s already thinking about a next time. 
The choked out “oh!” she makes with the next rock of his hips shoots straight to his cock - knowing full-well she could break free if she wanted.
Instead, she lets him take. 
Giving up the control as he ruts into her, spearing his cock deep again and again. Trying to meet the messy swipe of his fingertips that drifted down to press against the bundle of nerves - her pleasure in his hands.
“Look good like this, sunshine.” His eyes drag over her breasts, still shining from his tongue.
“Real fuckin’ good.”
Down to where her thighs tighten around his hips, arching into him, “Should keep you like this all the time. Just in my coat. Wear it better than I do.”
A sharp edge to his voice, one that fuels the aching pressure that builds and builds. Her head thunks back against the laminate counter, eyes falling shut. 
The words starting slow, growing louder, then running together. 
“Feels so good-”
“Hancock don’t stop. Oh my god-”
There’s an electricity in the air that has nothing to do with the storm. His hand biting into her wrists so hard that it hurts, but the pain only loops into her mounting pleasure.
It’s different than his dalliances before. 
Before, it had filled his time. Finding someone to spend the night with a couple times a week, enjoying the shared company with another.
That frequency dwindling after they joined up, though he hadn’t been the type to stop. He just no longer had the time, that same desire. 
Finding that he no longer focused on chasing his own pleasure. His interest shifting - until there was only one face that drifts through his mind, in the stolen moments at night when his hand slipped beneath his trousers. 
Embracing the crave of a new kind of addiction, the urge hooking its claws into his brain. 
“Say my name again.” He tells her, feeling his own release winding and tightening. Trying to stave it off, as he tries to think about anything else, “Fuckin’ scream it for me.” 
Her eyes are on his when she says it.
“John.”
First soft, and then pitching up - louder.
And in the moment, he’s just John. The John before and the John now, man and ghoul and so focused on the circle of his fingers, on her cries.
It’s too much - all she can do is lean into it. Never realizing how much she’d like letting go for him, knowing that just like in the Wasteland, he had her. 
Always liking his quips and rasping tone but never experiencing it like this - honey-sweet and hungry. 
Learning so quickly what she likes - how quick he was to adjust the angle, the slick swirl of his fingers.
His name is on her lips again as he brings her over the brink. More like a prayer this time, her body stringing taut beneath him, eyes wide. Mouth rounding on a high gasp as the pleasure shudders through her, radiating up her spine and down her limbs.
Seeming to reach across from where they’re joined, that steady rhythm stuttering as she flutters tight and warm around him. 
“Fuck. Fuck, sunshine. You feel so fucking good, gonna make me come-” His teeth grit, a silent question.
Her answer coming in the way her thighs tighten around him. Keeping him pressed deep inside her, until his thrusts turn short and sloppy. 
“Oh, fuck yes.” His grin is closer to a snarl, “Thank you-” 
His fingers bite into her hip. Her name hissed through clenched teeth as the pressure builds, before spilling over.
As his hips rut until he’s pressed as deep as he can, a choked groan as he comes. His cock twitching with each throb of his orgasm, as he fills her. Emptying himself into her heat - until she’s milked him dry. Until he slows, leaving himself buried, deep and warm.
His eyes drop, as he comes back down. Where she’s watching, just as hungry as he was.
Leaving them staring at each other. His back arched over where his hand has slipped. Loosening on her wrist, until her fingers has twined with his. 
There’s no going back.
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His cock hangs heavy between his thighs. It’s night - dark now, but the flickering of lightning following the peals of thunder cast green shadows over her body. Eyes drifting up to where the rain patters on the metal roof.
A languid exhale, breathing out the smoke from the cigarette he fished out of the coat pocket. Dangling between two fingers, the cherry gleaming in the dim light. 
Then back down, to where she still rests - beautifully drowsy and limp-limbed. Thighs still parted, where she gleams with him.
He’s certain he’ll be dripping into those clothes of hers for days. 
It does something to him, an interested twitch from his cock. Stepping closer to fit himself back between those thighs, where they close to bracket his hips again. 
“Didn’t you say somethin’ ‘bout slow, later?” Hancock asks, his hand petting down a hip, thumb brushing against her skin. 
Stubbing the rest of his smoke out on the counter, letting it fall to the tile below. 
Her smile is sweet as she pushes herself up. No use leaving while the storm raged on - and she’s pretty sure the bedroll was well on its way to dry by now. 
Fingers catch on the collar of his ruffled shirt, starting to push it from his shoulders. His own hands tugging at her, until he pressed snug against her again. 
“Mm. Is it later, now?” She asks - as more of him is a bared - her hands running across rough skin. 
Hancock grins. 
“I sure as hell hope so.”
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I know this dropped out of nowhere for a 9 year old game but I can’t get the mayor out of my mind 💕 thanks for reading!!!
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ramonathinks · 7 months ago
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ALL HE WANTS — EREN x BLK!READER
tags: 18+ (no minors/no blank blogs — you will be blocked), shotgunning, sex, kinda friends to lovers, established relationship (towards the end), oral (f!), making out, sexual tension, eren has a tongue piercing and dimples, fingering, dirty talk, reader is black, mutual pining, dry humping, unprotected sex, dubcon (both a little buzzed on weed),
notes: this is a repost ofc but... i wasn't about to miss daddy's birthday lolll. (1)(2) “continue reading” divider by @/anitalenia 4.1k words ! + repost!
“When you gonna stop playing and let me be your man, baby?” Eren had his hands in his pockets and lent up against the wall, staring you down. The way he talked always made your body shiver, the way he looked deep into your eyes made you want to moan.
“Just gimme the weed, please.” You rolled your eyes at him. He was always like this — teasing you whenever he saw you all dolled up; tonight you wore a short peach colored dress that made your chest look even bigger, and his eyes kept glancing down constantly from your lips to your chest.
He probably kept looking at your lips because of how plump and bright they were decorated with the clear sticky fruity smelling lipgloss you always wore. Your hair was done in a wavy black hair done in a 32inch half up-half down that framed your face pretty well; and Eren tried to act like he didn’t realize it wasn’t the hairstyle he picked for you a while back.
Unintentionally he licked his lips before digging through his pockets for what he came over to deliver. Normally he didn’t hand deliver anything, he made people come to him, but this was you.
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Sweet smelling you who always looked as good as you smelt and right now there was an aroma around you that smelled of nothing but strawberries and some other fruity smell that he couldn’t decipher. It wasn’t even just the fact that you smelled so good but rather the way you looked so good too, always with your hair done even your nails — long coffin shaped, pink and white acrylic with little designs on them — and your face, bare or not your skin was always glistening rich brown.
He was always losing his focus when you were in the room. He handed you your weed and turned to leave. “Wait, here—”
He scoffed, “On the house.” He waved you off, he did this all the time, no matter how many times you begged him to just take the money.
“Eren!” Using his long legs to stroll out of the hallway and towards the apartment complex’s door. He almost made it out before he felt you tug at his arm, a deep pout on your face.
“You’ll get wrinkles. Don’t…” He caressed the area between your eyebrows and trailed down to your jaw — taking it in his hands and squeezing it, making your pout deeper before he let it go.
“Just here, okay? I’m grateful you don’t make me pay since we’re friends,” That definitely wasn’t the reason, but he didn’t say anything. “But just take it. I can pay, you know I can.” Your eyelids fluttered innocently.
He sniffled, “Fine. Fine. Just this once.” He flicked your nose. Then Eren looked at you, truly looked at you and smiled a bit. You were really too cute. “Are you coming to Connie’s party in a few?”
“Yeah, I was actually just getting ready before you came.” You tell him, finally letting go of his arm.
“And that’s what you’re wearing?” He swallowed, biting his tongue. He sounded so judgmental that your eyes widened before you looked down at yourself.
It was cold yes but you always chose being cute over being cold, plus you were always being driven around so you weren’t even outside enough to feel the freezing cold air and it was only a small bit of occasional snow, nothing too bad.
“What’s wrong with it?” You craned your neck a bit to see your backside. Everything was in tact and in place.
Jealousy was already deep in his chest and tugging at his heart, making everything feel so tight around him. He just shook his head, “Nothing, just thinkin’ bout how cold it is, that’s all. But I know you already have a ride lined up, right?”
Playfully rolling your eyes you smirk, “Actually…” Twiddling with your fingers, he watches you already knowing where this was going. “I was hoping, you’d take me if you had a chance? Maybe?”
“Do I ever say no to you?” He asked, walking back down the hall with you towards your apartment again.
This wasn’t his first time inside of your apartment. But for some reason he couldn’t help but to be in awe. You lived in luxury — marble countertops, a wide double door silver fridge, a patio… he knew he couldn’t compare to the lifestyle your father already had you in.
He wish he could... but he couldn’t. He made enough on selling whatever he could but it was only enough for him, not a lifestyle like yours. He wouldn’t be able to provide for you like you needed. Even if he got a real good job, nothing could truly live up to your norm and he would hate for you to settle.
It was the reason that he never truly could actively pursue you like he wanted with a good conscience. How could he pursue you when you had everything you wanted and then some?
Even the fuzzy pink rug on your floor looked like it was worth a couple thousand. A glossy painting of you hung in the center of your living room and it caught his eye, the last time he was inside it wasn’t there.
“Isn’t it nice? Looks almost as cute as the real thing, Hm?” You teasing, putting a finger to your cheek.
He gave you a side eye with a smile so deep enough that you could see his dimple and it made your heart flutter.
You always thought he was cute just not boyfriend material. You weren’t even being judgmental but you heard about Eren long before you had met him. Just a boy who always wanted to get his dick wet and especially when he had pretty clients, you couldn’t take him serious. Even if you wanted to.
When he wasn’t being a flirt, he was a good friend, always came when you needed him, even if it was just for a ride. He was always so sweet and treated you better than any of your boyfriends.
“You think I should just settle for some pants instead of this then, huh?” You did a slight twirl. You could tell he really liked what you had on but just not today. Not where y’all was headed.
He clicked his teeth with his tongue, “Uhh…” He looked you over, his gaze lingering on all assets.
His knee was bouncing and he was getting up before he realized. He never been inside of your room, let alone your closet. So this was all new territory to him, yet he felt like he knew where everything was.
He don’t know why he loved seeing you in your pink moon boots but he knew he wanted to see them on you tonight. He peaked over his shoulder, looking at you briefly before looking over your closet again. “Hm,” He held out two different shirts, you chuckled.
“Maybe this one with the hearts to match the boots and then a nice mini skirt… not too short.” He knew how you liked to dress and you gave him a coy smile.
“Ya know what, Yeager? You’re cute.” You kissed his cheek before pushing him out the room to get dressed. You hate to admit you were feeling hot all over, most guys didn’t come into your room for anything but sex and even though you weren’t expecting him to come in and help you decide on something else he did. It was little. But more than you were used to.
Eren on the other hand, was trying not to palm his dick. Touching the soft fabric of your clothes and imagining them on your skin, had him gulping. He paced the living room before he heard small paws running up to him and yelping. A small bundle of golden tan fur ran up to him, scratching and sniffing the area around him.
“Princess!” You yelled, running out to get your little dog. “Sorry Eren, she loves new people. I thought she would stay sleep, but...” You coo and tap the floor so that she comes running. “I’ll put her up and then we can go.” You scoop her up.
He stops you, “Let me meet my baby’s baby.” He ushers her out of your hand and into his own, a deep smile on his face as she licks his fingers.
You ignore what he says and how it makes your stomach flutter, you just cross your arms and watch. “She’s the cutest.” He tells you, staring you down with a hooded gaze. “Let’s get going, ‘kay?”
You nod, heading to put her into a crate so she can sleep until you get back.
He waits for you, even when you lock up your apartment, he opens the car door for you. You don’t know why but you feel like everything’s going to change tonight.
And Eren can feel it too.
------
It isn’t until you’re already there that you realize his hand was on your thigh the entire car ride. His touch leaving a trail of hotness and when he finally parked, your eyes wouldn’t leave your thigh. Was it weird that you were already missing his touch against your skin?
You heard a few people greeting him as he caught up towards the house behind you, he nodded to a few and did a half wave to some others.
“Birthday boy Yeager, finally! Being late to your own party, really man?” Connie greeted him and your body froze.
Eren didn’t mention it was his birthday. Connie didn’t even mention it when he invited you. You frowned and moved closer before squeezing Eren’s side.
A slight yelp, “The fuck was that for?” He asked, looking down at you with furrowed brows.
“It’s your birthday and you didn’t tell me? You were selling me weed on your birthday, driving me to your birthday party and didn’t bother to mention it?”
“It…skipped my mind.” He muttered, scratching the back of his head.
“You didn’t tell your girl your birthday?” Connie snickered. “You didn’t want any birthday sex? Mannn—“
Eren lightly jabbed Connie’s arm, “You know we’re just friends.”
But really, who could tell? Whenever you both were together, you both always stood so close together, sometimes even with his hand on your waist. Deep long stares and only focusing on each other.
“Rightttttt.” Connie laughs and waves you and Eren down to the basement. “So while the party’s upstairs… our real party will be right here, just the gang you know…” He explained while you looked over the place.
A comfy basement with a long couch and two loveseats, a few white garden chairs. A bong on the table that sat in the middle and a few bottles of alcohol. “Sooo, where is everyone?” You raised your eyebrows, arms folded against your chest.
Connie thinks for a moment before raising a finger, pulling out his phone and calling someone. “Yeahhh, hello?” You and Eren shared a glance before looking back at Connie. “Fuck, you gotta be kidding me… no, no, it’s fine,” Connie does an awkward smile to you both. “Alright. Yeah. See you soon.” He sighs.
“Fuck, I gotta go. Sasha said she needs me to get her. Then Jean too and… yeah… basically I think all those fuckers need a ride.” He explains. “Please make yourselves comfortable down here or upstairs, whatever. I’ll just be right back.” He jogs up the stairs and closes the door.
You feel awkward just standing so you smooth out a place on the loveseat and sit down.
But of course you weren’t planning on Eren sitting next to you. Cramped up and all in your space, his legs spread wide with almost little room for your legs. You stare at him, “Seriously?”
He does a sly smile, “I can’t sit next to you? You gonna deny me all tonight huh?”
Remembering it was his birthday, you just let him. His arm over your shoulder and pulling you in. “Fine… fine.” You mutter, pulling out some of the weed you brought from him earlier.
“Hey…lemme roll that for you.” He doesn’t wait for you to answer, he just does it. The shiny piercing on his tongue showing itself as he licked up the paper.
You squeezed your thighs, just watching him. He pulled out a lighter from his pocket and with a few clicks, he lit your blunt and took one long drag from it, finally handing it to you.
“Thanks…” You brought it to your lips and his eyes burned into yours. You inhaled, smiling as you felt it come over you. You hummed to yourself, your hooded eyes watching him as he watched you.
“How you feelin’?” You heard him ask, your body humming and you leaned closer into his touch. Your head laying on his shoulder.
“Good.” You responded shortly. “Just really good.”
“I’m glad to hear that baby.” His voice sounded closer but you ignored it. You smoked the blunt again and when you went to exhale, he pressed his lips to yours, just a small peck.
Briefly, you would’ve missed it if your eyes weren’t open.
“Been wanting to do that all day.” He rubbed a hand down his face. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay…” You swallowed. “You can do it again.”
It was all he needed. His hands grabbed your face gently and he pressed a small peck on your lips. Then again. His hands touch the skin of your thigh when he goes in a bit deeper. No more little kisses, he’s fully kissing you on the lips. “Must be the weed, hm? You’d never let me kiss you…fuck,” He sounds pissed but mainly at himself.
“I took like two puffs, I’m barely…buzzed. I just… I mean why not?” You ask aloud, looking at him. Maybe you were just tired of pretending that you didn’t want him. That you didn’t want this. You were horny and maybe a quick fuck to get him out of your system would be good for the both of you.
“You like playing with my heart huh? You know how I feel and…” He trails off. “You know I like you—“
“You don’t like me, you just wanna fuck me like everyone else.” You had a hard time believing that he had feelings for you, that he wasn’t like any of the others before him. You wave him off but he grabs your wrist.
He clicks his teeth before laughing, “No, no, no…Baby. You’re special to me. Just want you all to myself, always.”
You snort, “Yeah right…” But your body felt so hot and like you’re wearing too many clothes.
“Come sit on my lap pretty girl. Let me show you something.” He pats his lap and grabs your waist, tightly.
“Show me what?” You were curious but you knew that you wouldn’t be able to come back to being just friends if you did what he asked.
“How much I like you.” He lifted you with ease and in an instant, you were on him. You could feel just how big and hard he was under you. You swallowed, wrapping your hands around his neck.
“Well? Show me.” You smile, hotness rolling off the both of you in waves. He smiles before he brings you in and kisses you.
Moaning when he pulls you closer, jerking his hips up to yours. His hands exploring your body and his tongue enters your mouth, swirling around. Slipping his tongue in and out your mouth, sucking on yours. His hands traveling down your back until he gripped your butt, spreading and massaging them in his large palms before sliding them up and down your back.
He kisses the sides of your neck and you take another drag of the blunt, feeling your lungs expand and the sensation of his mouth and hands making you shiver. He grabs your hips and rolls his more into yours, the fabric of his denim jeans hitting your clit.
Breathing heavily you inhale and with shaky hands you pull him forward. Kissing him with the smoke still in your lungs, his cock throbbing in his pants, he’s trying not to be greedy but he wants you. Tracing up and down your shirt, slipping his fingers underneath.
He feels a bit giggly afterwards. With a dopey big grin on his face, “You’re so pretty. Like an angel.” You’re smiling so hard that your cheeks hurt but your pussy is pulsing and you need him.
“Eren… thank you. But I just… need… I need you to…Please just touch me. Please.” His hands roam again. His cock half hard in his pants and his hands on your hips, he makes you roll them against his again. You gape and gasp a bit, feeling how hard he is against your damp dainty panties.
His hands are under your skirt and he massages the bit of your butt and thighs, spreading and patting you. He kisses you full on the lip and sucks more on your tongue before pulling back, “You’re just so pretty.” His forehead is on yours and his eyes are eating you up.
Your clit pulses and throbs the more he rolls your hips against his and the way he’s digging his fingers into the skin of your butt and thighs, you’re groaning and sighing, “This feels so…” you wrap an arm around his neck. “Good.” You whisper in his ear and feel him shiver, you press small kisses up and down his neck. “You’re so hard…” You lick him, small and to the point. “Eren…I—“
“Shhh,” He stops your hips, that were now moving on their own. “Just keep doing what feels natural… what feels right. We can talk about all of this later. But now? Let me make you feel good, yeah? Wouldn’t you like that?”
And it’s the way that he says it, honestly, that makes your heart speed up and your panties even more wet before he slips them to the side.
“Holy shit, already? This wet, baby? Damn…” His fingers sticky just from a quick slip inside, your mouth open and your legs shaking. “Knew you couldn’t resist me.” You hear the sweet sounds of him fingering you, the wet noises echoing in the dark room.
“Fuck,” He mutters, flexing his fingers and twisting them inside. You clamp down on him and he bits his lip before kissing you, trying to keep you both quiet.
You lifted his shirt a little, looking at his stomach as he breathes in and out, his stomach muscles flexing. You smile to yourself, helping him out of his shirt before you trail your hand up and down his muscular chest and stomach. A semi thick patch of hair from his stomach and disappears down into his pants catches your attention and with a deep gulp your fingers dance lightly on his stomach until they disappear into his pants.
His breath hitches, “Your hands are so…whew,” His eyes are closed when you touch him, stroking him. “So damn soft. Too damn soft.” His hips jerk up at the contact of your hand against him.
“Has anyone ever—?” He doesn’t say it but licks his lips and sucks at his teeth.
“No, never…” Boys were too interested in sex never foreplay or oral. Some never even looked at your pussy.
He huffed, “Idiots. Want you to sit on my face, okay?” He could feel you twitching and your body freeze up.
“You’re so weird you know that?” You squeeze at his tip and he whined a bit, taking your wrist and taking it out of his pants.
“Hey, been thinking about it forever.” He have, he liked being your friend but he always thought about what’s between your legs. He always felt so guilty for it, this ulterior motive of his.
With your skirt still on, you move to hover over him. He breathes you in and groans out a deep “Fuck.” His tongue soaked in spit but he grabs at your thighs and slurps at your swollen clit. The heavy scent of your aroma wafting around his face.
Your thighs shaking as you rock your hips against him, but he wants to take things slow. Your juices all over his mouth and even a bit on his nose. You hated how greedy you were being. His tongue flicking at your stick clit and sucking on your lips.
“Eren! Faster…faster, please.” The cold metal piercing brushed against your clit and had you seeing stars so clearly that you tugged at his dark hair.
He liked the way his name sounded rolling off your tongue, even the way your mouth looked when you said it. Your lips: a work of art and your voice a song. So to be the one who’s listening and the one giving you this pleasure? He couldn’t help but smile to himself. To revel in it.
He chuckles listening to the soft moans of your pleads and begging, “No need to beg, don’t you know you own me? I’m yours. I’ll do whatever you say.”
His voice made you clench and he pressed small kisses up your slit before stretching you apart, “Think I can see you getting all wet for me…” His tongue dives in and your toes curl as he licks around the insides of you. Sucking at your folds and diving inside of your wetness, he moved one of his hands from your thighs and rubbed with two fingers on your achy clit. You shuddered, biting your lips.
He smiles looking at your pussy, so wet and pretty before he dives back in. Really just wanting to be covered in your scent. He gives a few more sucks, your hips raising and thrashing against his face.
“Baby,” The breath of his deep chuckle hitting your pussy and you shiver. “I’m leaking in my pants. I need you. Badly.”
He took his time but he laid you out on the couch, looking at the amount of your arousal that ran down your legs. He watched your pussy twitch, using his fingers he spread you open, clenching around the cool empty air. “Fuck,” you already looked fucked out and he haven’t even been inside of you yet.
Sliding his thick cock between your wet folds he felt you tremble. Tapping the head against your clit, he felt you jolt and he slowly slid inside of you. Your walls sucking him in and squeezing him tightly.
He groans, almost collapsing on top of you and you dig your nails into his back, wrapping your legs around his waist.
“Wanted you for so long.” He kisses you quick and laced your fingers together, squeezing your hand. “It’s so wet inside of you, feels so fucking good.” Stretching and carving your insides to only fit his shape. Everything sounded underwater as he continued to pound inside of you. “You’re so perfect. So pretty. Fuck.” He angled his hips before thrusting faster inside of you. “So tight, so pretty, so mine.” He purred, licking up your throat and sucking; leaving a trail of hickies in his wake.
“Eren, oh god.” You breathe, worked up. He brings your legs from his waist and bring them closer to your head, forcing his cock even deeper inside of you.
“Think I’m in love withchu…” His thrusts are strong and now your feet dangling over your head, you couldn’t think straight. “But I think you already know that, hm? Think you love having me wrapped about your fingers.” Meeting every thrust he made, you felt a small bit of squirt splash and soak up his cock as he pulled it out before plunging back inside of you.
Your stomach is twisting and your toes curl heavenly as his dick continues, you push at his chest. “Wait! Eren…I…” You feel even more pressure in your gut and clench around him. “Please… no more.”
Your eyes are watery but Eren doesn’t care, instead he uses the pads of all his fingers and do deep aching rubs on your clit. Writing his name in your clit with your fingers, your thighs shake and then you’re finally cumming all over him and with a few more hard thrusts, he follows with a deep groan of your name.
He lays on top of you for a second to catch his breath before kissing you again. “I like you. Always have.” He huffed.
You bite back a smile. “I like you too…” You tell him shyly.
He gets up and hands you your pretty panties with a smug look. “So will you be my girlfriend?”
You chuckle, “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll be your girlfriend Eren.”
All Eren could think of was that this was his best birthday in a long while. He peppering kisses over your face.
“Alright… birthday boy, put some pants on.” You snicker, looking at his lower half, he was already getting back hard.
“Oh right.” He kissed you again.
2K notes · View notes
singukieee · 4 months ago
Text
—my all time favourite bts fics (pt. 1) ᯓᡣ𐭩
consists of my personal favourite bts fics that I've read countless of times. including those from other platforms, such as Wattpad, AO3, and Patreon.
For some works that are cross-posted between tumblr and wp/ao3, I'd only link them to the latters bcs I find it easier to read and navigate the stories on those. but I also tagged all the authors I know are here and linked the rest so you can check their blogs out yourself!
I'll also separate this list into several parts simply because there's too many... So it'd be easier for you guys to navigate!
red means unfinished
blue means finished
🗯️ editor's note
(sorted by alphabetical order)
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A Place Called Home by @agustdakasuga
Having saved your own injured hybrid, you were determined to try and help any other hybrid that crossed your path who needed saving. But being a vet in a small hospital wasn’t enough for you. You wanted to do more, you wanted to make a difference. You wanted to give them a home.
Accidental Friends by Erakun06
Meet Bangtan, international superstars, the pride of South Korea, the love and hope in the dark of many lives, the role model and celebrity crush of so many people, and a group of people you often stumble across in your day to day life. You become acquaintances, slowly become friends, and- that's it. You are in a platonic friendship with Bangtan. Let me say it again. clears throat PLATONIC. Or One day, you meet a member of Bangtan, the next day, another, and another, and another, and one day, they become a group of people you often stumble across in your life. They become your acquaintances. Then your friends. Then your source of comfort, just like they are the source of comfort of millions of people in the world. What you didn't expect is that you become the same to them. It's inevitable. You are friends.
🗯️ a theme that I don't find much of, and this one was excecuted quite neatly I'd say
Ace For Hire by tokki-maknae
Who is Ace? Besides being the deadliest hitman on the market in the underground, whose really under the hood? The answers simple, well for you at least, because you are Ace. When you're not busy blurring yourself into the background noises of school, you were making a killing in the underground, both literally and figuratively. For years now Ace has become an infamous name among the other gangs and holds the reputation of being lethal and untouchable. But that all changes after a slip up that causes you to attract the unwanted attention of one persistent seven member gang. A gang that's been dying to know, who is Ace?
🗯️ badassss
At Your Service by @untaemedqueen
In which Yn is looking for an escort to accompany her to her nightmare ex and ex best friend's wedding, only to ended up falling in love with him.
Baby (you complete us) by @purpleyoonn
Soulmates were a common occurrence, so common, in fact, that the world sought an easier way to find your other half: A bracelet that would scan your mark and match you with those who shared your mark. Within recent years, soul groups were becoming normal, and your own bracelet said you have seven matches. Or where you wear your bracelet for ten years, and finally give up the hope you would find your soul group, only for BTS to put theirs on and see what they were missing.
Back Home by AlexLorchan / @alexlwrites
Secretly, he was selfishly hoping that you didn’t age well. Dealing with a small crush was easy enough when he was young and knew next to nothing about girls, when you were just a cute albeit slightly weird girl he had a soft spot for. But he wouldn’t know what to do with himself if his feelings came back with a vengeance while you were living together. God, he would probably lock himself with Jungkook until you went away. OR The one where, after living abroad for years, you move back to Korea and your old high school friend Namjoon offers you his place to stay while you get settled, casually forgetting to mention that: a) he still had a massive crush on you. b) he lived with six other guys.
🗯️ crack fic! my fave category and this one makes me giggle in both funny way and butterfly-in-my-stomach kinda way
Beauty of Love by @imnotlauriane
When you cross eyes with your soulmate, you get flashes of memories that have yet to happen. You can't see the same memory as the other and it can be either good or bad. It's not always terrible, but a thing is for sure. No matter what you do, it will happen. But are things always what they seem to be?
Between The Bloodshed series by @agustdakasuga
🗯️ this series... I just love. plot is super neat, relationship doesn't feel forced, etc etc
❶ Between The Bloodshed
Being a freelance doctor, this was just supposed to be any other job, helping a private client and taking care of him through his recovery. But you were not expecting to get caught in something so much darker that you would have to leave your life behind and build a new one.
❷ Everything Between Us
They left you hanging, they broke your heart. You didn’t get your happily ever after. But now they’re back and they’re searching for you to make things right. Could you look past the betrayal to take them back into your life and back into your heart?
Beyond The Stage by Alysheart
Alexis was going through the days simply. She was a college student in Florida, working towards her degree. When she scored tickets to the BTS concert in Korea, she didn't hesitate. She never expected to be soulmates with the seven idols.
Bound by Blood by PurpleQueenie
In a world where vampires and humans have to co-exist, where the line between tolerance and animosity blurs, how can you ever expect to get your happily ever after when your soulmates hate your very existence?
🗯️ love all the details, the slow burn, gosh just so good
Boyfriend For Hire by @remedyx
Unsatisfied with your life was an understatement. Being under the thumb of your father can have that effect. He wanted someone capable of running the company, but you wanted to pursue your passion. Countless unwanted blind dates and the threat of losing your freedom drives you to seek help from a group of individuals you'd least expected.
Breakthrough by Alphathyx
"My dreams haunt me like past memories that never existed" The Memory Dive, an invention that allows the user to dive into anyone's memories just from the collection of their DNA. Made by Professor Kim Seokjin, he created this device for the worlds secret service to solve mysteries that the ordinary field agents are unable to. With seven agents, ranging from ex military, to a university professor, college student and even a criminal, only these seven are able to use this machine to extract memories of others. They are also the only people that know how to escape it. Discover through their eyes of uncovering the darkest truths of the world, through the minds of victims.
🗯️ this one's super neat plot with complicated and technical world, just so good
Bright Colors and Loud Soulmates by Mostmouse
You resented soulmates, the whole damn concept. It just wasn't your thing, and you couldn't help but feel jealous of those who were born without soulmates, who could see the world as it was intended to be from birth. When you run into your soulmate, you're determined to stay in your own sphere of the world. Focusing on you. But, because nothing is simple in your life, it turns out he's one of seven - better yet, your seven soulmates are the globally famous band BTS. Because why wouldn't they be? OR you learn how to let your soulmates past your carefully crafted walls, and they’re more than happy to show you what a loving and supportive relationship should look like.
🗯️ a funny and cute one! (with extra h0rny characters lol)
BTS Office CEO AU by @jiminiesfavouritecolourisblue
You work for seven CEOs who have called you into their office due to a complaint
Can't Wait To See You Again by AlexLorchan / @alexlwrites
The one where Jungkook develops a huge crush on a Youtuber he found after falling into the rabbit hole of his recommended videos. Unbeknownst to him, you were also recommended to his hyungs. Unbeknownst to you, all across the world seven idols were slowly falling in love with you.
🗯️ I just love the concept of the boys being fanboys :3
Choco Bun by @nunchiimagines
When you moved to Korea after finishing college to continue pursuing latte art and baking, the last thing you were expecting was to open up your very own coffee shop under BTS Corp, Korea’s biggest entertainment service company for idols, models, singers, and more. Thanks to your hard work, creativity, and approachable personality you managed to become friendly with some pretty big named individuals as well as up and coming talent. As exciting and fun as it was for you, you slowly began to realize how much your 7 bosses weren’t particularly fond of this, acts of jealousy, pettiness, and aggression poking through in the most unsuspecting of ways. But what could 7 big named dragons want with a little foreign bunny?
Combined Beings by @numinousher
You are bullied on a constant because korea’s beauty standards do not fit girls on the heavier side. the bullying gets worse once a ceo is attracted to you and he mentioned you to the other 6.
🗯️ minus the bullying elements, this story is like a comforting sweet cloud
Comfort by http-lostforever
Hybrids have been introduced into society for a handful of years now, the fighting for their rights is still happening but doesn't look promising. But when one girl finds a hybrid in danger she jumps at the chance to help, yet what she didn't know was how upside down her life was about to become. But a word of advice, not everything is as it seems.
Could We Be Together Someday? series by BTS_Mommy / @babyboy-bangtan
🗯️ mann Idk what to write lol. this is another one that I've re-read thousand times, bcs some of the boys started as fanboys then became clingy friends. also yn's so supportive I just lovee.
❶ By Chance
A misunderstanding gone viral puts you on BTS's radar, which leads to a series of events that finally culminate with you meeting them for the first time.
❷ The Moments in Between
As you become close friends with BTS, you begin to realize that the feelings you have for them are slowly turning into something you're not ready to deal with. Unbeknownst to you, the same is happening to them.
Crave by sweetinsanityy
The boys don't do well with being controlled, but for their group, they'll bite their tongue and put on a smile for management. Yet when you, a new little rookie, stumble upon them, they're like a pack of hungry wolves. Or, the boys are all Doms and they want you to be their perfect little sub.
Cursed Fate by PurpleQueenie
The universe has designed soulmates- someone that completes you. But what happens when you don't have one but seven? And all you want to do is run in the opposite direction when you see them...
🗯️ queenie's stories are just so good, you should check them all out! this one also has such great details and writing.
Deep Down by sleepingbearandbunny
Jae, unlike everyone else, has nothing against the hybrid species. She likes being alone, where she is safe from ridicule and her controlling father. When a group of hybrids save her from some trouble, fate brings them together once more.
🗯️ a harsh and complecated world this one, so they went through a lot together and I love that!
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PART 2 | PART 3 | PART 4 | NAVI
749 notes · View notes
checkeredflagggs · 16 days ago
Text
Subject of Interest
pairing: carlos sainz x fem!photographer!reader
summary: fans love carlos’ girlfriend and her unhinged comments and photography hobby
a/n: needed a slight break from the lando fic and I love doing these small photography based smaus. I will probably be doing these for more drivers — feel free to request someone you’d like to see!
a/n 2: fyi this is all google translate Spanish 🤷‍♀️
a/n 3: I tried to write horny for the first time and I think? It went? Ok?
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princesa
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liked by carlossainz55, landonorris, and 1,231,445 others
tagged: carlossainz55
princesa: mi amor, ¿sabes lo que me vas a hacer? Either put that thing away or put it to use. (My love, do you know what you're going to do to me?)
view all comments
user1: ahhhh love to see the princess back in action
↳user2: girl we missed you and your unhinged comments
landonorris: thERE ARE CHILDREN PRESENT
↳princesa: then leave? I know you have enough of a brain in that empty head of yours to do that
↳landonorris: I just wanted to congratulate my friend!! Why are you so mean?!?
↳princesa: niño…(Boy)
↳landonorris: nope! Lando!
↳oscarpiastri: seriously?
↳princesa: I’m glad he’s your teammate now
↳oscarpiastri: thanks 😑
↳landonorris: hey!
carlossainz55: Of course princesa…On an unrelated note, where are you again?
↳landonorris: not you too!
↳princesa: 🚪 here’s the door! Use it
↳landonorris: I’m gonna report you for bullying
↳princesa: try it twig!
carlossainz55: Hermosa…you tell me to behave but post that picture?
↳princesa: 🤭🤭
↳carlossainz55: 🥵
↳princesa: I’ve got the car waiting for you
↳carlossainz55: 🏃🏻‍♂️💨
user3: girl I’m begging you for just one chance
↳carlossainz55: No
↳user4: when you pull up for a competition to worship the princess and your competition is Carlos Sainz
princesa
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liked by carlossainz55, charles_leclerc, and 1,975,245 others
tagged: carlossaiz55
princesa: 🏎️ 💨💨 vroom vroom — the cars may go fast but I’d like to take my time with you baby
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user5: congrats on the podium Carlos!!
user6: did she just…
↳user7: imply they fuck? Yes.
↳princesa: 😉
↳user7: girl Ferrari is gonna put you in pr jail
↳princesa: 🤷‍♀️ I look good in handcuffs
↳carlossainz55: 👀👀
↳princesa:😘💋❤️
landonorris: just once I’d like to open instagram and not be assaulted with you and your gross relationship 😠🤮
↳princesa: boo hoo does A HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP scare you
↳landonorris: NO
↳carlossainz55: Oh?
↳landonorris: it’s your horny ass comments! Leave it at home!
↳princesa: it’s ok Lando — someday you’ll have a girlfriend
↳landonorris: ive haD GIRLDFRIENDS BEFORE
↳princesa: you’re behavior says otherwise tbh
↳landonorris: STOP LYING TO THE INTERNET
user8: did you guys go on a bike ride?
↳princesa: Carlos did! I was sitting pretty in the basket while he showed me around town before taking us to the beach, letting my man treat me right.
↳carlossainz55: As you should princesa, never lift a finger when I’m around
↳user8: wow that’s so cute and so sappy
↳user9: this comment thread called me single in every language
princesa
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liked by carlossainz55, landonorris, charles_leclerc, and 2,790,469 others
tagged: carlossainz55
princesa: thank you baby for the amazing break. I’m glad I got to spend some alone time with my handsome man. Next week it’s back to the grind — I just know you’ll be on top 🏆🏆
view all comments
carlossainz55: Princesa, I’d take you to the ends of the world if you’d ask
↳user10: same! 😭
↳carlossainz55: Not this princesa
↳princesa: I’d follow you anywhere you wanna take me handsome
carlossainz55: And you know I look good on top
↳princesa: i don’t know…wanna refresh my memory?
↳carlossainz55: I do need to get my cardio in today…
↳princesa: well let’s see how fast you are then…I’m waiting 😉
↳user11: YOU ARE IN PUBLIC
user12: I gotta say it…I’ve missed these horny comments. Insta just isn’t the same without them
↳user13: heeeeyyyy 🍑🍑🍆🍆💦💦
↳user12: eww no
charles_leclerc: Forza Ferrari Sempre!! Second half of the season will be ours!
↳carlossainz55: You know it!
↳princesa: Go Ferrari!
user14: no disgusted lando comments? What’s happening?
↳princesa: i blocked him for this post 😊
↳user14: 🤣🤣
princesa
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liked by carlossainz55, oscarpiastri, alex_albon, and 2,982,122 others
tagged: carlossainz55
princesa: Ferrari might be all red but baby, blue is your color — I believe a congratulations is in order Mr Race Winner
view all comments
user15: what a race…a Ferrari, McLaren, Williams podium was not on my bingo card for the year…
user16: petition for Ferrari to officially change its color to blue
↳user17: girl like 10 different drivers dnfed
↳user16: but Carlos won!
carlossainz55: Thank you mi amor ❤️
↳princesa: No tengo las palabras para describir lo orgulloso que estoy de ti! (I don't have the words to describe how proud I am of you!)
↳carlossainz55: Conozco mi amor y eso está bien. (I know my love and that's fine.)
↳princesa: I do know how I’m gonna congratulate you tho!
↳carlossainz55: 😳😳
carlossainz55: Are you going to be my prize, mi amor?
↳princesa: oh baby you know it!
↳princesa: just wait and see what I’ve got planned for you
↳carlossainz55: 🥵🥵
↳landonorris: 🤮🤮
↳landonorris: why? Must I? Suffer?
↳princesa: i should have kept you blocked
↳landonorris: i just wanted to congratulate my friend?
↳princesa: do it on your own post and let me be horny for my man in peace
↳landonorris: you’re uninvited to my party tonight?
↳princesa: for what? You dnfed like first
↳landonorris: 👎🏻👎🏻👎🏻
alex_albon: congrats man! It was great to be able to share a podium with you!
↳carlossainz55: Felicitaciones a ti también (Congratulations to you too)
↳carlossainz55: it was good to see you on the podium as well
oscarpiastri: great race!
↳carlossainz55: You as well!
princesa
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liked by landonorris, carlossainz55, charles_leclerc, and 2,556,223 others
tagged: carlossainz55
princesa: Winning looks good on you baby. You should do it more often 🏆
In all seriousness, congratulations on your season Carlos — you did fantastic this year and it was such a pleasure to travel with you and watch you live your dreams.
That said — I’m very excited for the couple of months we will have to ourselves 😘💋❤️
view all comments
carlossainz55: Princesa…I loved every second of this year, racing and traveling with you. Thank you for agreeing to my crazy idea and following me around the world.
↳princesa: oh my love…No había ningún otro lugar en el que preferiría estar que a tu lado. (There was no other place where I would rather be than by your side)
↳carlossainz55: No podría haber pedido un mejor socio (I couldn't have asked for a better partner)
carlossainz55: All to ourselves huh? 🤔
↳princesa: i know! Whatever will we do with all that time? 🤭😉
↳carlossainz55: Oh I can think of a few things 😏
↳landonorris: YEAH. GOLFING. HANGING OUT WITH YOUR FRIENDS. VISITING FAMILY!!
↳princesa: Oh, estoy tan contenta de tener un par de meses lejos de este niño... (I'm so happy to have a couple of months away from this child)
↳landonorris: Wrong!
↳carlossainz55: Since when can you read Spanish?
↳princesa: since when can you read?
↳landonorris: I’m reporting you again for bullying! And google translate exists ya know
↳landonorris: also! I’m gonna be visiting you this break
↳princesa: sorry not interested in a threesome
↳landonorris: NOOOO
↳landonorris: Carlos promised me a couple rounds of golf so there 😝
↳carlossainz55: it was a moment of weakness
user18: oh to have a champagne soaked Carlos Sainz sprint over to me to kiss me senseless after a spectacular race,,,
↳princesa: it’s a great experience! But get your own — this one is mine
↳user18: girl we’ve seen all your comments this year. We know
↳princesa: just like reminding people they can look but not have 😊
user19: i know everyone has been focusing on their…horniness this year but damn she must love him too. To quit her job just to follow him across the world…
↳princesa: it was a scary thought at first but I’m so glad I did it
↳carlossainz55: I am as well
↳landonorris: I’m not. Go away
↳princesa: I’m gonna be honest with you. We get worse with distance — you got off light this year
↳landonorris: nooooooooooooooo
↳user20: and they’re back to their regular programming
user21: my favorite part of the season is now knowing Lando Norris is the type of person to clutch his pearls at the sight of an ankle…
↳user22: right? Not what i expected
↳landonorris: I AM NOT!
↳user22: sure Jan
↳landonorris: I CAN HANDLE SEX JUST FINE THEIR JUST BEING MEAN TO ME
↳user21: ok grandpa, let’s get you back to bed
↳landonorris: NOT YOU GUYS TOO…
carlossainz55
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liked by princesa, landonorris, user, and 4,822,445 others
tagged: princesa
carlossainz55: No more Ferrari PR jail, no more hiding these in my camera roll. My gorgeous gorgeous girl 🥵🥵 I’m so glad to be able to call you mine
view all comments
princesa: well let’s not completely get rid of the jail…I do quite like the handcuffs ☺️
↳carlossainz55: I could be persuaded
↳princesa: meet me in five?
↳carlossainz55: 🏃🏻‍♂️💨
user23: oh my god you guys were being tame???
↳princesa: oh absolutely
↳user23: oh my god…
user24: can Carlos fight? Like seriously?
↳carlossainz55: Yes
↳user25: I think if a group of us get together we could take him
↳carlossainz55: You’d be wrong
↳princesa: sorry girls guys and nonbinary pals — I am a one man girl
↳princesa: and I think I’d have to report you to someone
↳user25: you know what? That’s fair
↳used24: and hot!?! Gotta love that kind of loyalty
landonorris: I’m gonna deactivate my account
↳princesa: I didn’t think I’d get my Christmas present so early!
↳landonorris: 😑😑
↳carlossainz55: I’ll give you a Christmas present 🎁
↳princesa: a big one?
↳carlossainz55: Oh you know it
↳landonorris: NOT ON MY COMMENT THREAD. GO AWAY
user26: Sad to see Carlos leave Ferrari but good god am I excited to see the more unhinged version of him in Williams…
↳user27: thank god I’m not the only one
564 notes · View notes
astonmartinii · 1 year ago
Note
i hope your finger’s ok!! please take all the time you need and remember you health comes first :) imma be selfish and send you a charles request cause ur writing makes me smile at my phone like an idiot and i can’t help it :p ok so!! charles x versteppen reader? shes max’s sister and drives for redbull (cause im delulu like that) and they’ve been fighting w each other since they were kids (no one knows why they started arguing they’re j petty and refuse to give it up even though they dk what they’re arguing abt anymore) and obvs they’re in love w each other - maybe another drivers flirting w her or smth and charles j snaps and hard launches the reader cause surprise they’ve been dating each other 🤭 holy shit this is long sorry for rambling 🙏🙏
angel baby, devil child | charles leclerc social media au
pairing: charles leclerc x verstappen!reader
enemies to lovers blah blah blah
yourusername
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liked by maxverstappen1, carlossainz55 and 1,743,200 others
yourusername: crazy, crazy race. sorry not sorry to the tifosi, tell ur girl @charles_leclerc to kiss my ass not my rear tyre xoxo
view all comments
user1: okay they're clearly still in the enemies phase... when can we skip to lovers
user2: i personally love that charles is the mortal enemy of both verstappen siblings that's so slay of him
maxverstappen1: crop me out again and say goodbye to a tow in qualifying
yourusername: sorry maxy, not my fault i got all the photogenic genes xx
maxverstappen1: erm rude @christianhorner tell her to stop bullying me
yourusername: two can play at that game @sebastianvettel tell max to stop being a baby
user3: the way neither christian or seb replied they really don't get paid enough to deal with them
charles_leclerc: what is it with verstappens and their love for pushing me off the track
yourusername: what is it with your front wing and my rear tyre
charles_leclerc: umm i asked you first
yourusername: stop deflecting babe, we all know you love my ass so much you wanted a touch
charles_leclerc: i'd rather deep fry my hands than touch your rear
maxverstappen1: that can be arranged
user4: can't wait for these three to all be in the same press conference next week 🍿
carlossainz55: my favourite person to share the podium with
yourusername: thanks chilli (@tifosi you heard it here sainz is against ferrari 1-2s)
carlossainz55: NO that's not what i meant
landonorris: i see how it is ... god all men are the same AM I NOT PRETTY ENOUGH FOR YOU?
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maxverstappen1
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liked by charles_leclerc, landonorris and 1,204,809 others
tagged: yourusername
maxverstappen1: happy birthday to my bestest friend, biggest rival and favourite roommate. though maybe now you're 23 you can get your own place so you can sneak out to meet up with your secret boyfriend on your own terms and can keep that massive ballsack away from jimmy and sassy. i love you and verstappen dominance 4 ever.
view all comments
user7: i love y/n but i think she should bring her cat to races as a scare tactic
yourusername: wrinkle doesn't appreciate your tone but it is duly noted
yourusername: awwwwwwwww i love you maxy !! and you're never getting rid of your little sister unless you get married and ur a big fat nerd so that's never happening xx
maxverstappen1: attacking me after i just bought you a whole ass car
yourusername: i JOKE. thank you soooo much and you'll never get rid of me you love me too much to anyway.
maxverstappen1: enough to finally introduce me to the mystery man?
yourusername: blocked.
user8: are we all just ignoring her doing her literal eyeliner with a knife?
user9: or the fact that max likely walked in and was like oh wait this is a sick shot
danielricciardo: oh no that was me, i'm still traumatised but it's probably the best photo i've ever taken
yourusername: easy to do with a model like me
charles_leclerc: wtf is that thing in the last one
yourusername: rude of you to think ur balls look any nicer
charles_leclerc: what?
yourusername: what?
user10: does anyone want to elaborate?
carlossainz55: happy birthday y/n !
yourusername: thanks carlos, thank you for the flowers 👍
user11: this is either their way of flirting or y/n really couldn't give a flying fuck about carlos' obvious crush on her
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yourusername
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liked by maxverstappen1, danielricciardo and 2,098,560 others
yourusername: another trip around the sun and still following my brother around, difference is now i beat him x
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user16: your honour i am so obsessed with her
maxverstappen1: can't even be angry about it, you deserve the world
yourusername: you softy, i love you
maxverstappen1: also dummy i know who your boyfriend is now did you guys forget that we LITERALLY LIVE TOGETHER
yourusername: i was intoxicated my bad but we bought you breakfast?
maxverstappen1: literally the only reason he hasn't gone over the balcony, he might want to be gone before this hangover wears off
yourusername: noted.
user17: yall want to share with the class?
user18: based on ^^ this reaction i'm going to say it's not carlos
user19: watch out he'll drop a shit pick-up line in a second and be rejected
carlossainz55: hope you enjoyed your birthday beautiful
user20: bro this guy STINKS
user19: i told yall
yourusername: thank you carlos
user21: i'm sorry this is dry as hell it can't be carlos
charles_leclerc: my shoes will never recover, i'll be sending an invoice your way
yourusername: you're a millionaire boo, you can replace those tacky white trainers yourself
charles_leclerc: is having no manners a verstappen trait?
yourusername: come for max all you want, but the birthday girl? low leclerc
charles_leclerc: when you go low i go lower
yourusername: oh believe me i know all about you and going down
user22: DO YALL MIND?
user23: do they think we're dumb?
charles_leclerc
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liked by pierregasly, lancestroll and 1,204,674 others
charles_leclerc: a weekend without racing?
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user24: what is biden doing about the soft launch pandemic?
user25: well this is oddly timed ...
yourusername: you look like you'd have sweaty hands
charles_leclerc: wouldn't you like to know
yourusername: unlike all ur fangirls i've actually smelt you sweaty after a race so you can keep your hands to yourself
maxverstappen1: you heard her 🤨
charles_leclerc: why are you here? is this a 2 for 1 deal on annoying dutch people
yourusername: you can call him annoying all you want, but you love me don't lie
charles_leclerc: my lawyer says i shouldn't comment on that ;)
sebastianvettel: when will you two stop?
yourusername: sorry seb :(
charles_leclerc: sorry seb :(
user26: i know carlos is sick reading this weird flirting when y/n never comments on his pics
user27: she comes here just to flirt cause she didn't even like the photo
user28: she doesn't even follow him 😭
pierregasly: i love a slow burn as much as the next person BUT NOT WHEN I DON'T KNOW WHO IT IS PICK UP THE PHONE
charles_leclerc: you're so dramatic, nobody knows calmar
maxverstappen1: he's lying i do
pierregasly: WHAT
charles_leclerc: by ACCIDENT i didn't tell him by choice
user29: so like, it's definitely y/n LOL
user30: oh no everyone get ready marca is going to run a story tomorrow about how charles leclerc is ruining carlos' career with psychological warfare by flirting with the girl he likes
user31: sainz sr about to wage war lol
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charles_leclerc
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liked by pierregasly, yourusername and 2,304,889 others
tagged: yourusername
charles_leclerc: i don't share. i love you. please follow me on instagram now (and let me come on max's jet) x
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user35: HOLY FUCK
user36: they're so fucking sexy my lord
yourusername: you're so weak, one teammate flirts with me and you hard launch, i've had 12 year olds use me as a face claim to pretend they're pregnant with your child
charles_leclerc: they took your face? i happen to quite like it, can they give it back?
yourusername: quite?
charles_leclerc: don't make me look bad you know i positively LOVE YOUR FACE
yourusername: and my ass since it's all you look at on track
charles_leclerc: okay you can drop the act now people know we're in love stop being mean to me :(
yourusername: but it's true, no?
charles_leclerc: rest assured i love your actual ass much more
maxverstappen1: believe me the people she lives with know WAY too much about how much you love it
user37: carlos sainz really thought he had a chance when these fools have been together for TWO years
sebastianvettel: congratulations you two, glad we don't have to watch you two trying to be subtle now
maxverstappen1: so wait when did you find out?
sebastianvettel: about two weeks into the relationship, they were very obvious
yourusername: thank you for keeping our secret dad <3
user38: y/n really said you ARE my grid dad
yourusername: oh no that's my actual dad
charles_leclerc: he's literally going to walk y/n down the aisle
maxverstappen1: please don't tell me you're engaged? i only just got over you actually being together
charles_leclerc: i'm not your brother yet don't worry (i will be soon)
carlossainz55: congrats guys
user39: it's okay bro you can cry
yourusername
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liked by maxverstappen1, charles_leclerc and 2,301,541 others
tagged: charles_leclerc
yourusername: two years with the love of my life, still on max's side on val d'argenton x
view all comments
user40: they're disgusting (when will it happen to me)
charles_leclerc: we'll have to agree to disagree
yourusername: just admit it you love to push verstappens off the track
charles_leclerc: sorry babe as much as i love you, i'll never let you win x
yourusername: good thing i always beat you then x
charles_leclerc: either way victory sex still bangs
user41: yes, yes they're cute, but i need a full on play-by-play of how this relationship came to be
user42: i know these menaces were giggling and kicking their feet every time they had an argument in comment sections
yourusername: oh it was very fun
charles_leclerc: but the radio messaged are 100% real lol
maxverstappen1: thanks for having my back, you're welcome for all the gross pictures i've taken for you guys
yourusername: consider your payment like every meal i make us
maxverstappen1: well if i did it f1 would be down three drivers
user43: wait so does charles basically live with them now?
maxverstappen1: unfortunately yes. depressing music, even worse cooking than me and horrendously loud sex with my sister. i should kick him out
charles_leclerc: i literally bought you noise-cancelling headphones?
maxverstappen1: nothing you can say will save me from this trauma
yourusername: just shag daniel and get off of our case x
note: ahhhhh i am so sorry this request took so long, my inbox keeps moving stuff around lol. my finger is good thanks for asking, the human body is a wonder and i peeled off the last of my scab this week lol. i hope this was the kinda thing you were looking for !! xx
3K notes · View notes
sunnie-angel · 28 days ago
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week 1 (oct. 4) | voice kink
✮⋆˙ baby (2.3k)
it's been a long, shitty day and all jason wants to do is call his baby back home. they have a great idea of how to make the day end on a high note
tags: gn!reader, established relationship, guided masturbation, phone sex, voice kink, exhibitionism, sub!jason
⊘ this is an 18+ fic. minors do not interact, you will be blocked
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Jason Todd throws himself onto the shitty motel bed and groans with relief. See, normally he wouldn’t collapse into bed right after a shower with his curls still damp but it’s been such a long day that he can’t be assed about flattening them on the cardboard thick pillow. He’s spent enough time since his rebirth to figure out how to make his curling hair look not terrible even after wearing a helmet for hours on end but the 18-metre tall intergalactic monster really killed any desire to make an effort.
Now Jason’s strictly a local guy – a hometown hero, if you will – but Dick had asked with his perfected puppy eyes and sickening earnestness and now here Jason is, all the way on the other side of the country from you and privately wanting a word with Lovecraft over just where he got his inspiration for Cthulu from. Somehow, due to unknown methods of persuasion (Dick’s puppy eyes), Jason had signed himself up to stay behind a second day just to make sure the quasi-scientifical-mostly-magical inter-dimensional crazy glue actually held the fabric of the universe together. So here he is, stuck in the least sleazy motel that had survived the day’s carnage with walls so paper thin he can hear Roy’s terrible singing echoing off the shower tiles. ‘Flawless victory’ or whatever the line is.
Too exhausted to change out of his towel or bother getting up to bang on the wall he shares with Roy, Jason paws at the night stand for his phone. Hopefully it’s had enough time to charge because he’s been itching to call home ever since he left the city boundaries. Listening to the phone ring, he closes his eyes, rests the back of his wrist across his forehead and waits. God he hopes you pick up.
“Hiya baby,” you greet him, voice tinny through the phone’s speakers. “You have fun fighting the creature from the deep? It was all over the news.”
“Remind me never to do Dick a favour ever again,” Jason grumbles. “Give me a crime lord with a hard on for sequins and leather any day. Never again.”
“Good, I don’t have to worry about you suddenly wanting to become a space man,” you snip back. Jason can just picture you nodding along with your words, already mentally discarding a desire that hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“See if I ever leave the state again! I had to spend 30 minutes in the shower trying to get the mysterious space gunk off and I don’t think any amount of washing is going to get my pants back to normal.” Genuinely Jason feels rubbed raw, the cheap bar soap in the bathroom basically doing nothing against the battle wreckage. He’s only glad he wore his second favourite pair of tac pants today. “Shit, I don’t think I even packed any spare underwear.”
“Oh so it’s that kind of phone call, huh?” your voice suddenly drops, low and purring where it was playful earlier.
“Wha– no, I didn’t– I mean,” Jason splutters. The motel room is suddenly boiling, AC probably on the fritz.
“Uh-huh, I’m sure you didn’t, baby,” you humor him. “Calling me up in nothing but a towel and lettin’ me know you don’t even have any underwear on.”  
“I just really need to do laundry!” is what comes out of Jason’s mouth in a mortifying mixture of embarrassment and growing horniness.
“All that talk about leather and showering, and you aren’t teasing me, hmm?” Jason can feel his hesitation crumbling at the sound of your voice, all whiskey and sin. “Left me alone for the whole weekend, aching for your touch. But you’re not teasing, right baby?”
“I wouldn’t wanna–“ Jason swallows thickly, adam’s apple bobbing, “–wanna leave you hangin’. But I uh, I don’t really know how to do this.” He whispers the last part like a secret, a confession of his innocence just for your ears. 
You laugh with delight, not even the busted speakers able to disguise the richness of it. Jason thinks he’d quite like to bathe in that sound.
“I’ve got you baby, you don’t need to worry about that. You just gotta come along for the ride. Can you do that? Just make yourself feel good with me?”
Jason nods, too lightheaded with how fast this conversation has changed direction to realize you can’t see him.
“Need you to use your words Jay,” you prompt him.
He flushes, embarrassment ripping through him.
“Y-yeah. I can do that. I can be sweet,” voice strangled in his throat. “But gotta– gotta be quiet ‘cause the walls are thin.”
“Okay! We can make quiet work. Baby’s first phone sex,” you say with palpable glee. Jason could swear he hears you rubbing your hands together, scheming. “Are you sitting or standing?”
“M’lying down,” he mumbles. “On the bed.” Jason’s trying to be helpful – he really is! – but the self-consciousness is creeping in, blurring out the edges of his vision. His room seems larger than it was an hour ago, suddenly hyperaware of every inch of space that doesn’t have you in it. The terrible singing through the walls echoes.
“Why don’t you prop yourself up on the pillows, get yourself all nice and comfy,” you direct him. There’s a corresponding sound of rustling coming over your end of the phone as Jason adjusts himself. Tucks two pillows under his back and neck until he’s satisfied that this is probably what you want from him. The cheap duvet scratches at his back, fabric bunching up beneath him.
“What about you?” he asks, sinking back into the disappointingly thin pillows.
“Me? I’m lying in our big, empty bed. It’s a little cold without the blankets, you can see my nipples right through my shirt.” Jason has to swallow back a sudden mouthful of saliva at the image. “Oh! And I put a towel down because I don’t want to sleep in the wet spot later and I plan on you making me messy.”
Jason has to fight the audible click of his jaw to keep the phone balanced on the pillow beside him as his muscles tense.
“Yeah? All of that for me?” he manages to get out.
“Why would I ever wanna do this with anyone else?” Something warm and possessive curls through Jason’s gut. “Now, you still in that little towel you were telling me about?” you ask.
“Uh-huh, still damp too.”
“Bet your skin is all lovely and warm. Poor baby rubbed himself raw trying to get clean, bet my baby’s just so sensitive now,” you drawl.
Jason looks down at himself, flushed torso still beaded with water. The towel, loosely wrapped around his waist, does very little to hide his dick chubbing up. It would be embarrassing, how quickly he gets hard for you with just a few coy words, if it wasn’t so hot. A door slams in another room.
“S’cold here. Feels– feels real nice on me.” It’s true. The working AC blasts directly onto his heated skin, gooseflesh rising across his forearms.
“Good. Can you touch yourself baby – only above the waist – like I’m the one touching you. Want you to tell me as you do it.”
Jason swallows. Hard. Slowly drags a hand up across his torso to press his thumb into the divot of his collarbone. Lips part with anticipation.
“Your fingers are on m’clavicle,” he whispers.  Slowly he drags his hand down to cup his chest, nipples tight from cold and arousal. “Now you’re touchin’ my chest. Squeezing. M’skin’s so sensitive, feels real nice.”
“Yeah? You lettin’ me feel up your tits baby?” you whisper and Jason chokes. Feels something hot unfurl in his brain at hearing his chest called something so vulgar.
“They’re not– not– ” he stutters.
“Not what?” you cut him off. “Not tits? ‘Course they are, nice big handfuls too. Want you to cup your tits baby, want you to play with them.”
Jason does, cups each pec in a large hand and squeezes, marvels at how his tits spill out around his fingers even as he feels the blush crawling down his chest. The side of a finger brushes a nipple and he has to bite back a groan at the sensation. Arches his back just to get a better view, imagines your hands are the ones on him. You don’t stop talking the whole time.
“–that be fun? I bet I could make you come just from playing with your tits. But I wanna see that in person so let’s wait on that, hmm?”
If Jason’s brain wasn’t melting out of his ears, he’d be able to tell you exactly how big a fan he is of that idea. As it is, he manages a sort of hrnng in a register he’s never been able to hit without a sharp kick to the balls first. He freezes, but Roy’s awful banging about continues. Jason sighs in relief.
“Oh you would like that. Now, take one of those nice big hands of yours and wrap it around your throat. Don’t squeeze, just hold it there for me baby. Take your time and unwrap yourself for me.”
With his eyes closed, he can almost picture it’s your smaller hand a steadying weight across his collarbones. Idly he trails his other hand down his torso, lets it trace over scars and follows his happy trail down to where it meets the knotted towel.
“Words,  baby,” you prompt him and he has to fight the thick syrup in his veins to put a thought together.
“M’undoin’ the towel,” he whisper slurs.
The cold air finally hitting his damp cock is heady. It springs up, already drooling with pre and Jason knows he’s not gonna last much longer with you purring in his ear. He reaches down and grabs hold of himself, has to bite his lip and close his eyes against how raw it feels.
“Holdin’ the base. Gonna– gonna cum if I don’,” he pants. 
There’s rustling on the end of the line, slick wet sounds as you start to split yourself open on your own fingers. Something like pride throbs in his chest at the sound, that even all the way over here he can still get you desperate for him.
“Good baby, good,” you praise him and he puffs up at that, chest arching out. “Can take your hand off your throat now, want you to play with yourself.”
His other hand slowly trails down to join the first. Jason huffs when it brushes a particularly sensitive patch of skin, gooseflesh raised. He cradles his balls with it, feels how heavy and tight they already are from just some words and a few light touches. Rolls them in his palm and has to wheeze out a breath between clenched teeth at how goddamn good it feels.
“It’s– m’balls are heavy. Needta– needta come,” he grits out. Begging seems like a good idea, why hasn’t he tried begging yet? “Please?”
“Ye-ah baby,” you say. It’s the first time all night that your composure has slipped and Jason is preening at the slight hitch he put in your voice. “Want you to fuck your fist like you’re fucking me and then you come alright?” 
Jason can’t do much more than pant his agreement into the phone, voice stolen by the feeling of that first tentative stroke of his cock. God he wishes it was your hand, or better yet the hot, tight clutch of your body welcoming him home. With his hand slicked in pre and almost painfully tight, he can imagine its you sinking down around him with that cheshire cat grin of yours. Lewd, wet sounds of flesh on flesh fill the motel room as Jason works himself over. Sets a vicious twist of his wrist to the end of each stroke that has him gasping for air, hips bucking up to meet it. His teeth ache with the strength of his desire to come, something hot and heavy gathering low at the base of his spine.
“M’close,” he grunts, wants to give you what you want.
The wet, filthy sounds from your end of the line speed up in their intensity.
“Wanna hear you when you come baby,” you gasp, all pretense dissolved under the building pleasure.
And Jason wants to be good but, but–
“Roy’s– Roy’s gonna hear.”
“Yeah? What’s he gonna hear? You being a good boy for me baby, doing exactly as your told? He gonna hear just how desperate your are to get your dick wet for me?”
Jason goddamn whines, high and wanton and desperate for your approval. The singing from next door abruptly stops. I hope that doesn’t awaken anything in me, Jason thinks hysterically before he stops thinking at all.
He comes babbling your name like a holy catechism, cum spurting all over his fist and belly. Muscles spasming under skin that feels too tight, mouth drier than dirt. Spent and over-sensitive, he lets go of his dick just as he hears your own orgasm take you under. Jelly limbed and feeling better than he has all day, he lolls cum drunk on the bed. Two sharp rapid knocks on the wall startle him but do nothing to cut through the lovely post-orgasmic high. If anyone deserves to be a little out of it in this moment, it’s him.
“Saw you took a pretty bad tumble...” you trail off leadingly, voice lilting upwards.
“Looked a lot worse than it was. Medics gave me a clean bill of health and everything.” It’s odd to be the one doing the soothing, Jason thinks, still fucked out and blinking away stars.
“But you’d tell me if it wasn’t, right?” you press him.
“Course baby, you’d be the first person I call.”
425 notes · View notes
zepskies · 2 months ago
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Touch Me
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Pairing: Dean Winchester x Plus-size!Reader
Summary: Dean isn’t used to how “touchy” you can be, but he never said he didn’t like it.
AN: I had the Midnight Espresso series in mind for this, since it plays on a recurring theme in that series (how the reader expresses herself), but it can be general Dean x Plus-size!Reader as well!
(In the Espresso-verse, it would take place just a few months after the first story.)
Word Count: 2K
Tags/Warnings: 18+ only for smuttishness. Established relationship, hint of body insecurity, but mostly fluff and feels.
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It takes him a while to get used to it, the way you touch him.
Even before you two started dating, you were like this.
You’re an expressive person by nature, always talking with your hands, full body animated when you tell stories. Sometimes you’d grab his wrist playfully, or brush your hand along his back when you pass by. Or you’d grab his shoulder to steady yourself and lean into him when you had too much to drink. 
Dean liked it—all of it. In fact, he found it endearing as hell. That hasn’t changed, even after a few months of trying to figure out what this is. What you two are together, and what you could be.
It’s just that…his family wasn’t so touchy feely growing up. Hell, he can probably count on one hand how many times he hugged his dad. For Sam, maybe two hands.
Your hands are warm, even when they startle Dean a bit while he’s working on detailing his Baby. He sits on a stool low enough for him to get the grit and gravel out of the front right tire.
He jumps when he feels something slide across his shoulders and down his chest, but he chuckles, feeling you press into him comfortably from behind. Your breasts feel like a (sexy) pillow.
“You oughta wear a bell or something,” he remarks, even though he squeezes your arm in greeting, leaving a grease stain in his wake. Your smile presses against his cheek.
“Then how would I get the privilege of scaring the mighty Dean Winchester?” you tease.
He snorts in response. “You just surprised me. A little.”
“Mhmm,” you reply, beginning to lay a path of kisses along his jaw. “Need any help here?”
He takes a deep breath at your ministrations, smiling. “Got a feeling you just came to distract me.”
“Hmm, yeah,” you admit. Your lips wander down his neck, grazing the shell of his ear along the way. Pleasure laces down his spine.
“You know, I think we have yet to christen Baby’s backseat…” You tilt your head, chewing your lip. “Although, I wouldn’t dare imagine how many christenings have come before me.”
Dean chuckles again, but he turns to look at you over his shoulder with more than just desire in his eyes.
“Yeah, well, you’ll be the one that matters,” he says.
You pause, looking down at him like you’re trying to figure out if he means it or not. And he does.  
After a moment, you smile. Dean swivels on his stool and tugs you down to tumble onto his lap, into his waiting arms. You yelp in surprise, but you laugh into his neck when he pulls you flush against him by your jean-clad ass and thigh. He’ll happily get a handful of either one.
You make yourself comfortable on his lap and take his face into your hands. They're gentle, despite what they can do with a Beretta 92.
“I like this,” you admit softly. “You and me.”
Dean quirks a smile. “I’d say it’s an improvement.”
This time when he steals a proper kiss, you’re left without a smartass retort.
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Even Sam notices.
The first time he does, you’ve just cooked dinner for them on a slow day. When Dean takes in the spread of pork roast with his eyes, he grins up at you with a heartfelt:
“Thanks, sweetheart," he says. "Looks awesome. Smells even better.”
You brighten with a smile. You answer him by reaching out to cup his cheek, pressing a sweet kiss to the other. You stroke your thumb across his prickly stubble, and let your hand slip down his neck and shoulder on your way back to the kitchen for the bread.
Sam watches the way his brother is a bit surprised by the contact, blinking as his gaze follows you to the kitchen. Dean smiles to himself.
Sam's lips twitch upwards as well.
Is he actually blushing? he wonders.
Dean catches him staring. He raises his brows, clearing his throat.
“What?” he asks.
Sam shakes his head and sips at his beer.
“Nothing.”
After that, Sam starts to pick up on the other little moments, like the way you sit close to Dean while researching during a hunt, your arm or your thigh brushing his. And the way you run your fingers through his hair while watching a movie together, or raise his arm so you can curl yourself up against him on his corner of the couch, threading your fingers together afterwards.
Sam shoots his brother a secret smile of amusement for that one. Dean chooses to ignore him and puts on Porky’s II on the big screen projector with the remote.
You fall asleep about halfway through the movie. Granted, you guys just got back from a long hunt, and you’re all pretty wiped. You’re just the one who succumbed first. From his side of the couch, Sam reaches for a throw blanket you bought for them and helps Dean lay it over you.
Dean happens to meet his brother’s gaze, and Sam smiles.
“Things seem to be going well for you guys,” he says quietly, so he doesn’t wake you.
Out of habit, Dean downplays with a shrug and a noncommittal sound. He brushes your hair back from your forehead, and he makes sure you’re covered up to your shoulders with the blanket. Finally, he rests his arm around your waist and shifts his attention back to the movie.
That’s when Sam knows the truth. His brother’s actions have always spoken louder than his words.
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You haven’t officially moved into the bunker just yet.
Dean hasn’t brought it up, since everything between you two is so new. You’re here more often than not though, sharing his bed, making rich espresso out of your little coffee press for him and Sam in the morning, helping them even more with hunts that crop up.
Dean’s still getting used to sharing said bed. Mainly because you’re a cuddler, even after a couple of hot and sweaty rounds between the sheets.
“Ah, heeey,” he says awkwardly, when you snuggle yourself up to his side. You’ve just finished cleaning up in the bathroom and going through your twenty-something mysterious bottles of night creams.
You smell good, he can’t deny. It’s that enticing combination of lavender soap and coconutty shampoo. It infiltrates his nose as you sigh and settle your head against his chest. He curls an arm around you on reflex.
But your hair is tickling his neck and shoulder, sweat is trying to cool on his skin, and there’s plenty of room on your side of the bed. 
“G’night,” you murmur drowsily and lay a kiss to his bare chest, over his anti-possession tattoo.
“Night,” he replies, with a wan smile as he stares up at the ceiling. He goes over the options in his head. One, he can wait until you’re asleep and try to gently roll you onto your side. Two, he can just lay here and deal, even though his neck is itchy, and some uncomfortable sweat is pooling down his lower back.
Or Option Three, he can just ask you if you mind rolling back onto your side. 
After a few beats to think, he quickly concludes that Option Three is not an option.
Instead, he goes for trying to be slick. He waits until he hears your breathing even out into slumber. When he thinks you’re conked out for sure, he slowly, slowly uses his arm curled around your shoulders to roll you over, back onto the left side of the bed.
There are a couple times where he pauses, worried you’re about to wake up. You just hum and sigh in your sleep. Dean's lips purse, and he continues his mission.
When he’s successfully shifted you onto your other side, he expels a small breath of relief. Now, here’s the hard part: taking back his arm.
He goes as slow as he can while sliding his arm out from where it’s trapped underneath your soft body. Part of him feels a little guilty for what he’s doing, but he’s in too deep now.
Almost there…
Your breathing hitches, and stills. So does he.
“Dean,” you say quietly.
Shit.
He looks down, biting the corner of his lip. He’s been had.
“Yeah,” he reluctantly replies.
You turn around and raise yourself up to free his arm. You sigh through your nose, finding his sheepish expression in the dim room.
“Sorry. Was I cutting off your circulation or something?” you attempt to joke.
It seems innocent on the surface, but you’ve made those kinds of self-deprecating remarks before—about your body, your voluptuous ass, hips, thighs, and perfect tits that Dean’s spent the past few months mapping every square inch of.
He frowns. 
“No,” he says. “I, uh…was getting hot. Just wanted a little space, that’s all.”
Your face falls further, no matter how much you try to hide it. A small, proverbial oyster knife twists in his gut.
“Look, if…if you want your bed to yourself, I get it. Less room to go around,” you chuckle, again with that self-deprecating humor. It doesn���t reach your eyes. “I can find my old guest room—”
Dean’s brows furrow along with his frown. He reaches out and grabs your arm before you can even start to get up.
“Hey, stop. Sweetheart, that’s not what I said.” He tugs you back over by your hand. He raises his brows to level with you, conspiringly. “Truth is, I’ve got sweat heading toward the crack of my ass.”
Your face freezes, and then it breaks, spluttering with laughter. Dean smiles, even though he’s also a bit embarrassed.
“You literally got me hot and bothered,” he says, with a teasing gleam in his eyes. “I just need a little cool down. Else I might just wake you up for Round 3.”
You stare back at him in amusement now, tinged with affection. However, the longer your thumb brushes over his knuckles, the more that insecurity starts to creep back into your gaze. 
“You’ll let me know if I’m overstaying my welcome, right?” you ask. “I want to keep exploring…well, us, but I don’t want to smother you either.”
He sighs, shaking his head. “You got all that from me telling you I want to fuck you later?”
You dissolve into laughter again, shoving at his chest. He’s known you long enough to figure out what you need though. He grabs your offending hand and pulls you in. Then he rolls you onto your back and traps you underneath his broad frame.
“You’re not going any-damn-where. Not if I can help it,” he says, his voice deepening to a timbre that makes a shiver run down your spine.
You look up at him, your eyes shining through your lashes with desire, and deeper things too. Things that just about make him putty in your hands, whenever you touch him.
So he touches you. He cups your cheek, traces your jawline with his thumb. The pad of it smooths across your full lower lip as you smile softly, and he realizes then just how far this could go for him. He knows it’s the real deal.
That knowing warms him further and makes his stomach churn at the same time. He’s reminded of the warning he gave you before you two started dating.
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“I attract a lot of crap in my life,” he admitted. “Shit you want no part of.”
You grabbed onto the lapels of his plaid shirt and pressed a soft kiss to his jaw.
“Well, that’s a stupid reason,” you said. 
“It’s really not,” Dean shook his head. “Truth be told…I’m no good for you either.”
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You hadn’t given a shit about all that. He’s been trying to figure out why you took a chance on him ever since…but he knows his reasons.
Even though he still believes everything he said back then, it doesn’t change much of anything.
He’s in too deep.
He dips down and claims your lips. You kiss him back with the same fervor, sliding your hands around his back, feeling every smooth dip of muscle between his shoulders.
“Round 3?” you playfully ask, between kisses.
Dean grips one of your thick thighs and spreads your legs for him, so he can grind his hips into yours, pressing his risen length against your heated core through your panties. He earns your moan in response, and he swallows it up with a more devouring kiss. He doesn’t let up until you’re panting for breath, already squeezing on him with your thighs around his hips.
He breaks, just for a second. He gives you a cheeky grin.
“Try to keep up.”
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AN: Yep, Dean tried to pull a Ross Gellar. 🤣 (AKA: the "Hug and Roll.")
I don't know why this little idea wouldn't leave me alone! I guess I just like the thought of Dean having to get used to being doted on, even through something as small as being touched affectionately. Not just during sexy times. 💖
(Also, if you've read Midnight Espresso, you'll probably notice a little excerpt from there included here.)
Anyway, I hope you liked this! Let me know what you thought. 😘
Keep Reading:
Next in the Espresso-verse is Devour Me:
Summary: When you and Dean start to press each other’s buttons, both of your tempers ignite. To make up for it, you give him an impromptu salsa dancing lesson…one he didn’t exactly ask for.
▶️ Next Story: Devour Me (Part 1)
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