#they’re all so silly 😊 | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kneelingshadowsalome · 3 months

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Okay, so in one of the comments that you replied to in your “gold rush AU! Konig”, you stated that she’s heads over heels in love with him, but apparently hasn’t shown/told him yet. And even though he believes that she doesn’t love him, he’s still so in love with her and just wants to make her happy. (That has got to pull at her heartstrings because this odd but kind man simply just loves her.)

Would you be willing to do a next part? Showing that she was just resisting what she knew along and that was that she does love and only wants him. Because although he went about marrying her immediately instead of taking the time to get to know each other and even though he’s from an European background, who is a giant with an accent and working to hit gold to support her financially, he’s still been nothing but kind, loving, and can apparently rock her world in bed! (Basically she was resisting in giving in into admitting she loves him because she had this WHOLE mindset/vision about how it was ALL gonna go down but since it didn’t go the way she thought it would, she was resisting his love for the “fairytale” version she wanted.)

Eventually she finally confesses that she does love him but had to get to that conclusion slowly on her own terms. This of course makes him so happy and he feels so blessed to gain his wife’s love; he once again promises that he will do everything in his powers to ensure she’s happy for all the rest of the days of her life. Which he does because some time later he hits it big in gold which lets him upgrade the “shack” they’re living in to convert it into an actual home for them to spend the rest of their lives together (with future children).

And he asks her of what she wants him to buy for her since he can afford to get it for her, only for her to ask for a new and bigger (so he fits comfortably) reinforced bed; because she wants him to be able to rest properly in a comfortable bed AND she doesn’t want to hear it creak as he plows her into nirvana/heaven. This of course causes him to blue screen but once he reboots his brain, he promises that he’ll get the best bed that will not only support their nightly activities but be very comfortable for both of them.

It’s only once they get the new bed and use/“break it in”/“christen” it for the first time does he finally gets her pregnant on that first night.

Oh, your writings are just so good! 😊

Oh I love the bed scenario and König wanting to spoil her and the story about how he got her pregnant for the first time (you can’t tell me these two won’t have a small flock of annoying little kids running around eventually) so much! 😭💞

And I actually wrote a little something for this because people were putting me in jail for the roaring angst of the 1st part so here’s how these silly pookies got to their happily ever after:

Our pompous little mail order bride is, in fact, so in love with König that it’s not even funny.

It's so bad that she looks out the window and sighs as she waits for him to come home... Scoots away the minute she catches him in the horizon, of course. She has better things to do than wait by the window sill like some wanton prostitute!

She whimpers like one, however, when the door slams shut and her husband comes to grope her from behind, telling her he wants to take her on the table (there’s food there and they were supposed to eat first, what a horrible man!) Not to talk of getting wet just from the sight of him looming over her, she has no objections with getting spread on the sturdy planks for taking. She should probably be thankful that the dinner table is made of solid wood and is not some delicate piece hauled here from Europe because it could never take the brute force of König’s advances...

After they're both sated and done, he dares to dip his finger in one of the cast iron pots filled to the brim with stew. Has a taste while still inside her, only chuckles to himself when she furrows her brows from how uncivilised he is. What kind of a man barges in his home like a burglar, takes his wife on the table, then tastes the hearty stew like it’s only normal for a man to be hungry after plowing his lady until they're both shaking? Even the bed is about to break at night, these pieces of furniture have done nothing wrong to this man and yet he treats them like they're nothing but disposable bits of wood.

His lack of manners never ceases to astonish her; he even tries to give her a taste of the food too, and laughs when she pushes him away and straightens her skirts, how is she supposed to walk around with his seed running down her thighs? All the pretty things he got her from town are in need of a wash already, but she still hums a soft happy tune while looking at her reflection in the mirror, donning the pretty hat he just brought her along with coffee and flour. (She thinks he can’t hear or see her being visibly happy, but König takes mental notes every time her eyes shine a little brighter from his gifts. She's not lacking anything, that's for sure, and isn’t it nice that he remembered how she looked at that silly little hat when they walked by her favorite store…? Anything his princess wants, she shall have!)

Years and years of lonely digging in this harsh land far away from home have made her husband think that no woman could ever want him unless he buys their love, and she does enjoy the pretty little frills he brings her as offerings. But what would kill her is if he knew she had actual feelings for him… This was supposed to be an arrangement, a marriage between two adults, not a romantic passionate affair! That sort of thing only happens in books, that's the first thing she learned when she came here.

He should have courted her properly first, but now it's all ruined, there's no excitement and intensity... Except that her heart is always hammering in her chest, she feels like a trapped bird flitting inside her corset. She's always flustered when he goes under her skirts, her chest is about to collapse in on itself when she sees him flash a smile her way, carry her more silk and demurely apologize that the wrappings are dirty because of his hands, kiss her neck after copulation like it's the holiest place on earth...

And God Almighty, what would this man think of her if she confessed her love to him? He would probably laugh and think she’s a harlot who’s in desperate need of his cock, that she's indecent and impure…

Luckily, the brute is so stupid that he doesn’t see the way his little princess–as he now calls her–looks up at him when he traces her bottom lip with his thumb. She’s relatively sure he doesn’t notice the tiny gasps just before she comes, the helpless, adoring stares she shoots at him right after, because that glassy, worshipping stare of his own is only born of lust, that’s for sure.

He can’t see her figure flash in the window when he’s walking towards home, she’s made sure of that…

Or has she?

The man is dumb, but he’s not a total simpleton, even if his eternal sadness is slowly turning into a teasing, an even hungrier form of love. She fears he will simply devour her one of these days if he knew how deeply in love with him she is as well...

And she fears herself even more than she fears him. Didn’t the priest warn about exactly this kind of simple-minded, wanton lust in his last sermon? She was always taught that marriage is supposed to be about companionship and genial living together, not about sweaty, toe curling, mind numbing copulation.

They’re fornicating like animals in the little shack she has grown so fond of, shy to the changes he’s talking about every day since he struck some large gold vein. He openly fantasizes about getting them a large house, a small manor, even, and she knows it’s all just for her because this man is content with very little… So little, that he accepts any small crumb of affection she gives him like it’s an entire rain of manna from heaven.

And it’s only because she’s ashamed that she can’t show her true feelings for him. The gentlemen of the city now feel like fancy peacocks compared to this burly man who’s not afraid to get his hands dirty and his dick wet. Those men look delicate and boring and ridiculous next to the hairy giant who’s forearms she stares in the evenings like they’re her own personal cancan show.

It’s crazy, how she looks at him like he’s nothing but a piece of meat – are women even supposed to feel this way? She should say her prayers, because her foreign husband looks like a god while sharpening his ax by the fire, with slow, deliberate movements, the trembling hands finding a smooth, strong dance only when they’re wielding a pickaxe or a whetstone or a knife.

He catches her staring once, her frightful stare big and helpless in the flickering flames, and he gives her a sad, longing smile in return.

“I’m sorry, princess,” he gruffs softly. “Ich weiss… I know I should shave...”

Her head gives an involuntary shake, minimal and shy, because she doesn’t want him to shave. She adores that coarse stubble that leaves her skin red and irritated, she loves how he looks when he has so much going on in his life that he doesn’t have time to groom himself.

“No…?” He asks hesitantly, straightening a little on the chair that’s really only a piece of log. “You like it like this...?”

She nods. Shyly again, and just once, while her eyes drift on his lips.

It’s intimate, how the silence envelops them with both tension and grace. It’s all she can give right now, and he knows it, knows also that this whole exchange is basically a love confession. Her affection, her want, her dedication and surrender soar and swell all at once, and he can see it... All of it.

He rises, and abandons the ax, his softening stare never leaving hers. He walks to her like a gentleman, like he's Mr. Rochester himself, like she was Ms. Eyre – although she doesn’t want to be Jane Eyre and she doesn’t want him to be a dark, handsome gentleman. She wants him to be just as he is, the stranger from the North who works hard and loves even harder, who picks her up like she’s an angel and not a lady.

“Let’s get you to bed, hmm?”

His gaze is so soft, it’s starting to relax into some knowledge she has in her foolishness betrayed.

But it’s alright… Everything’s just as it should be.

She wraps her hands around his neck and whispers, “Yes,” and the smile that tugs at his lips finally melts into one of those I knew it smiles he sometimes wears when he brings her something nice from the town.

He doesn’t push her to reveal more information about how much she loves his stubble, but he does make her scream it out into the warm cottage air as he goes down between her legs. She doesn’t want to know what the local priest would say about this: a man making his mark on the insides of her thighs with that scraping beard, how he makes her core throb with his ever-hungry mouth. She doesn’t even care.

It’s a paradise and an inferno, where he’s sending her to, and who knew a brutish digger from some distant land could suddenly be so eloquent with his tongue? Who knew a man could do things like these to a woman...? Who knew married life could be like this?

“You liked that, didn’t you, princess,” he asks when he’s done with her, and holds her surprisingly gentle when she’s still shaking and squirming softly on the bed. Not God, not even the Devil, could cloud the full blown affection in her eyes. She’s in love – it’s not just lust, but love she feels for this man, and she feels like a fool for not recognizing she had gold in her hands all along.

“Yes,” she says, then smiles, then laughs, because it’s fairly obvious that she can’t speak those words even if she wanted to. He wrecked her so completely...

“I told you I’d make you happy, Sonnenschein.”

He smiles a little, looks down at her like she’s nothing but a baby who finally stopped her eternal crying.

“Oh I’m more than happy,” she says, this time tears clouding her vision, happy tears born from being free from years of imprisonment. He doesn’t strike her as the kind of man who cries, but there’s a faint glow in his eyes as well, a shimmer that both takes her in and pulls her under. This is something they don’t talk about in church... This is a thing they never write about in books.

She lays her hand on him, on the coarse cheek that is now slightly wet from a single tear.

“You’re crying,” she whispers, because her voice wouldn’t carry the weight of her words at this point.

“Ja…? Well... I’m happy too,” he explains, with a shortness of breath and a confusion to his voice.

He blinks the rest of it away, but the sweet moment stays, lingers on until she draws him into a kiss – another thing they never talk about in novels, a woman kissing a man – and she tastes both him and her on his lips, how well he loved her, and when he moans slightly from her reciprocating that love, she holds him closer, closer, closer… Until he shivers too.

#mail order bride #gold rush au #könig x reader #könig x you #könig fluff #falling in love

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matchavellichor · 10 months

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If you’re still taking requests then I have one 😊

Could you please write a scenario where Sebastian goes home for the Christmas holiday to make amends with Anne and Solomon (before shit happens) and he leaves Ominis and Female MC alone. They finally get to spend time alone together for once and find they have a lot more in common than rheu previously thought (they go on walks, study in the library, hang out in the undercroft) and Ominis who already had a secret little crush on her but always thought that Sebastian kinda had a claim on her, starts falling very hard and he finally decides to do something about it. Maybe they’re hanging out in the undercroft one night and he spontaneously kisses her. I would adore if you could take this into NSFW territory, I’d love the awkward yet sensual first-time sex between them if you could (and as much as I love him, please no Dominis, I want the sweet boy we meet in the game) ♥️

A.N: Thank you for this request! I absolutely adored writing this, so precious 🥹 I hope you enjoy! Also thank you to everyone else who sent a request, I'm trying to get through all of them now that I'm on break and have more time 🫶

You Drew Stars

f!MC x Ominis Gaunt - NSFW/Fluff - 5.6k words

Summary: After Sebastian leaves the castle to spend winter break in Feldcroft, Ominis' sentiments for his friend slowly begin to stretch past the bounds of what's platonically appropriate...

Tags: "Un"requited Love, Pining, Miscommunication, Loss of Virginity, First-Times, Friends to Lovers, Supportive Friend Sebastian Sallow

The library was empty as Ominis meandered his way through towards the back shelves, most of the other students having gone home for winter break. To his satisfaction, the few who had stayed didn’t share any habits of curling up with a book an hour before curfew.

He made his way to the old, royal purple chaise that he usually sat in towards the back corner of the establishment, tucked just behind a shelf on holistic gardening that no one ever frequented. He stilled when he noticed someone already there, the quiet sound of pages turning alerting him of their presence.

“Hey, Ominis,” She glanced up when she heard him approach and eyed the book in his hand curiously. “Some light reading before bed?”

“Oh, it’s you,” He scratched the back of his neck. “I was, but I think I’ll just head back to—”

“Don’t be silly,” She tucked herself towards one side of the lounge and patted the seat directly beside her. “Come on, there’s plenty of room.”

“It’s fine, really, you were here first—”

She sighed. “Will you just sit down?”

He shifted nervously in his place for a moment before finally coming to some decision and making his way towards her to take a seat. The chaise sat two people comfortably, albeit a bit cramped, their arms brushing every time either of them turned a page.

She didn’t seem to mind. Unfortunately, he didn’t possess the same level of indifference, a faint flush of pink creeping up his neck from beneath his white Oxford when she crossed her legs and her thighs brushed against his.

After finishing up her chapter, she reached over to tilt the front cover of his book towards her, her curiosity getting the best of her. She was awfully forward, if not borderline rude. He tried to disguise the fact he liked it.

“Brontë?” Her eyebrows shot to her hairline. “Developed a rebellious streak, have you, Ominis?”

“Something like that,” He mused. “Though, I suppose there are better ways to defy my parents.”

“Oh, certainly. If you spent more time with me you’d have a plethora of creative ideas by now,” She grinned. “Not that sneaking around reading Muggle literature isn’t an admirable offense, of course.”

He breathed out a laugh. “You make an enticing offer, I have to admit.”

“What can I say, I’m enticing.”

Overwhelmingly, he thought.

He accompanied her to her dorm room afterwards and tried to wipe the stupid, dreadful smile on his face the entire walk back to his own.

They fell into a simple sort of routine.

Even though they had already fit into some category of the word friends, it had never been in the same way that she was with Sebastian. The more he got to know her, the more he wondered why he hadn’t done so sooner. She was absolutely brilliant.

He quickly learned she was just as much of a night owl as he was, often walking into the common room to find her already curled up on one of the wingback chairs in front of the fireplace, waiting for him.

She’d lay out a rotating selection of Muggle literature and make him pick one for her to read to him, even if he insisted he could just cast a simple dictation spell or transfigure a copy in braille.

He quickly found his particular favorite was Jane Austen, to which she teased him relentlessly for being a bleeding heart romantic. Gods, she had no idea.

She introduced him to Mary Shelley, which he enjoyed just as much, although he posited he’d grow to appreciate just about anything as long as it was her reading it to him.

It was over steaming cups of earl gray in the common room and midday walks through the snow-crested forest that his inkling of a crush morphed into something else. Something more.

Feelings, he recognized rather ruefully, one late evening after she’d fallen asleep with her head pillowed on his lap in the common room.

Twisty, hot, almost nausea-inducing feelings. Overwhelming and nerve-wracking, but at the same time so unbelievably good, and warm, and sweet, because how could he feel anything else with her except pleasantries?

They were the kind where he found he wanted to do nothing more but stay in the private, simple routine they’d created for themselves, just the two of them. Wanted to keep living in the daydream he’d invented about their relationship, where sometimes she’d hug him goodnight a little too tightly, or sit a little too close, and it’d almost feel like she cared for him the same way he cared for her. Almost.

He ignored the guilty, nagging sensation in his gut about her relationship with Sebastian, and decided he’d let his delusions take him through the remainder of their holiday together.

Stretched out on the plush rug in front of the common room fireplace, he wrapped a hand around her ankle when she went to nudge him with a stockinged foot for the thirtieth time in the last five minutes.

“Quit it,” He didn’t glance up from where his fingers were combing over the braille in his open textbook. “You’re distracting me.”

“You’re not even studying anymore,” She wriggled her foot out of his hold and poked his thigh again in defiance. “You’re a terrible fake-reader, you know. You don’t even make your eyes move across the lines.”

“Hilarious,” He rolled his eyes, finally closing the book on his lap. “And maybe I’ve stopped studying because someone has been prodding me incessantly for the past half-hour.”

“My mental capacity has reached its limit for the night. And I’m starved,” She picked herself up from the floor, rolling her shoulders back in a stretch, before holding a hand out for him to take. “Come on, up. Let’s get something to eat.”

He waved his wand over his wristwatch. “It’s nearly one in the morning, where on earth are we going to get something to eat?”

Her lips curled into a smirk as she helped him to his feet. “I have my ways.”

He sighed a defeated breath as he let her tug him along. “Yes, I’m aware. I’m afraid that’s precisely my concern.”

“Gods, we’re going to be given twin concussions by a kitchen elf any second now. I hear Tilly’s got a particularly strong arm.” The glowing tip of Ominis’ wand cast the dark surroundings of the Hogwarts kitchens in a red hue. “Keep an eye out for any hurtling rolling pins, will you?”

“Will you stop worrying? It’s fine.” She huffed, sticking her head into one of the pantries of the kitchens before popping out a few moments later. “Apple or blueberry?”

“Both?”

She grinned, slipping back inside. “This is why we’re friends.”

“We’re friends? This is news to me.”

She narrowed her eyes at where he was poised at the doorway. “Keep talking like that and we’ll be enemies soon enough.”

“My biggest nightmare,” He teased. “I certainly would not want to get on your bad side.”

He followed her as she slipped past him out of the pantry with two magically-steaming pies in hand, making her way towards the exit of the kitchens.

“You’re certainly a lot smarter than Sebastian, then,” She glanced at him over her shoulder. “You know what’s good for you.”

You’re good for me, he thought.

“Call it self-preservation.”

“How about dinner with a view?” She stopped at the bottom stairwell of the Astronomy tower, only pale moonlight and the dim, orange glow of the scattered wall sconces to illuminate the barren hallways they’d been treading through.

He shrugged. “Doesn’t really make a difference to me, all of my dinners are without a view.”

“Oh, look who’s all clever all of a sudden.” She rolled her eyes.

He grinned. “I’ve always been clever. Do keep up.”

She balanced the pie in her hands in one arm and took his hand with the other, beginning the long, meandering ascent to the upper tower platform.

Her fingers laced so nicely with his, as if they’d been carved to mold perfectly with his own. Smaller than his, but warm, and familiar. He reveled in the privilege of getting to touch her so freely, conscious of the fact this comfortableness would most likely end as soon as Sebastian was back from Feldcroft.

They sat cross-legged with their arms draped over the metal railing, tucking into their pies and trading spoonfuls of rich, syrupy goodness. It wasn’t as cold as a normal December night, but he cast periodic warming charms over them anyways and transfigured his jumper into a blanket that turned out only marginally big enough for the both of them.

They ate in comfortable, companionable silence and all that he could think about is how he wished he could do this always. In the summer, in the spring, in the fall. That this wasn’t something temporary, something that would be robbed from him in a few short weeks.

“Didn’t realize you were such a messy eater, Ominis.” She glanced up at him, an amused smile pulling at the corners of her lips. “Where’s all that pureblood dining etiquette gone to?”

He rolled his eyes and went to feel around for a napkin, but she leaned forward instead. He sucked in a sharp breath as she braced a hand on his thigh and swiped her thumb over the side of his mouth, collecting remnants of blueberry jam, brushing over his bottom lip in a moment that seemed to stretch for an eternity, though in reality was brief and fleeting.

She sat back down in her seat, unphased, and popped the digit in her mouth, bottom teeth scraping over the pad of her thumb, sugar melting on her tongue.

His mouth felt terribly dry.

He swallowed down the sensation of longing with a spoonful of apple filling and flaky, golden crust.

Bellies full with ungodly amounts of pie, they laid beside each other on the too-small blanket, and Ominis tried to ignore the too-loud sound of his blood rushing in his ears, paired with the too-fast beating of his heart in his chest, and attempted to simply relax.

He closed his eyes and focused on something other than the consuming feeling of want prickling over his skin, setting his nerve-endings alight with the desire to touch and hold and caress. She wasn’t his to do any of those things with.

He focused on her soft, steady breathing. The rise and fall of her chest beside his.

“Merlin, it’s beautiful.” She murmured, a dazed quality to her voice.

“I’m sure it is.” He replied just as listless, though undoubtedly for other reasons.

She turned her head to face him. “Want me to describe it to you?”

He turned to face her as well and he was suddenly acutely aware of the feeling of her breath ghosting his cheek. She was so close. His voice was quiet. “Would you?”

She nodded. “Alright, close your eyes.”

He bit back a smile. “You’re such an idiot.”

She grinned. “Shut up and do it.”

He obliged with a disgruntled huff. Pleased, she turned back towards the scenery.

“It’s a full moon tonight, so everything has this almost…silver glow. Like the whole world’s been dipped in platinum.” She began.

He tried to picture it in his head, sheens of pale white cast over rolling hills and thick forest.

“You can see the entire lake from up here, never-ending and inky black, and juuust there, past the border of the forest—” She outstretched a hand. “—is Hogsmeade, with its little orange lights.”

She glanced sideways at him to see his eyes still closed, the softest smile brushing his lips.

She continued, “What’s really pretty though, is the stars. Too many to ever count. Enough to make your head dizzy, really.” She let out a laugh and he decided it was the sweetest sound he’d ever heard.

“Some are brighter than others, and you can make out little pictures in the night sky. Tonight, there’s Orion looking down on us,” She tilted her head, brows knitting together as she took a moment to study him. “Actually…”

He let out a startled breath when he felt her fingertips make contact with his cheek, dragging over his skin in feather-light touches, tracing the small smattering of beauty marks there.

“You bear a remarking similarity,” She ran her index softly between the points, connecting little invisible lines. “Right here.”

He swallowed hard. “Do I?”

“Mhm,” She hummed. “It’s awfully pretty.”

She hadn’t pulled her hand back. His skin buzzed with the sensation, because her fingertips were still there, on his cheek, touching him with a softness that he had never known before in his life, with a kindness that he was so unaccustomed to.

Gentle, repetitive drags, skin-on-skin, that same prickling sensation of want having grown into something almost painful inside of him. Bubbling and overwhelming, just underneath his flesh, his fingers twitching with the desire to reach out and feel.

He was conscious of how stupid it was, mind-numbingly so, but he couldn’t bear the aching tension in his chest any longer, and he knew of only one way to acquiesce his restless heart.

He cupped her own cheek in his hand, dipped his chin forward, and captured her lips in his.

Her fingers froze against his cheek, and he could feel the slight surprise in her body language, before it quickly morphed into something else, something accepting, something satisfied. As if she’d been longing just as desperately, had been waiting for this the same way he’d been.

Her hand dragged down to thread through the fine, blonde hairs at the nape of his neck, tugging him closer to her, eliciting a sharp intake of air through his nose, settling all kinds of feelings deep behind his navel.

She parted her lips for him and he chased the syrupy taste of sugar on her tongue like he needed it to live, swallowed her quiet, breathy pants like mouthfuls of honey, sticky and saccharine and so overwhelmingly her he could drown in it.

She was so sweet, so soft, and far, far too perfect for his fantasies to have ever possibly done her justice.

When she finally broke away, he could feel her drowsy, sapless smile against his lips. He smiled back, just as giddy, an absolute fool, surely, but in the moment he couldn’t care less. He resisted the urge to dive back in. To run his tongue over her teeth and plead for more, because he knew he would most likely never get enough.

He was content then, just holding her. She tucked herself into his side, pillowed her head on his chest, and let him run his hands up and down her back. Let him bury his nose in the crown of her hair and revel in the feeling of having her there, feeling too much like his.

After that, their routine shifted into something else. Something unspoken, that didn’t really need any labels or clarifications, because it all fell into place like pieces of a puzzle. Normal and simple and easy and natural.

Because, of course he got to kiss her goodnight when he left her at her dorm room every evening. And it was only obvious that they’d lace their fingers together on their Sunday trips to Hogsmeade for a butterbeer, and sit on the same side of the booth instead of opposite each other like before. And why would she not drape her legs over his lap on that purple chaise in the library, or tuck herself into his side on that dusty, old loveseat in the Undercroft?

He wasn’t sure what he’d done to ever get so lucky, but he thanked Fortune herself every night he got to collect her in his arms and press lingering kisses to her forehead. It was an intoxicating feeling to have everything he wanted right there in his hands, soft and pliable and willing, so perfectly receptive to his touch, so eager to reciprocate with the same amount of fevered passion and affection.

Of course, there were levels of uncertainties to their relationship still. Questions he couldn’t bring himself to ask, out of fear of ruining everything. What are we and and for the love of Circe, tell me this means something to you, too poised on the tip of his tongue everytime she wrapped herself around him and buried her face in the crook of his neck.

There were boundaries, admittedly maybe only fictitious ones his own anxious brain fabricated, but ones nonetheless. He’d always ask her first before he kissed her, and she’d always respond with eager nods, blissful smiles, and her fingers curling into the front of his shirt to tug his mouth down to hers.

He adored kissing her. Maybe a bit too much. Alright, maybe alarmingly too much.

He’d spend eternity with his mouth on hers if he could, and it still wouldn’t be enough. He constantly craved the numb, bruised feeling of his lips after a particularly long makeout session. He couldn’t get enough of touching her, of being so intimate with her, of the soft and sweet and spit-sticky brushes of her tongue against his, of that aching, heated swirl he got just behind his navel.

She was bliss personified.

Crossing a leg over the other on that worn, tawny loveseat in the Undercroft, he skimmed through the pages of the paperback in his hand with his wand. A few feet away from him, she was reducing a couple training dummies into splinters of charred wood, spell after spell rolling off her tongue with ease.

His headstrong little witch. He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips at how powerful she was, admiration swelling in his chest.

After getting her fix of dueling for the day and craving attention, she made her way over to him, sitting beside him, although more accurately, practically sitting on top of him. Not that he minded.

Wrapping her arms around his neck, she looked up at him expectantly, and because he’d give her absolutely anything her little heart desired, he tucked his book away immediately and turned his focus towards her, pecking a kiss to her cheek. She smiled in satisfaction.

He had the tiniest inkling of a feeling that maybe he was spoiling her rotten. Not that he minded that, either.

“Tired?”

She shook her head. “Just missed you.”

He brushed the back of his knuckles against her cheek and couldn’t help the smile that pulled at his mouth. “Did you now?”

She nodded, staring down at his lips as she leaned in to press her mouth against his. Simple and natural and easy. It was a wonder how normal it seemed, as if it was something they’d always done.

Her tongue brushed against his bottom lip, pleading for entrance, and of course he obliged, because who was he to deny her anything?

He could feel the little exhale of breath against his cheek as his tongue met hers, feel the way she instinctively pressed more against him as if she wanted to mold herself to his very bones.

He loved having her like this.

Eager and passion-filled, her magic thrumming in her veins with a little added intensity, reflected in the way she kissed him, in the way she touched him.

She broke away for air, but he couldn’t help the desire to have more. He trailed wet, open-mouthed kisses over her jaw, down the length of her neck. He’d never kissed her there and he found himself particularly interested in exploring. She positively melted under his ministrations.

“Ominis,” She sighed his name on a breathy pant and the sound coursed straight to his groin, tugging at that aching desire in his gut, that heated, twisty, starved feeling that was always there when he touched her, lingering someone hidden, nursing it into something insatiable.

She reconnected her mouth to his and stoked that flickering flame inside him until it was red-hot and all-consuming.

He tangled his fingers through her hair and explored her mouth with a deliberate slowness. Languid, syrupy drags of his tongue against hers. Hot, needy breaths shared in a space between them that was far too little and far too much at the same time.

A gasp died on his tongue when she shifted in her seat to press herself even more against him, effectively straddling his lap, impatience dripping down her spine. He went rigid.

“Hold on, don’t—” His fingers dug into her waist to still her, but she had already dragged her hips flush against his, right against that aching stiffness in his trousers. His face blanched, mortified. “Fuck, I’m so sorry.”

She held her bottom lip between her teeth, processing the feeling of him, a very specific part of him, pressed right to the gusset of her knickers, right under her skirt. It was like someone had stricken a match, lit her nerves on fire.

She shook her head, her cheeks hot. “Don’t apologize,” She smoothed her thumb over his cheek, reassuring. “I want you, too. I want this.” She shifted minutely, tentative, right against that throbbing part of him.

His brows knit together, looking almost pained. “Gods, you can’t say things like that.”

“It’s true,” She whispered, shifting against him again, deliciously slow. The slightest roll of her hips. It was enough to ruin him completely. “Please, Ominis.”

He nodded then, forehead pressed against hers, fists white-knuckled in the starched linen of her shirt. He let his hands fall to his sides, onto the tattered pillows of the loveseat and sighed.

“Not here.” He planted a kiss on the corner of her mouth. “You deserve something nicer.”

Ominis’ dorm was certainly nicer.

Clean and tidy to the point of almost being manic, just as she imagined it would be. She glanced over at the surrounding beds and noticed his side strikingly bare in comparison, devoid of the clutter of Quidditch posters, junk and other memorabilia that you would normally expect to find in a teenage boy’s room.

His sheets were crisp and neatly-pressed, and laid back against his pillows, she could pick up the faint smell of vanilla and bergamot and, most strikingly, him.

He hovered over her there, his hands on either side of her head on the pillowcase, a pink flush dusting his cheekbones, uncertain. She found it awfully endearing.

“Have you ever…?”

He shook his head, sheepish. “No.”

She nodded.

A gnawing feeling clawed itself inside his chest, something marred and ugly and possessive, a jealousy he knew he probably had no right to feel. “Have…you?”

She shook her head. “Never.”

His brows furrowed, confusion and surprise and a faint sense of relief etched into his features. “Really? You and Sebastian never…?”

She sputtered. “Me and Sebastian?”

“Er…yes? I assumed you two had already been—”

“Dear gods, no,” She laughed, as if the mere notion were hysterical. She looked at him bewildered. “Where on earth did you ever get that impression?”

“I don’t know, you’re both always spending so much time together.”

“As friends.” She choked. “If I’m being completely honest, I’ve always harbored a bit of a crush on you.”

It was his turn to sputter. “On me?”

She smiled. “Yes, it’s a bit embarrassing, actually. I’m surprised Sebastian’s never told you. He’s tormented me about it since the moment he found out.”

Ominis winced and let his head fall forward, voice muffled in the collar of her shirt. “Gods, I’ve been such an idiot.”

“Well, that’s only natural,” She teased, raking her nails softly through the hair on his nape. “Don’t worry, I won’t hold it against you.”

He picked his head up. “So, I…we could’ve been doing this, so much sooner?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Been wanting to get into my pants for very long, have you, Ominis?”

He groaned. “That’s not what I meant,” She watched as he worried his bottom lip between his teeth, embarrassment tinging his cheeks. “I’ve liked you for quite a while.”

“Have you?” She grinned. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” He murmured. “A bit of pining was good for me. Humbling.”

She tucked a stray lock of hair behind his ear. “Yes, I’m sure you’re not very used to not getting what you want, hm?”

“Mmh,” He hummed, non-committal, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Terribly spoiled, I’m afraid.”

“I won’t hold that against you, either.”

She laced her fingers behind his neck, tugging him forward to bring his lips down to hers again. Ominis could barely contain the euphoric feeling of relief in his chest, of completion, of blissful satisfaction in knowing the witch underneath him was his and only his.

He let his hands wander, explore, caress, tugging her blouse out of the waistband of her skirt and running his hands over the creamy smooth expanse of her stomach. He let his lips roam with just as much fervor, trailing down the length of her neck, scraping biting kisses over her collarbone, over the soft curves of her jaw.

“Take this off me,” She pleaded in between kisses, breathless, and he would be a fool if he didn’t immediately oblige. Slender, deft fingers turned clumsy and unpracticed in the heat of the moment, fumbling over buttons and the zipper of her skirt with a lot more lack of finesse than he was used to doing most things in life. His heart was pounding too loud in his ears for him to care.

If she was anything she was impatient, and he quickly learned this impatience would be the very bane of his existence, as she proceeded to grind her hips up to meet his every time he tried to pause and regain some level of composure.

She seemed to take a form of sick gratification in the way he’d curse under his breath at the feeling of the soaked fabric of her knickers, rubbing back and forth against that stiff, aching part of him, nearly bringing him to completion.

He crawled down her body before she could torture him any longer, hooking his fingers into the hem of her knickers and tugging it down to pool at her ankles. He left a trail of wet, open-mouth kisses in his descent, dragging his tongue down the line of her sternum, slow and deliberate.

She tensed. “You don’t have to—”

“Please,” He nosed at the soft curve of her stomach, his breath warm against her skin, eyes half-lidded behind blonde eyelashes. “I want to. Please let me.”

Her voice was quiet, anticipated. “Okay.”

It was all he needed to kiss her there, lips pressed to her dripping core, sucking just slightly, tentatively, just enough to make her gasp. His tongue was velvety smooth, purposefully slow, as if savoring it, savoring her.

“Tastes good,” He murmured against her cunt in a hum, lips sticky and glistening, voice hoarse and gravely with want. “Tastes s’good. Mmh.”

She couldn’t stifle her moans as he lapped at her firmer then, more focused, dragged the tip of his tongue and swirled it around that sensitive little bundle of nerves he had already deduced made her hips writhe and her hands tangle in his hair, pulling, pleading.

He didn’t know exactly what he was doing, but Ominis prided himself on being a very intuitive learner — and there was no better lesson than her nails raking over his scalp and her mewls muffled against the back of her hand every time he evidently did something right with his tongue. In this more than anything, he was determined to get all O’s.

“Oh, gods, Ominis,” She breathed out, and that was all it took for him to break, for him to push two fingers inside her cunt, wrap his lips around her clit, and suck. Hard, until her toes curled at either side of his hips on the bedding, and her head was thrown back onto the pillows, and she was repeating please, please, please like a prayer — as if she’d ever have to beg him for anything.

He pulled her over the edge with a groan against her cunt, fingers pressing into that little spot on her walls that made her vision white over with stars, melting her muscles into a puddle of ecstasy. Coaxed her through it, lapping at the wetness until she was reduced to shudders and breathy, shaky pants.

“You’re so beautiful,” He climbed over her, chest heaving, pressing kisses to her cheeks. He rambled praises, utterly sapless, euphoric, and if she didn’t know any better she’d think he was coming down from the high of his own orgasm with how giddy he sounded. “Oh my gods, you’re so unbelievably perfect. Sounded so good — tasted so good, fuck. You’re just—”

She kissed him then, not minding that she could taste herself on his tongue. Slow and sweet, her head dizzy with endorphins. He liked her like this.

Reaching down between them, she ran her hand down the placket of his briefs, palmed the evidence of his arousal, reveled in the way his lips faltered against hers. She dipped her fingers past the elastic of his waistband, and the whimper he let out when she finally wrapped her hand around him was nothing short of depraved.

“Want to be inside of you,” He pleaded, his hips rutting of their own accord against her palm, warm and slick with desire, a sticky bead of pre-cum pooling at the tip. He felt so thick in her hand. “Please, want— want it so bad.”

He couldn’t bear the restriction any longer, tugging his shorts down his thighs, exposing alabaster skin and flushed pink and so much of him she couldn’t pull her eyes away.

He notched himself at her entrance, lips hovering over hers, asking for permission without words, and all she could do was fervently nod to keep herself from begging.

He laced his fingers with hers as he slowly pushed in, gasps shared between their lips, foreheads pressed together. She wrapped her legs around his waist, holding him closer, urging him for more.

His voice was wrecked when he spoke. “Is this — am I hurting you? Is this alright?”

She shook her head. “You’re perfect —you feel so perfect.”

He groaned, surging forward to capture her lips in his, pouring every ounce of devotion and adoration into the way his tongue brushed against hers, as he slowly rocked his hips, in and out, cautious, shallow thrusts.

“Please, more,” She whispered, quiet, needy, and he couldn’t help but oblige. He bottomed out inside of her, his head falling to her shoulder, and eased his hips back to meet hers with a sharp thrust.

She was overwhelmed by the novel and absolutely foreign feeling of being so full. That dull sting where he was stretching her out around him, that pleasurable ache where he was pressing up into her walls — it was all revoltingly delicious. She never wanted it to stop.

“Christ, you’re — fuck,�� Her fingers wrapped around his bicep for support, nails digging little crescent-shaped marks into his skin. “You’re so deep—oh my gods, please move, please, please move,”

He was half-convinced he’d cut out his own beating heart in that moment and present it to her if she asked. He braced himself with his fingers splayed warm and broad on her hip, holding maybe a bit too tightly, and fucked into her with steady, deep thrusts, her legs wrapped around his waist.

“Yes, yes, yes,” She gasped, his cock pressing deep into that sensitive spot inside of her. She could feel that winding knot behind her navel being pulled taut, being stretched tighter and tighter until she felt like she might break. “Like that, just like that — fuck, please don’t stop, please don’t stop,”

Ominis had by no means a dirty mouth, was never, ever crass by an definition of the word, but hearing her pleading in his ear, feeling her squeeze so tightly around him, slick and warm and utterly divine — he couldn’t stop the endless litany spilling from his mouth, delirious from how good she felt as he thrust into her thoroughly, his self-restraint slipping out of him like grains of sand through open fingers.

“You’re so perfect. My angel, oh my gods, all mine. Mine, mine, mine. Gorgeous, so gorgeous, you’re so tight, so tight around me. Fuck, I can’t stop, I can’t — I need —I need you, I love this, I love this so much, fuck, fuck, fuck, I love this, I love—”

His words died on a strangled moan as he finished inside of her, pumping into her until he pulled her over the edge along with him, electrifying her nerve-endings into bliss. He pressed his lips to hers like he needed her to breathe, like the only oxygen he desired was the ones she would give him from her very own lungs.

She spoke first, dazed. “That was—”

He let out a laugh, soft and pleasure-rough, the slightest bit drowsy. “Amazing. Brilliant. You’re absolutely brilliant.”

She returned his gleaming smile with her own, teasing.

“You’ve only just noticed?”

It took one look. The raucous bustle of other students still disembarking around him, yet his attention was trained on his two friends smiling and waiting up for him.

His eyes darted between the two, briefly combing over the faint bites of purple on her neck that was peeking out just slightly from beneath the green and silver of her scarf, then finally dipped to where their hands were surreptitiously clasped behind layers of cloaks, and he immediately knew.

Sebastian dropped his suitcase on the weathered boards of the dock with a thunk and ran up to clap his hands on his friends’ shoulders with a sly smile and a satisfied glint in his eyes.

“Fucking took you two long enough.”

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy smut #sebastian sallow x reader #ominis gaunt #ominis gaunt x reader #ominis x mc #hogwarts legacy ominis #hogwarts legacy fanfiction #hogwarts legacy imagine

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junicult · 10 months

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What do you think the bachelors prefer more, Ass or Tits? I'm just curious what you think

!! which bachelors prefer your boobs / ass

contains ; nsfw! reader is implied to have a curvier body. some smut. some fluff. fem!farmer. the words boobs & butt are used. (1) mention of f!receiving oral. not proofread / probably missing some tags.

note ; ahh, the age old question.

harvey.

- he couldn’t care less what you have under your clothes.

- that being said…boobs.

- during sex, in general he doesn’t really like when he can’t see you / your face.

- doggy style isn’t his favorite, not because it doesn’t feel good but because it doesn’t feel like he’s focused on you. he wants to see you, he doesn’t like the way it makes him feel like he’s not having sex with you.

- he’s already a big fan of missionary. he loves when he can really be in the moment w you.

- …and ur boobs just so happen to be right in front of him.

- the soft bounce, how they fit in his palms, and overall just how they look. he likes them, okay🤷‍♀️

- he’s never outright said it, though. if u asked he might but i doubt it.

- he doesn’t want to objectify you like that. it’s not like he looks at you and thinks how much better your tits look then anything else.

- it’s just obvious.

- wear a low cut shirt and his eyes might wander. i’m just saying.

sam.

- i literally can’t decide. i’m serious i have no idea.

- i just love the thought of him being obsessed with you (like a good husband should) so even if he was asked the question, he couldn’t answer!!!

- “hey babe, do you like my tits or ass more?” and he’ll ponder on it like you asked him what the meaning of life was.

- he loves your boobs because they’re soft, he likes resting his head on them, and holding them under your shirt whenever you lay together (yes he does that).

- he loves your butt because…well it looks nice. he likes looking at it lmfao.

- it’s just as soft and fits nice in his hands when he pulls you in to kiss you sometimes.

- it’d be funny if you actually asked him, cus he’d still be thinking about it hours later.

- ur laying in bed together, his cheek is resting on your chest and he’ll just mumble, “i think your boobs might be the answer.”

- and if u bend over in front of him to pick up something on the floor, he’ll just sigh and say, “maybe it’s your butt…?”

- like MOVE ON!! IT’S BEEN DAYS😭😭😭

shane.

- might be controversial…but boobs.

- he loves ur boobs, and all for the previously stated reasons.

- he’s a little more openly a pervert then anyone else💀

- he’ll stare at ur boobs mid conversation, and will just look up at you like nothing happened.

- lol if u guys were arguing or something, and you catch him looking, you’ll just stop and say, “i’m sorry, were they saying something?”

- he just chuckles, “yeah, i think they were agreeing with you.”

- he knows time and place tho. if the argument is more of a fight, he doesn’t have time to stare💀💀

- he also loves the way they feel, how soft they are when he squeezes them.

- and in general your tits can easily get him hard if that’s your goal.

- he likes to bite them, suck on them, squeeze them, fuck them. they’re pretty & he enjoys feeling them up.

- don’t even get me started on when u wear jewelry that dangles right into your cleavage.

- he’s way too horny to just ignore it.

- needless to say, you’ve given him a titjob before 😇

sebastian.

- he’ll never admit it.

- and he definitely loves both, i promise.

- it’s a close second…but i think he likes ur ass more.

- in general, i don’t think he actually dwells on that stuff. he thinks it’s silly, and stupid because he loves you no matter what you have.

- i don’t even think he’s ever even given it in-deep thought.

- if we’re talking non-sexual, he might prefer your boobs only because they’re so versatile 😊

- he’s just like any other guy: he wants to lay between them with your arms wrapped around him while he naps.

- he’ll hold them while you spoon. he’s no different then anyone else.

- but when he’s horny, and he’s looking at your body sexually, he might like your ass a bit more.

- it’s sorta obvious in the way he’ll get hard so quickly if you turn around to take off ur pants in front of him lmfao.

- he runs on auto pilot when ur ass is in front of him, i’m just sayin.

- he’ll definitely want to squeeze it, especially when you’re sitting on his lap.

- or when he’s fucking you from behind, he’s addicted to the way you arch into him, and the way your skin ripples when his hips slam into yours.

- he’s pretty lanky, & something abt ur phat ass just drowning him makes him a little excited. i’ll say it.

- if you ever asked, he’d probably just say, “i dunno, i like them both.”

- and if you told him you think he likes ur ass more, he’ll just shrug and say, “i guess so.”

- he really doesn’t gaf.

alex.

- ughhhhh

- i feel like this one kinda depends on whichever you have more of.

- he’s not a pig (anymore.) it’s not like he’s married to you because of your cup size.

- he likes all of you, not just your body.

- he’s also not picky!! i’m just saying, if his ex had larger boobs when you have a larger ass—that literally means nothing to him.

- it’s your boobs and your ass that sexually attracts him. not anyone else’s.

- and also, if you don’t have larger boobs or a larger ass, he doesn’t care either.

- he’ll still smack your ass if you walk past him, and eye ur tits in a tank top.

- if u have larger boobs, he’s definitely wanting to moterboat them😭😭😭

- he likes to hold them, press them together and squeeze them whenever u give him the chance.

- he acts like they’re the first pair of tits he’s ever seen.

- and if your ass is larger, dw, he’s unrelenting.

- his hands will always wander whenever you give him even just a quick kiss.

- he’ll give it a little squeeze and grin at you like he didn’t.

- …he’ll eat u out from the back just so ur ass is in his face🫣

- but the thing is, no matter what you have larger or less of, he’s still doing all of these things 😭

elliot.

- is there a third option?

- i’m not abt to say personality, bc obviously all of these men love your personality. they’re grown adults, they’re not married to u bc of ur body.

- if we bring thighs into the mix, then i might have to rewrite some things (sdv men love thighs it’s canon.)

- it’s impossible to tell if he actually did have a preference because of the way he treats you so delicately.

- like, if he did prefer your ass, all you would have to show for it was when his hand would already be resting on your lower back, before he moved to just cup one of your cheeks (lol)

- or your boobs, when he’d gently kiss over your heart as a sign of affection.

- if we’re heading towards sexual, i still think he doesn’t have a favorites

- he does everything in his power to show every bit of you as much love as he can.

- you’re perfect to him, and he wants you to know that.

- he doesn’t wanna potentially make you insecure if you know he prefers your boobs, which you have less of then your ass, or vise versa.

- he loves all of you, and he’ll absolutely prove it.

psa: pls take this lightheartedly, i don’t intend to hurt anyone’s feelings. it’s all in good fun!!

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rabbitblackx · 8 months

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Hello again, can i request an Bubba Sawyer x Shy reader: When Bubba introduce them to his family for the first time, at first, the reader was nervous that his family might disprove of them since their cannibals but was proved wrong when they interact with his family? (Side note: Bubba and the reader were together for a long time and he come up with the idea of introducing them to his family since he's been telling his family all about them.)

Hope that your having a great month rabbit 😊

Hope u don’t mind it’s just a silly little headcanon thing!🫠💞 also hope ur having a spectacular day!!😸💖

Shy!Reader meets Bubba’s family

You had been in a relationship with Bubba for quite a while now. You met on accident one night, while him and Chop-Top were ‘grocery shopping’. Instead of killing you, Bubba grew a fondness for your shy smile and pretty face. He didn’t let Chop-Top see you, effectively hiding you away while they wasted anybody else nearby

To Bubba’s surprise, him being a cannibal killer wasn’t a dealbreaker. You still actually really liked him. You just had a hard time expressing it due to your shyness and fear

This strange, masked man continued to visit you almost every night, clearly infatuated with you. There were times where you didn’t utter a single word. You just sat with Bubba in your living room, silently admiring each other. Though you didn’t speak, your big shy eyes said a thousand words

It was now the day where you were gonna finally meet Bubba’s family. You were dreading this for the longest time. You stood outside this abandoned theme park with Leatherface, visibly shaking

“Maybe we should just turn back. They’re not gonna like me.” You squeaked

Your boyfriend made a grunt of disagreement, placing a large paw on your shoulder. You glanced down at it, before shyly meeting his gaze

“I’m scared, Bubba.” You uttered

Bubba attempted to comfort you with numerous pets and a small cuddle. He wished he could tell you how keen his brothers actually were to meet you. He had told them all about you

Bubba led you down into the quarters of the theme park in which they lived. The large space was littered with bright lights, skeletons and dust. It wasn’t that bad…

As soon as Chop-Top Sawyer popped up to greet you, you were immediately hiding behind Bubba. You squeaked in fear and pressed flush against his back. Chop-Top couldn’t take a hint, moving around his brother to get a look at you

“This them, Bubba? This yer little friend?” He crooned

Bubba nodded his head, carefully pulling you out from behind him by your waist and setting you next to him. Chop-Top’s wide blue eyes and insane grin made you hug your boyfriend’s arm tight

“Hi…” you peeped shyly

Chop-Top was loud and boisterous as ever, crudely complimenting you on how good looking you were. Of course, you had no idea how to respond, face red and pressing against Bubba’s arm. As different as you were to this man, he wasn’t the one you were afraid of the most. It was their oldest brother, Drayton, that you were anxious to impress

Drayton emerged from the kitchen with a surprised look on his face. He couldn’t believe that you were here. In fact, he couldn’t believe that you were actually real. For all he knew, Bubba was lying about this imaginary partner of his for the past few months

Drayton felt threatened by you at first, and protective of his baby brother. But once he found how shy and quiet you were, he let his guard down. He was actually quite glad Bubba found you instead of some hussy or whore

You stayed for dinner, where you met grandpa. You liked him. Mostly because he didn’t talk to you but that was beside the point. You barely said anything at all really, making Drayton eye you suspiciously. He liked quiet people. So were you just too good to be true?

After dinner, you stayed back to spend some alone time with Bubba. But just before you were to leave for the night, you popped into the kitchen. It took a lot of courage, but you offered to help Drayton with the dishes. He looked beyond shocked, like he couldn’t believe such kind words came out of your mouth

Bubba watched from afar as you and his brother silently washed dishes together. Just as you thought it was going to get awkward, Drayton turned to you and said something that warmed your faint heart

“I’m glad Bubba brought you home.”

#slasher x reader #slashers x reader #slashers #dead by daylight x reader #dead by daylight #bubba sawyer #bubba sawyer x reader #bubba x reader #leatherface x reader #leatherface #texas chainsaw massacre #texas chainsaw #drayton sawyer #chop top #chop top sawyer #rab.reads

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halcyone-of-the-sea · 8 months

Note

Hi Hal!

Congratulations on finishing all the requests (there were so many good ones!!) and thank you for opening them up again!! I’m excited to see what you have in store for us with all your other projects, bestie!!! 😊😊

I was unsure of who to request at first because there are so many good ones but then I saw Hesh’s name and an idea hit me.

If you’re ok with it, could you possibly write one for Hesh where the reader is part of the Ghosts has been taken/captured by the Federation and after some time, they get intel on where she is so they go out to rescue her and she and Hesh are reunited? I don’t know if you want it to be a pre-established relationship or one where they both admit their feelings after they get her back, so I’m leaving it up to you. But I need a little rescue/reunion fic to fill the void in my heart that the ending of Ghosts made.

As always, feel free to change it up as you see fit and do whatever you want. I just think that Hesh deserves more love and I wouldn’t be opposed to seeing Riley again (aka: the best dog in the world)!!

Thank you and remember to take care of yourself and I appreciate you and your work!! 💕💕 Love you, bestie!!!!

Lengths Of Love

PAIRING: David 'Hesh' Walker x F!Reader

SYNOPSIS: You'd loved Hesh for as long as you can remember, and you'd pulled him out of trouble for even longer, but you'd never had the courage to tell him how you feel. Until you do. Until you're being dragged away from his broken body.

WORDCOUNT: 10.7k

WARNINGS: Major spoilers for CoD: Ghosts, heavy angst, blood, guts, descriptions of wounds, canon-typical violence, weapons and firearms, death, torture involving: drugs/hallucinogens, physical violence, mental stress, talks of PTSD, anxiety, paranoia, rescue fic, best friends to lovers plot, wounds that would 100% kill you that you live from (plot armor fr), etc.

A/N: Bestie, I don't know what you put into your prompts, lmao, but I always end up writing so much for you!! Thanks so much for sending something in <3<3

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The beginning of the end started with good intentions and one statement.

“You hear this? It’s Rorke. He’s here. They’re evacuating on the train system below.” Hesh’s green eyes darted to you and Logan, his painted face a collection of rage and surety. The three of you were, in an instant, in agreement of revenge—there was no question as to what had to be done. Merrick couldn’t stop you, not on this.

Rorke had made one of the most dangerous decisions of his life, and that was underestimating the Walker boys and their partner in sinful crime.

“Harp,” you look away from the body of the warhead as it enters the atmosphere, locking onto Hesh’s hard eyes; the ones that had grown steadily colder since the death of his father, Elias. But it wasn’t just him—the patriarch had been close to you as well. The knowledge of his passing, witnessing it as the rope restraints seared into your flesh, had lit an all-consuming fire in your gut.

Like hounds, the scent of blood had hit the air.

“Let’s get the bastard. Now or never,” you ease out, and Logan darts his gaze down to you from behind his balaclava.

“Damn right,” Hesh barks, nodding firmly to you.

Anyone would have missed the way your gaze lingered on him as he darted off and began rushing down the stairs from the control room, Logan ever quick at his heels. But they wouldn’t have missed the way your breath pushed out a soft sigh as your eyes kept locked on the back of Hesh’s head as you followed after.

You’d been childhood friends since practically infancy, a neighbor to the Walkers. It was natural that Hesh would grow to be the object of your daydreams ever since grade school; a constant and digging knife into your heart when he’d repeatedly pick other girls over you.

But such was life.

All that mattered now was bringing down Rorke, silly love could wait.

“Merrick,” Hesh yelled down his line, the world outside this building rampant with open war. “The missile’s away and we’ve got a lead on Rorke, we’re going after him!”

The white double doors meet the three of you as you all rush to them, and the panicked man’s voice flashes down the line immediately.

“Negative Hesh! You three get back here and return to the rally point. We’ll track him down together.”

You call, “Isn’t an option, Merrick. We can’t let this one go.”

You and Hesh ram your shoulders into the doors, Logan darting through first with his weapon drawn down the hallway. The brunette’s and your shoulders brush in a jostling of gear—pulling the back as your eyes lock. Cold light seeps from overhead, metal under your feet clanking in-key.

You look away before Hesh agrees and levels with the Ghost over the line to push your point. “Sorry, Merrick. Your mission is complete…ours isn’t.”

Federation heads pop up from behind makeshift barriers of barrels and other stacked items and as you all enter and clear rooms, alarms blare with the ferocity of fighting lions. Hesh keeps by your side, offering you openings that you greedily take as another soldier falls with a stiff twitch of your finger on the trigger.

Darting behind cover, the man slams to the space beside you, calling over above the noise and the whizz of bullets.

“How long till impact?!” You shove a new clip into your FAD, brushing sweat and blood from your cheeks, smearing patches of your own paint.

Glancing at the watch on your wrist, you hear Logan pushing the line. You dart out of cover to help—locking onto hostiles and backing up the younger brother with quick feet.

“Eight minutes, Hesh! You got a plan that doesn’t leave me with scorched hair?” He finds it in himself to laugh, clocking a soldier to your left and riddling him with bullets.

“We need to get to that train, Harp. Don’t worry—I’ll kiss the burns away for you.” He rushes past and sends a smirk over his shoulder. You’re left stunned for a second, wishing that the teasing tilt to the older brother’s words was more than that. You blink, and the feeling is forced away.

Later.

“Keep pushing, Logan,” Hesh moves on. You all sprint down descending ramps, farther and farther underground with every step; adrenaline building to a breakneck level like weight slowly being added over and over to a chest. “We need to get to Rorke!”

You didn’t want to tell him, but, while revenge was on your plate as well, this was a very reckless idea.

As you grab for a grenade from your belt and jerk on the pin, you chuck it down the way and call out a warning to the boys, who, like a well-oiled machine, dart and wait for it to detonate. Bodies fly, bloody splashes of torn limbs, and three Ghosts materialize from the smoke with masked and painted faces; eyes like fire and veins boiling.

“Fire team suppressed in 3-1,” Hesh shouts through the line as you slide your knife into a man’s eye, his goggles breaking in a shattering of glass. “Advancing to loading bay!”

There’s a large elevator ahead for transporting crates, and all of you jog inside as the gate creaks shut.

Merrick’s stiff voice replies, “Roger that.”

Silently, you click into the channel and mutter out as a moment of relative peace coats your body like a blanket, even if for a few small seconds.

“I’ll keep ‘em safe,” a small twitch of your lips, “Commander.”

A deep and unimpressed voice wafts into your ear with a large sigh. “Know you will—just remember to keep yourself safe in the process, Kid…Don’t do anything stupid.”

You shift your gaze to Hash and find green already staring at you. Blinking, the man quickly darts his vision away and after a moment you turn your face back down to the connection and huff through a burning epidermis.

“Haven't you heard?” The elevator shows the train as it descends down, and you call to the boys, ‘six minutes’, with a firm voice.

“Stupid seems to follow us three everywhere.”

Hesh points as the figures of more soldiers walk around below. “There’s Rorke’s train, straight ahead!” Sure enough, the worm of black and gray metal extends to your eyes across the large room

“He’ll be on there soon. Logan, take left.” You order and the brown-eyed man nods from beside you, shouldering his rifle and checking the clip. “Hesh?”

“Taking right—you got Point, Doll.” He stares at you, licking his lips. “Clear the way?” You tilt your head at him as the elevator jumps to a stop, the barrier sliding away. It pains you to look away.

There were so many things you had to tell him. Too many things.

“Always.” Shiting your face forward, you take a breath and take notice of points of cover, scoping the room in three seconds flat. Screeching wheels and alarms ingrain your eardrums. “On me.”

As you head out first, fire the first bullet, the two peel off in opposite directions, Hesh only sliding up beside you and uttering into your ear.

“Be safe.”

That comment makes you want to be anything but, if only he’d whisper into your ear like that again.

Clearing the room, you can’t get your mind off the fact that this crush was overtaking nearly every part of your life—years of quiet agony and staying your tongue in fear of losing what great friendship you had.

The stock set into your shoulder recoils with another burst of fire, Federation soldiers scream in pain, but you barely register over the shadows in the sides of your vision.

“Damnit, Hesh,” you growl, bullet grazing your shoulder as you grunt and slip behind a concrete divider.

“What’s that?” Your eyes widen comedically. Shit…had you forgotten to close the line?

“Eh,” you clear your throat, grimacing at the small sparks of pain in your shoulder. “N-nothing.”

There’s a bout of silence and then a panting voice, rough and growing more serious. “You alright over there, Harp?” You can’t even respond before Hesh quickly continues. “I’m comin’ to you. Stay there.”

You violently shake your head, although he can’t see it.

“Hesh, I’m fine! Keep right and clear that hallway.”

There’s a deep grunt. “Fine, but if I see one scratch I’m makin’ Riley chase you down the Base when we get back.”

If we get back.

You roll your eyes with a growing smile, steeling yourself and slamming your weapon to the top of the divider before locking onto your targets. “Please, we both know he loves me too much for that.”

“Most I’ll have to do is put a treat in your pocket, Sweetheart.” His sly smirk is heard easily, and you swallow tense-like and breathe shakily. That low drawl in his tone left you more distracted than you could ever get used to. “Hell,” There’s a struggle over the line before the shink of a knife meeting flesh. A breathless chuckle that leaves your gut swirling. “Maybe I’ll just chase you down myself.”

Logan coughs over the line and you have to click off before you scream. Your face flares up until your ears ring and you have to duck behind your cover again before you get metal right to the forehead.

Behind the barrier, you glare at the floor.

When did general teasing get so hard for you? Jokes and jabs carrying weight—since when? Sure you’d liked—more liked loved—Hesh since before all of this, but you’d carried on well enough.

“Fucking hell,” you grumble, shaking your head to clear it and rushing.

The brothers pop through the side hallways to flank the enemy, taking out the one or two hostiles that were still breathing after you level your barrel with the last standing head; firing with a burst of gunpowder.

“Train’s leaving, let's go!” Hesh screams, waving an arm quickly at you, walking backwards on quick feet. “Harp, C’mon!”

You chuff, hopping the divider and sprinting as the metal object speeds up—there’s a moment where you fear you might miss it, Hesh and Logan both forced to hop on even in your absence.

“Harp!” Green eyes flash, one hand on the railing and the other extended out.

“On it!” Snapping, you slam your palm into his and feel his strong fingers curl to clutch you. Logan grabs your collar and helps; the both of them easily yanking you over just as the wall of the tunnel engulfs you all in illuminated shadow.

Back meeting the train’s body, you pant and chuckle as Logan shakes his head, amused, and pats your shoulder. You wink at him jokingly.

“Good save there, Walker Number Two.”

Hesh grabs the side of your neck, looking you over as he leans back with a breathless chuckle at the title for his brother. He blinks quickly at your shoulder, eye narrowing before he reaches out and looks at the blood on your gear.

“You mind telling me what this is, Doll?” You make a nose in the back of your throat as the smell of his musk hits your nostrils; the deadly concoction of his scent and his digging gaze.

Stuttering, you huff. “Eh…bullet graze?”

You’re leveled with thin lips, but Logan grabs his brother by the upper arm and peels him off you, motioning to his radio as the train gains even more speed. Wind whips past your face as Hesh clears his throat, quickly avoiding your eyes.

The man’s splotchy paint shows his red skin under the darker pigment.

“Merrick, we’re on the train,” he speaks, shifting past you without another look. “We’re going after Rorke.”

“Solid Copy.” You watch the brunette walk away and hold your breath, though you don’t know why—heart beating not just because of adrenaline.

Embarrassment breeding in your stomach, you ignore Logan’s knowing stare and push off the wall, rubbing at your bleeding shoulder with a stiff hand.

—

You break a man’s neck against the wall, hand on the back of his head before you slam it into the hard metal. There’s a crunch of bone and a broken rattle before the broadcasted feed from the screen on the train’s panel spits out a message in panicked Spanish to the already deceased men.

“Evacuation protocol C is in effect. All personnel secure cargo and supplies—”

Hesh interrupts ahead of you as you let the body drop, scowling at the heavy sound of its dead weight. At his angry voice, you perk and tune in.

“Tell Rorke we’re comin’ for him.” There’s a quick shove from the other end of the feed, the previous man disappearing as the individual that takes his place makes your eyes go to slits. A great growl like a wolf echoes from your heart and seeps from between your clenched teeth.

Rorke’s scarred face appears with a smirk and a cocky voice.

“Why don’t you just tell me yourself?” You look at your boys, more concerned for them as you watch firsthand the trauma the death of their father brought them.

Logan holds his weapon tighter, fixing his grip. Hesh is a bit more direct. He leans closer to the screen, bearing his teeth like a dog and snarling with rage and hatred.

“You’re done, Rorke.” All of a sudden he peels back a fast fist and sends it careening into the screen—making a shattering of glass and a hard thud emanate deep into your bones.

Blinking quickly, you tense as it happens, not expecting that. But as soon as you try to make sense of it, the brunette is already banking off to the side door, calling a sharp, “Let’s finish this!”

He grabs the side of the train car and wrenches on the handle, grunting and pushing with all of his might.

“Hesh,” you try to reason, stepping in now before things get too hot. “We need to think of a plan before you rush into things. This could get us in a heap of shit that we might not be able to get out of.”

It’s like he doesn’t hear you, and you spare a glance with Logan for help. But he, too, has already joined his brother with a swish of gear on the handle. With one great push, the door opens to the outside brightness, making your face turn away for a moment.

Along the far expanse of open sand dunes outside; mountains flanking the bridge this train flies across, you get the perfect view of a warhead meeting the ground in an explosion of fire and death. It bursts far across the valley, and you cover your eyes as the sharp ball of light burns your retinas.

The shockwave hits moments later, and Hesh says easily as the train shakes and squeals like a metal pig, “Looks like Icarus got control of the rods!” The boys step out onto the platform along the train, and you have no option but to follow. “All that’s left is Rorke, let's go!”

“Hesh,” you try again, hissing out his name, and you’re graced with a quick glance.

“Harp,” he comments, “what is it? We can’t wait any longer—”

“What we can’t do is go in blind!” You shout above the wind, legs stanced to help you stay up. Green eyes twitch with confusion, perhaps even a little hurt.

“Blind? What are you talking about, we push forward and take what’s owed.” You know how much this means to him—to Logan—but there was a point where pride and stubbornness outweighed sense. This was dangerous, especially for Hesh.

You were always the one to keep him level; keep him from becoming too much like his dad.

You’d promised that old bastard you’d look after his boys, albeit in a teasing sense, but to you, it had been a stark vow on your soul. Logan was a brother to you, and Hesh…Hesh would always be more, but that only made your love for them both grow.

“You keep those two from getting in their heads, you hear? They mean well, but there’s no one I trust more than you to level them out, Harp. I’m proud of you. And I’m sure your folks would be too.” Elias had said that, and when he died you bottled it up and used so much force that coal had turned to diamond.

You would keep Logan and Hesh safe. Safe, and level, and not hard-headed.

For as much as you secretly loved your brunette, he sure was stubborn as all hell.

“If you want out, Harp,” Hesh calls to you, gritting his teeth. “Just wait back in the train car. This is something we can’t put off like everything else—this ends now; today. I’m not letting Dad’s killer survive.”

“Son of a bitch, that’s not what I’m saying!” You’re quickly losing your standing. Logan jogs ahead to scout, time ticking. “Hesh, you know that I loved Elias as much as you two did—not one is denying that this needs to happen. I'm with you. But this is too damn dangerous! We can’t rush into this without a plan of attack; of exfil! Do you even know how we’re going to get off of this thing?!”

Hesh had been isolating the few days he had on the U.S.S Liberator, keeping to his room. The man idolized his father and put him on a pedestal of gold even when he was a teenager. He’d even pushed away from you, which all together was unheard of. Logan had nearly had an aneurism when you’d come back to the cafeteria and shook your head in disappointment after trying to get him to open his door.

The two of you told each other everything. Always. That was just…how it was.

But the man that Hesh had donned the skin of was not the man you loved.

Hesh glares at you, eyes going alight with anger.

“If you were with me, you wouldn’t be holding me back.” He turns and runs after Logan, leaving you behind in the open air as the train banks left and right with the sway of the bridge.

Staring. Barely breathing. Mouth parted and eyes wide.

When the man is at the end of the current train car, having to jump a small distance to the next, he pauses. His back is tight, and under him, his feet shuffle.

There’s a moment you hope he’ll turn around and come back, take you into one of his hugs, and squeeze the life out of you. It wouldn’t be such a cruel way to die, you think, to be held in his arms.

But the next moment you see the back of his head shake, and he jumps over to the next section, not even giving you a second glance.

You don’t want to admit how long you waited there, your mind jumbled and confused.

Don’t take it personally, you try to tell yourself, sucking down a breath before slowly walking forward. He’s hurt. Grieving. He didn’t mean it.

Rationality was a tool of the level-headed, and you were anything but that nowadays.

Over the line Hesh’s voice makes you flinch as you slowly follow after, train car after train car.

“Rorke must be at the front of the train!” You step over dead bodies and lend merciful bullets to the ones still writhing, boots coated in crimson. Following a trail of wreckage with stiff lungs.

Stay out of his way? Fine, you could do that.

You stayed back from the head-to-head fighting, laying covering fire and keeping off the comms—whenever Hesh managed to look back at you, you simply moved on to the next hostile.

Eventually, you all ended up on the rooftops, the boys far ahead and yourself blank-faced at the rear. Logan was acting more concerned than Hesh was, glancing at you constantly in confused worry. But it was very much short-lived.

“Incoming!” The right side of the railcar bursts with fire, and you gasp before grappling for the opposite side of the train, keeping you there before the swaying beast leveled out. “Helos. Take cover and take out the gunners!”

You scoff, quickly making your way behind a connector joint to lean your back against it and catch your breath. Two helicopters fly alongside the train, Logan already firing at one, and Hesh…your eyes narrow with annoyance. Hesh was already running ahead of the pack, his low grunts and growls over the line giving way to his impatience.

You click your jaw and try to remind yourself that this is the same man who held you close during movie nights and carried you to bed when you fell asleep. Made you waffles when your boyfriend in eighth grade broke up with you on Valentine’s Day.

Stitched your wounds before he gave them a teasing ‘kiss better’ and looked up at you through dark lashes.

You wildly shake your head to force yourself back to the present.

The gunners are harder to hit not only based on wind and distance alone, but on the erratic movements of the pilots. It’s several clips before you down the second Helo, and Logan’s follows immediately after as they both collide and ram into the mountainside.

You both share a glance and rush after the misguided brunette.

At the end of the train, only the engine remains.

“Clear!” Hesh relays, jumping down from the roof of the railcar and hurriedly walking to the white door, leaning against the wall. “We’re at the last car, Logan. Rorke’s pinned, he knows we’re comin’.”

You gaze down from the top as Logan follows, silent and brooding. Your hands along your FAD tighten under your gloves. You don’t even look at the man.

“Merrick, do you copy?”

“Copy, Hesh.”

“We’re moving in on Rorke.” You slide him a look, seeing him glaring those pretty greens into the ground. “If you hear the word “Checkmate”, you will fire on our position! Confirm?” Your eyes snap with horror, heart lurching.

Surely, you hadn’t heard that right.

Merrick’s voice echoes your frozen confusion. “Say again, repeat your last.”

You jump down and stagger for a moment, barking out a harsh, “What the fuck are you doing?” Inside of your chest, your heart rampages like it never had before. “That’s suicide!”

He was going to kill everyone to bring down Rorke, and you get no answer beyond a clenched jaw and a quick side-eye.

“You heard me, Merrick, on “Checkmate”, hit this train!” The connection is cut and Logan gets into position to shoulder the door open, you watch, stuttering.

Hesh levels with his brother, “We can’t take any chances, Logan. Even if we fail, Rorke dies.” Panic builds, and you’re taking quick steps forward.

You keep those two from getting in their heads, you hear?

You have to stop them, you have to drag them away—but even you know that deep down the only thing that will stop these two is a bullet.

Eyes snapping back and forth, you only get close enough to try and snatch at Hesh’s arm right as he finishes a countdown of three; at the end, Logan kicks down the engine room door with a violent connection of his boot.

Even with the drop on the three guards inside, it doesn't stop the bullet from ripping through your lower side, preoccupied and distracted yet again. You yell loudly, balking back into the door frame and hunching over as blood spurts out of you. Hesh’s head whips your way immediately, jaw going slack and a soul-deep hysteria takes over.

So now he pays attention.

“Shit, Harp!” So little time.

Logan can’t take care of the last remaining Fed soldier by himself, and in a large act of self-sabotage, that very soldier just happened to have a missile launcher.

The entire left engine explodes—the train jerks; everyone is sent in a back-and-forth motion, first hitting off the last train car before being sent right back through the engine room entirely. A transference of force gives you whiplash as your head bounces off the door frame.

The world goes blurry, body hitting and slamming through layers of glass and pain before the control room is suddenly where you end up, using the body of a stunned guard as a cushion.

There’s a second of muffled gunfire, struggling and yelling—and then it all comes back into focus like a sniper’s scope being correctly sighted. You gargle an expletive and shove the guard under you back down despite the searing heat in your side and head; struggling to unsheathe your combat knife as the world tilts.

Hands push at your cheeks, grip at your neck futilely, but when you get the blade out and struggle the hands down once more, you hammer the point into his throat with a thump of your boot pressing for purchase on the floor.

The man spasming, you push off of him and slam to the ground, coughing in great lung-shattering segments.

“You can’t win, Rorke!” Hesh’s voice brings you back from the swirling, and you hear your blood patter to the metal floor like rain.

“Shit,” you mutter, gasping for air.

Gazing up you see Rorke holding Logan in a chokehold, free hand pointing a gun at Hesh. Your eyes bulged, trying to push onto your knees and reach for your weapon as you saw Hesh continually looking away from the target and worriedly watching you. His hands at his sides are loose, but when you lock eyes with him, they clench and shake.

“It’s over—” He tries, but the loud gunshot bounces off the train’s enclosed space. You’re yelling before you can think, darting forward and leveling your gun right to Rorke’s head as Hesh’s form collapses to the ground.

Standing on unsteady feet, you pant and stumble, but the devil’s brown eyes hold you captive. Rorke smirks as you guard Hesh behind you.

“Well, well, well, seems the girl’s just as promising as you, eh, Logan? She’s the other one who slipped her binds in Las Vegas.” He laughs. “Look at me, I’m surrounded by young talent.”

“I don’t exactly care if you are or aren’t,” you growl, shuffling to keep Hesh even farther behind you as you instrumentally cough again. Your legs are wobbling. “Just that you put my fucking friend down.”

“You willing to die for him?” Rorke looks demented, with his scar and his intimidating build. Whatever torture he had been through to make him like this—a Ghost killer—it had worked perfectly. There was no coming back from this. He whistles lowly. “That’s some loyalty you have there.”

His mind was dead to all else.

You don’t hesitate in an answer, even as the man behind you grabs your leg, trying to move you with a wheezing breath.

“H-Harp,” his spine moves in a cough. “Don’t…please.”

“Always.” Interest alights in those dark, tiny eyes. Logan tries to give you messages with his gaze, but you ignore him. Ironic. “That’s not something I’ll break on. Unlike you.”

“Shit, Kid,” there’s a grand laugh, “now that’s heartless…but good,” Rorke glances at Hesh, raising a brow and chuckling. “I’ll love to see the look in his eyes when I—”

“Checkmate!”

“Checkmate confirmed.” You look down at Hesh and see him watching you, his gaze open and bare.

“I’m sorry,” he gasps, but all you can do is watch.

There’s no time to think.

“I love you,” you confess in a fleeting moment of bare nothingness, blurting it out. “I’ve loved you.”

Hesh’s body entirely halts, jaw slowly slackening in horror; something shifts behind his eyes but before he can open his mouth, a rageful bark bullies the smooth tone of his throat back.

“What did you do?!” Your form is bodied into the controls behind you, colliding as you snarl and are forced to recover. With a snap of your finger, you fire a shot into Rorke’s foot.

He yells and whips his wrist back, slamming the butt of his gun into your temple.

As the bridge ahead of the train explodes, Hesh drags himself to cover your body, muttering into your flesh words you cannot name as the darkness sets in.

“It’s over,” Hesh speaks grimly to Rorke, turning to look at him silently as he presses your head into his chest, sharing a nod and thin-lipped look with Logan still stuck in his arm. “It’s over.”

“Shit, Son…” The train gets thrown and broken in a wave of utter destruction and rebirth; and through it all, Hesh never lets go—not even when the water below comes up to meet you.

—

The beach’s sand is coarse, and it sticks to your gear with a fervent hold. To your skin, the paint, and blood, for the moment washed away as hands dragged you from the water, small puffs of breath and whimpers greeting you.

“C’mon, Sweetheart.” Hesh. And he sounded frantic. “C’mon, open…open your eyes, dammit. Please, you just told me the best thing you possibly could. Please.”

Water slips off your neck, and as you’re weakly lying back, propped against a rock, hands slip to your cheeks, moving the skin as a barely conscious body tries to make you wake up.

A forehead hits against your shoulder, a deep groan of pain emanating from the man who grips at your gear.

“No, no, c’mon,” Hesh can barely keep himself sitting up, bloody and broken. Logan had to drag him from the water not seconds prior, and in turn, Hesh had grabbed what little strength was left and helped him get you. “Logan!” Green darts to brown, and the older brother pleads in a broken voice, “Help me!”

You bend your head forward and cough up blood and water, shoving Hesh away from you so you can collapse on your side and expel your stomach.

“Harp,” the man quickly mutters, dragging himself over and grabbing your shoulder to keep your face out of the sand. “Fuck, okay—it’s okay I’ve got you.”

“You,” your voice cuts out, and you shake as you gasp and sputter, “A-are a fucking idiot!”

Hesh chuckles, and you feel his head hit off your arm, his struggling breath. “God, I know. I know, Sweetheart.”

Logan crawls over to you, pushing you back against the rock and grappling for his medical pouch as Hesh patches into the comms. You grunt and look down at the younger brother, head swirling in colors and ears pounding with your pulse.

“Merrick, do you copy? Merrick, come in.”

“Hesh! Hesh, is that you?” You weakly smirk at the shock and relief from the tone, letting your head tilt back as Logan hurriedly packs your gunshot wound with gauze. You wince and stare at the sky—blood infectiously tinging the sand below you.

Hesh tries to help too, but you and the man are in far worse shape than Logan. The older brother’s shoulder leans into yours heavily, and you shift your eyes to the side as they flutter.

You haven't forgotten what you told him, what you confessed, but right now pushing back the black in the sides of your vision was more important.

And Rorke. What had happened to Rorke?

“Yeah,” Hesh watches you, face screwed with concern. “Yeah, I’m with Harp and Logan. We’re…we’re alive. Rough shape, but alive.”

“And Rorke?” You hold your breath.

“Dead.” Logan ties off a quick tourniquet and your spine tightens in agony, hissing out as your nerves spike with electricity. The brown-eyed man spares you a sorry glance but you shake your head in dismissal. “He’s dead.”

Out in the water, the enemy warships are firing off missiles inland, some smoking and others already sinking. Merrick gives you the news as Hesh brings a hand up to your chin, tilting your head his way. You go willingly, skin on fire from the scrape of his gloves.

Logan moves back, having done what he can, before he collapses back into the sand, panting with an arm over his stomach. His older brother’s forehead bumps into yours, eyes stuck.

“Copy that. The Federation is in full retreat—the rest of the payload is inbound to finish the…”

Whatever else Merrick relays is lost and Hesh’s lips splay over yours, his nose letting out a long breath and body sagging, dead-weight. Cheeks hot and mind running, you let instinct take over and reciprocate, quick fingers pulling at his vest straps.

“Since when?” He asks, breathless when he moves back an inch.

“After you introduced me to your first girlfriend, Cassie Albrook,” you smile, eyes crinkling. “Seventh grade. The one with the black hair? God, I was so jealous.”

Hesh chuckles deeply, body jerking as he kisses you again, pulling back and holding your cheek in his hand. His eyes are wide and open.

“You mean to tell me, I could have been kissin’ you all the way back since seventh grade?” Your face moves with pure love, flesh going soft—even the pain diminishes somewhat.

Merrick’s voice still gruffly moves down the line, and the last bits of his sentence are heard.

“...Sit tight, Recon’s comin’ for ya.” Everything was looking up.

Missiles slam into the Federation ships out in the water, the sudden burst of liquid and fire making Hesh briefly cover you with his side to protect you from the shockwave. When you turn to look, nothing but sinking metal remains.

“I’m sorry,” Hesh tells you, and you don’t have the energy to pull away from his neck as you let your head rest—the thumping of your brain and the calming shadow of his form giving way to believe you had a concussion.

“Hm,” you hum, letting him continue. His voice echoed in his breast.

“I…I’ve been an ass these past few days, weeks, I shouldn’t have said what I did—wanted to take it back as soon as I turned away from you.” You close your eyes and sigh long, sarcastic even now.

“You owe me dinner and a movie, then I’ll see if I can forgive you.” Hesh chuckles, nose pressing down into your scalp. He kisses you there as water falls from his chin.

“Sounds like a plan, Doll.” The man lets himself rest, curled around you and waiting for the recon team as the sand and the water move. “I love you too…just so you know. Long time.”

Your failing mind lets off a scoff. But a happy one.

When you wake again, not remembering when you’d fallen asleep, it is to the sound of screaming.

“Logan!” You jolt up and have to place a hand on your head to stop the pounding. Hesh is struggling to move, fighting to get to his younger brother who you turn as quickly as you’re able to face. “Logan!”

Your face voids of blood.

Rorke is dragging the other man away, pushing him to the ground as Logan tries to fight like a dog on his back, with only one arm working properly. Growling, you try to stand—body falling and sliding right back down as Rorke kicks Logan’s combat blade from his hand, walking over to you and Hesh.

He stands and pants, limping from your shot to his foot and a hand across his abdomen in obvious pain.

“Look what you did,” Rorke motions behind him to the still-falling missiles being disposed of from space into the ocean; atop the wreckage of what Rorke had been a part of. Falling to your side, you leave behind a raging Hesh who attempts to move and get to Rorke while you go to Logan. The devil wheezes and points from you to the boys, forcing a grunt of approval. “You’re good.”

Hesh is shoved back by a ruthless boot into the rock, and you snarl, coming over to Logan and his very broken arm as he weakly writhes on the ground. You place your body over his and bare your teeth as if a beast.

“Rorke!” You bark. “It’s over! It’s done. Everything you’ve built is dead and recon is on its way for us…you’re finished.”

“Nothin’s finished, no,” Hesh tries to lunge again as Rorke’s body stumbles closer to you but falls into ragged coughs and stays on his side in utter agony.

“Stay away from them!” The man you’d just confessed to hisses, hand grasping futilely at the sand. Green eyes run back and forth from you to Logan, desperate and breaking by the second. “Rorke! You son of a bitch!”

“Nothin’s ever finished.” Grabbing you by the scruff of your neck, you’re being tossed off Logan and thrown to the side in a cloud of sand, body screaming at you as you yell out loudly.

Rorke bends a knee to look Logan in the eyes, shaking his head.

“You’d of been a hell of a Ghost.” Yelling, you wrench at the combat knife in your vest, set your feet, and tackle Rorke off of the Walker boy with a feral curse on your breath.

“Get the fuck off of—” Your leg twists with a defining crack as you’re grappled and thrown off, only able to slice a nice long cut down his jaw and at the beginning of the man’s throat.

Screaming you hear briefly Hesh’s rageful bellow, his calling of your name in high keens of helplessness. Promises of revenge and justice.

Breath breaking as tears line the back of your eyes, Rorke comes over you and pins your dominant hand to the ground—you look up and grimace, trying to make your body function.

Move!

Rorke laughs, great shoulders shaking with glee. He’s fucking demented as he continues his sentence from before your fruitless attack.

“...But that’s not gonna happen, is it?” The man smiles and you struggle as Logan and Hesh rapidly try to assist.

“Harp!”

“There ain’t gonna be any Ghosts.” Rorke’s eyes shift to Hesh, and you follow with a sense of dread and horror. The man’s mind had been made up when he turned back around, disregarding Logan entirely in favor of you and your ‘unbreakable’ loyalty.

The joy it would bring him to destroy you and set you loose after such. Set you loose on Hesh.

He leans in close to you, so you can feel his breath and his conviction.

“We’re gonna destroy ‘em together.”

“Harp!” You’re shoved back, knife grasped and ripped from your hand as your broken leg is grabbed and pressure is applied.

You scream again, arms carding across the dunes as Rorke begins dragging you backward like a child holding onto a stuffed toy. Blown green eyes meet yours, Hesh reaching out and screaming at the top of his lungs for you.

But he can’t move.

“Harp!”

And you can’t feel your fingers.

“I love you,” you whisper, perhaps for the last time and he sees your lips move. Hesh screams and slams his hand into the ground, Logan stumbling to his knees but immediately dropping back with a small cry.

And Rorke chuckles.

—

You don’t know where he took you, but you do know the jungle floor is cold and wet, and the mud under your fingernails makes you feel gross.

What you do know is that the earthen walls of the pit you are in are pointless to try to climb—the top is slatted with a covering of long sticks with wide square openings. You know it’s going to rain by the smell in your bloodied nostrils.

You know that your leg is broken, your bullet wound is festering through the tourniquet, and your concussion is making you sleepy.

In your head, you count these ‘knowns’ and sprinkle them like seeds as you stare blankly at the sky far above. Everything aches; hurts. When you breathe, it comes in and out with a wheeze.

You know that Hesh loves you, and perhaps that’s the only fact you care about. Wherever he is, you’re glad he can’t see you like this.

Rain patters against your head, the storm clouds finally rolling through. Leaves can be heard shuffling on their branches. You breathe in and out, rising and settling your lungs slowly.

You can’t break—not like Rorke.

No matter what he did to you, you can’t betray the Ghosts. Logan. Hesh.

Elias’s words echo as you curl into a tiny ball, shivering and whimpering as your wounds move and pull.

...I’m proud of you. And I’m sure your folks would be too.

You know this game. Torture. They’ll pump you full of hallucinogens, starve you, beat you within an inch of your life; and through that you cannot give in.

But it’s easier said than done.

In the middle of the night, the top of the pit is pushed away and there are the voices of multiple people that dance above the rain storm. They jump down and in the state you are, there’s nothing you can do to stop them from hooking their arms under yours and hauling you up, limp and motionless.

The words are in Spanish, and you still can make out some over the commotion and the way your hearing dips in and out.

“Where do we inject….”

“...neck, I believe…arm could work too…”

“...nasty…was it? I heard…mix of drugs…Who knows?”

Your head is harshly yanked back, and the sharp pinch of a needle digs into your neck, the action making your good leg kick out in panic but there’s little you can do.

A flood of thick fluid enters your veins and like sap seeping out of a tree some drops exit the wound and mix with the rain weighing down your clothes. They’d taken your gear, only your undershirt and cargo pants still clothing you.

When they’re done, they let you drop back to the floor, where you flop and smash your face into the mud with a weak drag of your cheek along the sludge. With calls from above, a rope is tossed down and they all ascend. The top is clattered back over moments later.

Laying still and groaning, teeth clenched, already you feel ten times more strange than before.

“Ah,” you grasp at your head, which was bursting to begin with, as it gains a looseness to it—the mud below you shimmered with puddles, the chill got colder, and your clothes felt grating against your skin. “Not good. N-not good.”

You pull at your shirt collar, coughing as your eyes bulge; your heart breaks itself as it immediately can be felt hammering into your ribcage far more sensitive than you’d ever experienced. It felt like your chest was going to rip open.

Panicked sounds emanate from the back of your throat, fingers digging into your scalp as the drugs carry their venom through your blood.

Your wounds blazed.

You start screaming, babbling for nothing, and pulling at your flesh, but the overhead striking of lightning leaves the desperation mute to all but the trees.

—

Hesh stares at you from the corner of the pit, but his eyes are not green. You watch, silent, barely moving, from where you curl into a tiny heap of bloodied flesh. You’d torn at your skin for days; time looped together with more injections and no food. Water you got from the sky.

They had offered soup, but you knew better even as you dug harsh lines into your neck. There were just more drugs in the broth.

But Hesh. Hesh.

He wasn’t right—didn’t stand like him, or breathe like him; there was something off about his smirk as he watched you gaze at him in an addled stupor.

“Feelin’ good over there, Kid?” Not Hesh. Not. Hesh.

You’re panting, your body sweating profusely in the humidity and so, so hungry.

Not Hesh takes a step forward and his image tilts like the turning of a page with Rorke taking his place, but as soon as it happens it flips back on itself to your Love.

“N-not right,” you hurriedly whisper.

Not Hesh puts a hand to his ear, kneeling down in front of you. “What was that, now?” A long chuckle. His voice is…is…deeper. Your eyebrows flinch up and down. “Who do you see, Sweetheart?”

“Hesh,” you whimper out. “Hesh, what are you talking about? What’s going on? I…I feel like I’m…I’m twisted inside out.”

“Hesh, huh?” The man looks to the side, smiling. “Well, that’s better than I expected. This’ll be fun.”

“W-what—” A fist connects with your face and you get catapulted into the wall. Before anything else, your stomach is kicked, making your call of alarm get forced out as a gasp as your clotted bullet wound reopens in a great tear. A large hand grips you hard by the chin, snapping it forward to stare into those wrong eyes but the familiar face of Hesh.

What was he doing to you?

“H…Hesh,” you can’t even stutter out his name before you break down into coughs and gagging; tears rolling down your cheeks, and blood and mud everywhere.

“Yeah, that’s right. You just keep lookin’ at me.” You dry heave and push at his hands, fingernails digging into his skin to create crescent moons. “Keep lookin’ at Hesh.”

—

It’s three months of the same, and you can’t go on anymore.

You lay in a near comatose state on the ground, flesh completely covered in mud and open wounds—maggots eat at your dead skin, wriggling deeper. Not having the heart to pick them out, or even move the few non-broken fingers you have, you lay in blank agony. Pain so deep you can’t scream or make a single noise. It would make it worse; it is making it worse.

Breathing is becoming a chore.

“Is today going to be the day?! God, I sure hope so.” Hesh looks down from over the edge, fiddling with another syringe of drugs. “Enough blood down there to make a fuckin’ painting out of. Shit…You lasted longer than I thought, Kid.” You don’t look at him. At his dark, wrong, eyes.

“I’m nearly impressed.” There’s a low chuckle and the crackling of branches.

You close your eyes and try to think of a single kiss and green eyes, but the rest of the image is tainted to you. Your mind can’t call it forward without the corruption of the puppet ahead of you, this shifting specter of mist and smoke.

Memories that used to bring you comfort call to fear and spine-curling hurt.

This couldn’t be Hesh, you told yourself for the millionth time, but…who else could it be? Your body was too broken to try and work through the hallucinations, to think or rationalize.

There’s a thump of boots and a grunt. Someone coming closer as birds speak far above. Singing. It's the first you can recall another living creature being this close to the smell of infected decay.

“Now, now, let’s see that neck of yours.” You’re seized and pushed onto your back, head lulling and eyes fluttering. Hesh’s image shifts and bends into another, one you should be able to name but can’t quite recall. It’s hard to focus. “Just one more, and we can fix this. Together. No more Ghosts, huh? We’ll make it right.”

Birds songs. Birds and flying shadows. Rapid wing beats like an eagle or the pound of paws on the ground.

There is an un-godly snarl and a call of rage.

“Rorke!” The dark-eyed Hesh snaps his head away, his needle stilling in his grip only inches from your flesh. He’s grappled and ripped away, thrown up and slammed down into a full-body jerk of pure strength not a second later with a cry of shock. “Get the fuck off of her!”

Shadows roll and wrestle, feral yowls like that of beasts bounce off your impaired hearing, mud stuck in your ears. You think your vision cuts out for a moment because the next there’s a different man gripping your shoulders, slightly shaking you back awake.

Blue eyes like the ocean. Your brow barely twitches in confusion.

Keegan?

“C’mon, that’s it. Right here.” A light is taken and directed right into your eye in the fading light. “You’re doin’ great, Harp. Just keep lookin’ at me.”

The light passes over your blood-coated eyes and barely diolates. Keegan’s lips under his balaclava thin to an alarming degree.

“Fuck,” he grunts, looking down at you before he darts his vision over to Hesh, the actual Hesh, who’s locked limbs with the former Ghost; fists to guts and primal anger.

In his haste to get to you, Hesh had damned himself—he’d left no opening for any of the others to get a clean shot at Rorke. But no one could blame him, even if it was reckless; incredibly stupid.

The man had been on your trail nearly every day since you’d been taken. Barely sleeping, eating little. A man possessed.

The Ghosts had been half convinced something had taken over his image and scooped out his personality.

“Merrick,” Keegan patches into the secure line, looking back down at you. “Positive ID on HVT, three klicks West. Hesh has engaged—we found Harp.”

There’s an instantaneous response, worried breath. “Solid copy…how’s she doing?”

“We need MedEvac immediately. She won’t last another night.” There’s a curse on the other end, a loud and quick call to the rest of his squad.

“Copy! I’ll call it in!” Keegan tries to stabilize you as Hesh and Rorke rip each other to shreds, and Hesh, who had the upper hand in the beginning, is quickly losing it.

“Awe, look who tracked ‘er down!” Rorke snatches at Hesh’s collar and lays two jabs to his ribs—there’s a definitive crack as the younger man shouts in pain. “Young love! So fucking pointless.”

“I’m going to rip you into pieces,” Hesh bares his teeth, eyes wild and unrestrained. For a moment Rorke looks taken aback by the utter conviction in his green gaze. “And make you choke on your own damn teeth! You hear me?!”

Ripping away with a tear of fabric, Hesh bends low and tackles the former Ghost to the ground, splaying him out on his back before his fist is snapped back and brought down; again and again and again.

“Hesh!” Keegan shouts, pressing deeply into your wounds and trying to give you fluids with one hand. “This fucking kid.” The Sergeant gives up, shaking his head.

Trust had to be given, and Keegan knew that at this moment he had to trust Hesh to hold his own. He needed to keep you conscious.

“Easy, Harp.” You can feel the cracks in your dry throat as the water seeps past them, and you cough up droplets before the blue-eyed Sergeant tilts your head and helps you. “Easy, Sweetheart.”

Keegan doesn’t even want to look at your body as the brutal sounds of a fist on bone continue, clothes scuffling and gargled breaths—the savagery and barbarous remnants of mental and physical torture too much even for him.

“Christ,” he hisses.

You gulp down water slowly and let it fill your stomach like a brick.

Hesh reduces Rorke’s face to a mess of flesh and busted bone, sweating and not even stopping as his knuckles split under his gloves or his fingers dislocated from their sockets. His eyes burn, his face goes red—he looks insane.

He looks like a spirit of utter revenge.

Only when Logan and Merrick drag him off the spasming body does he stop, but not after he tries like hell to fight out of that hold as well. Whipping around, he attempts to land a punch on Merrick before Logan is forced to put him in a restraint hold.

Hesh’s cheek meets the mud, face being sunk into it as his right arm is twisted so far behind his back it nearly breaks. The older brother growls, free arm and legs moving—back sliding.

“David!” Merrick barks at him, face pulled in a sneer, enraged at the man’s lack of sense. “Shut this shit down. Look at her, dammit!” Logan gets bucked off, but the youngest Walker boy has enough sense to wrestle him back down and grab onto his chin; forcing those green eyes to lock on you and Keegan.

The second he sees you, he entirely freezes.

Merrick sighs out harshly, jogging over to you and already checking in with the MedEvac that Kick’s flying in. There would be no resistance—all the other hostiles were dead.

“Jesus Christ,” the Commander breathes, kneeling by you instantly and studying your body.

Hesh’s reaction is slower, but the spread of vile tears burns the back of his eyes. Logan lets him go at seeing this, standing and holding out a hand, but the brunette stays on the ground a moment longer; utterly still.

Hesh’s mouth opens and closes.

All at once he’s rushing over and limping up at your side as Merrick grabs more medical supplies from his packs to help you.

“Oh my God,” Hesh breathes, and Keegan sends him a glance. You’d drank all of the water. “Harp, hey, you’re going to be okay—it’s gonna be alright, you hear? I’m right here, Logan and I are gonna get you home. Back to California, okay? Riley’s waitin’ for you, Doll.”

You flinch at that voice, and Merrick looks sharply at the blue-eyed Sergeant. Their eyes lock, holding for a long moment. Logan’s brows tighten in confusion.

The brunette seems not to notice it at all, hands finding your cheek before Merrick can give him a warning. Your eyes slowly shift to him before they peel back with fear.

Hesh’s vision goes glossy, clenching his jaw. “Shit, what did he do to you—”

“Hesh!”

You yell and yerk back, shoving the man off of you with a fear-filled sob.

“No!” Keegan and Merrick grapple to keep you down, not wanting to aggravate your wounds as Hesh falls to his ass, hands slapping behind him before he hisses and brings them back up. He blinks quickly in confusion and panic.

Logan rushes over and hides him from your view, beginning to understand what was going on.

“No!” You call again, Keegan having to hold your head into his chest to hide you away. Merrick yells down his comms to hurry the Helo up, and that he doesn’t care about anything else. “No,” your voice gargles off as you sob into Keegan. “Please, no more.”

“Shh,” the Sergeant mutters, looking over his shoulder at a pale and shaking Hesh. “Nothin’s going to happen to you. Not anymore.”

“Harp,” Hesh whispers, jaw slackened. “I…I don’t…”

“Hallucinogens,” Merrick says grimly, watching you shake and wail. Logan has to look away, his fists clenching. “Who knows what she’s seen. Reckon it wasn’t anything good.”

It’s like he doesn’t hear anything besides your cries. Whenever you gasp Hesh tenses as if he wants to run to you—comfort you the best way he knows how.

Hallucinogens? He thinks and feels tears dribble down his cheeks as he blinks, rubbing at his jaw and shakily placing a hand over the back of his neck. Logan puts a heavy grip on his shoulder, weighing them down even more.

—

Rorke’s death should have been a time of celebration—of honoring the fallen. Elias Walker, Ajax, and countless others. The Federation was nothing more than broken factions now. Dust to the wind.

But no one can celebrate when they’re trying to fix one of their own.

You were being kept in the secure medical ward under twenty-four-hour surveillance and around-the-clock care; only Keegan was allowed in, seeing as you were the closest to him outside of Logan and Hesh and had no adverse effects to his presence.

Merrick had said he didn’t want to risk Logan going in, as it might worsen things. Hesh was taking it hard.

He just got you back, how was this right? How was it fair that you’d had to go through that right when it was supposed to be over and done with? The man got sick over it, thinking about what Rorke had done to…break your mind like he had.

Two months.

Two months of nightmares plaguing him, of your eyes when you looked at him. If Hesh had just been stronger, then that bastard would never have dragged you away on that beach. He resulted in working out more, running laps around Fort Santa Monica with Riley at three in the morning—he grew bags under his eyes. He grew quiet.

When all of his broken ribs and fingers healed, the artificial wounds, he was offered awards for taking down Rorke; even a summon by the President.

He’d denied all of them.

If a medal was going to get you better faster, he’d have taken them in an instant. But he wasn’t that stupid. Hesh was withering, and everyone saw it. He loved you more than anything—more than fame or recognition. The man lay awake at night fearing that you were too cold or uncomfortable in the far-off ward, he was paranoid about your safety.

More often than not, the nurses found him and Riley fitfully sleeping outside of your door on the hard ground, arm used as a pillow. They didn’t have the heart to move him.

In the last two weeks before the third month of your isolation and evaluations, in his nighttime routine, Hesh finds your door open.

He stares at it now with a blank expression, fatigue once burning his eyes all gone for a deep and pounding panic. With a hand gesture, Riley halts and sits, and, sensing his handler’s mood, lets his ears go straight up in attention.

Hesh reaches for the gun in the back of his pants, peeling it out slowly and taking a nearly silent step forward. Ready, his ears strain for a sound…but there is none.

His free hand reaches for the door, the short sleeves of his gray sleep-shirt bunching. A moment later, he lightly taps the barrier farther out before entering the room with the gun drawn.

He said he wouldn’t get distracted, but it would be a lie to say his eyes didn’t immediately go to you.

You were there, asleep, curled up on the far recliner chair instead of the bed. Head lulled to the side and knees kept close to your chest. But it was the scars that broke Hesh.

They were large and long—on your face and arms; legs. All moving and stretching like a child’s drawing up your sleep shorts and shirt, disappearing only to reappear somewhere else. Healed over but still fresh.

Hesh drops the gun and turns his body slightly away, staring at the side wall before he takes an unsteady breath. He re-hides his weapon and turns to leave, not seeing anyone else.

Maybe Keegan had forgotten to close the door…he’d have to chew him out for that. Already a dull point of anger was making his jaw clench at the sly older man.

“Bastard,” Hesh mutters.

Before he can exit and close the door softly behind him, he hears a broken squeak of alarm. He halts as you stare heavily into his back—awoken by the sound of nearly silent feet. In a steady motion, the man’s hands are by his sides, open and visibly holding nothing.

“I was just leaving,” Hesh whispers, not looking at you. His heart hammers. “I’m sorry, I thought someone else was in here—the door was open, okay?”

Your hands twitch, body still and breath held tight.

“Hesh?” He flinches, eyes closed tight.

Don’t look at her. Don’t turn around. Leave.

“Are you really…him?” You ask silently, eyes darting nervously around the room and quickly waking up fully.

It’s a moment before he answers you.

“Yeah,” he forces out, voice tiny and sad. “Yeah, it’s me, Doll. Just David Walker.”

Your throat bobs with a thin swallow. Treatment was still ongoing, but it’s not every day you wake up to find the man who you had nightmares about standing in your room.

Breathe, you have to remind yourself. It was the drugs. Not Hesh. Never Hesh. Rorke.

But you were still scared.

“I…I need to see your eyes,” you say.

Hesh turns carefully, staring hard at the floor. His heart lurches, hands going clammy.

What if she has a setback? He asks himself. What if I mess this up…Shit, Hesh, you couldn’t have minded your own business?

Oh, but he never could when it came to you.

“Then look at me, Sweetheart.” The man breathes slowly, darting his eyes up to your face. “They only belong to you.”

But your gaze can’t slip to his sockets, only able to glare fearfully into his neck. But this Hesh felt different, more like the one you grew up with—those memories still coming back but tainted; you need to see green, but it was hurting you to think that you might not.

“I’m scared,” you admit, shakily. The man’s thighs tense, but he stops himself before he can go and take you into his arms. That wouldn’t help. “I’m…I don’t know what’s real anymore.”

“I’m real. I swear to you, Harp, I’m real. I’m right here and I’ll wait for you as long as it takes. Even if it’s years, I will always be right here.” He pleads, hands still at his sides and going nowhere if you don’t tell him to. It’s like a floodgate opens, months of internal pain and heartbreak spilling out. You needed to know this, even if he never got to see you again.

“I have loved you since I saw you get jealous over Cassie Albrook in seventh grade and tried to hide it because you thought she made me happy—she could never make me happy, Harp. That was you. That was always and will always be you. I…I can’t breathe when you’re not near me, I don’t know how to act right when you’re hurt. Seeing you hurting is…is…” Hesh’s voice breaks and he falls silent.

“Please, if you need to look into my eyes, I’m beggin’ you, Sweetheart, please, do it. Even if it’s only one glance.” Your breath is stuck in your throat, tears welling and sliding down your cheeks.

In your skull your brain pounds, bordering on hysteria and an urge to flee. There was so little that you trusted anymore. Keegan, yes—the nurses and doctors? You had no choice there.

You knew that the Hesh you’d seen in the pit was Rorke, Keegan had explained it all to you after the drugs had been pumped from your system; you understood that part. But it didn’t make the sickening confusion any better.

Symptoms of severe PTSD, paranoia, anxiety—you’d seen the charts when the nurses thought you weren’t looking at them.

You still wouldn’t let anyone with a needle anywhere close to you, had to be put under for it.

But you’d been so lonely here. A simple kiss seared into your mind before the horror set in, a stain of a smile on your lips. A chest vibrating with a content purr.

Hesh. You want your Hesh back.

Taking a stuttering breath, your eyes dart upwards. You push through your misty gaze and lock on a color that can only be described as a grassy field of verdant growth. Great open plains of viridescent being—showing you a world bathed in tender belonging.

Home.

You sob and rush from the chair on legs that still hurt even now, meeting Hesh in the middle as he takes a step forward and wraps his arms around you. You’re covered and kept in a hold so tight it’s like he’ll never let you go, heart pounding and his face loose with shock.

But he says nothing beyond a loud shuttered exhale of relief, pressing you to his chest and burying his face into your scalp, breathing you in; taking you down like a sinner in church until all that remains is you. Your fingers digging into his shirt, your face in his neck, how you call his name as if calling a ghost back from the dead.

“Oh, my Girl.” Hesh chuckles through the tears in his eyes. “My Girl. I missed you so much, you won’t even believe it.”

You push yourself into him tighter.

Riley, at some point, had come to stand in the doorway, his dark beady eyes seeing only the colors in gray, brown, yellow, and blue, though that never truly mattered. Color was only half of the picture.

And the rest of the image in front of him was seeped with the pigment of love.

The dog’s tongue lulls from the side of his mouth, and in the air behind him, his tail moves back and forth into a soft arch.

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