#they're both so fucking empty and try to find SOMETHING to fill the void and keep doing as they do out of disappointment

[anarkhebringer]

Man now I'm thinking about Zenos in general, this fucking guy that talks on and on about the hunt every 5 seconds with the WoL while not even believeing in his own words until much later on, because he doesn't want this to be a waste like he feels everything else in his life was.

For the first time in his life he feels SOMETHING and YOU spark that something, you caught his interest, but he doesn't wanna attach himself YET until you prove yourself to be worthy of the praise he gives you (Shinryu fight and how he suddenly backpedals when you say you accept him during his "we can work together as friends" monologue). You're getting there but you're not there yet, so of course he's not gonna fucking believe you until you prove yourself to him, no matter how much he wants to in the moment.

I dunno if this is because I have ASPD and see through this guy even better because of it that I think all this, but Zenos was interested from the start, even if he didn't seem like it. It was a "well you're new. Okay." sort of passive interest at first, you still caught his attention and he wanted to milk whatever information about what you can do and what you'd do to him he could since you stood out to him.

As you kept proving yourself he starts hoping that you're like what he thinks you are and what you can do with each fight. That being why he so suddenly gets all unhinged grinny and the monologues start, you're proving him right in his mind and making him feel something for the first time and he LOVES it.

BUT it's not cause to fully believe and accept yet, because that's how shit crumbles and you get disappointed and bored again, so that's when the final tests start and you pass. You made him happy for the first time in his life, he felt something with you, that's all he could ask for, and that's why he does what he does at the end of Stormblood.

[valiantharpoon]

"Power Steering Fluidity"

Chapter 4: Scandal @ Stonehawk Lake

By V. Harpoon (2023)

Dayna caressingly drives the strap-on dildo harder into Val's hungry starfish. She slides the dense silicone in and out. Both of them: squishing, thumping, and moaning. She throws her blond hair back as she makes the face and cums from the empty passion. The second head curled inside her velvet folds. Val squirts all over his chest and Dayna sensually slurps up the pearly mess. His phallic glory twitching with relief. Dayna gives it a good soft suck for luck.

She makes no mistake, this changes nothing. They're partners and that's where the cuddles end. They both just wanted to fuck someone. Not like it's the first time. The first in these motel rooms surely, but not the first time. They've tasted every inch of each other. But her feelings for him are null. Val feels the same way. Just fuck-buddies on a case. Val pulls her up and she straddles his face.

He slides the straps open and slowly extracts the second head of the dildo. Slick, wet ooze fell out and into his mouth. Val buries his tongue in her and cleans like a cat. Dayna smiles at the sailboat picture and digs her fingers through his hair. They moan and wriggle. Val smacks Dayna's ass. She squeezes his head and grabs his cock again. The remaining semen pools in his pubes and is lubricant.

Eventually, they dumped everything inside of them. A release trying to fill a void. A sticky void, pearlescent and vibrant. Dayna was the first to break out of their afternoon passion-slumber. She showered and rubbed one last one out. Her clit ring buzzing and sore. She finished herself off by slipping a finger up herself, finding that brown sugar spot in her ass, nearly falling to her knees. She hasn't been this horny in years. The chaffing was inevitable.

Was something off? Sure, they've fucked before but... Evan Q. Something about him. It's making everyone weird. Where did that strap-on come from? It's not ours. How did we even end up going at it? Dinner. It was at dinner. He just looked so sad. I wanted to cheer him up. Never thought we'd... A knock on the bathroom door. Dayna climbs out of the shower and opens it.

Val stands there, still nude and erect. Dayna says nothing and gets back in the shower, leaving the door wide open. Val crosses the tiles and climbs behind her. Their skin now cloaked in hot mist and soap suds. They don't even speak, it seems mechanical still but passionate. Val thrusting in Dayna, calmly choking her. Pounding hard as the water steams the glass. Dayna twists back and kisses him. He responds by guiding her to her knees and railing her tight pink anus without mercy. Dayna screams for more. Val smacks her cheeks, red prints on a red ass. Dayna fingers herself and flicks her sore clitoris. Val's cock is suffering from being stimulated for too long.

Dayna pulls away and lays spread eagle on the floor. Val follows and mounts. Her lower lips hold on to his thick throbbing pain. He thrusts and tears come out of his eyes. He whispers Evan's name and ejaculates in Dayna. A creampie with their hips shoving together and belonging. Dayna caresses Val's back as he cries on top of her. Her lust and his regret fade.

Finally, they kiss. One long look into each other's eyes. A knowing that you're never going to be together but it's not what you want anymore. You are bonded but flexible. Dayna knows she can't be what Val truly needs. She'll suck him off or something but that's where her heart stops. Val helps her up and they shower without talking. They scrub each other and kiss occasionally but nothing is said.

The night ends with them asleep, facing away. Dayna touches herself as a checklist before she falls asleep. She knows it's stupid but it's a habit now. Hair, nose, lips, neck, all check. She drifts. Boobs, ribs, stomach, arms, all check. She drifts farther. Hips, ass, clit (ow), thighs, knees, feet, toes, all good. Dayna thinks about sunshine and open fields. She sleeps on as Val has already arrived. His penis flaccid and unwilling. Evan Q off his mind.

The purple, double vibrator dildo is forgotten by both until tomorrow. The question will be raised but it will not be found. The slimy,gold goblin creeping from under the sink will have it. He grabs it just before dawn and licks it for hours. Unfortunately he loses it in a bet with a water maiden. She wears it constantly. It's kinda cute... if not unsettling. Dayna dreams of being...

[feroluce]

(part 1)

If their roles were reversed...

The scenes between Melli and Ingo would be so fucking funny with Emmet instead. This man knows Melli can't do shit against him. He has zero fear and gives zero fucks. I think Emmet would lose a lot of his spark being forcibly separated from Ingo like that, but it doesn't make him any less blunt, now he just says shit with less energy behind it haha. This is why Ingo had to be the one to get isekaid- Emmet would have just straight up called Melli a bitch. Can't have that in a pokemon game! ☆

I tend to see Emmet as having a lot of drive and ambition? Like if he wants something, he just kind of goes for it (challenging White, eavesdropping on Bianca, clearing the tunnels of Pasio just for Ingo, etc). And he's pretty self-aware, he knows what he wants and why he wants it.

But now, dropped into Hisui with no memories, that's a lot harder to decipher. Emmet suddenly doesn't know what he wants. It's that feeling of craving a snack, but no food sounds appetizing, except on a much grander and more profound scale. Emmet wants serious battles, but battling is barely even a THING in Hisui, let alone serious ones with anyone who could even hope to challenge his skill. So he doesn't even realize that's what he needs, because between Hisui being as it is and his own amnesia, he has no point of reference.

All of this ends up with Emmet frequently spinning his tires, throwing himself at wall after wall and nothing ever quite. Sticking. I think routines are very comforting for him (a focus on repeated safety checks, "What I do. What I say. Always the same."), so I could still see him being Lady Sneasler's warden and following a strict schedule with her, but. He doesn't know what to do with himself outside of that job. He develops a whole system for the tunnels, setting up torches to line the paths, marking dead ends and wrong-ways, putting warnings where alphas tend to nest. He carves handholds into the cliffsides, climbs up them to test them, then goes back down to tweak them and does it all over again. He takes up just about every kind of hobby one could have, with varying degrees of intensity and success.

It helps, but none of it truly satiates him. It's like trying to fill your stomach without realizing you have a tapeworm. Emmet is constantly hungry, consistently craving.

He keeps looking for ways to spend his time though, because if he's not doing anything, the emptiness starts crawling in. Emmet feels like there is something he should be doing, someone he should be taking care of. There's a void there at his side, and if he's not careful, it'll make its presence known by drilling straight into his chest cavity and chilling him from the inside out. He'll slow until he freezes, his skin will go numb with the frostbite.

He hates it. He learns to live with it.

Emmet doesn't speak much anyway, especially as the years drag and start to take their toll, but he finds that he likes listening to OTHER people talk. It eases the feel of the void. Irida is kinda chatty and she doesn't much pull her punches or edit her words (keeps calling Palina "Lina," makes her disdain for the player clear, fully admits when she's proven wrong, etc)- Emmet becomes her rubber duck. He speaks to her bluntly so she doesn't have to worry about deciphering him, and he's extremely helpful, especially with anything requiring strategy. They're both in mourning for people neither fully know or remember, too. Irida for a mother that died before she even spoke her first word and Emmet for a person he's not even sure existed, but whose absence he feels like a black hole in his heart. They get along well.

By the time the player meets him, Emmet has long since hit burn out and burnt himself down to nothing but a puddle of wax and wick. But just being around someone in a similar situation helps.

"I think I remember... I had a dear partner. Another one, before Crobat here. Don't know the name anymore, but. I know it was a constant companion. If it were here, I bet it would stick through this with us, galvanizing our resolve..."

"And there was...a man, we looked alike. A man of great strength and character. Worthy of admiration. We'd battle a lot. We'd talk a lot. I remember him saying 'There is no terminal called End in your life!'"

Emmet holds onto those words like a life raft.

And as soon as Emmet realizes being around the protag, and especially battling them, helps his memories, he pursues that thread RUTHLESSLY. He starts making frequent trips into Jubilife, something he used to do out of instinct to be around people, but had been doing less and less often as the depression settled in. He has a lot more purpose for it now, now he battles at the training grounds (almost always with Akari) and it's during these battles that villagers start to get drawn in by the spectacle. Because Emmet is flashy, lively in a fight, he's finally enjoying himself and obviously so. And people gathering round and some of them even cheering for one side or the other sends such a jolt through him, because that's what Emmet loves to do! That's what he used to do! Even if the memory is blurry, he can just feel it! He loves to put on a show and entertain people! He loves winning more than anything else!!

The memories start to trickle back in more and more after that, leaky faucet, steady little stream, it explains so much, why he sends his pokemon out two at a time, why he's always subconsciously preening over Lady Sneasler's kits (assessing them-), the way he talks, the way he moves, the void ever present at his side-

He finally has a name for it. He cracks and cries when he realizes, because he can't believe he ever forgot it. He forgot Ingo.

So when Ingo finally Falls to Hisui, too, it's right into the open arms of an Emmet that already at least partly remembers him. He already has a place in the world and a home waiting for him. ♡

[tojisveryown]

With you

Art creds: sira_Julyspring on tw Synopsis: You'll always find yourself running. Running away from the sorcerers that seem to be after your beloved, but how far can your legs take you before you get too tired? Warnings: None Tags: fluff, angst, right person not enough time Word Count: 1k

one ⋆ two ⋆ three ⋆ four ⋆ five

It all started with you hopelessly falling in love with a curse that sought to destroy your family name. How was it even possible that a mere human could fall in love with a curse? You couldn't understand it either, but something you would never understand is the way he had always spared you.

Always slaughtering your clan, left from right, but never in front of your sight. He made sure he killed every last remaining clan member until it was just you left. You couldn't understand why, until he finally made eye contact with you. The King of Curses was in love with you.

He killed your family, and yet your heart still pulsated at the man in front of you. You couldn't blame him, your families tie back into years on end. The both of you were destined to meet, but neither of you were supposed to be curses.

Betrayal ran deep in your family, however what happened years ago was nothing of the sort. Two young boys trying to make a name for themselves in the Jujutsu world. Sadly, one of them had been misdirected which had caused the current rivalry and war between the family's to worsen. Your clan will forever be known as the clan who cheated their way to the top after the massacre of the Sukuna clan. Never had you expected some of them to survive, let alone expect one of them to get their revenge.

After the death of your family you followed Sukuna around. You would've never guessed that the two of you would've gradually fallen in love. In the beginning you had told yourself this was for survival, and that being with him was the only way you can get around. You had originally planned to leave him in the dust after you've found a way out the loop, however one thing led to another and the two of you were now happily married.

Running. Running is what you two were good at. You two constantly had to pack your things and move to the next village or maybe even across seas in fear of a sorcerer showing up to execute Sukuna. Fear, the both of you lived in fear. Despite Sukuna being incredibly strong he'd rather live a peaceful life with you than continue being labeled as the King of Curses.

You didn't mind. You loved your husband and you knew the consequences of it. In all honesty part of you loved it. You loved running hand in hand away from the ones who pointed out your forbidden love. The rush of adrenaline filled the void Sukuna was constantly filling.

Your life wasn't what you pictured it to be, but you were happy. That's all that mattered.

"Y/N! Y/N? We have to go. They're here again."

"Fuck. They found us that fast?" You sighed, running upstairs to grab your go-bag, your husband following you closely.

"I'm not the King of Curses for nothing doll," He chuckled while putting a leather jacket over his long sleeve "of course they'd find us. We didn't exactly run very far."

"Yeah and who's fault is that?" You snapped, recalling the current events of your husband complaining about being woken up from his slumber which caused you two only to escape to the next village.

"Sorry sorry. Won't happen again. Ready love?" He held his hand out like he always did before you two ran. Like always you grasped onto it, and the two of you began running.

This wasn't the first time you two had ran away, nor was it the second. You and Ryo had been doing this for about ten times all in the past five years.

The pleads of the sorcerers asking you two to stop running made you and Ryo laugh. You'd never stop running. Not in a million years. You and Ryo could handle this. Anything's possible as long as you have each other.

As you were running you looked back on the first time you two had slipped passed the sorcerers.

The sunlight peaking from the small window was enough to let you scan through the room you waited in. The room seemed empty. Two small chairs aside each other along with one rounded table in the middle filled the room, the rest of the space wasn't occupied. There really wasn't a need to add more furniture. He insisted on keeping your small house simple and plain.

As the sun was rising slowly you waited a bit more. Right when the sun began to fill the room with light you started with your day. You didn't have enough money to afford an alarm clock so you figured the sun was good enough.

Just as you finished getting dressed Sukuna barged into your home. He frantically looked around for you. You had heard a few things break, but in that moment it really didn't matter.

"Y/N! There you are — Oh good! You're dressed." Sukuna roughly grabbed your hand and dragged you to the back door. "We have to run. Sorcerers, they're here."

"They're after us?" You questioned all while trying to keep up with his animalistic speed.

"No. They're after me." By now you two were far into the forest, but it wouldn't take long before the sorcerers arrived. Your heart was racing. Trying to catch your breath you leaned on a tree while Sukuna kept a look out. "Look, I don't wanna drag you further into my mess. There's a small town a few blocks over. If you keep running north you'll find it by noon." He held his hand out and dropped a bag filled with money that would be enough to get you by for a while. "Live a new life there. Sorcerers won't find you, you're just an ordinary girl now that your clans gone. Go!"

"No."

"What are you foolish!? Go before they catch us, you brat."

You fought back the aching in your foot. By now you had caught your breath and you were ready to continue running. You grabbed ahold of the accursed man in front of you and began running hand in hand. What was supposed to be an ordinary day turned out to be the start of your very odd future.

"Living a life with me would only do you harm, are you really alright with that?"

"If I wasn't I wouldn't be running with you."

"Foolish little girl."

Note: I'm excited to continue this HAHA. As always, send an ask if you'd like to be added to the taglist for this series. Taglist: @sookyshima

© All works by tojisveryown on Tumblr. Do not modify or repost.

[bounce-a-coin-off-your-witcher]

Trick or Treat

The next A Very Bouncey Halloween installment and a belated birthday gift to my darling @veritasrose. Thank you so much for the last year of friendship, I look forward to celebrating with you again. <3 you are much loved.

tw: curses, Geralt is an idiot, competent Jaskier

---

Light flashes through the room and momentarily blinds Jaskier, who stumbles back against Geralt. He mumbles an apology to the ever-sturdy Witcher as he waits for his vision to return and when he blinks clearly for the first time after a few long moments, the bard feels utterly and totally confused by the scene unfolding before him.

The Duke’s grandest ballroom, which had been bustling with excitable party guests only moments ago, is now flooded with ghouls, ghosts, vampires, and monsters of all sorts. A woman with swan’s wings is huddled in one corner, squawking angrily at anyone who tries to draw near. A minotaur stumbles through the center of the dance floor, lowing in frustration as he tries to control his bulky limbs. Two werewolves wrestle for dominance atop the furthest banquet table to their left. As Jaskier takes it all in, he feels Geralt’s hands wrap suddenly around his bicep; the Witcher is clinging to Jaskier fiercely, leaning his not insignificant weight against the bard’s side as his eyes grow round and watery.

“What’s happening?” Geralt finally asks. His tone of voice seems breathy and high, filled with a terror - almost totally foreign to Jaskier’s ears. Geralt fears nothing and yet… “Let’s get away from this dreadful place, please!”

“Aren’t you going to try and solve this problem?” Jaskier asks, glancing at his companion. He gestures at the various monsters roaming freely past the buffet table. “You’re likely the nearest Witcher, after all.”

“I’m no Witcher,” Geralt declares. He splays a hand over the very center of his blue velvet doublet (a nearly perfect imitation of the way Jaskier reacts to a perceived offense). “I am a Count. Witchers are dirty things, not meant for such a public life as my own.”

“For fuck’s sake, Geralt, now is not the time for a prank of this nature,” Jaskier huffs. “Something is clearly going on here. We need to help these people!”

“I know something is wrong,” Geralt sniffles - fucking sniffles - and squeezes the bard’s upper arm even more tightly. The sound of Geralt crying shakes Jaskier into understanding, even as Geralt begs: “But I don’t know how to help! Please get me out of here, Milord, I’m scared.”

Milord? Jaskier mouths to himself, even as he wraps one comforting arm around Geralt’s waist and ushers him away from the growing chaos at the center of the ballroom. Jaskier hurries them down one suspiciously empty hallway after another until he reaches the small suite that he had accepted as payment for his performance at the party. Jaskier ushers Geralt inside and locks the heavy oak door behind them.

“My Lord Geralt,” he gets the not-quite-Witcher’s attention. “Do you mind taking a seat by the fire for now? I’ll be right with you as soon as the room is secure, and then we can figure out what’s going on and what to do from here.”

“Yes, Milord,” Geralt nods. He hurries to comply with Jaskier’s request, to the bard’s continuing shock and awe, and stays still and quiet as Jaskier removes his doublet and rolls up his sleeves. Using the strength he’s spent twelve years at Geralt’s side developing, Jaskier shoves a bookcase, a dresser, and an unfortunately designed roll-top desk in front of the locked doors for added protection.

Moving behind Geralt with practiced efficiency, Jaskier also closes, shutters, and locks every window in the room, pulling the curtains closed to keep any light from spilling out and alerting stray creatures of their presence.

When he’s finished locking down all of their room’s possible entrances and breathing hard from exertion, Jaskier tugs the Witcher’s xenovox from his bag and flips it open, waiting with bated breath until Yennefer’s irritated voice snaps: “What do you want, Geralt?”

“Who is that?!” Geralt cries from his place near the fire. He has a white-knuckle grip on the overstuffed armchair he’s perched in and his clothing is mussed; Jaskier motions for him to be quiet and Geralt bites his lip, worrying the soft pink skin between his unusually dull canines.

“Was that Geralt?” Yennefer asks. "Did Jaskier summon me?"

“Yes and yes,” Jaskier replies. “I think he’s been cursed or enchanted or something. I was hired to play at the Duke of Rinde’s All Hallow’s Eve celebration and Geralt accompanied me - even dressed up for the occasion - but something happened at the party and now he’s acting strangely. I don’t know what to do.”

"What's happening?" Yennefer prods.

"Geralt is acting rather out of sorts. He’s speaking strangely, he wanted to flee the party rather than investigate the source of the changes-”

“What changes?”

“Everyone sort of… Well, a good portion of the party guests suddenly transformed into their costumes,” Jaskier explains, his speech stunted by his disbelief. “I know it sounds incredible, and it was! One moment we were all enjoying the music and the next… there was a minotaur and a mermaid and a faun… Geralt went nearly mute and started clinging to my arm like some sort of aristocratic maiden!”

“Oh shit,” Yen groans.

“Who is that?” Geralt repeats. Jaskier continues to ignore his companion. He knows that the moment he turns his attention to caring for Geralt, he won’t be able to tear it away again, and he needs to finish this conversation with Yennefer first.

“Why are you swearing?” he asks the sorceress. “What is it?”

“Geralt asked me for advice about this stupid ball a few days ago, while you were busy making arrangements with the Duke. He wanted to impress you with his All Hallow’s Eve costume and prove that he could be just as fancy and well-mannered as all the other men of your status.”

“Why in the world would Geralt want to dress up and act like a nobleman? It makes no sense! He detests small talk, he hates vanity, and he finds most men of my station to be cowardly and overly delicate - myself included! I just- I don’t quite understand why he’d go through all of this just to impress me. Or why he thinks this kind of thing would be impressive in the first place.”

“Jaskier, please tell me that you aren’t as stupid as our mutually beloved Witcher…”

Jaskier considers for a moment, pondering the things that he does to impress Geralt: gathering wood, learning to cook with game meat, preparing the Witcher’s potion ingredients while he's out on hunts, organizing their packs when they're spiking camp, brushing Roach’s mane… Realization dawns suddenly and all at once. He has a moment of pure understanding, a moment much beloved by every poet, bard, and playwright across the Continent: “Oh.”

Yennefer gives a tired laugh. “Yeah.”

“So he’s stuck as… a noble?”

“I suppose,” she sighs. “I’ll portal you to my location and we can figure things out in peace. Get your things together, I’ll open it up in precisely five minutes.”

“What’s happening!?” Geralt demands. Jaskier pulls the Witcher/Count to his feet and bows shallowly.

“I am Jaskier Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove. I will be your protector and chaperone for the foreseeable future, Your Lordship,” Jaskier bows shallowly. “I’m going to gather our things together and then we are going to meet up with a very lovely sorceress, Yennefer of Vengerberg.”

“Is she a friend of yours?”

Jaskier barely manages to hide his surprise at Geralt’s utter lack of recognition. His memories of Yennefer have also been taken, then.

“She’s a mutual friend.”

“Are you my friend?”

“I would like to think so,” Jaskier smiles. Geralt remains oblivious to the bard’s heartache, even as he curls himself against Jaskier. He tucks his face against Jaskier’s shoulder and sobs quietly. The bard runs his hands comfortingly up and down Geralt’s spine for a long, soothing moment. The smooth, royal-blue velvet tickles his fingertips. “Shh, dear heart. I’ve got you. Everything will be alright, I swear.”

“I trust you,” Geralt whispers.

Just as Jaskier is about to reply, Yennefer’s portal snaps open in the center of the room. Jaskier hands Geralt a set of bags and hauls his own over his shoulder. “Time to go, Your Lordship. Just take one little step…”

---

“Do you know who I am?” Yennefer asks. Geralt shakes his head before burying his face in the back of Jaskier’s shoulder-blade.

“I’m so frightened, Milord.”

Frightened? Milord? Yennefer mouths. Jaskier shrugs nearly imperceptibly and makes a panicked gesture in the Witcher’s general direction.

“I don’t know what to do either!”

“Well, start from the beginning. Tell me what happened at the party before all of… this.”

Jaskier recounts every detail he can remember in the most straightforward way possible, momentarily renouncing his poetic skills in favor of efficiency - for Geralt’s sake, of course, not Yennefer’s. When he's finished he asks: “And you said he did all of this to impress me?”

“Yes.”

“But why?” Jaskier repeats his earlier question. Yennefer understands that his meaning is different; Jaskier understands that Geralt is interested in him romantically, but the bard can't seem to get it through his head that Geralt has deemed him worthy. Although, knowing the Witcher, he isn't even sure how to go about doing such a thing in the first place.

"I just... I don’t quite believe you," he adds.

“He loves you,” Yennefer reiterates. "And now he’s stuck like this until the effects of the spell wear off, so I suggest you take his precious Lordship to one of my spare rooms and make yourselves comfortable. I’ll see you both for breakfast, providing the magic is null and void by then.”

“And if it isn’t?”

“I hope you enjoy small talk, you bardic bastard.”

Yennefer smirks and disappears from the room in a whirl of black and white silk, the scents of lilac and gooseberry curling through the air in her wake.

Geralt clings to Jaskier’s bicep again as the exhausted bard stands, keeping his larger body pressed against the human’s side as if Jaskier is the one who wields the Witcher’s swords. “So I’m under a spell?”

“Yes, darling.”

“At least I have you here to protect me, Jaskier. You’re so brave and strong; my hero!”

“It’s usually the other way around, dear heart, but I appreciate the sentiment. Now, how about we find a comfortable place to bed down for the night, Milord?”

"Alright."

Jaskier moves Geralt's hand so that it's curled around the inside of his elbow, the proper etiquette for a platonic escort, and leads him quickly down the long hallways of Yennefer's sprawling manor house. He chooses the blue-themed bedroom at the back of the East Wing, far from the sorceress' own suite of rooms.

He has to help Geralt change out of his lordly costume, the Witcher-turned-Count fumbling uselessly at the laces and buttons as if he'd never seen a fastening before in his life. Geralt whispers shyly as Jaskier pulls a nightshirt over his head: "Thank you again, Milord Jaskier. I feel as if I can't help but continue indebting myself to you."

"Think nothing of it, dear heart," Jaskier smiles, ignoring the pang in his chest. "I am happy to help you."

Jaskier tucks Geralt into bed before changing into his own nightclothes, tossing his things back into their travel bags as he swaps outfits. He feels Geralt tense up when he sits on the edge of the bed and his eyebrows narrow in concern.

"Are you alright, Geralt?"

"Are you going to share a bed with me?"

"Would you rather I didn't?" Jaskier answers with a question of his own.

"I... I wouldn't mind it if we shared."

Jaskier wishes he had Witcher sight, so he could catch a glimpse of the blush no doubt attempting to stain the Witcher's face. Despite the mutagens, Geralt's face still went pale pink when he encountered a strong emotion. It was adorable. And incredibly rare.

As soon as he pulls the covers over his chest, Geralt glues himself to Jaskier's side, snuggling close. "Feels safer," he says in lieu of explanation.

"Goodnight, dear heart."

"Goodnight."

---

"Fuck," Geralt groans, sitting up in bed. Jaskier sits up beside him, wiping the sleep from his eyes with the back of his hand.

"Good morning, Milord," he teases.

"Shut up," Geralt groans. Jaskier does get to see him blush this time, and the bard revels in it; he would trade all the gold in the world to see Geralt flush like this. "I can't believe I cried on you!"

"It was rather adorable, actually."

"Hmm."

"Still..." Jaskier reaches out, tentative, and cups Geralt's cheek with his palm. He turns the Witcher's face and locks their gazes together, blue meeting gold. "Still, I think I prefer you as you are. My big, strong Witcher who cares so much about defending the little guy. Willing to step in and help wherever and whenever he can."

Geralt's eyes get a little glassy and he leans forward, pausing and letting Jaskier make the final decision. The bard meets him halfway, pressing his lips against Geralt's without any sense of urgency at all. It's warm and sweet, time fading away as they let their feelings pour through this one simple gesture. When they pull apart again, Geralt gives a surprised, lopsided smile. "Oh."

[yanderenightmare]

If this isn't allowed I'm super sorry, but could I request Enji with a (Male/GN) darling that's scared of him. Like he always thought Enji was super scary as a hero and now that they're captured, he can't even stand to be around Enji without shaking or crying.

YANDERE ! ENJI TODOROKI x MALE ! READER

This is not what you asked for… I’m sorry this is all just… absolute filth… I got too excited, hope you like, sorry if some of these themes are triggering

goodiebag WARNINGS: nsfw, dubcon/noncon, degradation, feminization, spit-fetish, Enji being an ass, yandere, profanity, abuse, anxiety, manipulation, misogyny

FEAR

He doesn’t know exactly how to explain what replaces Enji’s presence when he leaves for work in the morning. He wants to say that it feels good, that it’s a relief, but that would be a bittersweet lie that leaves him feeling guiltier than it should, because when Enji’s not there to fill the space of the giant mansion, all that’s left is cold tiles, soundless rooms, and somehow… a lack of safety. He thought about it while finishing cleaning the second to last room, dreading entering the next, knowing how he’d find nothing there, just more emptiness, just more stale unmoving shadows on walls, more cold, more void, more loneliness, more fear.

He needed to shower before Enji got home. Enji would bathe with him later in the day too, but it would be after… after they played. He’d been talking and teasing that very soon he was going to be doing more than just sucking cock. Yesterday, he was made to sit on Enji’s face for half an hour, all while Enji fisted his own cock furiously in the same beat he lapped at the tiny budding butthole so ripe for the taking on top of him. But, he hadn’t done it, he hadn’t pushed a finger inside, he had barely wormed his tongue into the hole, only made to suck on it, before pushing him off and down into the sheet so he could cum all over his pretty little face, his white thick seed running and mixing in with fat globs of tears. But today, he wasn’t sure if Enji would still spare him being impaled on his fat thick monstrous pole. The thought had him nearly whining as he removed his clothes, padding over the clean reflective cold marble floors to step into the shower that seemed so strangely massive without being filled with both himself and Enji’s intimidating build.

It was as though he could already feel Enji’s warm hands holding onto his hips, steadying him as he was sure he would be uncontrollably quaking. It was as though he could already feel it filling him up, lifting him off the ground, off his feet, hauling him up into the air.

He turned the temperature too high to imitate what heat Enji would emit when thrusting into him, the shower-droplets stinging on his reddening skin. It hurt, but he needed to prepare himself, only physically if not mentally. He wiped a hand up between his butt-cheeks, stroked a finger over his hole a couple of times, teased to see if he at all wanted to slip it inside. He whimpered upon facing the inevitable fact that Enji’s massive thick pole would soon push inside him, push all the way inside him, fill him up so snugly and painfully and inescapably, holding him still as he crammed himself inside, probably even chuckling that gruesome snicker when seeing how he would try and wiggle out of his death-grip.

Enji is too big for it to possibly feel good, it’d be too painful, too painful to feel anything else, except fear. Fear would always survive. Fear of choking to death on his cock filling up his tight throat, more so than the pain of it actually happening. Fear of the feisty flames licking his skin more so than realizing how they only tickle not sear. Fear of being trapped, so much so he forgets to humor the idea of running, of fighting, of saying no. Fear of how he was going to be impaled, split in two on the hero’s cock before the day let up.

His own size wasn’t bad, but probably not what one would call impressive. He wondered if Enji would ever ask for him to penetrate him in turn. If… perhaps he could bargain to do that instead of the other way around, but he knew that was a foolish thought. He didn’t want to touch it, even as he felt it twitch against his stomach, because he knew he wouldn’t be allowed to touch it while Enji fucked him. Instead, he pushed one finger inside the comfort of his ass, worming the digit inside the tight space, his forehead soon pushing against the shower-wall to steady himself while he tried to get deeper. It was nowhere near what would be happening later, he knew that, but with the thought, the imagery of what would no doubt be happing later, it still managed to make his toes curl. The thought of Enji’s large warm gravely hand coming to stroke up and down his cock while penetrating him from behind, the sounds of his husky gruff voice huffing and grunting into his ear, letting him know what a perfect little pet he is.

He felt ashamed, and so utterly confused. How come he still turned on, even with the amount of fear and trepidation that pumped the boiling blood through his system? Why wasn’t he pissing himself instead of standing there, fingering his own hole, fantasizing about how much pain he was going to be in later, and getting off on the fact? Was it true what Enji had said? Was he really a submissive little masochist that would soon be worshipping the ground Enji walked on?

The questions were answered as he felt himself explode all too abruptly onto the glass, seeing his cum splattered onto the dewy steamed wall, watching it run down, creating paths that were slowly being washed away by the ongoing spritz of the showerhead.

He made then to shave his chest first, then the rest, all the rest, everything except the hair on his head, he knew Enji wouldn’t be pleased with anything but perfection, and even though the razor nicked him in sensitive places he was still extra careful to not miss a single spot, going over the same area several times to achieve complete smoothness. He turned the water too cold to stop the bleeding and to ease what soreness and irritation had been awoken by the activity, muscles tensing and flexing under the pressure, thinking that perhaps the freeze would encourage getting dressed… though he doubted it.

He got dressed slowly, having to talk himself down from crying as he clasped the lacy white bralette on, dragging it into position even though it had no real position on his chest. Then the dress. Splayed out so prettily on the bed, Enji’s declaration. White and patterned with pink poppies, a real housemaid’s frilly skirt and sweetheart neckline and thin shoulder-straps and everything pretty and dainty and feminine, one that worked so perfectly as an underdress for an apron.

The dress was nice and all, nicer than most things he’d ever worn before, but the apron was a real work of art. Frills decorating the edges, sweet swirls and flowery embroidery working its way up the white cloth, still with white thread, looking handmade yet with precision and delicacy. The stocking matched to some degree yet not carrying the same ornate expensive-feel to them, also adorned with a frilly edge were the sock stopped mid-leg. The shoes were plain enough: white with an easy button-over contraption, only slightly high-heeled, yet high enough to make that clicking errand sound when he walked across the marble floors each time Enji rung his service-bell, calling on him from where he sat on his knees with his hands folded neatly in his lap, supposed to wait patiently at Enji’s every beck and call, even though the large man was only a few meters away with a voice that could easily reach him no matter which room he found himself in the mansion, Enji insisted on using the bell. Loving to see how the boy skittered to his feet, hands running timid fingers to smooth over the fabric of his apron, shoes clicking together at the heels. His wintry voice so fragile and scared half to death as he answers Enji’s steely cyan glare: “Yes, Daddy?” His eyes falling sullenly to the floor to watch the cute rounded curve of his glossy shoes instead of looking to meet the fiery yet ice-cold eyes of his captor.

He avoided the mirror, even though he knew he should look over himself one more time for Enji’s sake, or for his own. He was given no boxer, no underwear, no measly thong, nothing, and therefore was subjugated to walk the empty halls in his flowing skirt with the cold air wafting in between his legs, kissing his limp cock each time he made a swift step, his shoes clicking, clicking, clicking, like the clock counting down the minutes until Enji came home.

“Welcome home, Daddy.” He needed to force himself to smile. Crooked in its execution, broken, yet still a smile, a smile Enji was pleased with as he kicked off his shoes, even happier to see him bow down to pick the pair up and place them neatly in the stacked shoe-compartments, despite the stink of them being drenched in sweat after his day of patrolling. His cock was already growing heavy with hunger. “How was your da-” He wasn’t given the time to answer before Enji wrapped both his hands around his waist from the back, slotting his massive warm hard chest against what felt like his paper-thin back, but he didn’t need to be able to carry Enji’s weight as he did most of the lifting himself.

A gravely sigh erupted from the man’s chest, rumbling against the boy’s back. “It’s so nice coming home to someone so appreciative and sweet.” He mumbled up against his spine, nose gliding up his neck, followed by a heavy inhale, breathing in the scent of the shampoo he’d told him to use, seemingly content as he pushed his crotch better against his ass. “I’ve tried getting hard for that slut breeding-cow all month…” Of course, his little experiments. He was a good fuck, but he couldn’t carry children, and producing children, or rather heirs, was something Enji and his fucked-up need to be number one was obsessed with. “You should see her, fucking begging for my cock, like my cock is her god. Pathetic.” He was glad he didn’t have the ability to get pregnant. He could only imagine what those wives of his were feeling, so insignificant, only a means to an end… but… that was rather what he was too. “And you just look at me and my cock is already twitching.” He smelled him again, nose blaring, hands trailing over the fabric of his apron and dress to feel up his thighs, grabbing at them before guiding him out of the entrance and into the living room. “Strip.”

It seemed so unnecessary for him to even be wearing clothes at all when they always ended up on the floor, especially such intricate clothes as well that needed to be removed with elegance and not shaky unsure fingers like his. But that was rather the point. It was a show, he guessed as he reached behind his back to undo the bow of the apron. A rather clunky graceless strip-tease, he mused when the apron fell unceremoniously to the floor, the dress following shortly after.

That was it, he’d learned, the rest Enji wanted to do on his own. He couldn’t understand how a man could still look so intimidating even when on his knees removing his shoes. Large, large hands cupping the small clothed feet, unclasping the buttons and sliding them out of their enclosure. He left the socks on this time, they were going to be part of the show, them and the bralette, and nothing else.

“Bend, I want to see that perfect little ass of yours.” His voice would be casual if it weren’t for the dripping boiling-hot lust that stuck to his tongue as he spun his toy around and pushed him over the back of the white couch, liking how it was too tall to meet his hips for a proper bend and instead aided in lifting him up on the very tips of his toes. He licked his lips, tugging on the crotch of his pants.

Scorching fingers grabbed the ample flesh of his ass, kneading it up like dough before he felt the wet sludge off his tongue gliding a trail up his spine, only stopping once he came to his neck where he began kissing wet, so very wet, drooling kisses up behind his ear. Again, inhaling through his nose as his clothed cock nuzzled neatly between his presented ass, humping into the welcoming heat.

“You smell good, did you shower like I asked...” Asked? They both knew it wasn’t a request, but yet he nodded his head from where he felt the blood beginning to pool where he was resting on the sofa-cushions upside-down. “Such a good pet.” His hips curved into him so he pushed his bulge up into his plushie backside, hands rubbing circles into his midriff, pulling him back to meet his mellow thrusts. “Is your throat still sore from choking on my cock?” His fingers, laid steadily on the softness of the couch, bending to grip the surface in order to hold himself back from crying. “Answer when you’re spoken to, pet.” Enji sounded bored, slightly bitter as he pressed his growing cock harder into his breakable little hostage.

He felt the tears begin to fall despite his efforts. “Sorry.” He pipped, half his face now buried in the couch. “My throat is fine, thank you for asking.” Enji’s hand went back to carelessly wandering, instead of gripping his hips so harshly.

“Good, I’m glad.” The statement didn’t seem heartfelt. “Spread your legs. Give me your hands.” His suspicion was answered through the heartless commands, Enji didn’t care.

He moved his feet away as much as he could without losing contact with the floor, which wasn’t really far at all, but he guessed Enji would steer him into the right position when the urge fell over him. Letting go of his grip on the couch-cushions proved more difficult as he was left sinking even further into the plushie surface without any support, yet he still managed, bending his elbows to fold his arms on his back, making it easier for Enji’s massive hand to grip both his wrists at the same time.

“I’ve been looking forward to taking this ass for so long…” He groaned, his hand giving the ass a rough squeeze. “Perhaps that’s why that slut can’t get me hard anymore, since I know what a perfect little pet I have waiting for me at home.” It was as though he used the fat of his ass as a handle to pull him up, lifting him briefly off the couch before dropping him back down again, hearing him give a little yelp at the action, again causing him to groan in satisfaction as he bumped his erection into where it fit so perfectly between his ass-cheeks. “I’ve been waiting so patiently… and so have you.” Enji mused, as though the boy at his mercy was having any of the same cravings. “I think today is the day we both get our reward.” Enji pulled on his wrists, dragging him off the couch, his feet meeting the cold floors again and quickly yanked into Enji’s hard chest. “I know you’re excited, but let’s get you to the bedroom first.” He taunted when he gave another squeal, looking up to see Enji’s unforgivingly hungry cerulean gaze, having tears and fears and swirling panic brimming in his own. “Wipe those tears, you can comfort yourself with having your face stuffed, use my cock like a pacifier.” The comment did far from comfort him, instead evoking a whimper as he swallowed thickly in a way of suppressing the hiccup that wanted to hitch in his throat at the dark promise.

He must have blacked out or zoned out or something alike it as a form of preparing himself for Enji, for when he came to he was upstairs, already placed on the bed, on his knees, in front of a naked Enji and large thighs made up of pure muscle and scares, and hair. Then of course the centerpiece, Enji’s large intimidating cock standing proudly up against his ripped stomach, with its angry mushroom-shaped swollen head puckering right into his face.

Enji’s hand rubbed lazily over the tip, smearing what precum had already beaded in the slit. Yet, he wasn’t given too long to just stand and admire it as Enji’s other massive hand come up to grip the nape of his neck, fingers tangling in his short locks to form a better hold, pulling him down to level with the beast, pushing him further, head mushed and buried to cuddle with the manhood. Enji’s hips leaning in on repeat to meet how his hand pushed his face against the sensitivity of his sex, balls slightly swinging up against his chin.

“Come on, use your tongue.” Enji didn’t waste any time, starting to pull at the roots of his hair in order to frighten him into obeying. He succeeded, as the boy opened his mouth and laid his tongue out flat to taste the salty skin it was pressed against. “Lick from the base.” Enji commanded and the boy listened, dragging his tongue up with the guidance of Enji’s hand steering the back of his head up the entire length of his cock. Pulling him slightly away from the activity, making the boy wince at the sharp stinging off his roots being yanked. Enji’s other hand gripping the base of the giant pole to tap it in a slapping fashion against the lips that seemed so welcoming and warm, the boy shutting his eyes allowing some more tears to drip from where they had been welling. “Open up.” He did as he was told, lips parting to accommodate for Enji’s weeping cockhead. “There you go, taste me.” He groaned as he pushed his head further onto his cock, traveling into his mouth, filling him up and prodding at the back of his throat. The boy knew better than to think he was any less than half-way done, yet he couldn’t hold back the reflex of gagging. Not that Enji paid any mind to the complaint, only placing his other hand to control his chin as he continued nudging himself deeper, sinking down his throat. “Come on, swallow all of me, I want to feel that cute nose buried in my belly with your tongue licking my balls.”

He tried relaxing his throat, choking his length and girth down and down, sniveling as he held back the urge to pull away, knowing how the hand Enji placed at the back of his head wouldn’t allow him to move anyway.

His eyes traveled backwards when the lightheadedness of being barely able to breath got to him, which was when Enji let up, freeing him as both hands took their leave from holding him steady. “Such a good pet, do as your told.”

He coughed into the bedsheets while Enji’s hand pet over his head, his own fingers tightly gripping the fabric beneath, knuckling the textile into his palm, trying to compose himself before his head was guided to look back up at Enji again, who seemed to tower over him even though the both of them were on their knees, though the boy was rather bowing for the giant red-headed man.

Enji’s fat fingers came to pry open his mouth, pushing past everything with little regard. “Suck these fingers for me.” Shoving the digits down his throats and fucking the soreness for a while before retracting them. “Spit in my palm.” He didn’t argue, unless the sniffling cough he gave were to be considered a protest, before spitting all the saliva his mouth had produced when being attacked by the mass that filled him up before. “Get back on that cock.” 

Again, he didn’t waste any time, adamant on making sure Enji knew that there was no need for him to be using his hands to force himself down his throat as he guzzled down on his length, bobbing up and down with his head, letting him kiss the back of his throat as he glugged with his lips forming a tight circle around his girth, using his tongue to slide out to cover what areas of his cock he couldn’t reach when swallowing him down at the pace he was going. Desperately trying to please the beast.

Enji gave no warning, pushing his fat digit into his puckering hole from where he was being such a good boy with sucking him down like he’d asked. Filling and stretching his little ass, dragging an adorable whine from his throat, a whine Enji received on his cock, the unrestrained voice giving nice little tremors to vibrate alongside his girth, settling somewhere at the tip of his cock before traveling down into his heavy balls, making him buck deeper into his face. “Wouldn’t want that cute butt to get lonely while I fuck this pretty face.” He explained, as he sank the finger even further into his ass, listening to him mewl a panicked whine around his cock, simply fucking even deeper into his face, hand clasping around the back of his head to better rut into his skull, finger roughly stretching out the tender tight muscles from behind.

He cursed gruffly once he let up, admiring as his pet drooled and spluttered to breath at the absence of his cock in his mouth, spit slobbering down his chin and landing in thick puddles dampening the bedsheets beneath them. 

“Look at me.” He whimpering as Enji once again grabbed a tight hold on his chin, rough fingertips planted into his cheeks, sliding in saliva as he forced him to look up, lifting him upright, so much so his hands needed to leave their station on the bed in favor of supporting himself against Enji’s chest or else he’d simply be held up by Enji hand like a noose. “Open that mouth up.” He did his best to comply with the demand with how his hand seemed to pressure his jaw shut, though he managed, having his cheeks squeezed and lips puckering like a duck out towards him, a perfect parted hole he could aim and spit right into. “Swallow that for me pet.” It came as a shock having Enji’s warm liquid shot onto his tongue but he quickly recovered, letting it slide down his jugular before he swallowed. “Good boy. What do you say?” He could feel him quenching his pride and all hopes of fighting back in the whimper that ran up beneath his fingers on his throat.

“Thank you, Daddy.” There was no spite in the words, just wholehearted defeat and surrender, and the potency of it all sprung right to Enji’s ego, making his attention-craving cock throb with neediness.

“Good pet.” Hand tightened around his throat to lift him even higher up to meet with his face, kissing his slick face roughly, stiff lips setting the motion, bloated lips following suite, before the hand around his throat once again took advantage of its power and threw him back down on his hands and knees. “Now finish your meal.” The statement held nothing but hungry cruelty, followed by a long blob of spit dripping slowly from his tongue onto his cock, sliding down its length. “Lick it up.” Unsure eyes looked up through stinging saltwater, finding no hint of mercy, encouraging him to do what he was told before earning himself a punishment. Mouth promptly taking the large cock into his mouth again, yet he felt the sting of a slap to his cheek all the same. “I said lick, not suck.” He resisted the urge to soothe the red stinging flesh of his cheek and did as he was corrected, tongue lapping up the underside of the angry cock in his face. “Yes… good… there you go.” He was praised, and though it made his stomach sink, he also felt relief, for at least praise was far away from disappointment and the punishment that followed such a resolution.

What followed was simply Enji’s rumbling groans and moans as his fingers played with the short locks of hair at the back of his head, somewhat steering where his head would go, how far away and how up close and personal, whether to suffocate him with cock or not. He compliantly slurped up and down his length with his tongue hanging out from his mouth, spit dribbling down his chin, down his neck, dropping to the bedsheets beneath them, before Enji groaned again, this time signaling that he was bored, hands yanking him away from the wet activity.

“Lie down on your back.” He wasn’t given much freedom to do so on his own as he was pushed down and kept down as Enji swung his leg over his chest where he laid beneath him, trapping face between his thick deadly hairy thighs, threatening to squish his head until it popped from the pressure. “Open your mouth up pretty.” He gaped, feeling the slick of Enji’s balls slide on his chest as he sat down on top of him, pushing much air from out of his breakable ribcage and the lungs beneath. Cock laid between his nipples, cockhead touching his chin. Again, a blob of his spit met his tongue, accompanied by a light playful slap against his cheek. “Keep it open.” He couldn’t hold up to Enji’s command as rough fingers pulled at his sensitive nipples, squeezing them and tugging at them through the thin lacy fabric of his bralette, rubbing on them, making him whine in discomfort, yet with his hands locked to his side underneath the contraption of Enji’s thighs, he was given no room to fight back. “So pretty.” Enji admired, tweaking the nibs tenderly as he rocked his hips forwards, cock sliding up and down his chest, balls squished against him, before he sat up again, kneeling with his cock and balls hovering over him, threatening to sit down and suffocate him while riding his face.

Enji gripped his cock and tugged it up and down to dance his balls on the pretty face beneath him, though the wet cavern he wanted to dip into shut into a thin line before he could.

“I said keep your mouth open.” He growled and the boy was reminded of the former command, promptly opening wide. “Tongue out, play with these balls, Pretty.” His tongue rolled out, at once met with the size of Enji’s nuts as they slid up and down his wet muscle. “You get to decide today: do you want a face full of cum or do you want me to fill that belly up?” He wasn’t given much air to retort with his mouth being filled with cock and balls, Enji’s hand resting on his forehead to keep him perfect and still for his manhood to abuse. “Come on, pick one.” He made him gag as he forced his entire pole down his throat, allowing him no chance to reply. “That’s fine, you can have both since you’re so spoiled.” Again, he stuffed his mouth with his balls, making him gargle and suckle on them, before he took his shaft in one hand and slapped the side of his face, liking how his eyes squeezed even tighter shut at the sharp contact. His face covered in spit and smeared with precum, slick and glossy, with pretty wet lashes. “Let’s paint that face first.” He slapped his face with the weight of his cock again, before placing it on the middle, balancing the slug on his lips and nose, resting between the bridge between his eyes, chin buried in his ball-sack. “Smile for me, smile for Daddy.” 

He forced on a broken uncomfortable smile where he laid beneath the brute man, eyes still kept shut. Enji smeared what oozing precum had breached his tip onto his lips, as though requesting him to open up, which he did, being met with the entire mass of his cock stuffing his mouth, tickling the back of his throat as he fucked into his face. 

“Swallow me down, Pretty. Stay right there.” He choked and gagged at the feel of him continuously pushing into the tight canal of his throat, yet wasn’t allowed to move as Enji’s hand still balanced his head by tugging at the hairs over his forehead, pushing him into place. He coughed and spluttered desperately once Enji let go, though was given minimum time to collect himself again before Enji gave another growling and ruggedly desperate command. “Smile.”  

He fisted his length in his palm, finger rubbing over the tip, pumping furiously into the face beneath him before thick ropes of white cream came shooting out of the tip, hot and wet and sticky when it landing all over his face, running down his cheek, into his mouth, letting him taste bittersweet salt on his tongue.

Enji continued rubbing himself, though slower now, eyes scrunched close as he held onto the euphoric feeling of exploding, feeling himself gradually and too quickly for his liking, coming down from the high, though as he opened his eyes and looked down at what pretty artwork he’d made on his pet’s face he found that he was far from finished.

“What do you say?” His hand’s movements were slow and calculating as he rubbed himself tenderly, without rush.

“Thank you, Daddy.” He hiccupped, relieved to get some rest even as the stench of Enji aided in his discomfort, feeling his stickiness begin to dry on his skin. The rest didn’t last long though as Enji’s cockhead bumped into his lips, demanding he open up to take him inside his mouth again.

“Clean the tip.” He sucked on the mushroom-head, tongue swiping up to clean out the weeping slit. “Such a hungry spoiled pet. Does Daddy taste good?”

He let go with a pop to answer, knowing it was better to just play along. “Mmh, yes, Daddy.” He kissed the head, strings of slime connecting his lips to the thick pole. “Thank you, Daddy.”

Enji reached his hand behind him to find the perky perfect nipples he played with before, pulling at the nib to retract an open-mouthed whine from the boy, allowing him full access to the welcoming wet hole. “Suck some more, get all your spit out on me, get my cock nice and ready for your little butt.” He felt him whine and whimper on his cock at the sound of his words, the panic feeling delicious as it came out like vibrations tickling alongside his length, settling in his balls as he once again fucked into his little face, with him having no chance of escaping, being trapped so perfectly between his thighs. But, his face had gotten used and abused enough, and it was high time he buried himself balls-deep in the no doubt tight hole of his ass and fucked him into a crippled stupid mess.

“Come on, up on your knees.” Strong hands grabbed his hips as he moved off of him, dragging him up into position before he even knew what was happening, with no strength of his own to support himself, falling face first into the pillow to rest, an agonizingly cute display to the man standing behind him, lining him up. “Little boy is gonna get his ass stuffed by Daddy.” He started to jerk himself off, holding his hip and pulling him close. The hand ascending to his mouth so that he could spit into his palm, gathering wetness before grabbing the limp cock of his pet in his massive warm hand, resulting in the boy jolting out of his resting pose, surprised by the sudden touch of his sensitive member. Though he was pushed back down again by Enji’s other hand, it having left his own cock leaving it to rest between his ass-cheeks. “No, no.” He scolded. “Posture, Babyboy, face down in your pillow.” The massive hand pet over his head, pressuring him to simply lie there and take it. “Get this ass up.” He corrected his stance by pulling his hip up into position, back arching like a cat stretching, ass pulled close into Enji’s crotch. “Hands on your back, give me those hands.” He fished for the limp arms, folding them behind his back, letting go once he was assured the boy knew to listen to the order. “Now spread those knees.” Enji took hold of his thighs and shuffled his knees further to the side, the boy feeling the wetness of cold spit on the sheets, as Enji continued stroking the cock between his thighs so lovingly and tenderly, rubbing over the sensitive tender velvety cockhead again and again, feeling him leaning back and shivering under the touch. “There we go, perfect.” The hand pressed against his back dragged down his spine slowly, before it stopped to cup the ample soft dome of flesh, his thumb swiping over the unprotected tight butthole, all ready for the taking, helpless and broken and all his. “Are you excited?” Enji shuffled back on his knees, giving a quick glance over the perfect ass in front of him to inspect the face that was neatly and snuggly squished against the pillow, happy to see the pretty concoction of fear, surrender and anticipation displayed on his face, just like a submissive pet should look.

He shuddered as he felt Enji’s warm breath on his ass, the exposed sensitive ring of tender flesh slightly burning at the feeling.

“No one’s ever taken this ass before, have they?” The statement was rhetorical as he already knew the answer and was instead a gesture made simply to gloat, as it was followed by a satisfactory hum and a set of warm wet lips pressing a sloppy kiss onto the puckering opening, hand still jerking his cock, having him shivering for him. “You’re all nice and ripe for me?” Another wet kiss was placed at the entrance, though this time the lips remained tightly locked, mouth sucking on the skin, tongue laid out flat as he dragged the rough rigid texture up over the hole, before poking through the sensitive rim, pumping the fat wet muscle in and out of the tightness. He let go with a smacking pop, lips quitting their suction.

His thighs were shaking by the end of it, his cock still held firmly in Enji’s hand, allowing him no room to move away, in fear he might just rip his dick off. Enji balanced his own cock between the perfect set of plump ass-cheeks raised up for him. Putting his thumb into his mouth before he once again rubbed it over the now wet hole, pushing through the tight rings of muscle to bury the digit inside. “So tight.” Came his rugged breath as he groaned, beginning to rock his hips forward while pulling the boy back to meet him by the thumb he had hooked inside him, his thighs meeting with the back of his ass, as his cock stroked through the crack, where large heavy balls clapped against smaller ones.

The thumb was removed, though not the hand handling his cock as he was left drooling into the pillow he was pressed against, his own hands going numb where he’d managed to keep them perfectly folded behind his back. Though the absence of the thick thumb was soon replaced, doubled even, as two fingers sank into the hole, promptly curling them, forcing him to whine like a cat, a moan so wet it stuck in the drool in his throat. He whimpered as the digits parted from each-other inside him, stretching him out, before pumping them in and out slowly, working the tightness.

Enji groaned at the sound of the boy’s measly whimpers, wet and pathetic, perfect. “I think your pretty ass is ready.” He gripped his cock, tugging on it up against his stomach, spitting onto the glistening wet hole presented to him, the one he was soon going to plant himself deep within. He slowly and carefully, taking his precious time, as though savoring it, lined his manhood up at the puckered opening, gently pushing his twitching cock into the back entrance, forcing a cry out of the smaller creature at his mercy. “That’s so tight…” He moaned, closing his eyes, focusing on the tight snug fit pressing around his cockhead, hugging him close. His fingers had definitely made it easier to enter, but it wasn't enough to make it easy by any means. “Does it feel good?” The tone was patronizing, as though he was talking to a child, looking over at the drooling mess he was burying himself inside, feeling his butt twitch around the fatness of his tip, as though sucking on it. “Want me deeper?” He started slowly sliding in inch by agonizing inch. Breaching each ring of muscles that surrounded his fat length. “All the way?” Watching as his hard sex disappeared into the ample ass until he was completely engulfed. The view alone had him pulsing inside.

One hand steadied the ass, making it easier to sink into place without any interruptions or split-second fearful protests, acting as a represent and fear-tactic, threatening to land a sharp painful smack against the soft flesh if he were to go against what Enji had made clear was going to happen one way or the other. The other hand had more or less the same purpose, where it laid slow attentive strokes to the unsheathed throbbing cock. Though as he bottomed out inside his ass, the hand moved from playing with the painfully tender pulsating pole in favor of fondling the balls at its base, gathering both his own and his pet’s in his warm palm and messaging them together before he slid slowly out of the clenching tight hole, enjoying the tremors that seemed to wreck though the frail body he had positioned in prayer-stance before him.

“You like that?” Enji purred, having pulled almost all the way out before pushing back inside the warm walls of his slave. “You like getting taken in your tight little ass?” He wasn’t necessarily fishing for any response, most likely the opposite, simply wanting to prove how right and good and perfect their dynamic was, how this is something they both wanted, both needed. “Nothing to say, pet?” He snickered as he once again stuffed him completely full with his cock, listening to the wet choked moans that were whined into the pillow beneath him. “Is my little pet enjoying himself that much, is my cock that good?” He picked up the pace, only a little, rocking faster, fast enough for his balls to begin swinging to hit the other pair of balls it met with each soft thrust. “Tell me how good my cock is.” The hand steadying him squeezed the plush doughy flesh, a pain sharp enough to bring him to his senses, allowing him to formulate what words he knew Enji wanted to hear.

“Fe- feels good, Daddy, thank you Da- Daddy, feels so, so goo- good.” He croaked, face hugging the pillow close, buried in the fluff of it, the plush sucking up what drool seeped from out the corner of his mouth, and what tears spilled down from the corner of his eyes. The cover wet and sticky and itchy against his skin as he rocked softly further into it each time Enji filled him up and pushed him down.

“That’s right.” Enji drawled with a smirk, gorging at the submissive wet mess he had wrapped around himself. “And you thought you were scared.” He chastised. “When we both knew you were just hungry.”

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic.

chapter eleven: after you've gone

word count: ~12.6k

rating: m

warnings: canon-typical religious blasphemy, though it's in full-force here with joseph so i wanted it to be noted in the warnings. there are mentions of self-harm, both past and implied presently, and they're not treated very lightly. elliot is having a hard time.

notes: there's a lot of moving parts in this so i apologize in advance if it feels a bit slow, but everything felt really important to include and i wanted to make sure nothing got left out. thank you so much to my beta @starcrier who literally proofed this beast with all of the love in the world.

i won't ramble on too much, but i did want to say that the reception for the last two chapters really made my whole heart just explode and i wanted to thank you all! what an incredible experience it is getting to write these two gigantic idiots. <3

“I saw her. Our mor.”

Helmi cradled the phone between her shoulder and ear, scribbling absently on the side of the file she’d continued nosing through once she’d gotten back to the bunker. Like this, she felt far from Kajsa—farther than she had in the longest time. Maybe since they had welcomed her into the Family.

“Did you?” She stretched back against the truck’s seat, feet kicked up on the dash as she scanned the page, going over her own notes. Starvation, classical condition. On animals and people? In the back seat of the truck, Peaches rumbled her discontent at lack of attention; Helmi reached back and scratched her ears until the rumble turned into what she recognized as a more contented purr.

“Yes. She is doing well. Her color is just as Ase said, you know. Perfectly balanced. Poor John—I can see his suffering.”

Helmi hmm’d, the thoughtfulness matching the patient rumble Peaches had rewarded her affection with.

“Is Deputy Pratt behaving?”

“I should hope so. He has no reason to have any loyalty to the Seeds, outside of fear.”

There was a pause on the other end of the phone. Helmi was sure, in the very marrow of her bones, that Kajsa was smiling.

“And what did you give him, Helmi? To make him loyal?”

She considered. “A more impressive fear.” And then: “Also, I said I wouldn’t kill him.”

“That is just a more impressive fear bundled up pretty, my heart.”

“Mm,” Helmi replied in agreement. Whatever the case, she thought that Pratt had more to gain from fucking the Seeds over than he did by fucking them over—and that’s why Kajsa entrusted this sort of thing to her and didn’t do it herself, after all. If it had been Kajsa here, eyeing Pratt like a piece of lunchmeat, she’d have him drugged to the gills and barely aware of what was going on. Not being of use.

It’s why we make a perfect pair, something inside of her said, joy shared, joy doubled.

“Don’t rest on your laurels.”

Sorrow shared, sorrow halved.

Helmi sighed. “I’m not.”

“Keep putting pressure. I want them squirming, hjärtat.”

“I will.” She paused, sitting up in the truck and glancing out at the remaining members of the Family. Those that hadn’t given themselves a swift, clean death. After Kian’s face was crushed in, Kajsa had gathered them all and said, It’s going to be harder, from here. If you feel you cannot do it, if you think that you do not have the strength to answer our calling, then it is your time. We love you.

It had been the time for many. Morale had been—and still was—low. Ase’s death first, gut-wrenching and tragic, and then Kian’s; worse than the last. Worse, because while he had been grieving, while he had been suffering, he had still been their second-in-command. Meant to be infallible, even more so than Ase. He had been meant to carry them into their next life, after It was appeased. Contented. After It had turned the world to winter.

Now, more than ever, with only a handful of them left to huddle around their fires and sleep in the backs of cars, and kiss and laugh and hug each other in the inky black night, they felt like a ship adrift at sea.

Kajsa’s voice hummed in her ear, plastic and metal vibrating where it lay trapped between her head and shoulder. Helmi’s gaze swept away from the remaining Family members and turned her gaze back to the file. The Seeds were deeply rooted in this place—the tendrils of a tree that might be dead at the trunk but stayed for many decades after, if it wasn’t ripped out at the base.

“Did you hear me, Helmi?”

“No,” she replied truthfully. “I was distracted.”

“I am coming back,” Kajsa reiterated patiently.

“The others will be happy.”

“And what about you? Will you be happy?”

Helmi paused. She closed the file, dropped it back onto the dashboard and cranked the seat back so that she could stretch a little, her eyes tracing the tinny, ancient ceiling of the truck she’d lifted from Eden’s Gate. She exhaled, once, and then held her breath; closed her eyes, felt the ache of it between her ribs.

“I sense before me a lost lamb.”

“Not lost,” Helmi replied, her lungs tight. “Just—thinking.”

“Must I divine the dark cloud over your soul myself?”

She allowed her body to take air back in. “I wonder,” she murmured, “if it will be enough to appease the Father.”

“Do you wonder,” Kajsa hummed, “or do you worry?”

A moment of silence stretched. And then, the rich, melodic timbre of the Hierophant’s voice came through again, idle and pulled snug against her ear, like Kajsa was really right there again to say the words against her skin: “What will you do, if Staci Pratt defects despite your Machiavellian threats of harm so great he should never consider to incur it?”

“I don’t know,” Helmi replied uneasily. “It would depend on if he brought mor and the interloper, or if he just—”

“The answer, hjärtat, is that you do not know, because it has not been revealed to you yet.” Despite the interruption, Kajsa’s voice was pleasant and serene. Ever since Ase’s death, she’d been more tempered—like she was playing a role, filling a void. Helmi almost missed her cruelty. Like it was a creature comfort. “There is no use in wondering, because we will never know before it is our time to. We want for much. Whether or not we are given it remains to be seen. Our Father is a most...”

Her voice trailed off. Helmi tried to think of what words Kajsa might use; stringent, perhaps, ambitious, or even enigmatic—

“Wretched god,” Kajsa finished, a grin in her voice. “It does so love to watch us toil, does It not?”

“Yes,” she answered after a moment, because wretched resonated somewhere in her soul, somewhere in the marrow of her bones, reminding her why this had felt like home ever in the first place. Wretched, to watch them suffer, to give them so little information and let them suffer wreck after wreck.

In front of her, the dark of the forest swelled, breathed, reminded her: failure was not an option. Theirs was not a benevolent, forgiving God, the kind who would forgive sin if one only asked—the Father was wrathful, was vengeful, and would make them suffer their insolence and their ineptitude.

“I should get going. I imagine our mor will not be far behind, thanks to your ingenuity, and I want to be in Hope County to welcome her.”

“I am,” Helmi blurted out after a second of hesitation, “happy, that you’re coming back.”

There was a pause on the other end; and then, a soft breath, where Helmi thought maybe Kajsa was smiling again.

“Ingenting under solen är beständigt, my heart.”

The call clicked. Only empty air and static, then, buzzing faintly in the ear, the words dead in her mouth before she’d had the chance to say them back.

Nothing under the sun is lasting.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Elliot was going to be sick. Nevermind the morning-after-dread of realizing she had caved in on her most basest animal desires—What, the man who’s perhaps lied to you the most tells you he’s never thought you’re crazy, and you let him fuck you? Come on, Elliot,—but listening to Pratt ramble nervously into the phone about how he didn’t realize everyone was gone, nobody stopped to look for him, nobody tried to call, he thought she had left too and she had, where was she? Was she okay?

“I’m fine,” she managed out. Guilt ripped through her sternum, burning hot and shameful. I’m fine, Pratt, don’t worry about me. Got well and truly railed last night, it’s fine. Oh, also, I’m going to have a baby. And I’m married. Don’t worry, you found out about the same time as me, just off a few weeks. “I’m at my mom’s.”

“In Georgia?”

“Yeah.” Elliot swallowed thickly. “Are you okay? You sound like shit.”

Pratt laughed uneasily on the other end of the line. “I’m with, uh—I’m with them.” He paused. “The Seeds. And their—the lawyer lady.”

“That doesn’t tell me if you’re okay,” she reiterated, more firmly.

He laughed again. “I’m on the phone with you, aren’t I?”

Frustrating. They might all be looming around him, waiting to hear what she was going to say. It was a trap, of course. Jacob or Joseph had done enough digging around in her past to find out they’d gone to school together, had gone to school dances, had basically dated—and they knew she’d evacuated the entirety of the Resistance otherwise. They were clearly laying a trap to get her to come back. But for what?

“Hey, um—” Staci cleared his throat. “Ell, there’s—a lot of bad stuff going on. There’s these people, and they’re—they’re just killing people, left and right, gutting them and sticking them up and—Jesus, they fucking split Miss Mabel open like a fish, and I’m—”

Oh, there it was; the sickness, the violent urge to throw up. The Family was supposed to be dead. They had been killing themselves off in pairs after Kian’s death, weren’t they? Elliot blinked rapidly, trying to calm the furious beating of her heart, the way it slammed against her rib cage and demanded penance.

Calloused fingers swept her hair to the side and squeezed at the juncture between her neck and shoulder in an attempt to comfort her. She closed her eyes tight, willing herself to accept it for what it was—John, comforting her, because even now he knew her well enough to see she was spiraling.

I can’t, is what she needed to say. I can’t come back, Staci, I can’t, not me and not my baby, my hands are already covered in blood I’m sorry I’m sorry I’m sorry—

“—I’m so fucking scared, Ell.” Pratt’s voice wobbled on the other end, hitting straight at the fresh welt of guilt in her chest, ripping and tearing at it.

I can’t—

“I don’t want to be alone—”

I’m sorry I can’t I’m sorry—

“—I’m sorry—”

“I’ll come,” she blurted out, her voice hoarse, the burn behind her eyes and in her nose a threat of oncoming tears. She couldn’t stand it—couldn’t bear to hear him like this, when this whole time he was supposed to have been safe. She’d let him down, and while she had a responsibility to herself, the responsibility to the others had always come first.

And, better still, was the tiny, tiny fragment of hope that the dark-haired woman with a mouth like broken glass would be left behind, too. The dog with the man’s face and the strands of her hair glinting between Its bloody teeth would stay here, in Weyfield. It would wait for her, but perhaps there would be some peace there, too.

It waits for you, It waits for us all, It will have you. As It gives, so too does It take.

“Tell them I’m coming back.” Elliot bit the words out through her teeth. “And tell them if I come back and you’re hurt, or dead, or—if there’s anything wrong with you, I’m going to fucking kill them. Okay?”

“No need,” came Jacob’s voice over the phone. “You’re on speaker, Deputy Honeysett. We’re well acquainted with your particular brand of mania.”

“Great,” she snapped, feeling a vicious flush spread through her cheeks despite the fact that she didn’t feel bad at all for what she’d said. “You thought I was fucking manic before? I had nothing to lose, then. Imagine how much worse I’ll make your life now—”

John’s hand squeezed again. This time, she shot him a venomous look over her shoulder and shrugged him off. Elliot knotted her fingers in Boomer’s fur and prompted again, “Is that clear?”

The eldest Seed sounded like he was smiling when he said, “Crystal, Deputy.”

“Good.” She paused. “And don’t fucking call me that. I’m not a deputy, anymore.”

“Sure thing, hellcat.”

“Pratt—”

Jacob’s voice came again: “Have a safe trip.”

The phone call beeped once, twice, three times, and then ended. The hard knot of dread in the pit of her stomach did not lessen; she hit the redial button, and it went straight to voicemail. Again, and again, and again, her hands shaking as she thought wait, I didn’t get to say goodbye, I didn’t get to promise I’d be there, I’m coming Pratt, I’m coming please don’t be worried, before she shoved the phone into John’s grip.

“Call him back,” she demanded, “make him pick up the phone—”

“Elliot,” he began, “if he turned the phone off, I can’t—”

“Fuck you!” she snapped, coming to a stand and raking her fingers through her hair. “You fucking knew they had Pratt, didn’t you? You knew that he was still trapped there and he didn’t get out, and you fucking left him there, so that you could pull me back if it didn’t go the way you wanted—”

John stood too, setting the phone on the bedside table and lifting his hands. The gesture was meant to calm and soothe, see my hands? Here they are, no threat here, but all it did was make her angrier, stoke a fire inside of her that had apparently lain dormant since she’d left Hope County.

Elliot smacked his hands down. “Don’t treat me like some fucking animal, John.”

“I’m not,” he defended quickly, dropping his hands all the way back to his sides when Boomer barked twice, sharp and accusatory, hackles lifting. “I didn’t know Pratt was still there. I thought the Resistance had got him out, and I didn’t bother asking.”

“You should have bothered—”

“I’m just as displeased as you are,” John interjected dryly, the dark coloring of his tone implying that he was—but for perhaps a different reason. It struck her that he might, in fact, be so displeased because he was aware of their history, on some level. It did feel a little gratifying to know that he was squirming for such an insignificant reason.

“You fuckhead,” she spit. “You put a fucking baby in me and you still have the insecurity of a middle school boy.”

“We both know,” he replied tartly, “that our baby is not in any way binding you to me, Elliot. And is it so shocking, considering that the thing that I want most in the world is for you to come home, and you fight me at every turn—”

“Hope County isn’t my home anymore—”

“—but Staci Pratt calls you and cries a little into the phone, and you’re jumping at the bit to go back?”

“Fuck. Off,” Elliot bit out between her teeth, face flushing. “Pratt is my friend, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Right,” John agreed, “because you let the person you hate fuck you.”

Her mouth clamped shut, biting and swallowing back a wad of venom she thought might make her sick if she let it out. There was too much of it, the things that she wanted to say—fuckyoufuckyoufuckyou, I fucking hate you, you make me sick, if anything is wrong with Pratt I’ll kill your brothers and then I’ll fucking kill you too—but she didn’t say any of it.

Instead, she said, “Get out. I’m getting changed and we’re leaving.”

John sighed, passing a hand over his face for a moment like maybe he regretted what he’d said. “We can’t.”

She felt her voice spike, near incredulous hysteria: “Pardon?”

“Old Father Time of the Job Ineptitude mentioned he had Federal agents showing up out of nowhere,” he snapped. The words had her stomach twisting; her first thought was a tiny spike of happiness at the idea of Cameron Burke, and then it was quickly doused by the sharp reminder that she’d stolen his gun and ran with it. Because he thought she was crazy. Because he was going to put her behind bars.

John continued, “He seemed to be implying it was somehow related to me showing up, and by proxy you, and if we up and leave—”

“It’ll make it look more suspicious,” she finished, feeling a little numb. “Okay, so—what? How long do we have to wait?”

He scratched his cheek, his eyes flickering absently over the duvet on the bed, like he was trying to map it out in his own head. No doubt, he was trying to operate on multiple timelines—the timeline of Not Raising Suspicion, and whatever timeline Joseph had given him.

Some things really did never change.

“After your mother’s Christmas party,” he ventured finally. “It’s not quite Christmas—could look enough like we’re sticking around for enough holiday cheer to be passable before leaving again. Pritchard’s clearly not unfamiliar with your mother’s...”

His voice trailed off. He looked to her as though asking for permission to say something critical; when Elliot remained stonefaced and immovable, he finished, “...temperament.”

“Nice save.”

“Well,” he replied, humble as ever. “Anyway, that probably wouldn’t rouse suspicion. If it is Burke, and your house isn’t getting stormed right now, I have to think he’s here on unofficial business. Otherwise, why wouldn’t they just come and bust the door down and grab you?”

Elliot hoped that was the case. She hoped this meant that Burke was just trying to find her, and was not hunting her down at the behest of the government. If there was one thing that Joseph had been right about amidst all his doomsday-saying and whatnot, it was that according to the news, there was a big chance the government had bigger things on their hands. Bigger concerns than a tiny town in Montana and its cult inhabitants.

“Get out,” she said again. “So I can change.”

“You—” John sucked in a little breath, stopping himself from what was inevitably going to be stirring another argument; he lifted his hands again, this time in surrender. “Alright, Ell. I said you’d get anything you want, I’ll give it to you.”

“Chop-chop.”

“I’m going. Mind if I pull some clothes on before I walk out into the house owned by your mother, where she has almost assuredly been sipping her vodka martini since four AM?”

She felt her eyes narrow. “Fine.”

Turning, she crossed the bedroom into the master bath and shut the door behind her, pressing the heels of her palms to her eyes until fine webbing scattered across the dark of her eyelids. This was the last thing she needed—and it felt, surely, traitorous and awful to think it, to think, this is the last thing I need, Pratt needing rescuing, when the only reason she’d felt comfortable leaving Hope County in the first place was because she thought the only people who were left were cultists.

Elliot dropped her hands from her eyes, blinking a few times until her vision cleared. In the mirror—much as it had been since coming back from Hope County—stood a girl that she thought looked like a stranger. Blushed cheeks and kiss-reddened lips, her neck littered with love marks, the healthy glow blooming up from beneath the WRATH scar on her chest, exposed by her loosely cinched robe.

That’s not me, she thought, pulling absently on a strand of red hair and swallowing thickly. I’m not that girl.

Her face was softer than before, more lively color rising up around her eyes and cheeks and mouth. More of her freckles had come out. There was a tiny, tiny—almost imperceptible—slope to her tummy, now, too.

Not me, came the thought again, more distressed this time, her brows pulling together at the center of her forehead. That’s not me. I’m not that girl. Who are you, pretty girl? Not me.

The woman and her dark hair—dark dark dark, like an oil slick, looming in the corner of her mind. Her mouth red as pomegranate and stretched like broken glass.

I hear stress is bad for the baby.

A knock came at the door. Elliot blinked, feeling unwell and unsure of how long she’d been standing there, her hand having dropped to cup the slope of her stomach experimentally. Women did that, right? When they were pregnant? Did it make them feel closer to the baby? Did it make them feel more protected?

Did she feel safer?

“Ell,” John said, nudging the door open, “your mother is...”

Pulling away from the door, she cinched the robe tight and busied herself at the sink, turning the water on. As he stepped into the bathroom, she could see John was now fully-dressed, freshly-showered. She’d been standing in front of the mirror trying to recognize the person staring back at her long enough for him to do that, it seemed.

“That was a quick shower,” she said briskly, splashing her face and rubbing absently at her cheek. She could feel John’s eyes on her through the mirror, even though she refused to meet them.

“I’ve always preferred it that way,” he replied casually. And then: “Get distracted?”

Yes, she thought, but didn’t say, because then the things he’d said last night that had made her feel sane and normal wouldn’t mean anything anymore. John would have said I don’t think you’re crazy and he’d have to take it back, because if she told him there was a stranger standing in her mirror, he would think she was crazy.

“It’s weird,” is what Elliot offered after a moment, trying to find a way to be honest and redirect, “to see a baby bump. Even if it’s small.” She cleared her throat and fished her toothbrush out of the holder. Continuing briskly, she added, “And the scar. I spent a lot of time avoiding it.”

John’s expression had done that funny thing that she supposed was softening at her words. He stepped forward; the ghost of his fingers trailing her ribs over the robe made her skin prickle with goosebumps.

“I’m not done being mad at you,” she warned him, eyes flickering to meet his gaze through the mirror.

“I know,” he replied, tone agreeable. “I just—”

The brunette paused then, waiting for her to stop him before he smoothed the warmth of his palm over her hip, across the expanse of her abdomen. It was painfully intimate in a way that didn’t imply sex—intimate, in the way that she felt seen, that she could see the relief coloring the edges of his expression.

John pressed his mouth to the back of her shoulder. “Just missed you,” he murmured after a moment. “Getting to touch you. Even just like this. Especially just like this—”

Something panged sharp and unforgiving in her chest. “Well, don’t get used to it,” she replied tightly, brushing his hand away from the baby bump after letting it linger for a moment. “And I don’t remember inviting you in.”

“Your mother was asking after you,” John said, by way of explanation, looking pleased from their little moment. Fucker. “She wanted to know if you’d be drinking coffee this morning. I think her exact words were, ‘Mr. Seed, would you ask my daughter if she’s going to take the risk of drinking coffee this morning? I know she shouldn’t be, with her condition—’”

“Ugh.”

“‘—but since we’re going to be picking out her dress for the Christmas party today, I could make an exception—’”

“Fuck me,” she muttered, wetting her toothbrush and putting the toothpaste on it. “Ask her if she can make it extra strong.”

“I’m actually enjoying being out of your mother’s ire for a minute.”

Elliot rolled her eyes. “No coffee for me.”

“Got it.” John headed for the bathroom door, and then paused again, turning to look at her. “Ell,” he began, “I really didn’t know—you know, about Pratt.”

That pesky little flutter of something agonizingly sweet—softness—in her chest flared again.

“I don’t want to talk about it anymore,” is what she said, before she turned the toothbrush on and started scrubbing her teeth. That seemed enough of an answer for John, for once, because he left and closed the door quietly behind him after deliberating.

The minutes, and hours, and days—well, day or two—until they got back to Hope County were going to be something close to agony. She could only hope they had taken her seriously when she told them that she’d better come back to a Pratt in one piece.

I don’t want to be alone. Pratt’s voice echoed hauntingly in her head. She thought she could remember the sound of voices in the background—a woman’s, at least. Faith? Or John’s friend, Isolde? Surely Jacob and Joseph were there listening to him call her, too. She’d been so fucking stupid to let them get to her.

No, not stupid. Not stupid to want Pratt to feel safe, and like someone was coming back for him.

I’m sorry, she thought tiredly, as though the words could somehow get to him. I’m sorry, that it’s me you have to wait for.

I’m sorry that I won’t be the person you remembered.

I’m sorry.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“You did so well, Staci.”

Faith’s voice jarred him out of the weird pause in time he’d been marinating in. It had been just a few seconds, maybe—Jacob and Joseph were talking in low voices, the dark-haired woman standing at the point of their little triangle with her arms crossed and her brows furrowed—that his brain had shut off, the distress in Elliot’s voice echoing eerily in his head. She’d sounded so upset. He wouldn’t have called, wouldn’t have started to ask her to come back, if he’d known how much she didn’t want to.

But that wasn’t true, either. He would have called, because Helmi had said, Either the Seeds are going to drag her back by her hair kicking and screaming, and eventually kill her, or she comes back and we keep her safe.

‘Safe’ had been the keyword there. He didn’t know how much he could take the woman at her word, but considering everything—well, it was better than trying to take the Seeds at their word.

Faith’s hand touched the back of his, startling him into a tiny jump. He cleared his throat. “Um—I wasn’t...Acting.”

“Still,” she replied sweetly, “I know it must have been hard.”

She was so polished—skin all dusted silver and moonlike, flushed with a little high color in her cheeks, her blonde hair tumbling around her face loosely. In the chapel, the air was tepid at best, and frigid at worst, keeping a little pink in everyone’s faces.

It was strange to look at her now. Her hands were soft; her skin unblemished. Just hours ago, he’d been sitting in the car, noticing the same kinds of details about Helmi—about how human she looked, hand slung over a steering wheel, her cracked phone plugged into the truck’s stereo and her chipped nail polish and the scars and bruises littering her knuckles. The way she’d shot him a toothy, wolfish grin as she cranked the volume up and said, What, Staci Pratt, you don’t like Blue Öyster Cult either?

In comparison, Faith didn’t feel human at all. She felt like a dream.

“Can—” Pratt came to a stand, rubbing his palms on the tops of his thighs. “Can I go? Lay down, or something?”

Three pairs of eyes snapped to him. The dark-haired woman, who Jacob kept referring to as Sol, completely ignored his question and looked at the redhead to say, “Has someone checked him for head trauma?”

“I’m not—concussed!” Pratt snapped, his voice wobbling. “I’m just tired.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. He looked like maybe he wanted to say something, and then reconsidered, saying, “Dr. Hale will take a look at you and then sure, Peaches, you can rest.”

It took every ounce of his self-control to not tell Jacob to stop calling him that. He had to remember that as far as they were concerned, he hadn’t been taken in by the “other side”, he’d been sitting scared and meek like a good boy at the compound.

Pratt’s eyes darted, catching sight of the woman that Jacob gestured to with a free hand. Right. The Fall’s End vet. She’d been here for what—a little over a year? He couldn’t tell if she was being held captive by Eden’s Gate or if she was there by her own volition, though the few times he’d run into her before she’d seemed like a pretty even-keel person. Didn’t she have like, two degrees or something? What was she doing here?

He made his way to the back of the church, meeting the curly-haired blonde halfway. Definitely looked too clean to be a cultist. “You’re not a people doctor, right?” he asked uneasily, watching as her head cocked to the side and her mouth quirked in a bit of amusement.

“No, Mr. Pratt, I am not a people doctor.” She fell into step beside him, opening the chapel door for him. “But I do have first aid training, which I think is about as good as you’re going to get around these parts.”

“I didn’t get a concussion.”

“That’s good. When was the last time you ate?”

His mouth twisted in a frown, trailing after through the snow as the cold began to sink into his bones. She seemed awfully confident moving around the compound, if she wasn’t part of the cult. But if she was, what was she doing here? How did—?

Pain bloomed behind his eyes, a fresh headache sinking into his nerves. Too much. It was too much confusion, about Elliot (pregnant? And John Seed was with her?) and about the Family and about all of these—these people that he didn’t really recognize hanging around the Seeds. And the compound was so quiet. Where was everyone? Had the Family really taken that many of Eden’s Gate out?

“Mr. Pratt?”

The woman opened a door into a bunkhouse that glowed with golden light from within and radiated heat. Two long-haired shepherds lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, lifting long faces and peering at him with dark eyes. He stepped inside and cleared his throat.

“Uh, a day, maybe,” he replied after a minute. Taking a seat when she gestured for him to, he shifted uncomfortably as she set a first aid kid on the cushion beside him and pulled one of the wooden chairs up in front of him.

“And slept?” She blew a curl out of her face and opened the kit, fishing around to find some alcohol wipes and Neosporin. He guessed he was a bit worse for wear than he’d thought, initially; not that he’d been taking great care of himself, even when it had just been him and Dani. She’d encouraged him to stay high, not stay better.

Fuck, I’m such an idiot.

He let out a little hiss when she pressed one of the alcohol wipes to a cut on his cheek.

“The same,” he replied, reaching up and brushing her hand away. “What—what are you doing here, doctor?”

“Arden is fine.” She sat back, regarding him curiously. “I’m cleaning that cut, Mr. Pratt. It looks agitated.”

“No, I—” Pratt let out a little breath. “I mean here. In the compound.”

Arden stared at him for a moment, like she didn’t understand why he was asking her that question. She lifted her hand and arched a brow inquisitively; when he nodded shortly, she leaned forward again, balancing her free hand on his shoulder and using the other to gently dab at the cut.

“I’ve spent the last month or so holed up in my house,” she explained to him. “Me, and the dogs, I mean.”

A little smile ghosted over her lips, and despite himself, Pratt felt a wry smile tugging at his own. It was difficult not to feel relaxed, when Arden moved with so much surety. In the glow of the radiators ticking away and the warm yellow light, especially.

“Mostly reading. They had assigned one of the boys to me—Santiago. I think he’s John’s man. He doesn’t strike me as one of Joseph or Faith’s.”

Pratt made a little noise of agreement, because he knew exactly what she was talking about. She dropped the alcohol wipes to the side and reached over for the Neosporin, dabbing some onto her finger and then reaching back up to resume her work.

“Sorry,” he said after a moment. “That you got—stuck, I mean. Here.”

“Oh, you don’t need to apologize, Mr. Pratt.”

“I feel partially responsible,” he admitted, feeling some of the tension flee his shoulders. “You know, being law enforcement and all—”

“Hold still, please.”

“Sorry,” he said again. “I guess what I mean is—sometimes it feels like a real failing on our part. All of those people, I...”

He paused, and Arden leaned back, giving him a pat on the knee. “That’s alright, Mr. Pratt,” and her voice bloomed with comfort. “Where was I?”

“Up at your house, with the dogs and maybe one of John’s men.”

“Right. I wasn’t allowed to leave, you know, on account of the—” She gestured with an elegant hand. “Cult running amok.”

He nodded. “Cult number two.”

Arden smiled, and continued, “And then just a few days ago, after one of them started killing those folks in Fall’s End, Jacob came up to get me.”

The way she said it made him feel, a little uneasily, that maybe he was misreading it. Jacob came up to get me did not sound like Jacob came to pick me up because I’m his prisoner.

And then she said, “He was worried, you know. Only having a radio up there. I know how to use a gun, but I’d prefer not to, if I don’t have to, and—”

“Sorry,” he blurted out, “but are you—”

She blinked light eyes at him, almost owlishly, like she didn’t understand the question. “Am I...?”

“With? Them?” Pratt gestured towards where the chapel lay, beyond the bunkhouse walls. “The—Eden’s Gate?”

“Oh!” Arden laughed, almost sheepishly; he felt a nervous little laugh bubbling out of him too, almost hoping for the relief of her assuring him that she was, in fact, not in league with the Darwinian psycho that had spent the last few months mindfucking every resident he could get his hands on.

She came to a stand and pulled a bottle of ibuprofen and a granola bar out of the kit, dropping them in his hand.

“Eat the bar before you take the ibuprofen,” she told him, “or it’ll—well, I’m sure you know. Upset stomach, and all that. Do you want to take a shower?”

Pratt’s fingers curled around the ibuprofen bottle. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“I’m sorry,” Arden replied, not sounding very sorry at all, “I guess I just thought it a bit silly. Who else would I be “with”?”

His stomach somersaulted, sinking viciously. Suddenly, the granola bar—which had certainly been sitting in the kit for who knew how long—looked even less appetizing than before. While his vision swam for a second, the woman carried on conversationally, as though she had not just revealed herself to—

Well, to be in league with the Darwinian psycho that had spent the last few months mindfucking every resident he could get his hands on.

“But—they think the world is ending,” Pratt blurted out, lifting his eyes to look at her finally. “And—doctor, all the people they killed, and—”

“Don’t strain yourself, Mr. Pratt. You’ve been under quite a bit of duress as of late, I think, and it would be best to try and keep those stress levels down.” She moved to the small pantry beside the bathroom, shuffling around and producing a few towels, leaning into the bathroom to set them on the counter. “Though, you do bring up a funny point—have you been listening to the news? I suppose you haven’t. I remember listening to the news before all of this business went down and thinking that the world had ended a long time ago. We were just a bit behind, all the way out here. Do you want to take a shower?”

Blinking furiously, Pratt searched his brain for the answer; he muddled through the disappointment raking down his spine, the delicate little hope that had been fostered at the prospect of finding someone who was kind and not under the Seeds’ thumb being crushed beneath the weight of the reality of his situation.

“Yes please,” he managed out, his voice hoarse.

“Alright. Eat that bar first, so you don’t pass out in the hot water. And Mr. Pratt?”

“Y—” He had clumsily ripped open the granola bar and shoved half into his mouth, the fear of being seen as disobedient when Jacob Seed was within radius flickering like a wildfire through his body. He swallowed thickly, the dry food feeling like it was sticking to the inside of his mouth. “Um, yes?”

Her expression colored sympathetic, Arden reached down and fished a water bottle out of the case, dropping it in his hand.

“The honorific isn’t necessary,” she told him. “Remember, Arden is just fine.”

“Yes ma’am,” he mumbled. “I mean—Arden.”

She smiled, this time with teeth. “Good. You holler if you need me.”

I won’t, he thought, even though she was probably preferable to anyone else coming to his rescue.

Maybe he really would rather be dead.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Scarlet insisted that John stay at the house while they went to the boutique. It was all a big show of his mother-in-law attempting, he thought, to be polite, though she failed miserably at it; and as much as John wanted to argue that it would probably be best if he came along—considering their late-night visitor—he could tell when a battle was a lost one, and when it wasn’t.

“Do you think you can do that, Mr. Seed?” she asked, pulling the objectively ostentatious fur coat around her shoulders and buttoning it. “Remain in my home for a few hours, without causing me any problems?”

He said, “I think I can certainly give it a shot,” to which the blonde rolled her eyes.

“Please do more than that.”

“Rest assured, I am fully capable of behaving myself, Mrs. Honeysett.”

He couldn’t wait to be rid of her. Every second he spent in her presence, being reminded of how little she liked him given how much she didn’t know about him—or care to get to know about him, anyway—he thought, I cannot fucking wait to get back to Hope County and the resurgence of the Family. I cannot wait until that is my only fucking problem. Anyone else and she would have been thoroughly cleansed; clearly, Wrath ran in the family. Just the thought of it made his fingers itch.

Elliot had looked tired already, standing at the door and letting her mother go first. As soon as Scarlet was out the door, carefully picking her way down the front steps, John’s hand went to Ell’s hip; her lashes fluttered at the contact, but she didn’t jerk away; only tensed, considering the act of balking and pulling away from him but not yet committing. So there had been progress.

Her free hand came to his shoulder, resting there uncertainly. “Please don’t do anything to my mother’s house.”

“As much as I would love to, I will refrain from my wretched impulses. I am a man of God, after all.” He grimaced. “Do you think she’ll like me more if things are immaculate?”

“Ha-ha. She certainly will not.” She paused, letting out a little breath. “Okay. Back in an hour.”

He felt a smile tug at his mouth. “Ambitious.” His hand drifted to the small of her back, and he said, “Ell, before you go—”

“John, I don’t—”

Elliot turned to look at him at the same time that he stepped forward, closing what little distance there was and rapidly; she blinked, and her eyes flickered to his mouth instinctively, like she was expecting it—like she’d gotten used to the affection when he closed in on her like that. The gesture sent a little thrill through his stomach.

Mine.

“Don’t let her stress you out,” John murmured, keeping his voice low between just the two of them. “You’ll look good in whatever you pick.”

She turned her face away, cheeks going pink. “What’s this, huh? Still trying to make up for being a complete fuckhead this morning?”

He grinned. “You really have gotten brattier.”

“Goodbye, John,” she said, and then he leaned in and kissed her; the connection made every part of him sigh, collectively, as though he’d just been waiting for it.

Waiting for her.

Yes yes yes, it all said when she didn’t pull away, his fingers curling into the fabric of her sweater at the small of her back as her hand slipped from his shoulder to his chest, yes, mine all mine.

Elliot did pull back after a moment, putting a bit of space between them—though it seemed more to catch her breath than anything else. She only pulled back enough for their eyes to meet; John’s gaze darted downward, watching pearly teeth as they tugged at her lower lip, worrying it there for a moment.

“To answer your question,” he continued as casually as he could, “that’s not how I intend on making that up to you.”

“So you agree?” Elliot asked. Her voice came out evenly, despite the color blooming underneath the freckles on her cheeks. “You were being a complete fuckhead this morning?”

“I did so miss our banter.”

“Bunny,” Scarlet called impatiently from the driveway, “the boutique is going to get crowded if we don’t get there when it opens.”

“I’m coming!” Her gaze darted back to him. “The best way to make it up to me would be to say the words out loud,” Elliot informed him as she inched toward the door. “So that baby can hear them, too. At least you’ll have been more honest around our child than with me, if we’re keeping a running tally, and we should—”

He tugged her back from the doorway again, lighter, more playful as he went in to kiss her a second time; but she pulled back, just out of his reach, hand planted firmly on his chest.

Elliot said, “I told you not to get used to it.”

“I’m not,” he answered lightly, “just taking what I can get.”

“Elliot.”

“Coming!” Elliot cinched her coat up more snug, closer to her throat and where the scar lay expertly over her sternum, and snagged the keys off of the counter to the beat-up Honda Civic John had lifted from Eden’s Gate. Right. He couldn’t wait to hear Scarlet’s input on that car ride.

The redhead made it down two steps before she paused, turning and looking at John and going, “Um, bye,” in a tone that was more sheepish than he anticipated; it was almost shy, and it caught him so off-guard that he didn’t even get the chance to muster a response before she was making her way across the snowy driveway.

“Drive safe,” John called, once he’d gathered his senses a bit more. Elliot glanced at him over her shoulder and then ducked into the car, closing the door and beginning to pull her way down the drive. He waited until they’d turned onto the freshly plowed road before he turned back into the house and closed the front door behind him.

Boomer had seated himself in front of the window, letting out a little whine as his tail swept along the floor.

“C’mon, furry sentinel,” he sighed, not risking putting his hand within biting reach. “Just you and me today.”

The Heeler whined again, apparently thoroughly displeased at this news, and stayed rooted at the window to watch for his girl to come home.

Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he hit the redial button on the number they’d gotten a call from that morning and waited as the phone rang, pacing around the polished living room. It rang enough times as he idly adjusted glasses on a bar cart that he thought for certain no one would pick up—and then the phone clicked, and a warm voice came through.

“Hi, John.”

He blinked in surprise. “Hello, Faith. How’d you get this phone?”

“Isolde passed it to me when she saw your call. She wanted me to tell you that she’s too busy to talk to you.”

A wry smile tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Sounds like everything’s operating as normal, then.”

“I suppose.” Faith paused. “Are you coming home soon?”

“I am.”

“With Elliot?”

“Yes, she—” John cleared his throat and made an effort to sound as unbothered as possible. “She’s very concerned about Deputy Pratt’s well-being.”

“We’re taking good care of him. Will you tell her that? Better than he’d be getting out there, anyway,” and she said the word out there with such a surprising amount of venom that John realized he’d nearly forgotten about the Family’s reappearance. Well, there couldn’t be that many of them left, could there?

And then Faith said, “A lot of us are dead, John.”

His hand went to the mantle for a little support as he leaned against it. There was a bit of a bite to Faith’s voice—almost accusatory. A lot of us are dead, she said, as he stood in the plush home of his mother-in-law while they went dress shopping for a Christmas party. It occurred to him that none of his siblings—nor Isolde—were aware of what they’d been dealing with the last couple of days; they must have felt like he was getting off easy.

“The Father says we only have a little while longer,” she continued, “and that if we can’t fix this in time, we won’t wait for you. He’s been alone, a lot. Talking to God. Praying for more time, for you.”

The words made his stomach wrench, a little. He would have felt worse if he didn’t know already that there was an exit plan in place, one that Elliot was already on board for. “We’re only here for another day, and then we’re leaving” John replied. “The sheriff mentioned some—Federal agents. I don’t want to rouse suspicion and bring them down on us again.”

“Do you think it’s Burke?”

“Maybe.” He pressed his forehead against the stone mantle. “Probably. No one’s come storming in yet.”

“I hope it’s him. I hope he follows you all the way back here.” And then, darker: “He has a lot to apologize for.”

John made a low noise of agreement. It felt good to have a conversation with someone who seemed to be on the same side as him, for once—no bickering with Scarlet, no bickering with Elliot, and no bickering with Isolde. As of late, it seemed he was only capable of incurring arguments; though that did seem to be changing quickly with his wife.

“We’re having a service soon. Did you want me to tell Joseph anything?”

“Ah, no, that’s alright. I just wanted to let you know we had a plan.”

“Do you want to talk to him?”

“No,” John said again, more quickly and with a bout of unease sprinting up his spine. “No, that’s alright. I’ll let you go. We’ll be home soon, okay?”

“Alright.” Faith’s voice lightened when she added, “Tell Elliot I said hello.”

Bad idea, he thought, but said, “Of course,” and hit the end call button. It wasn’t until his entire body relaxed that he realized he’d been fully tensed, waiting for some kind of verbal blow—and though there had been a few, he felt...

Fine.

I feel fine.

It was fine. Everything was fine. Joseph was praying for more time for them. They’d make it back without a hitch. And then, when the world ended, and took the remainder of the Family with them—

Well, that would be all the better.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“My children.”

The heaters rattled, clicking in the lukewarm air in a steady, mechanical heartbeat. Candles lit throughout the chapel drenched the members of Eden’s Gate in a strange, golden glow, and as Joseph’s voice carried all the way to the back where Staci sat between Jacob and Arden. He could see in the front row sat Faith and the dark-haired woman—who he’d come to understand was Isolde Khan, John’s old business partner—and there was a moment where Joseph’s eyes fixed on her before they lifted back to the congregation.

“God has truly been testing us,” the man continued, pacing away from the altar the front, hands folded behind him. “As you know, I have spent a lot of time in silence and solitude so that I might be the most open to receiving from Him. For the longest time, I thought—had we done something wrong? Had I led us astray? Were we being punished?”

An uneasy murmur rippled throughout the crowd. In the front, Pratt could see Isolde writing something down in a notebook; he wished he was closer, so he could see what it was—what was so interesting that she was taking notes now, of all times? What could she possibly be doing?

Preparing for the worst-case scenario, he thought idly, shifting in his seat. Jacob’s eyes cut over to him and he cleared his throat. The shower had done nothing to ease his nerves.

“But I’ll tell you—devout, and loyal, we have not been left to the wayside.” Joseph stopped, pressing a hand onto a woman’s shoulder, squeezing. “I have heard His voice. I have received His word. We are not only followers of God’s word—we are His soldiers.”

The noise that passed through the congregation this time was brighter, agreements—it must have felt good. Not just passive sheep, to be shepherded; soldiers. Capable of violence. And they were.

“We are His warriors.”

The woman Joseph’s hand was on was getting teary-eyed, and when he departed from her to sidle his way down the aisle, she all but collapsed in on herself, folding in half to bury her face in her hands. Another attestation of acknowledgment rippled around him, louder.

“This world is a wretched, vile machine, taking in and spitting out sin, flooding our garden with locusts,” the Prophet continued, his voice lifting in volume. “We are, my children, the only people who have the great fortune of seeing this—of knowing what no one else in the world seems capable of understanding. God has told me—”

Sick, Pratt thought dizzily, I’m going to be sick.

“—that a life of bliss awaits us, if we can only...”

Joseph paused, as though he needed to look for the words, as though he hadn’t been reciting this all day in preparation for the sermon; Pratt knew that he must, the assured cadence of his voice coming so firmly that there was no way it wasn’t rehearsed.

“...look past the dread, and the fear,” he continued earnestly, allowing his hand to be taken by another member, “because fear is the language of the Devil—if we can look past it, and dedicate ourselves fully to His cause, there is only happiness and serenity waiting for us on the other side of this.”

“How do we do it, Father?” a man to the other side of Jacob cried out, his voice a panicked fever-pitch. “How do we show Him we’re devoted?”

Joseph’s head turned. His gaze landed on Pratt, lingering before lifting to the congregant. “We’ve got to stop the machine.”

Optimism flooded the crowd. An easy solution. Stop the machine, like it was nothing. Like they weren’t dealing with a group of people who killed as easily as they did.

“Throw your bodies upon the gears, upon the wheels, upon all the apparatus,” Joseph intoned dutifully, pacing back toward the front. “Whatever it takes to bring the machine to a grinding halt. We can no longer passively take part in the End—we are warriors of God, and our divine right is not instinctively endowed. It is earned. And we will show that we have earned it by exterminating these interlopers invading our garden.”

Pratt’s mouth pressed into a thin line. Eden’s Gate members came to a stand around him; loomed in his vision; eclipsed what little murky light reached him. Cheers and applause rolling around in his head. He thought for sure he’d heard this all somewhere, before—

Oh, yes. And you've got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be prevented from working at all! The irony of Joseph lifting lines from an activist’s speech was not lost on him.

A heavy hand gripped the collar of his shirt, hauling him to his feet. “Stand up,” Jacob muttered. “Good posture’s important.”

He steadied himself on the pew ahead of him. Amidst the chatter of the congregation, eventually quieted down by Joseph’s patience at the front of the chapel, he could hear renewed excitement. More life had been breathed into the peggies than he’d seen in a long time—well, considering that he’d only been here roughly a day, and the whole place felt like a ghost town even now, that was saying something.

“Please,” Joseph called lightly, “join me in prayer.”

Heads bowed. Pratt let his chin drop to his chest, but his eyes didn’t close; his gaze darted to his right, where Arden stood, hands clasped politely in front of her. Her head did not bow for prayer.

He was only vaguely aware of the words coming out of Joseph’s mouth, redirecting his eyes back to the floorboards beneath his worn shoes. Lord, we pray that you might show us guidance and wisdom in these uncertain times; show us how to be most like you, for only you are perfect...

Elliot was going to come back to this. She was going to come back to this, and he was going to have to figure out how to get her out of here without any of the Seeds noticing. Helmi had said, meet me out back, by the river, in three nights, but he couldn’t keep track. Had it been one night? Two? Less than one?

“I am your Father,” Joseph was saying. “You are my Children. Together, and only together, will we march through the Gates of Eden.”

A rousing amen echoed around him. They milled about, chatting excitedly—perhaps delighted to have a focus for their ire, for their agitation. The members of Eden’s Gate looked worse than Pratt remembered. Dirtier. Thinner. More exhausted. He thought that it must be nice to have a purpose—

Fuck me, not that shit again.

He filed out of the row behind Arden, and with Jacob behind him, following her to the front where Isolde and Joseph stood. They were speaking in low tones, bundled close together; she tapped her ten against the front of her notepad in what looked like an agitated tick, but he couldn’t hear what it was she was saying. By the time they were close that he might have heard, Joseph lifted his head from where he’d bent a little to speak closely and looked at him, smiling.

“It was nice to see your face in the crowd this day, Deputy Pratt,” he said, his voice warm. “Did you enjoy the sermon?”

Pratt opened his mouth, and then closed it. He didn’t want to play this game.

“Go on, Peaches,” Jacob prompted, clapping his shoulder.

The nickname sparked something angry inside of him, like dragging a match against the sandpaper side of the box. If there’s anything wrong with you, I’m going to kill them, Elliot had said.

Pratt turned his gaze to Joseph. “I thought the Mario Savio part was a bit much.”

A surprised, abrupt laugh barked out of Jacob. Joseph’s expression remained flat and serene. In fact, the only person who seemed to have any negative opinion about his words was Isolde, narrowing her eyes as she turned to look at him fully.

“We’re not exactly looking to hit notes with the intellectuals in the crowd, Deputy Pratt,” she informed him coolly. “They don’t care who said it first. They care who said it better.”

“Y—” Pratt swallowed. “Okay, well—”

“‘Okay, well’ shut the fuck up,” she snapped. “Or I’ll have Jacob take you out back and put you down like Old Yeller.”

“You can’t,” he protested quickly, “Elliot said—”

“Do you think I care in the least what some woman five states away said?” Isolde cut over him quickly, the elegant, soft roll of her accent a strange and unsettling juxtaposition to her words. “I’m getting this ship in fit fucking order, and that means I don’t need you inspiring dissent. Anyone with an opinion that is less than glowing, radiant, gorgeous—they get taken care of, whatever that means. Got it?”

Pratt closed his mouth tightly, until the pressure was beginning to build between his molars. I just have to make it until Elliot gets here, and then—and then I’ll—then I can get—

He took in a little breath. “Yes.”

“Peachy.” Isolde flashed a smile that was all-too-saccharine, and then turned to Joseph. “Let’s sit.”

“Of course.”

They departed to a pew just to the left of them. Jacob was grinning at him, wolfish.

“Thought about telling you she wrote it,” he said, “but that was much more entertaining.”

“You look pale, Staci,” added Arden, her voice light as it redirected from Jacob’s apparent joy at his suffering. “Maybe you should go lay down. I don’t want you straining any of those injuries.”

Okay, he thought, and maybe the words came out of him but he couldn’t tell; he couldn’t tell anymore, but he did want to go lay down. Lay down, and close his eyes, and sleep until Elliot got back.

He’d never been happier at the prospect of seeing an ex-girlfriend.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When they arrived at the boutique, Sylvia was standing outside, bouncing on the balls of her feet in what Elliot could only assume was an attempt to get warm. It was difficult, to focus on something as inane and arbitrary as dress shopping when she knew that Pratt was back in Hope County, dealing with God-knew-what the Seeds were throwing at him.

Well, the Seeds. And more. The Family, who were supposed to be dead, and—

I hear stress is bad for the baby. A familiar accent, wasn’t it?

“Well, are you just gonna sit in there all day or what?” her mother asked, having stepped out of the passenger side.

“Did you invite Sylvia?”

Scarlet sighed. “I thought it might be nice, for you.”

It was an unexpectedly sincere gesture on her mother’s part. She swallowed a thick emotion down, clearing her throat and managing out, “It—is, mama, thank you,” before she got out of the car and took the keys with her, heading towards the front doors of the main street store.

“Howdy, Freckles!” Sylvia greeted her warmly, throwing her arms around her in a tight hug. “Been a few. Wyatt’s still got your Jeep, he’s been runnin’ it a few minutes a day to make sure the battery doesn’t go bad.” She smiled brightly, turning to Elliot’s mother. “Mrs. Honeysett, you look mighty lovely.”

“Thank you, dear.”

Sylvia tugged the door to the boutique open, ushering them inside so that she could trail in after. The inside of the store was toasty warm, making Elliot regret having worn a scarf, but it was too late now—the coat and scarf combination were doing the work to keep her scar covered.

“I just love this place,” Scarlet sighed, shrugging out of her coat and hanging it on the rack by the door. “What do you think, Elliot? Maybe something blue. I’d put you in green, but with that red hair, you’d look like a Christmas ornament. Blue’s a nice winter color—very fashionable.”

“Sure, mama,” Elliot replied, brushing her fingers along the silk of one of the dresses. The last time she’d been in anything that blue and nice had been back in Hope County. At her “baptism”. The same one Burke had been dragged to, the same one that John had held her under for just a little too long for, maybe distracted by the Marshal’s arrival back then.

“Psst.” The sound of Via’s voice caught her attention, pulling her from the waking memory. The blonde had pulled what appeared to be the most atrocious Christmas gown that could have been looked at off of the rack, holding it up and lifting her eyebrows as Scarlet chatted enthusiastically with the store’s saleswoman.

“Stop it,” Elliot said, fighting back a smile. “You’re not serious.”

“Oh, dead serious, Freckles.”

“It has mistletoe on it, Via.”

“How else am I supposed to fetch a husband, if not by readily-accessible entrapment?”

Well, she thought a little dryly, that is how John got a wife.

It was odd, to think of the moment with anything less than hostility—to have come to a point where there were things more pressing than a marriage that, in the end, might not matter anyway. John had said that he knew the baby didn’t mean she’d take him back; had acknowledged there was no guarantee. For once, he’d shown up in her life with every intention laid bare for her to see.

Maybe not every intention. But she’d root them all out, eventually, and pretend like it hadn’t become something of a game, to catch John in a lie and watch him squirm.

She let the boutique’s owner show her around, clearly making quite a show for her mother, and politely turned down any suggestions for a deep v or off-the-shoulder type of garment. Sylvia had picked out a few; most blue, some blush, a few red, and then loaded some into Elliot’s arms.

“Try ‘em on!” she chirped. “Yes, even the green ones. Maybe your mama doesn’t want an Elliot Christmas ornament, but I do.”

Elliot heaved a sigh, though it was only half-sincere—anything delivered with Sylvia’s bright, cheery smile, she was hard-pressed to feel anything less than good about. Maybe that was dangerous, to be so comfortable with someone.

Or maybe, she thought, closing the dressing room door behind her, that’s just how having friends are. You remember what that was like.

She did. As she undressed and zipped the back of one of the red dresses Sylvia had selected—thoughtfully aware of the fact that she’d want most of her chest covered—she regarded herself in the mirror. There was that stranger again, flushed cheeks and bright eyes staring back at her. A familiar nose shape, a familiar slope of her cheekbones—but the rest of her. Where had she gone?

With one hand she pushed the door open, the other one lifting the back train of the dress as little as she walked out. A grimace had planted itself on her face, even despite Sylvia’s elaborate applause at her appearance.

“Oh, bunny, you look darling,” her mother sighed, having turned to take a look. “What’s the matter? You don’t like it?”

“Not big on the sparkles,” she admitted.

“I like them. You’ve always looked good in red, though. That fair complexion of your father’s.”

Sylvia grinned. “Try on a green one. I wanna imagine how you’ll look on my tree!”

Elliot stuck her tongue out at the blonde, turning around and scurrying back into the changing room. There were a few more dresses—even a green one—that were in the running, but eventually, she’d settled on a floor-length piece, dark blue velvet and halter-topped to get the most sternum coverage. When she’d redressed and rejoined the group outside, her mother was beaming as she gossiped with the boutique owner.

“Elliot’s quite modest,” her mother said conversationally, “and she’s already married, you know.”

“Thank you, mother,” Elliot sighed, a little smile fighting its way onto her face.

“Whatever are you still wearing your coat for? Your face is all red.”

“I’m—” She paused, swallowing. “Still cold.”

Her mother’s eyes narrowed. “Cold? It’s eighty degrees in here. And your face is all red.”

Sylvia had glanced up from across the store, neck-deep in dresses of a warmer shade. Elliot could feel the eyes on her—her friend, her mother, the boutique owner—and she cleared her throat and tugged absently at the tag on the dress.

“It’s fine,” she said after a minute.

“Well, at least take your scarf off.”

“I think it’s a lovely scarf,” the owner tried, a little helplessly.

“Mother, it’s—I’m fine—”

But her mother moved too quickly for her to realize what was happening; her mother’s hand unwound the scarf with expert ease, and then froze, her eyes fixed on what Elliot thought assuredly was the little of her WRATH scar, revealed.

Her stomach rolled. Heat flooded her body, worse than before—it was the kind of sticky-wet heat that came with the threat of throwing up, the kind that crept up the spine and gripped by the nape of the neck. Elliot felt her lashes flutter; she dropped the dress abruptly and yanked the scarf out of her mother’s hands to wind it securely around her neck again. The boutique owner had quickly turned to the clothing rack, as though something very emergent had occurred on the inanimate objects.

Stupid. She was so stupid. She should have just worn a sweater. She shouldn’t have looked at her scar that morning and thought, maybe it is something to love, she shouldn’t have ever risked the chance that her mother would see it, stupidstupidstupid—

“My God,” Scarlet said tightly, the tone of her voice washing Elliot with shame. “What did you do?”

I’m sorry, she wanted to say, automatically. Mama, I’m sorry. I’m sorry, I’m not good anymore, I’m not—

“Phew, I sure am dressed-out,” Sylvia announced, having come over. “I’ll have to go home and weigh my options. Ell, you wanna head outside for some air?”

“I think that’s best,” her mother replied curtly, before Elliot could even think to formulate a sentence. “I’ll finish up in here.”

She thought about trying to say something—trying to explain, maybe, what it was that had happened. But how could she? Her mother had suffered through the years she’d inflicted pain on herself, after daddy and after Mason, and she had told her mother she was better, now. Healed. Good. What could she say, to make it alright?

Because there was no world where she could say, I didn’t want it, and mean it.

Via’s hand fit snugly in hers, tugging her lightly out through the front door of the boutique onto the street. It wasn’t until she took in a lungful of cold, dry air that she realized she’d been holding her breath; her lungs ached, her head swimming, and she was gripping Via’s hand too tightly.

“Hey,” Sylvia said softly, “s’okay.”

It’s not, she thought miserably, it’s not okay, I’m not okay, I want to go—

Where? Where could she go?

I want—

Nowhere? Anywhere?

—to go—

“Home,” she managed out unsteadily, “I should go home—”

Sylvia gave her hand a squeeze. “You want I should give your mama a ride back to the house?”

“Yes.” She swallowed, sniffing. “Yes, please.”

“Okay, Freckles. Sure. You just—maybe you just take a little drive for yourself, collect your thoughts.” Via paused, and then leaned a little to catch Elliot’s eyes; though her vision blurred from the threat of tears, the blonde still smiled a little. “You gonna be okay all by yourself?”

It was a strange question to ask, but Elliot knew what she meant. Are you safe? Alone?

“Yeah,” Ell replied in a thick, watery mumble. “I am.”

“Okay. Can you give me a call when you get home?”

She nodded weakly. Via pulled her into a hug, tight and gentle all at once, enough to make the dam break; just for a little, just for a minute, the tears streaked down her cheeks and caught up in the fabric of the scarf where it wadded against her jaw.

My God, what did you do?

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out, pulling back and sucking in a sharp little breath. “Um, I’m really—s-sorry—”

But Via shook her head firmly and brushed some of the hair back from Elliot’s face, wet from her tears. “Don’t apologize. Go get a little breather.”

She fished the keys out of Elliot’s pocket for her, putting them in her hand and hesitating.

“Promise you’ll call,” she reiterated.

Elliot nodded. “I—I promise.”

“Okay. No take-backs.”

“No take-backs.”

Via gave her another hug before ushering her towards the car. As she climbed in and turned the key, her hands shaking, she thought about the way her mother had looked at the scar—with disgust. Horror. Shame. Via hadn’t looked at her like that, when she’d seen it. She’d seemed embarrassed, at having put Elliot in such a position; but not like that. She hadn’t looked horrified.

John didn’t look at it like that. He’d spent a lot of time last night, tracing the shape of the scar with his eyes, with his mouth, reverent and adoring. Makes you hungry, doesn’t it?

At least leaving would be that much easier.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

They came back separately.

When John heard the front door open, he’d been starting a pot of coffee in the kitchen. He poked his head around the archway to look out in the foyer, only to find Scarlet standing there, furiously unbuttoning her coat and dropping her gloves into the drawer. Two dress bags hung on the coat rack.

“Ell outside?” he asked casually, coming around.

“Certainly not,” Scarlet replied tartly. “She’s—”

And then the woman let out a sigh, closing her eyes for a moment—for the first time, Scarlet Honeysett looked to be composing herself, which he thought she was nearly incapable of losing sight of. It seemed even the impenetrable armor of the Honeysett matriarch had its own weaknesses after all.

His tiny little thrill at the sight of Scarlet looking troubled was short-lived, however, because she said, “My daughter walked into the boutique sporting this—wretched scar—”

Oh, he thought, suddenly.

“—never been so humiliated in my whole life—”

Oh, no, because he knew exactly what she was talking about and Elliot would be—

“—have no doubt, Mr. Seed,” Scarlet bit out viciously, “that scar is new and you have certainly not influenced her away from such activities.”

He needed to find Elliot. She would be distraught; why hadn’t she come home with her mother? And why wasn’t Scarlet more pressed concerning her daughter’s well-being?

“And where is she?” John asked, ignoring the stinging anger bubbling in his chest. Wretched scar, she’d said. Like it wasn’t beautiful. Like it wasn’t gorgeous. Like he hadn’t spent a whole night looking at it, running his hands and mouth over it, knowing that Elliot had looked at him and wanted it and trusted him and if there was something more devoted, it was carrying someone’s child. “Elliot? Where is she?”

“Taking a moment to regain her senses,” the blonde replied sharply. “She has vowed to be home soon. Mr. Seed—”

He had gone to reach for his coat, pausing at her words and looking at her expectantly.

Scarlet twisted the gloves in her hands for a moment, her brows pulling together.

“I just think,” she finally said, “that as her husband, you are responsible for her as much as I am. You have to be taking care of her when I’m not around.”

“I do,” he replied.

“Evidence says contrary,” Scarlet snapped. “She has come back to me with more—damage—”

The sound of a car pulling up outside snapped John’s attention elsewhere. He knew that if he stayed much longer in the conversation, they would be leaving sooner than what they had planned, if only because Scarlet wouldn’t tolerate him in the house for the things that he wanted to say to her. Damage, he wanted to say, that is only as bad as it is because it’s compounding on your incessant need to brush aside her problems like they’re nothing, like she didn’t need help then.

“Excuse me,” he muttered, pulling his coat on and opening the door. The rush of cold air bit at his face and hands; Boomer came rushing out around his legs, springing down the steps and hurrying to the driver’s side of the Honda. John was only vaguely aware of the door closing behind him—and it didn’t matter, anyway.

She didn’t open the door when Boomer got there, scrabbling at it for her eagerly. She kept her hands on the top of the steering wheel and pressed her forehead into it, the engine ticking as it cooled. When John got there, he reached for the door handle to tug it open. Elliot hit the lock button.

“Ell,” John said, “open the door.”

She lifted her head tiredly from the steering wheel. Where her hand sat over the lock button, her fingers trembled a little, and her face was flushed—not with health, but with the sickly red of feverish, panicked crying.

“Baby,” he tried again, a little more urgently, putting his hand on the glass of the window, “Boomer wants to see you.”

Elliot’s eyes were fixed on his jacket. “Would you—” She stopped, her voice muffled by the glass, and then she took a deep breath and said, “Would you even be here if I wasn’t pregnant?”

“What?” John blinked at her.

“If I didn’t have the baby,” she tried again, her voice thick and watery with unshed tears, that pouty lower lip trembling, “would you have even come for me?”

He stared at her. It had never occurred to him, that there might be a world in her head where he didn’t come for her, where he didn’t find her, where he didn’t try and bring her back.

“Of course I would,” John said, drawing her eyes to him. “I love you, Elliot.” And then, more urgently: “I love you, with or without the baby.”

She looked away from him, then, staring out the other side of the window, fingers curling uselessly against the steering wheel even as the keys lay in the passenger seat—like she wanted to run. Like she wanted to floor it, and go somewhere, anywhere.

“Open the door, Ell.” He swallowed thickly. “Won’t you?”

The door lock clicked. He tugged at the handle and it opened with ease, Boomer instantly shoving his face into Elliot’s side and whining, tail wagging so furiously his whole body moved with it. John pushed the door open the rest of the way and reached for her, and her hand caught his wrist and pulled, and she buried her face into his chest and trembled like a leaf in a breeze.

“I’m so tired,” she moaned miserably into his chest, hiccupping with grief, “I want to go home.”

John wrapped his arms around her, one hand cradling the back of her head and keeping her tugged close.

“I know,” he said. “We’ll go. We will, I promise, Ell, okay?”

“Please—” The redhead pulled back to look at him. “I can’t—you can’t—lie to me, anymore—”

“I know,” John said again, a little helplessly, brushing his thumb across her cheekbone. She was clutching him so tightly he was sure her nails would leave marks on his skin, even through the fabric of his clothes.

“I won’t.”

[oflovesandlikes]

1988 prompt: "I didn't want to tell my friend who was my real date from last night because he turned out to be an asshole so i just pointed at a random stranger (you) but now they're storming over to interrogate you and you're playing along??? Okay!"

“Are you really sure?” Sharpy asks him for the 11th time and it was endearing and sweet the first couple but it’s now grating on Patrick’s nerves.”Like, really?”

Patrick can’t help the eye roll. “For fuck’s sake Sharpy I already told you. Yes, I’m sure. One hundred percent.”

“But- we don’t know him…” Sharpy whines. In Sharpy speech that means Sharpy himself hasn’t seen him and hasn’t given his approval.

“He’s perfectly fine,Sharpy, shut up. He’s nice and hot and he’s really into me,ok?” 

“Why?” Sharpy asks because he is a fucking tool. 

“Fuck off! I’m a great catch!”

“Just because your mom told you that…”

Patrick looks him dead in the eyes with the most self-satisfying smirk he can muster. “Well, your mom said the same thing.”

Sharpy opens his mouth to retort but closes it immediately, full knowing he was beaten. “Fine,” he grumbles, “but don’t come crying to me when he ends up being an asshole.”

“I’ll just come gloating then, because I’m gonna land myself the hottest, most awesome boyfriend, Just wait.”

————————————————————– 

In retrospect, he should have kept his big mouth shut. His mom had told him it’d get him in trouble one day. But did he listen? NO.

That’s how he finds himself the next day, having brunch and trying to avoid answering Sharpy’s questions about his date. Because what can he really say? That the guy was an entitled, rude, self absorbed douche that forced Patrick to use the fake call app on his phone?

“So I was right, wasn’t I?” Sharpy asks smugly.

“What? No!” His eyes wander around because he is a crappy liar but he is not about to give his friend the satisfaction.

“Then why are you not answering any of my questions?” Sharpy is naturally suspicious, probably because he himself is up to no good.

“Everything was great, Sharpy. I already told you. We had a great time. He even bought me ice cream down the pier.” That would make him a great catch since everyone knows his affinity to ice cream.

“Then why are you sitting here looking like that?” Sharpy questions again.

“Like what?”Patrick asks, gaze following the waitress on the way to serving the table in the far right.

“Like you did when you let your turtle die.” That’s a sure way to rile him up and Sharpy, the stupid jerk, knows it all too well.  “ And what the fuck is so interesting over there that you can’t even look at me for a whole minute?”

“One, I didn’t let Stanley die, Ok? His passing was due to natural causes and two…”, he’s not so sure what to reply to that. Thankfully, Sharpy is too determined to chirp him to let him finish his sentence.

“Is that what they’re calling you these days?”

“Fuck off, Sharpy.”

He spaces out for a minute, intrigued by the waitress’ blushed cheeks and shy smile. He angles his head a bit to get a clearer view but his whole body freezes, apart from his heart that beats wildly in his chest, when he makes eye contact with the guy on the table.

He’s not sure why, he barely even had enough time to realise he is a dude but for some unknown, stupid reason he’s feeling like the guy is boring into the depths of his soul. Which, rude. You don’t go about drilling into people’s most private parts uninvited.

Fortunately for him, Sharpy decides for once to be helpful and knocks him out of his trance by nearly knocking him over his seat.

“Hey, I’m talking to you asshole.”

“Yeah,yeah, sorry, I kind of… Whatever. Are we going to eat or what?”

“Not before you tell me about the guy.” Sharpy raises his voice, clearly frustrated that he is not the centre of attention.

Patrick can feel the hair on the back of his neck stand attention and he doesn’t know how but he’s one hundred percent sure that shark-eyed dude is looking at them.

“Can you keep it down?” He hisses, glaring daggers at his friend, while feeling his ears burn. It’s a matter of minutes before his whole face flushes. He kind of really hates his pale complexion.

He lowers his gaze once more, mortified and fumbles with the cutlery, trying to be as inconspicuously as possible.

He’s aware of Sharpy babbling his mouth but he’s not really paying attention. He catches the last of the sentence.

“right?”

“Yeah.” he whispers not sure what he agreed with but not composed enough to care.

“So who is he?” Sharpy asks with such glee that’s enough to knock Patrick out of his trance.

“What? Who?”

“You know, the guy.” he stresses the word like it’s supposed to mean something to Patrick. “Your date, Kaner. You said he’s here. So who. is. he?”

Patrick is sure his eyes budge out as if he were a cartoon. “What? No. Why- he’s not, ok?”

“You just said he is.” Sharpy raises his eyebrow again and Patrick really hates that. “Are you lying to me?”

Patrick wishes the floor would just open and swallow him whole. He doesn’t know why he does it. Maybe it’s because he feels cornered; being stared at from both ends with no escaping route. Maybe he’s just incredibly stupid.”Over there.” He mumbles tilting his head to the far right.

It’s vague enough he thinks he can get away with it.

“Oh,” Sharpy exclaims in glee, making Patrick’s insides fill with dread, “Uh, not too shabby. Not as hot as me though.” says the vain asshole. “Hey, he’s looking our way.”

He feels more than sees Sharpy get off his seat. He grabs Patrick’s hand with such force that knocks him off balance. “I want to meet him. Let’s say hello.”

——————————————————————

Patrick’s first instinct is to flee; instead he finds himself running after Sharpy in a vain attempt to minimize the damage. 

He feels so humiliated even before his little lie is exposed. He doesn’t want to think how it’s going to be after. He’ll probably have to grovel a lot for his friend to forgive him and definitely give up entirely on ever eating in this place again. 

He’s also kind of scared of the shark-eyed guy’s judgemental look he’s sure is coming his way but he doesn’t have enough time to wonder why that would bother him.

Due to probably dumb luck, because he has the dumb part covered already, he catches Sharpy as he’s introducing himself to the guy.

“…the better Patrick”,” he hears his friend say.

As if things couldn’t get worse, he miscalculates his speed to table proximity and goes crashing into it thighs first. 

Shark Eyes is quick with his hands and catches the glass before it goes spilling everywhere. Patrick flushes an embarrassing shade of deep red. “I- Sorry.” 

The guy just stares at him, face blank. It makes Patrick even more uneasy. 

“Yeah, ‘m - Sorry to bother you,” he says grabbing Sharpy’s arm more as a life line and a little less to drag him away, “we’re leaving now, Sorry again.”

“Oh, come on, Kaner,” Sharpy whines “I didn’t even get the chance to ask him his name yet. If you’re going to date him don’t you think I should know that?”

Patrick winces and hopes that shark eyes is not some hot blooded homophob because the last thing he needs right now is a punch to the face.

“Jonathan.” A deep, grovelly voice that could only have come from shark eyes answers.

Sharpy must have taken it as an invitation because he plops himself to the empty sit near him. “So, Jonathan,”he rests his chin on his palm “I heard from our little Patrick here that your date last night was a success.”

Patrick closes his eyes, unable to face the guy. He bites his trembling bottom lip so hard it’s probably going to start bleeding soon.

“Did you now?” shark eyes -Jonathan- says, tone void of any emotion. 

Patrick braces himself. After a beat all he hears is a soft, “I thought so, too.”

That makes Patrick’s eyes open wide. He’s staring at the guy with disbelief, jaw slacked and everything. 

“Huh” Sharpy mutters at the same time as Patrick squeals an questioning “What?”

Those intense, dark eyes turn to him and once again Patrick feels like he’s being under a microscope. “It was fun, right?” Jonathan asks him, him, and Patrick thinks he’s just entered the twilight zone,

“Fun.” He says dumbly. 

“I’m a fun guy.” Jonathan deadpans, face serious, as if he’s daring Patrick to disagree.

“I– yeah, yeah- fun, sure. Lots.” He doesn’t even know what he’s saying but Jonathan beams at him and for some weird reason it makes Patrick feel like he did something great. Which is stupid. But what else is new? It’s pretty much established by now that Patrick is both dumb and dumber all wrapped up in one. 

That’s why he finds himself involuntarily smiling back at this complete and utter, though totally hot (because Patrick may be stupid but not blind) stranger.

Sharpy clears his throat loudly and obnoxiously. “If you’re quite finished.”

If Jonathan falters even a bit Patrick doesn’t catch it. When he speaks to Sharp he’s completely composed.”Sorry,” he offers politely, “you were saying?”

That seems to appease Sharpy momentarily. When he squares his shoulders and puffs out his chest Patrick knows what’s coming. “Sharpy, no.” Patrick growls. “Let’s just go.” 

Sharpy doesn’t bulge though. He ignores him in favour of staring down at Jonathan as if he’s issuing a challenge with his eyes. “So, let’s get down to business. What are your intentions towards our little Pat here?” 

Patrick looks Jonathan’s way to plead forgiveness with his eyes but the other man’s gaze is solely focused on Sharpy. He doesn’t know much about animals but he had seen a documentary once on Animal Planet and Jonathan kind of reminds him of that tiger on alert right before an attack.

“I don’t want to sound rude, “ Jonathan says in a tone that suggest he’s going to anyway,”but how is that any of your business?”

Sharpy is the first to blink and Patrick would lie if he’d say he isn’t a little too pleased about that. His friend recovers fast though. “Tell me something, Jonathan? You have any siblings?”

The question clearly throws Jonathan off. “I- yes, a younger brother.” By the end of the sentence Jonathan is perfectly composed and alert once again.

Sharpy nods “He-” he starts tilting his head towards Patrick “went off last night to have a date with an apparently great dude. Proper excited he was, babbling about all your fine qualities. Then today, he comes here with a tale of a date right out of a rom-com but he looks like he let his pet turtle die once more.”

Patrick groans. As if this whole thing wasn’t embarrassing enough, “Then his date happens to eat at the same restaurant, yet doesn’t even come by to say hello, as if he was a total stranger. Do you understand now how this is my business?”

Jonathan glances up at him but Patrick is too much of a coward to return the look. He shuts his eyes tight, trying to keep the tears from spilling, He doesn’t think he has been more humiliated his whole life. 

Jonathan clears his throat and Patrick draws in a sharp breath waiting for the final nail on his coffin. He deserves this for being a coward. He will bear it resignedly.

“Though I find it to be bad form to spill the beans on your friend,” Jonathan says sternly, “I’m pleased that Patrick thinks highly of me. I assure you I return the sentiment from the little I have known him.”

Something unknots inside Patrick. “I also didn’t want to rudely interrupt your brunch that’s why I haven’t approached your table.” His jabs are a gift that keeps on giving. “As for the rest, I believe that we can pump the breaks on the ‘break his heart and I’ll break your face’ talk. Give us at least a couple more dates.”

Patrick isn’t sure who is more shocked, him or Sharpy. His friend is looking at Jonathan calculatingly while Patrick is staring at him in awe.

Jonathan on his part looks like he has the best poker face in the entire planer. Or maybe he has had so many Botox done his face is incapable of any expression.

“Fair enough.” Sharp concedes.

Jonathan nods. “Would you mind if I had a moment alone with Patrick?”

Sharpy narrows his eyes but quickly gives up. He shrugs “Sure. You kids take your time. Our food is probably ruined by now anyway.”

He stands up and straightens his shirt. He puts his hand on Patrick’s shoulder. “I’ll be right there on our table when you’re finished.”

In Sharp speech that means “I have your back”

Patrick just nods affirmatively. “And for Christ’s sake sit the fuck down. Your legs must be killing you.” He says running his fingers through his hair. 

As soon as he does, Sharp takes a last quick glance and walks away.

—————————————————–

No one talks for a while and normally Patrick is fine with the silence but there are words pushing violently at his mouth trying to find their way out. So he lets the dam break. “That- that was awesome!” 

That gets him a tentative smile from Jonathan but not a whole more. Patrick’s own smile falters.

Then Jonathan surprises him once more by burying his face in his palms with a loud groan. “That was terrifying.” He admits peeking at Patrick through his slightly open fingers. “Your friend is -” he pauses. He settles for “intense.”

Patrick bites the corner of his bottom lip. “Yeah, that’s - kind of my fault really. I’m – I’ve made some really bad choices in the past,” he admits “and he kind of blames himself for not– He really means well.” he stops himself mid-explanation. He hopes it’s enough to excuse Sharp’s behaviour without having to say exactly how much of a fuck up Patrick has been in the past. He doesn’t know why this stranger’s opinion matters to him. It just does.

“Anyway, sorry for all this.” He waves his hand around hoping it conveys that he means the whole mess. “And thank you for playing along. I don’t know why you would. My date was horrible. The guy wasn’t exactly nice and I- yes, just thanks. And sorry. Again.” he mumbles. His eyes land on Jonathan’s half-eaten plate and he feels even worse. “And sorry about your-” he gestures towards his food. “I can pay for that,”

Jonathan’s  eerie silence is deafening. He has but a second to wonder how in the hell absolutely no noise can be that but quickly catches himself. He knows he can easily get lost in his own thoughts and the last thing he wants is to impose further on the poor dude.  “Yeah, just. I’m gonna go now. Thanks. And sorry.” He groans internally at how dumb he sounds.

Mid-way standing up from his chair Jonathan’s voice has him petrified. “You lisp when you prattle. It’s cute.”

Patrick manages to lose his footing and bang his elbow against the corner of the table. He sits back down with a curse. Jonathan chuckles.

“You making fun of me?” he asks, squinting his eyes.

Jonathan’s face does an 180 and he’s dead serious when he shakes his head. His flushed cheeks make Patrick wonder if it’s because of the admission or the laughter. The way he looks at Patrick makes him think it’s not the latter. It also makes something inside him flatter. “Oh.” he says dumbly.

Jonathan’s ears pink. “Yeah.”

“So-” Patrick is unsure of what to do next. Jonathan appears to have lost all the confidence he had while battling it out with Sharpy as well.

“Yeah, I- Thanks for covering for me. and all – it was nice meeting you Jonathan I think I’ll-” 

“Jon.” Jonathan interrupts. “Jonny, if you want.” He rubs his neck nervously and Patrick finds it endearing.

“Jonny.” He tests it and likes the way it feels on his tongue.

Jonny smiles at him softly and nods. He takes a deep breath making Patrick catch his in anticipation. “I- I’m Jonny. I’m 28. I teach elementary PE and coach a pewee hockey team. I’m from Canada but I’ve been to Chicago for the last eleven years and I’m nice. I think.”

“I - what?” Patrick blinks, utterly confused.

“And apparently I’m a great date?” Jonny adds timidly. “Not that I – Your friend said-” 

Patrick bites the inside of his cheek. He hopes he sounds more confident than he feels. “I’m Patrick.I’m 28. I’m a Sports Research Analyst, originally from Buffalo but almost 10 years in Chicago and I think you’re nice, too. You’re also the best fake date I’ve ever had.”

“Have you been in many?” Jonny asks.

“Huh?”

“Fake dates. - You said-”

Patrick chuckles. “Nah, you’re my first.”

Jonny scrunches his nose. “That’s not much of a compliment then.”

Patrick can spot a competitive nature. It’s like seeing his reflection in the mirror. He bites the bullet and fake-bravely asks. “How about a real one? I’ve been to a few good ones. Are you up for it?”

That seems to shake Jonny, even for a second. He composes himself quickly though and Patrick can’t help but admire that. Jonny smirks up at him. “Challenge accepted.”

Patrick beams. He instinctively raises his arm to fistbump in the air but luckily he catches himself at the last minute and offers it to Jonny so they can shake on it.

Jonny’s phone beeps with some kind of notification if the way he glances at the clock is anything to go by. “I have to cut this short,” he offers, standing up and throwing a few bills on the table.

“Oh, no” Patrick objects, tucking his arm safely back on his lap. trying to hide the fact that he’s a little disappointed. “I said I’d pay for that. It’s the least I can do.”

“Don’t worry about it.” Jonny says from somewhere near him that is definitely not the other end of the table. He was apparently too busy protesting to notice their now close proximity. 

Even with him sitting down, Patrick could tell their height difference but up close is more evident. Enough to send a thrill down Patrick’s spine. He’s a guy with more that a few kinks, ok? Sue him.

An image of Jonny’s form looming over him on a totally different setting almost makes him miss the fact that he’s asking for his number.

He spews the ten digits in a hurry, not wanting to give Jonny a reason to change his mind. 

Jonny’s deft fingers work quickly and Patrick’s mind drops right in the gutter until he hears his own phone ring in his pocket.

“Now you have mine too.”Jonny says, a hint of amusement in his tone as if he knows what Patrick was thinking.

He doesn’t know why that’s what makes him stand up hastily, determined to wipe that smugness off of Jonny.

He inches closer “It’s a date.” It’s more challenging than affirmative.

Jonny doesn’t back down. He leans closer “Best you’ll ever have.” He whispers right on Patrick’s ear, making his shiver.

And because he’s a filthy cheater he walks away before Patrick has the chance to retaliate.

For some reason, Patrick isn’t bothered much. Jonny may have won this round but Patrick will get him on the next one.

In the meantime, he can go be smug at Sharpy.

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