#unarmed security

[warriorsecurityfortlauderdale]

Warrior Security is your trusted local security partner in Fort Lauderdale. We offer comprehensive, customized security plans with 24/7 monitoring, armed/unarmed guards, mobile patrols, and VIP protection. Our licensed and background-checked officers are dedicated to your safety. Contact us for a free consultation and experience the Warrior Security difference.

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[ca-securityguardservices]

Making a Choice: Armed vs. Unarmed Security in 2024

In an era where security concerns are paramount, the choice between armed and unarmed security personnel is a critical decision for businesses, institutions, and individuals alike. With evolving threats and shifting societal dynamics, understanding the implications of each option is essential for ensuring the safety and protection of assets, property, and lives. In this comprehensive guide, we delve into the intricacies of armed and unarmed security, exploring their respective benefits, drawbacks, and considerations in the context of 2024.

Understanding Armed Security

Armed security personnel are equipped with firearms, providing them with the capability to respond to potential threats with lethal force if necessary. This heightened level of firepower can act as a deterrent against would-be perpetrators and provide a swift and decisive response in the event of an active threat situation. Armed guards undergo rigorous training and certification processes to ensure proficiency in firearms handling, threat assessment, and crisis management.

Benefits of Armed Security

Enhanced Deterrence: The presence of armed guards can dissuade potential criminals from attempting unauthorized entry or unlawful activities, thereby reducing the risk of security breaches.

Rapid Response: In high-risk environments or emergency situations, armed security personnel can swiftly neutralize threats, minimizing the potential for harm or loss.

Protection of Assets: Firearms provide an added layer of protection for valuable assets, merchandise, and sensitive information, deterring theft and vandalism.

Considerations for Armed Security

Legal and Liability Issues: The use of lethal force carries significant legal and ethical implications. Employers must ensure compliance with local laws, regulations, and industry standards governing the deployment of armed security personnel.

Training and Certification: Maintaining proficiency in firearms handling and de-escalation techniques requires ongoing training and certification, which can incur additional costs and administrative burdens.

Public Perception: While armed security may offer a sense of reassurance for some stakeholders, it can also generate apprehension or fear among others, potentially affecting public relations and community relations.

Exploring Unarmed Security

Unarmed security personnel rely on non-lethal means to maintain order, enforce regulations, and protect property. This category encompasses a wide range of roles, including security guards, access control officers, and surveillance monitors. While lacking the firepower of their armed counterparts, unarmed guards play a crucial role in maintaining a safe and secure environment through proactive surveillance, communication, and conflict resolution.

Benefits of Unarmed Security

Non-Violent Conflict Resolution: Unarmed guards are trained in de-escalation techniques, negotiation skills, and conflict management, enabling them to defuse tense situations without resorting to physical force.

Community Engagement: Unarmed security personnel often serve as ambassadors for businesses and organizations, fostering positive relationships with customers, employees, and the surrounding community.

Cost-Effectiveness: Compared to armed security, unarmed guards typically entail lower training and insurance costs, making them a more economical option for budget-conscious entities.

Considerations for Unarmed Security

Limited Response Capacity: In situations where immediate intervention is required, unarmed guards may face challenges in effectively addressing threats without the use of force.

Vulnerability to Armed Threats: While unarmed guards prioritize conflict resolution and avoidance, they may be ill-equipped to respond to armed assailants or active shooter scenarios, necessitating coordination with law enforcement.

Training and Skill Requirements: Despite the absence of firearms, unarmed security personnel require comprehensive training in observation, communication, and emergency response protocols to fulfill their duties effectively.

Making an Informed Decision

When evaluating the choice between armed and unarmed security, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. The decision should be informed by a thorough assessment of risk factors, operational needs, and legal considerations specific to each environment. Some organizations may benefit from a hybrid approach, combining armed and unarmed personnel to optimize security coverage while mitigating potential drawbacks.

Ultimately, whether opting for armed or unarmed security, the primary objective remains the same: safeguarding assets, ensuring public safety, and promoting peace of mind for all stakeholders involved. By prioritizing proactive risk management, continuous training, and stakeholder engagement, businesses and institutions can navigate the complex landscape of security challenges in 2024 and beyond.

[ashen--dreams]

uuuugh i wish we got blancas monologue abt eiji and sings flimsy plan and ashs monologue on whatever he was cooking up in his brain to escape dino at that dinner party in the anime

[jamesvince9898]

Comprehensive Security Solutions by Cornerstone Protective Services

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Our Security Services

Security Guard Services

Our Security Guard Services are designed to provide an active security presence that deters threats and ensures a safe environment. Whether securing retail spaces, corporate buildings, or public venues, our guards are extensively trained in surveillance, conflict resolution, and emergency response.

Professional Security Guards

At Cornerstone Protective Services, we pride ourselves on deploying Professional Security Guards who uphold the highest standards of vigilance and discipline. Our personnel undergo rigorous training programs that prepare them for diverse security challenges, ensuring they remain proactive and responsive in any situation.

Armed Security Guards

For high-risk environments that demand an elevated level of protection, our Armed Security Guards provide an effective deterrent against potential threats. Equipped with licensed firearms and extensive tactical training, these guards offer protection for high-value assets, corporate executives, and sensitive facilities.

Unarmed Security Guards

Not every security situation requires a visible armed presence. Our Unarmed Security Guards provide a strong yet non-threatening security solution, ideal for retail stores, corporate offices, and hospitality venues. They are trained in de-escalation techniques, customer service, and surveillance to maintain a secure atmosphere without intimidation.

Event Security Services

Managing security for public and private events requires careful planning and execution. Our Event Security Services ensure the safety of guests, performers, and staff while maintaining crowd control and handling emergency situations effectively. We provide customized security plans tailored to the unique needs of each event.

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Businesses need robust security measures to protect their assets, employees, and reputation. Our Corporate Security Services include access control, surveillance monitoring, and executive protection, ensuring a secure workplace environment for businesses of all sizes.

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Retail stores are often targets for theft and fraudulent activities. Our Retail Security Guards are trained to identify suspicious behavior, prevent shoplifting, and ensure the safety of both customers and employees. We offer tailored security solutions for malls, supermarkets, and boutique stores.

Mobile Patrol Security

For properties requiring a dynamic security presence, our Mobile Patrol Security services offer regular patrolling of premises to deter criminal activity. Our mobile units are equipped with the latest communication technology, ensuring swift response times and effective security coverage.

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Custom Security Plans: We tailor security strategies based on individual client needs and risk factors.

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Advanced Technology Integration: We leverage the latest security technologies, including surveillance systems and real-time monitoring tools.

Client-Centric Approach: We prioritize customer satisfaction by providing professional and courteous security services.

[aaa-security-guard-services]

Unarmed security is essential in DFW’s healthcare sector, and AAA Security Guard Services provides professional guards trained to ensure a safe environment. Our unarmed security team helps maintain order, protect patients, and assist staff in daily operations. Trust us for reliable healthcare security. #HealthcareSecurity #UnarmedGuards #AAAProfessionals #SafeHealthcare #DFWSecurity

[jerek]

Thought I signed up for the moseyin draft Boy was I wrong. Ambling w my accursed gauntlet just listening to the birds sing

[calmlythrilling]

Does she want help with that? And no, he is not about to use an explosive or acid (though those would be a lot more fun to use). One never leaves home without the necessities after all: wallet, phone, and lockpicks.

[k12academics]

Providers International is a member of the Association of Threat Assessment Professionals, American Society of Industrial Security, Executive Security International, and International Organization of Black Security Professionals.

Providers International excels at security services for your business or personal protection. Our security services include armed guards, executive protection, private investigation, process servers, corporate training, site security and asset management.

In addition, Providers International team of subject matter experts hold master's degrees, law degrees and PHD's in security related fields. Staff members also hold national certifications through ASIS and ESI in corporate crisis management, executive protection, corporate security, and as certified protection professionals.

[petriwriting]

Falling in love all over again. - Finnick Odair X Reader

Summary: Finnick is with you while you recover in District Thirteen.

A/N: Re-reading the hunger games series and I just love Finnick.. I couldn't resist. Feminine pronouns for reader. Takes place during mockingjay. Reader is rescued from the Capitol.

Angst! Fluff

Your shrieks haunted the halls of the District 13 hospital. Guttural, vile in nature. Finnick found himself rushing to the source of the sounds. while terrified, he pushed forward, disregarding the voices that shouted at him to stop, pushing past the security team that tried to stop his efforts. Finnick was strong, making it through the barricade of people without any serious casualties.

He emerged into the room where you had just woken up from sedation, and his heart ached immensely. The sight of you there, thrashing against your restraints. You looked drained of color, nutrients, and life. Emaciated and with a raspy, hoarse voice, you still shouted, convinced you were going to be tortured again. convinced that the doctors were going to hurt you, that the excruciating pain might never go away.

Finnick stopped himself; security had grabbed his arm and gently urged him to leave the room. The doctors were saying you would need time, which was something Finnick felt he did not have a lot left to spare. He choked, standing there watching you struggle. You hadn't even noticed him, until you did. Your eyes locked onto his.

For a moment you saw something comforting, something real in Finnick's eyes, but the capitol's torture methods took over you, the distorted images of him hurting you came back and your body recoiled. You shrieked louder, thrashing in your restraints, distressed. Finnick felt a piece of him breaking.

"Please, Sir," a strong voice urged.

"She needs space,"

He finally complied with Security's plead to get him to leave, not wanting to cause you any further harm. As they escorted him out of the hall, he choked out sobs, and the hot tears ran down his cheeks.

. . . .

Finnick found himself back by your room, unable to sleep. He had fallen asleep for a short time with his back leaning against the wall by the door, woken suddenly when a doctor had opened it and stepped out into the hall. Finnick quickly swept up onto his feet.

"How is she?" he asked, wanting to barge in there, to see you, hold you, and tell you it was okay. but he didn't want to cause you any distress. He was terrified for your recovery and worried everyday for you after seeing what they'd done to Peeta.

"She is stable." the doctor said, taking a short breathe. "We need you to be patient." he continued. "Recovery will have its ups and downs, and we will do everything we can..."

Finnick's heart raced. The doctor made it seem like you would never come back. "When can I see her?- Can I please just sit with her?" he asked. The doctor gave a sympathetic look.

"In a few hours, when she wakes again, we can allow you visitation."

Finnick nodded, he knew he had to wait, but he still longed for you.

"It's best if both of you are well rested when you visit, " the doctor said, offering a comforting hand to Finnick's shoulder and giving him a squeeze. "I'm staying here." Finnick insisted. The doctor gave a soft sigh. "Very well." he said, nodding at him.

Finnick sat with his back to the same wall by your door all night, softly dozing to sleep for a several hours when exhaustion overtook him.

In the morning, the hustle of the nurses and doctors woke him, and his eyes fluttered open softly. He rose back up to his feet quickly when he heard the faintest calling of his name.

"Finnick," you sounded rough, you had lost your voice almost entirely.

The door slid open, and he stood in the doorway. You came too, fully, your brain feeling unclear. you stared, now conscious looking at the figure. He was unarmed. That's the first thing you noticed. You looked at him in confusion as he cautiously and gently approached you.

He sat by your bedside and looked at you; his sea colored eyes were glazed over, filled with worry and fear. A strange feeling came over you. Finnick said your name so tenderly, so gently, barely above a whisper. Do I know him? did he hurt me? Is this real? you thought. He reached his hand out to set it on your own, but you pulled away and flinched as if he was going to strike you. Finnick pulled away quickly, the movement startling you more.

They had done unthinkable things to you, and it hurt him to know that they had distorted your image of him, that they had taken the sweetest, kindest person you loved and twisted them into some kind of monster. Your memory of Finnick was vague, plagued by images of violence that felt blurry. Deep down he knew that there had to be the same girl he fell in love with somewhere in there.

He took a step back, noticing your distress. "It's okay, you're safe." He said softly. "Who are you!" you spat, anxiety rising in your chest.

"I want to go home!" you shouted.

This alerted the attention of one of the nurses, who came over and administered some kind of medicine. The liquid quickly entered your system, and you dozed back off to being half awake, mumbling and uttering unintelligible words while the nurse checked your vitals.

The nurse turned to Finnick, apologizing.

. . . .

You can hear them coming. Mutts. They stamp onto the arena's grounds furiously, and you are out running them, just barely until they catch up with you are the group. First, they tear apart Peeta, Katniss' shrill cries haunt you, then they devour her, and you turn to see the rest of your friends being attacked by the mutated beasts.

You run, your feet carrying you far enough that you are in a small wooden shack, something that's safer than being out in the open. The beasts rack the walls, beating against the now locked door, as you notice Finnick emerge from the shadows. His eyes are different. he looks cold, sober, and menacing. He lets out a growl and lunges towards you, tackling you to the ground.

His hands hold you down, finding their way to your neck as they begin restricting your airway. His expression is void of emotions. His hands feel cool, and his calloused fingers force bruises on your skin. You struggle against him, begging for your life . . .

After one week of recovery, the nightmares begin to plague you. That was the first of many to come. You woke up with a gasp, desperately trashing and trying to save yourself, Once you realize where you are, you try to rationalize with yourself. You gasp, unable to catch your breath, feeling you neck as if you are hurt, and upon examining yourself, there are no bruises. It had to have been a dream.

Finnick appeared at your bedside, scared to touch you and agitate you more, "Hey, hey," he cooed, his voice was soothing. you felt conflicted, the man in your dreams had eyes devoid of color, and Finnick's were the color of the sea, remaining calm, concerned.

"It was just a dream, you're safe." He said softly.

"You," you managed to rasp out between hyperventilation.

"You tried to hurt me," you said, tears now spilling from your eyes.

"No, love, It was a bad dream. I would never lay a hand on you." he said gently, he was being patient. It was clear to you now that he did not intend to hurt you, because if we was going to he would have tried before the nurses came rushing in to check on your heart monitor that was making a raging beeping noise.

Finnick stood by your side, looking at you with worry.

"You're okay, just try to get some more rest." the nurse said. You nodded, exhaustion once again taking you as you rested your head back against the pillow. Whatever sedatives they had you taking were working well, lulling back into a slumber, hopefully this time without nightmares.

. . . .

After another week you hadn't been sleeping well now relying on the sedatives too heavily, with fear the images from the nightmares would take you out of reality again, each one more painful than the last.

Your eyes fluttered open, nothing too bad this time. The room was dimly lit, it had to be at least midnight. The halls were quiet, your restraints were still there, for your own good, the doctors had said the previous day. You attention was drawn to the gentle snoring of the man sitting in the chair in the corner of the room.

You looked at him and a sickly familiar feeling came across your chest. There was something about watching his chest gently rising and falling in his uncomfortable-looking sleeping position that seemed unthreatening.

You gazed at him, a glimpse of a memory surfacing, you could remember him, you couldn't quite place where you were, but you were standing in water and the sensation of the cool lapping waves against your body somehow felt like home. It calmed you. He was there, you recognized him, a vague figure standing with you in the water. No strangulation, no weapons, just standing in the water in his arms. You couldn't tell if that was real or not, but it seemed happy, calming, the first decent memory you had in a long time.

After a while, you warmed up to his presence, watching him sleeping, you were far too weak to do much else. you still hadn't determined if the memory was real or not.

His eyes fluttered open, and he noticed you were awake.

"Hi sweetheart," he said sheepishly with a yawn.

"Did you get some sleep?" he asked you. you reluctantly shook your head. "I can't sleep," you said, your voice was low, still scratchy but a vast improvement from before.

"Do you want me to stay up with you?" he asked. you waited, hesitating for a long time, before nodding honestly. It was nice to have another person near you, even if you weren't entirely sure who they were, you were beginning to see him as a non threat. baby steps.

After another bout of silence, your voice carried across the quiet room. "I can't tell what's real anymore," you confessed. Finnick frowned. "You don't have to right now," he said. "All you should know right now is that you're safe, and I'm here." he said. you felt comforted.

The two of you stayed up for a while, and he stayed up to watch over you as you stared at the ceiling for a while, contemplating everything, before finally feeling relaxed enough to rest again.

. . . .

After that night, you felt more comfortable, and would sometimes laugh at a small joke Finnick would make. You had even warmed up enough to allow him to sit closer to you, and after several weeks, you allowed him to hold your hand. His felt soft and warm, nothing like the memory of his hands you weren't sure you could trust.

One month of treatment and therapy and conditioning. you were starting to feel somewhat like your old self. Somewhat normal, despite your questioning of your own memory. The doctors had helped you work out ways of differentiating your memories from what was real. It was tough. It felt like a daily battle. But at least now you had someone to tell you what was real, and what was not.

Your eyes fluttered open that morning to see Finnick in the chair in by your bed, flipping through the pages of some novel he had found, pretending to read the page, skimming the words but not really reading them. He noticed your gaze and smiled softly.

"Good morning, love." he said in a quiet voice.

"Hi." you said.

Finnick just stared, admiring your beauty, yearning to have you back. He was beyond thankful you were alive and here with him, so now he focusses all his energy on your recovery.

You were lost in your thoughts for a long while. The memory of the two of you in the water kept resurfacing. Bits and pieces came back to you as time passed, now you were able to form a somewhat coherent image.

you were in his arms, on the beach, back home, in District 4. He held you while humming a gentle song in your ear, the waves pushing and pulling against your bodies, gently complementing Finnick's melody. The safe feeling warmed your whole body, and you felt a love surround you. The gentle sea breeze combing through your hair, the smell of the sea flooding your senses...

"Can I ask you a question?" you spoke suddenly. Finnick leaned forward in his chair. "Of course," he said honestly.

"I think," you said, still unsure of the memories.

"I think you loved me."

the words hung in the air softly and fell upon Finnick like a melody.

"That's not quite right," he said. you gazed at him in confusion. "I Love you. still, always," he said. "No matter what happens." he smiled at you, wanting to cry.

"I love you," Finnick said softly, brushing a piece of hair from your face. "That is real." he said. you nodded, this time initiating contact and placing your hand over his. There was a mutual understanding that day.

"Everything is so fuzzy," you begin.

"But I remember being in the sea with you, back home, I think."

Finnick nodded. "Is that real?" you asked him, gazing into his eyes, the same ones from the memory that brought you comfort now, even if you couldn't remember much else or any other context. It came back in fragmented parts. "Yes," Finnick said without hesitation. "I remember it too."

"That was the first time I realized I was in love with you." he said. you took his word for it, why would he lie? "We had just met up when I had come home from the games; we were so young." He continued on, as you listened to his story, eager like a child to hear more.

"You told me you were scared that you'd never see me again, and you were happy I was home." You smiled softly, tears filling your eyes, flooding with a warming, loving feeling. "And I said to you," he stopped himself, smiling softly, tears gently falling from his cheeks. he hesitated, but your memory became a brighter beacon now, and you finished his sentence for him.

"I'll always come home to you."

The words caused Finnick to sob. he nodded, taking your hand and gently caressing your bony hands with his fingers.

"I'm so sorry they took you." he said with a bit of guilt.

"It's not your fault," you whispered gently.

"I thought the Capitol had taken you from me. I almost lost hope." He confessed. you stayed quiet for a moment.

"Finn?" you uttered softly; his heart fluttered when you said his nickname. "Yes, love," he exhaled, wiping his tears away.

"Will you hold me?"

and with that, Finnick situated himself on the bed next to you, close enough he could hear your heartbeat. You laid your head on his chest, that warm feeling flooding over you again. You finally felt safety, comfort and content. You realized you had all you needed.

[gutsby]

Cabin Fever

Pairing: Dark!Joel x Dark!Reader

Summary: Joel saves your life, but help comes at a price.

Warnings: 18+. DEAD DOVE: DNE. NONCONSENSUAL. I’m never ever beating the insane bitch allegations, I fear. Protector-turned-pervert-turned-unwilling-captor-kinda. Corruption kink. Daddy kink. Somnophilia. Misogyny. “It’s too big; it won’t fit” + Joel “I’ll make it fit” Miller. Captivity on both ends. Oral (f!receiving). Gunplay. Oversimplified first-time anal. Uno Reverse Drugging. Evil, inexperienced reader meets evil, feral, slutty Joel. Attempted murder x3. Russian Roulette…as foreplay?

Notes: Both characters SUCK. I condone nothing they do. Please do not take any of their behavior or language to reflect my own moral predilections. That is all 🚬😵‍💫

You were hardly shaking at all when he’d found you chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains.

He didn’t see that every day, that was for-fucking-sure.

Joel Miller barely got to see his share of happy, grinning girls on the cold and bitter frontier he inhabited. Ones that were tied to posts and clinging to life were even less common, so the sight of you there had almost frightened him at first. He’d approached you like one might advance upon a sleeping bear: with the utmost caution and a Winchester Model 70 levelled directly at your head.

He’d learned you were unarmed and defenseless in less than a second. He’d come to realize you were largely unconscious—and unclothed—even sooner than that.

He had been industrious in freeing your hands and feet from their restraints but never uttered a word as he did.

Even on the two-and-a-half mile trek back home, he hadn’t spoken once. You’d hung off his left shoulder like a pretty, frosted slab of meat, covered only with the sherpa blanket he’d secured around your neck, and dangled precariously down his back for the entire fifty minutes.

Your toes were two shades shy of onyx with frostbite.

Your limbs were hanging like lead over his chest.

A whisper of, ‘You’ll be fine, darlin’, I promise’ had just seemed ill-suited for the circumstances and his nature. In truth, Joel didn’t know if you’d be fine. You might die. The blood wouldn’t be on his hands one way or the other, but he never had liked burying bodies this time of year. He’d have to wait until April to break ground, at least.

Presently, he dropped your limp form to the floor of his cabin and hoped he wouldn’t be needing to bury anyone.

You sort of looked charming in the firelight.

He stomped off to the kitchen and began rifling for pans, preparing to defrost the icy stranger as best he could.

You didn’t die.

You didn’t wake for forty full hours, but you didn’t die.

When you stirred on the floor with warm sherpa around your shoulders and a rough calfskin rug under your ass, you thought you had died—maybe taken a pit stop in cowpoke purgatory while you were at it—but then you blinked. Breathed. Realized you were still very much inside your body and most likely still in Wyoming.

You sat up where you were and looked around.

“Da-a-d?”

You knew it was useless, calling for your father.

He had been dead almost eight months; you just wanted to double-check to make sure you were still on earth.

When dead dad didn’t answer, you tried someone else.

“Momma?”

Still no answer.

Figured, since she was among the ones that had left you chained outside in the first place. It’d been worth a shot.

You started to rise from your place, when a sharp pain in your side made you plop back down on the rug. You winced and lifted the blanket, then your old nightie.

A neat little taped-down bandage had your ribs encased in antiseptics and gauze. You frowned down at a stain in the centre, which looked to you an awful lot like blood. That circle of old fluids must’ve been twice the size of your fist and currently oozing tiny, fresh beads of blood from the strain you’d just exerted. You pursed your lips.

Least they could’ve done is kill me, not leave me here.

You’d take it up with your old would-be assassins another day, you were sure. Right now, you were parched, starving, in dire need of a piss, and reeling on the floor to grab hold of something sturdy to lift yourself. But you were as much a child then as you had ever been, swaying in place and clawing at air like someone who’d never kept their balance before. Or might’ve been drunk.

You rolled onto your good side and cast a sweeping look around the cabin. You smelled slow-cooked barbecue.

Thank fuck, you thought.

Now, if I were a juicy rack of ribs, where would I be?

The kitchen was dark and empty; the smell was coming from elsewhere. You craned your neck, tilted your chin, spotted a loft overhead but figured it wasn’t too likely to find someone grilling up there, so where the hell was it?

And who the hell was it, smoking meats and mending up strangers in the cold and lonely dead of winter like this?

You put a pin in that thought as you searched for a place to pee.

By the time you’d hobbled out of the bathroom, the smoky smell had grown even stronger. It was so pungent it bordered on vertiginous, invading every inch of the cabin with a force. Then it was leading you, teasing you by turns to venture outside. All you had on your feet were some oversized socks and two strips of medical tape.

Against your better judgment, you continued to hobble.

Out the door, down the steps, slowly, then following your nose and the first whiff of smoke you smelled to make it to the place you were almost certain you needed to be.

You trudged around a corner of the cabin’s exterior and stopped. Turned around. Cursed your own senses for being so stupid to miss the huge fucking shed spewing smoke out front—or was it the back?—and plodded on.

Your feet might have carried you a third of the way there before your powers of sight and sound eventually failed you again, and you missed another big something.

Big and beige and coated in snow—baring its teeth and snarling at the unfamiliar presence as soon as it saw you.

The next thing you knew, sixty-two pounds of Belgian Malinois had had you knocked to the ground in less than a second. You hardly understood what had hit you until it was barking and chomping away an inch from your face.

You fought hard and frantic to shove the ugly fucker off, but your bandaged hands were no match for its paws. The dog continued to tear at your blanket, nip at your ears, claw at your neck, and all around snuff out any sense of peace you might have acquired in the dozen-odd minutes since you’d first woken up. You screamed.

You yelled as loud as you could and felt yourself cower and sink lower into the snow as you fought.

Just when you tried to raise a knee—to kick the animal in the ribs or else protect your own—a sound broke out above the buzz.

A voice, clear as day:

“CUJO!”

The dog stalled on top of you a moment, just to be yanked off the next, and the closest thing afterward was a face—kinder than Cujo’s but not by very much.

It was a broad, bearded, pock-marked head with more soot to recommend itself than skin. Lips smeared with ash and grime and curved down in the single most decisive frown you’d seen in your life, the man looked to be beside himself seeing you tits up in the snow.

He gripped one arm of yours, then dropped it.

Picked a leg up, paused, then hauled you into a cradle carry as graceless as you’d ever felt it done before.

“Come!” he snapped, and it took you too long to realize that he was talking to the dog. You’d already wrapped your arms around his neck in abrupt complaisance.

He carried you back into the cabin and kicked the door open in front of you. He held you firm for a second, then, just as he had outside, changed course before you knew what to do and was shortly depositing you on the sofa.

You winced when your ass hit the cushion.

You started to sit, grab a pillow for your back or just bring your knees to your chest, when suddenly a palm was pressing flat on your front. Forcing you to lie down.

“Hey, hey!” you cried when the man started lifting the hem of your nightgown.

If he’d heard you at all, he didn’t show it. He just worked his thick, dirty fingers under the fabric and raised the white satin like he might the hood of a car. He frowned.

It was then that you noticed a blooming red splotch on your side, slowly overtaking the terra-cotta color of dried blood on the bandage and spreading out. Then a pain.

Instead of pushing the man’s hands away, you were holding them tight, wrestling that same touch which was trying to keep you from poking around the area now.

“Quit,” the man said, sedate as could be.

“Hurts,” was all you could think to tell him—and you guessed he’d already had that part down by the outpouring of blood. He shoved your hands off.

The brand new crimson hue had already soaked through the bandage. He pulled it off. You caught a glimpse of a wound that seemed to be weeping through its stitches—oozing pus and blood and a gore you could’ve gone your whole life without seeing. You would’ve liked to run a couple gentle, awed fingers over it, but as it was, your coarse and tight-lipped medic wouldn’t let you.

“Hold still,” he commanded.

“Heystopstopstop!” you implored him, feeling a streak of pain up your side as his calloused hands delved deeper.

At your latest flinch and plea, the man seemed to have had enough. Or just needed to angle your body in a different direction for easier access to the site. He gathered you back up in his arms and walked over to the kitchen, where he set you down again on the counter. Hands moved to your hips, briefly, to push you back on the surface and allow him to stand between your legs. Again, the man frowned as he peeled off your pyjamas.

Two warring fears of pain and overexposure fought like wild beasts in your brain for a second—you yelping and trying to cover your breasts in a hurry, then realizing how much it hurt to lift your arms that way when your ribs were dripping blood, then the man making the decision for you both as he pushed your hands behind your back and said a simple ‘Fuck’s sake’ to keep you pinned.

You didn’t like it.

You didn’t like it, and you let him continue, because you knew that you didn’t know shit about doing this yourself.

Joel must’ve fixed your dressings fourteen times before turning you loose. He’d had you perched atop his counter like goddamned Prisoner-of-War Barbie, all riddled with bumps, bruises, and lesions galore, looked your body up and down just once, and nearly grew sick at the sight.

He’d disgusted himself by feeling as aroused as he was.

Shortly thereafter, he’d toted you off—before the blood could rush down to his dick and start to swell—shrugged your gown over your torso, and stepped away. Simple.

Then you’d had to go and throw a wrench in his plans.

“What if I need to pee?” you’d said as soon as Joel started up the stairs with you in his arms again.

He had meant to drop you off on the bed in the loft, out of sight, but it seemed you were more concerned about the prospect of traversing the steps up and down for potty breaks. Joel had audibly huffed above you.

“I can leave a bucket.”

“Yu-uck.” The latter word had been given two syllables to show the full extent of your disgust, like a child might do.

And that was how you’d ended up here: snug in his bed on the ground floor, curled up in more layers of flannel and wool than you could count and staring blankly up at the man who was standing cold and aloof off to the side.

Your eyelids were growing heavy with sleep.

He figured they would be.

Joel picked up the glass that sat beside your empty one on the nightstand and drank, watching you all the while.

“D’you know my momma?” you asked, voice sounding extra small coming from the depths of your cocoon.

Joel finished his drink in four big gulps.

“Sure hope not,” he said once he’d set it back down.

By the sight of the scars he’d found littering your hands and back alone, Joel was able to surmise you’d come from a pretty rough, ragtag group. Maybe even Raiders. Knowing folks like that simply never struck one’s fancy, so he’d been honest. You might’ve argued, or laughed, if you hadn’t been nabbed so tightly in the grips of those first stages preceding sleep, so instead, you nodded.

“Figured,” you mumbled.

7:11, Joel read on the clock. You’d finished your drink at seven, or somewhere thereabouts. Judging by your size, it wouldn’t take long at all for the medicine to take effect.

‘Medicine,’ Joel thought, sounded a whole hell of a lot better than ‘drugs.’ One was meant to rehabilitate, rejuvenate, bring new life to your worn and weary bones. The other would just knock you cold and keep you there.

On second thought, those were definitely drugs Joel had just slipped in your water before giving it to you to drink.

As your eyes blinked from closed, to open, to closed, then open but slightly less open than the time before, and closed again, he felt a sick sense of accomplishment twist in his gut. If only his former-nurse friend could have seen what he was doing with those morphine sulfate tablets he’d traded for—he likely would’ve slapped Joel across the face. And Joel would’ve smiled all the same.

Yeah, okay, drugging the unsuspecting and defenseless female he’d just saved from death’s doorstep two days ago didn’t look great on paper, he would fully concede.

But this was all in good fun.

Great fun, even.

For him.

“Sick fuck,” Joel muttered as he started to undo his belt. The button and zip were taken apart just as fast, and with two steps, he was standing at your bedside—his bedside—and tugging his trousers down his legs. He took his cock in his hand and glanced over at the clock.

7:15.

He nudged your shoulder.

7:16.

Peeling layers of blanket away from your body.

7:17.

“Hey…honey?”

A lot more nothing from the girl sleeping in front of him. He shrugged his jeans to the floor, kicked them off at his feet, and moved onto the bed. You just looked so sweet.

Joel tried working around the fabric of his boxers but got impatient pretty quick. He hauled those off, too.

Soon, his beefy, bare, and surprisingly tan legs were bracketing your hips as he stroked himself above you. His eyes roamed the lax and tranquil features undeniably characteristic of sleep, and he pumped himself faster. Really, there was no need for theatrics or enhancements now—he was already hard as three tonnes of steel—but Joel would be lying if he said he didn’t like the build-up.

You were no longer in danger of dying, thanks to him. You were slowly but surely on the mend, no thanks to Cujo at all, but many thanks to him, Joel Miller, the man who had pried you off of that post, pulled you out of your chains, ushered warmth back into your limbs, and stitched up your side out of the goodness of his heart.

Any objective onlooker could see that you’d availed yourself of his medical attention and aid without ever asking, so why should he request access to you now? This was the way of the world these days, anyway. Sex was no longer so much a question as it was an answer in most scenarios—a mere transaction, wherein the physically weaker of two parties was forced to capitulate. Not within the four unsullied walls of Jackson and a few other pockets of homestead communities here and there, but on the whole, absolutely. Jackson was down the road a ways away and sufficiently far enough from Joel’s cabin for him to be disentangled from their rules. What mattered now was obtaining what he was owed.

Still, the man hesitated a half-second longer above you. He jerked his cock even faster and felt his stomach start to clench. Was that? No—nerves were fucking juvenile. Getting close to cumming from just the sight of you alone was for chumps. Joel Miller was no chump.

He lifted your nightie and lowered the head of his cock to rest between your folds. Then he shifted his knees so that he could rub himself gently against your warmth.

Joel Miller was a monster, but he was no brute. He also understood female anatomy well enough to know that, well…wetter was better. He started moving his hips.

You exhaled through your nose. Nothing major; you probably hadn’t even felt him long enough to whine.

Joel planted a hand beside your head—a preemptive warning.

“There…” He liked to talk as though you could hear him. Like you might be semi-conscious and dimly aware of what he was doing to you then, “Right there…ah, baby.”

He never did catch your name.

That was no matter. So long as you stayed put and made a nice, wet, pretty little hole for him to fuck, you would be fine. By the feel of your folds alone, he could tell you’d be a fun thing to use. Soft and snug and plied with drugs, you could do, and be, anything he damn well needed.

Or maybe nothing at all, he thought without humor.

Joel brushed your cheek with the knuckles of his free hand and watched you turn away, making a face. He snagged your chin and tilted it back to him, sharply, before gliding those fingers down your chest, then your tummy, then your hips, then dipping between your legs. He found your clit and pressed it with a deliberate touch.

“Hey,” Joel whispered, again, as though you might hear, “You’re gonna stay still and let me do this.”

Your nose scrunched in response, thighs clamping together. Joel pried them apart with one push and continued sliding his cock back and forth. He grunted.

“Gonna let me take what’s mine, hear?”

You didn’t hear much of anything, he suspected, but he asked the question all the same. At least now your legs were staying open and he could rut himself gently into that space without having to keep them spread. A first, gentle ‘mmph’ sounded from your lips, and he was glad. He kept thumbing that spot he knew you would like and rubbing along the seam of your cunt with his erection.

Then Joel felt a weight on his shoulders. Remorse? No. Anxiety? Perhaps. This felt more like a fog, though, seizing his muscles and seeping gently between the grooves of his brain. He gave his head a fierce shake.

“Hold still,” he said, more to himself; you hadn’t moved.

Joel fisted the base of his cock and angled the tip toward your entrance, caring much less whether you were ready or not now that his desires had grown stronger.

He was met with resistance on trying to push in. He dug his fingers in the pillow beneath your head and scowled.

“Quit…clenchin’…like that. Ain’t…fair to me,” he huffed.

He was one to talk.

Now, he’d been with a staggering number of women, experiences ranging all across the spectrum, but even the tightest, most untouched pieces of ass he’d ever tapped had given way more than this. Your walls were unyielding, refusing to give him entry. Joel cursed and rutted his hips in a rough, entirely unsuccessful, thrust.

You hummed in response, eyes still closed, one hand fumbling mindlessly for something to hold. Joel seized it.

“Not lettin’ you off that easy, darlin’, I—”

“Fuck,” you breathed, followed by a low whimper.

Joel froze. Had you heard him? Felt him just now?

Something about the uncertainty laden in those questions sent his mind into overdrive, heart beating a wild cadence in his chest. He realized then that his mouth had gone dry, his vision was skewed just slightly on the outskirts. And his cock was throbbing.

“Ya like that?” Joel seethed, not thinking, still rubbing, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”

“Uh-huh.” Softly.

You little slut. He knew it all along.

Whatever it was that kept your body from being coupled with his was almost immaterial to him now. Joel’s mind was swimming with desire, cock dragging in desperate, fitful bursts between your legs, never penetrating but still wringing massive jolts of pleasure from that place.

With the way he was feeling now, Joel could cum from just fucking your thighs. And that was alright.

You were moaning underneath him. Even…smiling?

“Fuck, baby, you look so pretty.”

Joel had never called a girl pretty before and meant it. But he hardly knew how else to describe you now with how good and sweet and fine you were making him feel. A strange warmth sank into his chest, making it harder to breathe, and then he was panting above you, as if he were really inside that dripping wet spot. He was close.

“Such a pretty…sweet…fuckin’ thing for me.”

That red, raging, leaky cock of his was almost a blur between your legs, he was thrusting against you so fast. Joel thought for one frightening second that it might be his skull that would explode instead, so high was that pressure between his ears, but his fears were promptly put to rest as the first rope of cum came stuttering out. Then another. Then another. Then another.

By the time he finished, he could’ve sworn he’d left a hundred spurts on your tummy. When Joel glanced down and saw a sea of opaque, sticky white, he groaned.

Then he fell. Fully collapsed at your side with his brain in a tizzy of wild, heady feelings and sank into himself.

He hadn’t even fucked you, and he felt like he had.

He lifted a hand to wipe away his spend, but he couldn’t.

He would get to it in the morning, before you stirred, he thought. He thought. He didn’t have the chance to think much longer at all, as darkness started hedging him in.

He slept.

It was 7:57 when he woke.

The man had no real way of knowing that, though, seeing as he was greeted with a nickel-plated revolver between his teeth the second he opened his eyes.

You were straddling his torso, gun pinched between two calm, bandaged hands. You frowned when he jumped.

“WH—” he started.

“Shut up.”

“ST—”

“I said shut,” you cocked the gun, holding it tighter, then shoving it even further inside his mouth, “the fuck. up.”

The man obeyed.

‘Joel M.’—you’d read the name etched on the butt of his pistol before picking it up some twenty minutes ago.

“Pretty fuckin’ thing,” you mocked the man’s Texan drawl as you wiggled the barrel even deeper along his tongue, “Like givin’ daddy a hard time before lettin’ him in?”

The man’s eyes widened.

How dumb did he think you were?

Offering a semi-clear liquid that should’ve been water; he hadn’t even waited for the morphine tablet to fully dissolve before handing it over to you. Fucking idiot.

You were more disturbed by the fact he’d thought you stupid enough not to notice than him actually trying to drug you. The latter was almost to be expected from predatory, execrable men like him, but the insult to your intelligence? Unacceptable. You’d remedied that affront fairly quickly, though, swapping his glass with yours the second he hadn’t been looking, then nestling into his bed and playing pretend for what had felt like an eternity.

You’d been awake the whole time the man touched you, not knowing what the hell was going on but feeling like you had to stay still. Let him finish. Out of fear, at first, then curiosity, then some strange and unfamiliar sensation that you couldn’t quite describe as anything but a pleasurable itch between your legs. You let the man continue, hearing him grunt and groan and swear up a storm before he shot something hot all over your tummy. By the end of it all, you knew it was wrong, and you knew it was dirty—though you weren’t sure exactly what it was that he had done—but you wanted to learn more.

Which was probably why you hadn’t just shot the old pervert right between his eyes the second he’d stirred.

You shifted atop this ‘Joel M.’ and frowned once more.

“Why’d you stop?”

Gun still wedged in his mouth, Joel’s voice sounded garbled as he spoke, “Wha-agh-at?”

You retracted the metal just long enough to pose the question again. When you had, he still looked stunned.

“Answer me,” you barked, and feeling your patience lapse, got straight to pistol-whipping the motherfucker upside his half-grey head, “You DUMB, or somethin’?”

The man sputtered again.

“No, no— I don’t— dunno what you mean.”

He sounded dumb. You would need to spell this out.

“Why did you stop rubbing me like that?”

If anything, the clarification only seemed to baffle him further. He opened his taut, bearded mouth, then closed it, then eyed you up and down with a look that said he was considering something. Then he stared at one spot.

You glanced down at it too.

“And what is this, anyway?” you asked, swiping one finger at the mostly dried moisture on your stomach, “Why’d you spit this stuff up all over me, huh?!”

“I ain’t—”

You raised the gun as if to hit him again. He jolted back.

“I didn’t mean— shit. Shit, I just…came on you, ‘s’all.”

“Came?”

The word hung in the air like a grenade, waiting. Mr. M was already bracing himself for the impact, it seemed.

“Came?!”

That bracing served him well, because in the next second you were lifting the weapon even higher and eyeing him with the most pointed, putrid look of disdain. You’d never been one for letting grenades go untouched.

“Ejaculated!” Joel hissed, lifting a hand to shield himself, “Felt— felt so good I just couldn’t stop and I-I-I came.”

You paused.

Came. Felt good. Couldn’t stop.

You had felt good when he’d rubbed you. You had not wanted him to stop. But then he had. And you were mad. You’d never been touched that way in your life, and now you were feeling fifteen hundred emotions at once.

Were you supposed to ‘come,’ too? Why did he stop?

“Why didn’t you let me…ejaculate, too?” The words felt foreign and strange on your tongue.

For the first time, you saw one side of Joel’s lips twitch. Evidently fighting the urge to turn them into a smile.

“Girls don’t really…do that,” he said. Then, after a beat, “Why? Ain’t ever had your pussy rubbed on by a man?”

You shortly landed the blow you’d been holding over his head, splitting the skin along his brow with one hit from the butt of his gun. Joel jumped again, then moaned.

“Crazy bitch!”

“Creepy fuck.”

Your eyes narrowed with loathing, unable to comprehend how a man so vile had just made you feel so good. Your stomach was twisting in knots while Joel rubbed his forehead, pawing helplessly at the gash you’d just left.

“I saved your life,” he grumbled, low, “You owed me.”

“Did I?”

Abruptly, and without really thinking, you were sinking the muzzle of the gun into the spot you’d just cut, mouth kicking up in a smile at the sounds of pain it elicited.

“Did I, Joel?” you cooed.

“How the— the fuck do you know my name?”

Momentarily, you yanked the revolver from his face and tilted it to show him his name carved into the bottom.

“What’s the ‘M’ stand for? ‘Molester’?”

“Means ‘mind’ your fucking business,” he spat.

You probably would’ve hit him again had it not seemed as though he were trying to sit up just then. You slid swiftly from his frame—just to take a step off the bed, gun still pointed at his head. Then you backed away.

One by one, rapidly, you unloaded the bullets from the cylinder, maintaining a safe distance from the man all the while. You watched him blink and try to get some thing from his eyes, but he didn’t seem keen to move.

You left just one live round inside. You made a point to spin the cylinder and, again, aim it straight at his head.

The man was blinking even harder. Rubbing now, too.

“I feel…” Joel murmured.

“Drugged?” you returned, “Yeah, that must suck.”

A set of wide, irate, and horrified eyes met yours. His mouth hung open in a stupid look of shock. Trying to piece the last bits of this fucked up jigsaw puzzle together and growing angrier by the second.

“You fuckin’—”

Joel’s words were cut short by the weight of your body barreling back over his. Graceless, you imagined, but still nothing close to something you cared about now. You planted your knees on either side of his ribs and grazed the tip of the six-shooter down the length of his nose.

“Tell me,” you said, “How’d you make it feel so good?”

Your hips twisted for effect, jostling the man’s own parts beneath yours and clearly causing some effect in him. The muscles in his jaw jumped up as he gritted his teeth.

“You know damn well, slut,” Joel griped.

Without another thought, you squeezed the trigger.

Click.

The man’s whole body lurched underneath you. Trembling with the realization that you’d left just one lone bullet for him—and he didn’t know which chamber.

As far as foreplay went, Russian Roulette was probably a first, even for a man as wanton and depraved as Joel. You smiled sweetly and made another gyration with your lower half, which prompted him to grip you. Tight.

“What? Ya want me to fuck you, is that it?” he growled.

“I thought it wouldn’t fit.”

“I’ll make it fit.”

“How?”

Try as you might to conceal it, your gaze likely betrayed a hint of sincerity as you made that last inquiry. Joel’s eyes flickered between yours, searching for something there, and just when those glossy brown irises had found it, they stopped. Blinked. He shook his head, incredulous.

“My mind ain’t…right,” he said, slowly, “But I— I know you know what I mean by that, sweet pea.”

Something in your tummy fluttered at the sound. You gripped the pistol tighter to get rid of the feeling.

“I don’t,” you answered.

Again, Joel was stumped. For the first time, though, there appeared to be some sympathy behind his eyes. Or stupidity. Or just a shit ton of morphine coursing through his veins as he tried to make sense of this situation.

As if to confirm an idea in his drug-addled brain, he lowered a hand between your legs and hovered there a second. He watched you; you watched back but didn’t move.

Then slowly, almost clinically, Joel slipped two fingers underneath you and found a soft, pulsing warmth—far wetter than the last time he’d touched down there. When he pulled his hand away, both fingers and half of his palm were glistening with a fluid. You let out a startled cry at the sight of it and nearly dropped your gun.

“What is that?!”

Joel looked to you, equally awed—for different reasons.

“What do you mean?”

“Why’s it all…sticky?”

You couldn’t even try to hide your horror at the thought of that weird, syrupy stuff leaking out of you. It was strange enough feeling it come out of a freak like Joel, but from your own body? He had to be fucking joking.

“It’s normal.”

“Like hell it is— you— STOP!” The last fragment of your sentence was swallowed by a scream, leaping back when Joel moved his fingers toward your face.

“What? You’ve never seen this?” He sounded like he was teasing. You could shoot him for how smug he sounded.

In very small amounts, you’d seen stuff. Blood every month. Bits and pieces of bodily secretions that, to you, had always seemed gross. But never this. Never big, sticky globs of…whatever the fuck this was. You continued to back away on the bed, gun still tipped toward Joel but now trying to put some distance between your bodies. You didn’t know how else to act.

You did know you wanted to scream when Joel stuck his fingers in his mouth. Bile might’ve jumped in your throat.

He sucked the dew clean off the digits, then wriggled them to show what he’d done. You felt the urge to vomit.

“That came from— from— why are you eating it?!”

Joel grinned. Big.

You weren’t sure why, but he looked psyched to be alive in that moment, and not just because of the narcotics.

Before you knew what was happening, he’d pushed you flat on your back, hips pinned underneath his hands as he moved over your body. He didn’t even try for the gun.

“And here I was thinkin’ you were just fuckin’ with me,” he chuckled, palms sliding under your nightdress. When you felt the residuum of wetness from his spit and your slick stuck together on his fingers, you wanted to squeal.

But you didn’t. You tried propping yourself up on elbows until Joel was sliding your one and only article of clothing over your head, then beckoning you down on the bed in front of him. You watched his gaze flit down to your side.

“Still hurt?” he murmured, tracing over the bandage.

You shook your head no, though it did, a little. At the moment, it seemed the pain was the furthest thing from your mind as you saw Joel slide down your body and try to take up residence between your thighs—with his face planted right there. You kicked his shoulder in protest.

“Quit!” you cried, pulling your legs up to your chest.

“You quit,” Joel returned, yanking them back.

Then you felt you had no choice but to brandish the gun, taking the thing between two palms while you pointed it again—as if he needed the reminder.

“Fine. Why don’t you keep that thing aimed at my head while I give you some?” he muttered. The subsequent ‘See if I give a shit’ was silent.

“Give me some what?”

“Head.”

Head. You’d never heard something phrased that way. Joel’s head was down there, sure, practically grinning from ear to ear as he hooked your legs over his shoulders, but certainly he didn’t mean to do a thing as drastic and dirty as—

“JOEL!”

“Hm?” His voice was muffled by your thighs.

You tried to shy away, but he held you down.

“Joel, I— I pee out of there,” you hissed, “Why the fuck would you wanna put your mouth on that?”

As if your groans of disgust and vehement attempts to get away weren’t enough to deter him, you watched Joel’s tongue dart between his lips and down to yours. The sick fuck was actually licking your folds, tracing the tip across that warm, sticky place and moaning into your skin. Holding you tighter when you pleaded for him to stop. Then, with the hand that wasn’t prying your legs apart, he reached down and started stroking his cock.

Again, it felt dirty and wrong. Beyond the fact that this man was a perfect stranger and easily decades your senior, you were repulsed by the sight of his lips and his tongue and his spit mixing up in that messy, wet place you still didn’t quite understand yourself. You didn’t know much about your body, but it had never once occurred to you to be kissed down there. Joel was roaming every contour and crevice with his tongue like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like he liked it.

“I hate it,” you whined, feebly.

You knew you could’ve easily blown the man’s brains out, but some small part of you was still plagued by curiosity. ‘Hate’ was just the first word that came to mind when you were faced with something that made you scared.

“It’s weird,” you tried again. This time pressing the gun to the top of his bobbing head while you grit your teeth, “And wrong.”

At that, Joel stopped.

His eyes flickered to yours, all glass-like and hooded.

“Why? Practically lickin’ ya clean here,” he said, starting to grin to himself as his words came slightly slurred, “There’s nothin’ wrong about this, sweet pea.”

You felt something flutter between you. He felt it, too.

“Like when I call ya that? ‘Sweet pea’?” he said, pausing to flick his tongue over the spot that had just stirred at his words. He watched you fight back a whimper.

“No,” you choked. You pinched your eyes shut, unsure whether it was pleasure or pure revulsion overtaking you—or both.

Suddenly, you felt Joel’s hand smooth over your thigh, still warm from when he’d been stroking himself below. He placed an affectionate kiss to your belly and grinned.

“Is that what this is? Feel guilty about feelin’ this good?” he murmured, “Think it’s…dirty, what we’re doin’?”

At length, and just barely visible to him, you nodded.

“It is dirty,” you corrected him quietly.

Then you saw that stupid pseudo-sympathetic smirk tug at the corners of his lips, and just when you thought he might nudge his way back up your body—to do what, you weren’t sure—he sank between your legs. This time, he made sure to hold your gaze as he re-assumed the position. His palm continued to rub at your thigh, as if to distract you from the rough brush of his stubble or the fact that his mouth was hovering so dangerously close.

“Sweet pea,” he rasped, “Ain’t nothin’ dirty about this.”

As if to punctuate his words, Joel dragged his lips down your slit to press a kiss to your centre, eyes never leaving yours.

“Not here…”

He pointed with his tongue, moving it deftly between your folds. You gripped the sheets, trying to ignore the pleasure that the simple act wrought through your body.

“Not here.”

He kissed your clit. You squeezed even tighter.

“Not on my tongue, on my fingers, anywhere, y’hear?”

You were about to answer—maybe tell him he was supremely full of shit, then flash the gun in his face—when Joel shifted onto his knees on the bed. He moved slowly and as calm as he ever had, motions languid while his mind was likely steeped in the morphine by now. He snagged one of your ankles. He slid his hand up the back of your calf and tugged you down to the edge of the bed. Then he stood up, right between your legs. The warmth radiating from his bare lower half was immediate, almost suffocating from where you lay. You didn’t like it at all.

You refused to meet his gaze, grip tightening on the gun.

“Joel…”

When that warmth at your front shifted inward, though, you hardly had a say in what your reflexes did or didn’t do. You jumped when you felt the head of his dick slip past your pulsing core, closer to the other hole below it.

“Not here, either,” Joel continued, grin still evident from his tone.

Before you could even think to ask what he meant to do ‘here,’ Joel moved one of your legs up, tilting your hips, and pushed ahead with just the tip of his cock. Not breaching it fully, but nudging—prodding at that hole.

For the first time, you let out a moan.

You hastily clamped a hand over your mouth to stifle it.

“Aw, honey,” Joel murmured, “Did that feel good?”

His words reeked of condescension. You scowled at the ceiling.

“No.”

You felt him push a little further—this time making the head of his dick notch into that tight ring of muscles.

No, the word rang through your skull once more. Your curiosity was shortly supplanted by disgust—how the fuck could you let this creepy old man, this stranger, press into you like that? Talk to you like you were dumb? You seized hold of Joel’s pistol with both hands and aimed directly for his chest.

“Stop doing that,” you growled. When the man’s grip on your leg only tightened and you couldn’t writhe away, you lifted the other and tried kicking him in the gut. Of course, Joel caught your foot midair, and it never landed.

“Just givin’ ya options, darlin’,” he said, easy-going. Not seeming to care about the firearm pointed his way.

Fuck it.

You squeezed the trigger again.

Empty chamber.

If Joel flinched, you didn’t see it. He did, however, knock the gun right out of your hand the next second, sending it tumbling with an unceremonious thump on the bed behind you. You tried to leap back for it, but your arm was quickly pinned. Joel cocked one silver-flecked brow.

“You done?” he asked, almost bored.

Your last—and only—leverage taken away from you, you couldn’t help but feel a pang of anger. And desperation.

“I don’t wanna do this,” you cried, trying to squirm away.

Joel didn’t move his cock, but he did hold you still. Blinking with indifference and a fair bit of drug-induced dissociation, it seemed, from the far-away look in his eyes. He pushed both of your legs so they were folded up to your chest, and ignored your whimpers when he did. At length, he pulled out just enough to smear some of your wetness down to the hole he was trying to fuck.

“You want this,” he countered gently.

“I DON’T!”

Joel continued as though he hadn’t heard you, and moments later, you sensed another slick something pooling against you. From your position beneath him, you could see a bead of spit slip from Joel’s mouth and stretch into a thin, glistening string all the way down to the space between your thighs. You watched him rub the saliva in with his fingers, almost meticulous as he did it.

Then he eased his hips forward an inch, wedging himself back in your ass. He groaned when he felt resistance—and a sharp clench of your muscles.

“I can teach ya…show ya everything…there is to know.”

His words somehow made it out through ragged breaths. That broad, tan chest was heaving with every labored pull of his lungs, and you could tell he was feeling good.

You might’ve been able to say the same for yourself, were your mind not singly occupied by the desire to escape. Still at war with yourself, wondering how it would feel or what you might see that first time, all the while despising the man who seemed hell-bent on forcing it.

He might’ve saved your life, but there was no fucking way he’d get to use you like that and stay breathing.

You were raised better than that.

You could do better than anything this man had to offer.

You resolved to kill him as soon as the drugs knocked him out—just like you’d had planned from the second you woke up on the floor of his cabin that afternoon.

Of course being chained, maimed, and frozen half to death on the plains for some well-meaning stranger to find you had always been part of your mother’s—and the rest of the Raiders’—grand plan. Having this stupid, horny sap take you into his home with the hope of claiming you as his own was just the icing on top.

Now you had a reason to kill Joel and steal all his shit.

At present, he fed another inch of himself inside you and grinned when you let out a startled cry.

“Atta girl,” he said, smirking, “Feelin’ okay?”

“Fuck you.”

“Will do.”

Then, as if to prove a point, he bottomed out, sheathing his cock to the hilt in spite of your cries. Your hands fisted the sheets, and you tried to pull off. It didn’t work.

In fact, all it accomplished was giving Joel more room to thrust back into you. And pull out. And shove back in. The snap of his hips was like cruel and excruciating clockwork, completely unhindered by your words or your gestures or your pleas to stop fucking doing that Joel, it fucking hurts! If anything, the sounds of your censure only got him harder, and with it, made it that much easier to fuck you rougher. His eyes shone with pride.

“What’s’at, sweet pea?” he hummed, strokes coming into a steady pace.

“It’s too…big…doesn’t fit,” you whimpered.

In response, Joel glanced down to see the spot where your bodies were joined. He pushed even deeper.

“Yeah?” he said when you yelped, “I think it fits just fine.”

Motherfucker, you wanted to wail, but then your neck craned sideways—your mouth trying to find purchase in anything you might grit between your teeth—and the only thing that escaped your throat was a sob. You tried burying your face in the comforter, only for Joel to yank it back.

Cupping your chin and pinching both your cheeks in a single, punishing squeeze as he continued to fuck you, “What’s the matter, darlin’? Too much?”

You groaned and clenched your jaw, head jerking away.

Per usual, Joel was undeterred. Even smiled.

“My pretty girl need somethin’a bite, huh?” he hummed.

He probably knew you wouldn’t nod, so he went ahead and decided to oblige that one need he saw anyway. Snagging your nightie, Joel raised a hand to your face and proceeded to push the fabric inside your mouth.

Just as he started to lift his hips to deliver another thrust, he had to stop. A sudden, sharp ‘FUCK!’ left his mouth, then a groan, and his hand retreated fast.

You’d bitten him.

You were grinning just a little, and you’d bitten him.

Joel promptly slapped you across the face. If you weren’t so fucking amused by the sight of his bright red fingers, you just might’ve winced. Instead, the smile stayed on your lips, the slap barely registered, and, to your utmost disbelief, something else had just then started to form.

Pleasure, in the pit of your stomach.

“Fuckin’—” Joel snarled.

“Shit,” you finished, eyes rolling back.

You couldn’t help it. Joel was rutting into you relentlessly. That brief hand bite detour had only stoked the flames of his hatred—and arousal—and now he was practically splitting you in half with the force of his thrusts. He slapped you once more for good measure.

“Oh, that you fuckin’ like?” he seethed, cheeks flushed, “Can’t get off with my…tongue on your cunt, but a slap— and my cock buried deep in your ass gets the job done?”

“Uh-huh,” you answered softly. Mindlessly.

Really, there were no two people more fucked up than you in this moment, you thought. Joel growing harder with each desperate objection of yours, you going all soft and hot and bothered the second he slapped your face and fucked you rougher, and together, the two of you letting out grunts and moans of pleasure while the bed shook like an earthquake just shy of a 9.5 on the Richter scale. Were you not already planning to slit the man’s throat after all of this was over, you just might’ve wanted to marry this Joel M for how wonderfully he fucked you.

You let him know as much when you seized his forearms.

Bouncing into his thrusts, you bit your lip and finally met his gaze. Joel’s eyes were trained in somewhat of a daze, pupils all but swallowing his irises as he fucked you.

“Like being daddy’s little cocksleeve, huh?”

Only the sentence was slurred so bad you could scarcely make out half the words. You nodded just the same.

“Like it when he fucks you in the ass?” Joel panted.

You nodded again.

That pleasure in your belly had worked its way up to a full swell—and whatever it was, you couldn’t bear the thought of losing it now. You gripped Joel’s arms even harder as his chest swayed into you, then sank further and further until your fronts were pressed flush to each other and your ankles were hooked tight around his back.

It almost felt intimate. That coarse, weathered, sweat-coated face spattered with patches of grey seemed to you nearly handsome as his lips hung limply in an ‘o.’

Joel’s cock dragged back and forth between your walls at this new, snug angle, and moans fell out of you both.

“Baby.” His voice was hoarse. Strained.

You couldn’t quite make sense of the expression above you, but there was an unmistakable, muted desperation lurking somewhere beneath it. Joel rutted into you quicker, balls leaving rapid smacks against your ass with every thrust. His hair was disheveled, and his hands were making fists in the sheets on either side of your head.

“Joel—”

“Jus’ lemme use you.”

Words so low they were barely audible as he panted.

“But—”

“Daddy’s…almost done, sweet pea. Just take it.”

You were surprised he’d had it within himself to be so soft. A peculiar sort of haze hung over his face, the pace of his hips picked up even more, and suddenly those plush pink lips were hovering a mere hair’s breadth away from yours. Mumbling. Rambling on and on about how wet you were, how perfect you fit him, how nice and sweet and tight your body felt as he fucked you stupid.

That sensation in your own stomach grew even stronger.

Unsure of what to do, you pressed a palm to his chest.

“Joel, I…I feel funny,” you whispered.

Joel hummed. Didn’t slow.

“I know.”

He knew?

“What’s it—ah, fuck.” Your words broke off in a whimper.

Instead of proffering a verbal response, Joel just slipped a touch between your bodies—thumbing sloppily between your folds to earn a couple more high-pitched moans. Your legs tightened around his middle.

“Joel, s-stop!”

It felt so good it almost hurt. He didn’t stop.

“S’just an orgasm, baby,” Joel panted, “You’re okay.”

And, in spite of his own impending climax and the effect of the drugs likely reaching a fever pitch inside him, Joel managed to slide his other hand beneath the back of your head. Cradled you to him while he fucked you into the bed and made you come unraveled with his touch. You tried to writhe away, but he was used to the drill by now—he just fucked you harder and rubbed you faster.

Whatever he wanted would come soon. You doubted there was anything you could do to stop it, but you tried.

Without thinking, you grabbed hold of the damp locks of hair at the nape of his neck and yanked on them hard.

“Joel, I can’t— I can’t,” you keened.

The hand at the back of your head held you firm.

“You can,” Joel returned, tough but surprisingly calm, “Give it to daddy, ‘s’all ya gotta do.”

What exactly ‘it’ was was still unclear. You just knew you felt good and warm and full—about ready to burst. When you felt tempted to give his hair another tug, Joel’s eyes met yours, and they were soft. Insistent, still, but soft.

Dilated as all hell and probably swimming in clouds of a delirious, bleary haze, but always soft. Almost tender.

“Be a good girl and give it to daddy,” Joel slurred, slow, “C’mon, sweet pea…cum for daddy, please.”

For the first time in that short, rough, utterly deranged time you had known this man, he was begging you. Pleading with you, now, as his body grew overwrought with pleasure and just needed release. You needed it, too, not even knowing how you would get it, but the force of his thrusts, the warmth of his body, the look in those warm, bare, powerless eyes—you fucking loved whatever it was that could make a man like that so weak.

You had to strike while the iron was hot. You slid back.

Joel didn’t notice, too focused on your face and the feel of your body to see when you’d reached for the gun.

Just as you took hold of it, a jolt of pleasure tore through you. Your heels dug into his back, and you nearly lost control of the pistol. Joel groaned in your mouth, begged you once again to cum all over this cock, make a fuckin’ mess of it, baby, please, and you could only whine, grip the metal tighter, and raise it slowly to the side of his head while he buried his face in the crook of your neck.

The peak of your pleasure had come into view. You felt it.

You nudged the muzzle through those soft, slick, salt-and-pepper shaded tufts of hair near the edge of his temple right when the first throes of euphoria seized you.

“FUCK!”

You squeezed the trigger.

[luvendiary]

stealthy / h. haddock

hiccup haddock iii x reader

request: EEEJDHJS your writing ALWAYS has me giggling and kicking my feet LIKE ACKSJSS MWAH /p I wanted to try and request a HTTYD oneshot on where us and the gang are on a mission and fighting off dragon hunters as usual BUT hiccup finally witness us being a total badass since we never like to team up with anyone and be alone and stuff and he’s like ‘wow, that’s a hot badass woman right there on the spot-‘ and we get hurt in the process but still carry on and hiccup takes care of us after.🤭 You can choose the dragon species if you want! AKDNDJ YOU CAN TAKE YOUR TIME WITH THIS💕

a/n: thank you for your request. i had a lot of fun with this one. let me know if you like it!

It was supposed to be an easy mission. A simple raid. Go in, release the dragons, and get out. But as always, your friends had a knack for a dramatic entrance.

Hiccup had gone first, the rest waiting for his signal to prance out of the shadows. You, hidden in plain sight, watched along with your dragon as a guard seemed to take notice of Hiccup's presence. He squinted his eyes, trying to make out what exactly it was he was seeing amidst the fog. He drew his lantern closer, but there was no need to, as not a moment later Hiccup’s blade ignited, giving his faint outline now more visibility.

“What are you?” the guard asked, his voice trembling slightly.

Hiccup, ever so dramatically, placed his finger near his mouth and shushed the guard. You couldn’t help but roll your eyes.

Apparently, that had been Toothless’s signal to make himself known. A deep growl came from behind the guard, and his bioluminescent scales showed the small man exactly what he was up against.

Before things could get any worse for him, he decided to enact his attack on Hiccup. Forcefully thrusting his spear to him. Your boyfriend managed to evade his maneuver easily and unarmed the man without much effort.

In a panic, the guard threw his lantern at him, making it shatter completely against his suit. Fire consuming the wood beneath his feet and catching on to his suit.

“You dumbass,” you muttered to yourself as you secured your helmet, ready to come in at any given moment.

“He does love a dramatic entrance,” Valka whispered, perched next to you as you both watched him walk theatrically amongst the flames with Toothless by his side. “A demon!” the guard screamed.

Hiccup’s confident demeanor promptly fell as he started hushing the guard. “No, no! I’m not a demon” he whispered frantically. “I’m not a demon”

As he said so, he removed his helmet and the ash-cloth that had been previously covering his mouth and nose. “See! Just a guy!”

The guard did not seem appeased by this and frantically tried to scurry away as Hiccup persecuted him. “Just a guy!” he repeated. “Here to rescue these dragons,” he gestured towards the iron cages all around the ship.

“You walked through fire!” he screamed at him, now sweaty from a mixture of the heat and his nerves.

“Dragon scales!” Hiccup explained reassuringly. “Dragons shed a lot.”

“Oh I know a demon when I see one!” the stubborn man continued to scream as he stumbled backwards.

From your vantage point you saw a large shadow appear from behind him. It took no time to realize that it was Snotlout with a dramatic entrance of his own. Hookfang was completely on fire, as the guard kept on mumbling about how those were not human legs.

“You might want to get in there soon,” Valka chuckled next to you as you adjusted the saddle on your dragon. You hummed in agreement as you heard Snotlout chant about how he made a better entrance before setting himself on fire.

“I knew it!” the guard yelled. “More demons!” as Snotlout ran around in pain, trying to put out the fire eating his suit from behind.

“That’s really just a nitwit,” Hiccup sighed. “Forgot to fireproof his butt-”

“Behold!” another voice came from the darkness. Ruff and Tuff.

“Your worst nightmare!” Tuffnut called out as their two-headed dragon lowered its head, setting them down on the floor of the ship.

“Behold-” Ruffnut echoed.

“Along with his sister who insisted on coming!” he interrupted her.

“That’s my introduction?!” she whined.

Not a moment too soon, Astrid swept in, her dragon’s mouth filled with water as she spit it out all over Snotlout, effectively extinguishing the fire he had been spreading.

“Gross!” the boy cried out as he stared down at himself.

“Too soon guys! You always come in too soon-” Hiccup called out to the twins, interrupted by Fishlegs clumsily tumbling down towards the dack and crash-landing.

“Again with the baby?” Astrid asked as she expertly dismounted Stormfly and joined them.

“Sorry, she’s still getting the hang of her wings,” the chubby boy replied as a baby Gronkle perused around the ship clumsily.

“This is a raid,” Hiccup complained. “Find a sitter.”

Amongst all the chaos, the guard had been promptly forgotten. He hid away in the shadows, trying to go unnoticed. However you wouldn’t allow that. You swept in, your dragon grabbing his head with their claws and slamming it against one of the metal cages.

You heard your name being called, relief evident in Hiccup's voice. “I had him right where I wanted him,” he chuckled as he approached you, whilst contracting his fire blade.

You stretched your back and rolled your neck. “And now he’s right where I wanted him!” you replied cheerily. “Let’s get to work,” you said as you patted his shoulder.

He couldn’t help but to look at you with admiration for a second.

“Okay, we screw that up. But at least no one else knows we’re here,” he said, signaling instructions to the riders on which direction to take.

Just as the words left his mouth, alarms blared through the ship, and from the shadows, more men emerged, weapons drawn.

“Spoke too soon,” you muttered, already reaching for your weapon.

Toothless, right on cue, appeared at Hiccup's side just as he unsheathed his sword.

“Get the dragons out of here!” he ordered and you immediately jumped to action.

You wasted no time and with a running start you planted your staff into a broken railing, using it as a lever to launch yourself into the air. The momentum sent you soaring high above the fight, twisting midair as you aimed for the largest group of hunters.

You came down like thunder. Your staff crashed into the nearest hunter’s head, knocking him out cold before you spun, striking another square in the gut. As they stumbled, you twisted, taking the opportunity to open the cages.

With no time to lose you slid the iron bar containing the dragons, swiftly jumping on to the next cage.

The freed dragons wasted no time. A Monstrous Nightmare burst from its cage in a ball of fire, sending hunters scrambling. A Gronckle barreled forward, knocking the guards aside like ragdolls.

It was a dance-like trance the way you skillfully made your way through the chaos. No change in your expression and every movement perfectly calculated. To Hiccup it would always be wonderful looking at you in that state. It was beautiful and dangerous.

“You can gawk later,” you chimed in, breaking him out of his trance as you forced the blunt end of your staff upon the head of a man who fully intended to beat Hiccup to a pulp.

“You promise?,” he replied with a grin as he stepped over the man’s unconscious body and swung an arm around you while you walked away.

“Duck,” you said. He immediately obeyed as you swung on your staff and kicked a guard who had been sneaking up on you.

“You bitch!” he groaned in pain.

“Hey, apologize to the lady!” Hiccup said as he discarded the used oil cartridge in his sword and put in another one. “Geez, people nowadays,” you mumbled as you opened yet another cage, setting the dragon free.

Just in time, Toothless came down the ship, persecuting a group of hunters. Hiccup cut their path, his sword ablaze.

The terrified men looked for any way out of their current predicament and took a sharp left, walkin in the cage you had just opened. With a swift swing of his tail, Toothless closed it shut.

“Thank you,” Hiccup said as he rubbed the dragon’s snout. “Now go get the rest bud.” Obediently, he jumped up onto the cages and like a cat, disappeared into the shadows.

“I thought this was supposed to be a stealth mission,” you said as you geared up once again, standing next to Hiccup.

“Yeah, they always start that way.”

Just as Hiccup was about to signal the retreat, a hunter lunged from the shadows, aiming straight for you. Reacting quickly, you spun on your heel, staff meeting his weapon with a sharp clang. You knocked him back, but before you could finish him off, Hiccup’s sword swung in from the side, cutting through the air and forcing the hunter to retreat.

“We’ve got all the dragons!” Astrid called over the chaos. “We need to move out!”

“Everyone, back to the sky!” Hiccup commanded, swinging onto Toothless. The gang obeyed, dragons lifting off one by one. You turned to follow, but just as you took a step, something heavy wrapped around your ankle.

A chain.

Before you could react, the hunter yanked hard. Pain shot through your leg as you were ripped from your feet and slammed into the deck. A sickening crack echoed through the air.

Your vision blurred, but you forced yourself up, adrenaline pushing past the pain. The hunter sneered, stepping closer. “Not so tough now, are you?”

You gritted your teeth, shifting your weight despite the searing pain in your foot. Your staff spun in your hands, and with a desperate swing, you aimed for his legs. He stumbled, giving you just enough time to struggle against the chain.

You tried to stand but immediately came tumbling down, as your foot would not allow your whole weight to rest on it. You screamed out in pain, trying to claw your way to the ledge of the ship. Your dragon made its way to you, trying to help you up, but with the thick chain still wrapped around your foot, their wallows and struggles were in vain.

You barely registered your name being called out, followed by a dropping figure from the sky -Hiccup.

“Get out of here!” you screamed as you tried to stand once again. Your breaths came heavy, hands shaking from the pain, but you refused to stay down.

With one final strike, Hiccup sent the hunter sprawling. He rushed to you, eyes wide with panic. “Are you okay?”

You were about to give him a response, but instead, a pained groan came out of your throat.

Without hesitation, Hiccup scooped you up into his arms and leapt onto Toothless. “I’ll take care of her,” he said to your dragon who had refused to leave your side. “Go!”

With hesitant eyes, and after a brief moment, they leaped into the air, joining the rest of the ridders.

As Toothless carried you both home, the wind rushed past, cooling your skin. You groaned, shifting slightly in Hiccup’s arms.

“Are you okay?”

You winced. “Broke my foot. But I’ll live.”

“That hunter was an absolute bastard. I swear, if I see him again—”

Hiccup chuckled. “You mean if you hobble over to him?”

You scowled. “I had it handled.”

“You were on the ground.”

“Temporarily.”

He laughed again, shaking his head. “You are something else.”

By the time you reached Berk, the pain had settled in, and Hiccup wasted no time getting you back to his hut. He set you down carefully, grabbing a cloth and some water as he examined your foot.

“You’re terrible at taking it easy,” he muttered, wrapping the injury with careful hands.

You smirked through the discomfort. “You’re terrible at stealth missions.”

He sighed, shaking his head, but there was something fond in his expression. “Just… let me take care of you for once, alright?”

For once, you didn’t argue.

[sayruq]

Al Jazeera has obtained a copy of the Gaza ceasefire proposal that Hamas said it accepted on Monday. The deal, which was put forward by Egypt and Qatar, would come in three stages that would see an initial halt in the fighting leading to lasting calm and the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the Palestinian territory. The proposed agreement would also ensure the release of Israeli captives in Gaza as well as an unspecified number of Palestinians held in Israeli jails. Israel has said that it does not agree to the proposal but that it will engage in further talks to secure an agreement – all while pushing on with its assault on Gaza. Meanwhile, the United States, which is also involved in the negotiations, said it is reviewing the Hamas response. The basic principles for an agreement between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side in Gaza on the exchange of captives and prisoners between them and the return of sustainable calm. The framework agreement aims at: The release of all Israeli captives in the Gaza Strip, civilians or military, alive or otherwise, from all periods, in exchange for a number of prisoners held by Israel as agreed upon, and a return to a sustainable calm that leads to a permanent ceasefire and a withdrawal of Israeli forces from the Gaza Strip, its reconstruction and the lifting of the siege. The framework agreement consists of three related and interconnected stages, which are as follows: The first stage (42 days) [Herein] a temporary cessation of military operations between the two parties, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces eastward and away from densely populated areas to a defined area along the border all along the Gaza Strip (including Wadi Gaza, known as the Netzarim Corridor, and Kuwait Roundabout, as below). All aviation (military and reconnaissance) in the Gaza Strip shall cease for 10 hours a day, and for 12 hours on the days when captives and prisoners are being exchanged. Internally displaced people in Gaza shall return to their areas of residence and Israel shall withdraw from Wadi Gaza, the Netzarim corridor, and the Kuwait Roundabout: On the third day (after the release of three captives), Israeli forces are to withdraw completely from al-Rashid Street in the east to Salah al-Din Street, and dismantle military sites and installations in this area. Displaced persons (unarmed) shall return to their areas of residence and all residents of Gaza shall be allowed freedom of movement in all parts of the Strip. Humanitarian aid shall be allowed in via al-Rashid Street from the first day without any obstacles. On the 22nd day (after the release of half the living civilian captives in Gaza, including female soldiers), Israeli forces are to withdraw from the centre of the Gaza Strip (especially the Netzarim/Martyrs Corridor and the Kuwait Roundabout axis), from the east of Salah al-Din Street to a zone along the border, and all military sites and installations are to be completely dismantled. Displaced people shall be allowed to return to their places of residence in the north of Gaza, and all residents to have freedom of movement in all parts of the Gaza Strip. Humanitarian aid, relief materials and fuel (600 trucks a day, including 50 fuel trucks, and 300 trucks for the north) shall be allowed into Gaza in an intensive manner and in sufficient quantities from the first day. This is to include the fuel needed to operate the power station, restart trade, rehabilitate and operate hospitals, health centres and bakeries in all parts of the Gaza Strip, and operate equipment needed to remove rubble. This shall continue throughout all stages.

Exchange of captives and prisoners between the two sides: During the first phase, Hamas shall release 33 Israeli captives (alive or dead), including women (civilians and soldiers), children (under the age of 19 who are not soldiers), those over the age of 50, and the sick, in exchange for a number of prisoners in Israeli prisons and detention centres, according to the following [criteria]: Hamas shall release all living Israeli captives, including civilian women and children (under the age of 19 who are not soldiers). In return, Israel shall release 30 children and women for every Israeli detainee released, based on lists provided by Hamas, in order of detention. Hamas shall release all living Israeli captives (over the age of 50), the sick, and wounded civilians. In return, Israel shall release 30 elderly (over 50) and sick prisoners for every Israeli captive, based on lists provided by Hamas, in order of detention. Hamas shall release all living Israeli female soldiers. In return, Israel shall release 50 prisoners (30 serving life sentences, 20 sentenced) for every Israeli female soldier, based on lists provided by Hamas.

The United Nations and its agencies, including UNRWA, and other international organisations, are to continue providing humanitarian services across the Gaza Strip. This shall continue throughout all stages of the agreement. Infrastructure (electricity, water, sewage, communications and roads) across the Gaza Strip shall be rehabilitated, and the equipment needed for civil defence allowed into Gaza to clear rubble and debris. This shall continue throughout all stages of the agreement. All necessary supplies and equipment to shelter displaced people who lost their homes during the war (a minimum of 60,000 temporary homes – caravans – and 200,000 tents) shall be allowed into Gaza. Throughout this phase, an agreed-upon number (not fewer than 50) of wounded military personnel will be allowed to travel through the Rafah crossing to receive medical treatment, and an increased number of travellers, sick and wounded, shall be allowed to leave through the Rafah crossing as restrictions on travellers are lifted. The movement of goods and trade will return without restrictions.

And that's just phase one. Read the rest of the article for the rest of the ceasefire proposal approved by Hamas.

[teaboot]

I know you're just an average security employee but would you say a lot of security guards are military veterans?

Not at my level, they’d be way overqualified- any ex-military folks in Security I’ve met have been at LEAST district supervisors pretty damn quick, or they work for hands-on or armed guard type positions. I’m unarmed and hands-off, so it’s relatively boring, but I appreciate the clear structure and chain of command, and I imagine that’d be a good draw for anyone who’s left the military and is looking for something similar but less stifling and risky. All the military guys I’ve met here so far have been super kind and easygoing, good with people, pretty much never got worked up about stupid crap. Exactly who I want staying chill on my shift. I imagine it must be cause they’re used to way stricter environments with WAY bigger shitheads breathing down their necks. It seems most of them are SUPER salty about their service time too, so it’s fun to hear them talk

[amorchai]

𝐔𝐍𝐁𝐑𝐎𝐊𝐄𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐃𝐒.

pairing(s): jake peralta x female!detective!reader

summary: it's you and jake's first case together as a couple, only for the plan to go pear-shaped.

words: 953

warnings/tags: female!reader, kidnapping ( made it as minimal as possible ), established relationship, worry.

it was very rare for the squad to see jake peralta worried. very rare. only at times where his morning bagel fell onto the floor or the street dog wasn’t waiting outside after a long shift but apart from that everyone was used to seeing goofy-carefree jake.

so when jake had ran into the precinct, wide eyed and fast paced, not one limerick falling from his lips as he almost fell into the door leading to captain holt’s office – the squad knew something was wrong.

terry followed swiftly; half-eaten yoghurt left behind to listen to the information, it was clear jake was pleading to the captain, wondering why you weren’t by his side. rosa and boyle follow his frame curiously while amy tries to lipread the captain’s responses.

one of your first cases together as a couple had gone pear-shaped. you had insisted to go in as bait – talk to the drug-ringleader and try to sneak some case-altering information. jake had argued at first, not wanting you in that position but he also advocated as a major feminist so when you said you were just as strong as a man, he immediately agreed.

however, the plan you had set out didn’t work, jake sitting at the other side of the earpiece – in the dirty van parked up front. he was unaware of the gun held to your head while the criminal wordlessly gestured for you to take out the earpiece.

when the sound muffled into white noise, jake started tapping his earpiece, “y/n? y/n!” he kept saying but there was nothing but lousy feedback. jake immediately storms the building, gun in hand and bullet-proof vest into the lonely room filled with nothing but a smashed earpiece on the ground.

which led him to the captain’s room, alerting him on the situation. “you said this was supposed to be a low-contact stake-out, why did you deem it smart to send our detective in there, unarmed, and without a squad waiting?” holt was furious, terry raising his hand to try and calm down the situation.

“we can try to track security footage, find out where they took her, captain. we only need a few hours-” jake pulls a face, “nuh-uh, i’m not waiting three hours while my girlfriend’s stuck with him.”

“look, i get it but what else can we do, peralta?” asks terry. jake looks to holt who shrugs, a hint of pure fear and disbelief in his own eyes worrying your boyfriend more than he’s ever felt.

jake sighs, “what if we check out the other location he’s known to sell? it's an abandoned warehouse just outside the city – get a squad together, storm the place to see.”

holt nods, “yes. meanwhile we’ll have a couple of detectives head down to the last place, find some cctv footage just in case it’s a dead-end. let’s get a group together now.”

there was a very quick briefing, holt assigning people jobs in order to get their detective back safely and before jake knew it he was in the back of a cop van with the same bullet-proof vest on. his mind spinning with agitation.

“hey,” jake looks to his side where rosa’s voice cuts in, “she’s gonna be fine, man. she’s a great cop.” jake nods, “i know, she’s the best, but this is all my fault i shouldn’t have let her go in herself.”

the van stops, doors opening to lead everyone outside to the abandoned warehouse. “she’s gonna be fine,” rosa reassures once more, and jake hopes to god his friend is right, jumping out of the van and catching up to the group.

holt leads, glancing into one of the broken windows before gesturing jake, terry, and amy towards the front door while the rest go round the small back space. the walkie talky that sits on amy’s vest muffles quietly, “on three.”

the moment amy says three, jake kicks the bolted door and aims his gun, “hands in the air!” a mix of voices scream into the room. several men raise their hands, one with a gun in his hand jake recognises as the leader – but all he focuses on is you.

you’re sat on a chair, you look unharmed but shaken up and jake wants to immediately run over but is forced to wait as captain holt shouts to the criminals, “put your gun down and put your hands above your head.”

you’re watching jake and jake’s watching you, small steps forward before each men are being cuffed until he sprints over towards you – meeting you in a bone-crushing hug. “i was only gone four hours,” jake admires your way to chuckle in this moment and he nuzzles his nose into your neck, holding the back of your head.

“are you alright, babe?” jake asks, pulling back to look at you properly. “yeah. the only thing he did was push me into the car but apart from that i’m okay.”

your giggle is cut off with a long kiss, jake holding your face as he desperately moves his lips against yours, mumbling a low, “i’m sorry.” you pull back, eyebrows frowning and hands shaking against his chest, “why are you sorry?”

“it’s my fault, i should never have agreed for you to go in alone. next time we are going to play it safe and-” before he can continue, you’re kissing jake again, shakily but causing him to melt anyway. you hold his hand as you’re all guided out, “maybe if i wasn’t such a good feminist…” jake trails off, eyes gazing hopeful towards you but all you do is amusingly shake your head and nudge your boyfriend, kissing his cheek as your glad to be back beside him

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