#you know how we are not supposed to be near the lake? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

heli-writes · 6 months

Text

A dragon's heart, part 5.

Pairing: Barbarian!Bakugou Katsuki x female!reader

Summary: The dragonblood tribe is known for being cruel, barbarian warriors that slaughter, loot and rape all places they pass through. They are feared among the villagers and even bigger cities. Having lost most of their women to a plague, they're trying to ensure their tribe's survival by kidnapping women from other places. However, they're not the only monsters in human form out there. When y/n experiences this first hand, she has no choice but to ask for help from no other but the barbarian leader Katsuki Bakugou himself.

Disclaimer: mentions of injuries

[Please don't read if you are sensible to or triggered by the topics mentioned above.]

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6

Series Masterlist

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Katsuki holds onto y/n and the reigns of the dragon with all his strength. Y/n notices how his breath comes out heavier with every passing minute.

"Katsuki, I think we should land. You're going to pass out.", y/n tells him knowing he won't understand a thing. Katsuki lets out an indecipherable mutter.

Y/n grips his arm and tries to turn around in order to look at his face. "Katsuki.", y/n says insistently. Katsuki nods into her shoulder and gives the reigns a weak pull. The dragon understands its master and starts descending.

The dragon lands near a small lake. Katsuki has trouble getting out of the saddle. His feet hit the ground heavily and he groans in pain. Unsteadily, he tries to reach for y/n but she refuses his arm. It's probably safer to get off her own than to rely on Katsuki right now.

When she manages to get down from the beast, Katsuki's already sitting on the ground catching his breath. Y/n takes the water bottle and walks over to him. She opens the bottle for him and hands it over. Katsuki drinks in greedy swallows.

Meanwhile, y/n takes in the view of him. The cuts on his cheek and bicep have stopped bleeding but something's wrong with his leg. It's soaked in blood. Y/n gets up and goes looking for the medicine kit Katsuki keeps in one of the bags.

When she's found it, she returns to the man sitting on the ground. "Katsuki", she calls out to him and sits down next to him. Katsuki glances at her but doesn't react and only pours more water down his throat. Y/n starts unpacking the medicine kit looking for the things she might need.

"I need to see your leg.", she tells him and points at his leg. Katsuki shifts and lets y/n see the wound. It's deep. "This won't kill you unless it gets infected.", she tells him. "You will also need stitches.", she mumbles while looking for alcohol and threat and needle.

"Take off your pants.", she tells him when she has gathered all the supplies needed. Katsuki shifts uncomfortably, probably to give her better access to his leg. "Yeah, that won't do it.", y/n deadpans. "The pants. It needs to go off.", she repeats. Katsuki grunts as a response. Y/n rolls her eyes. Even if he doesn't speak her language, he could still respond properly. "Pants. Off.", she repeats and motions at his crotch.

Katsuki is starting to get annoyed. He's in pain and he doesn't understand what this woman wants from him. Y/n lets out an exaggerated sigh. She stares at Katsuki for a moment while figuring out her next move. "Alright, then.", she says and reaches for his pants.

"What the fuck!", Katsuki exclaims and catches y/n's wrist with his hand. "Keep your hands to yourself, woman!", he growls. Y/n stays still for a moment. Clearly, Katsuki is not a fan of what he's supposed to do. "You need to let me go, Katsuki. If you want me to stitch you up, I need to see the whole wound.", she tells him and reaches for the buttons of his pants again.

"What the hell are you doing?", Katsuki yells at her and grips her wrist tighter. He's embarrassed. Not only he got hurt and this weak woman has to take of him, but now he also is supposed to expose himself in front of her. Y/n gets irritated by his loud voice and actions.

"Cut the crap, Katsuki!", y/n yells back at him. "You walk around half-naked all the time and now you get shy?", she barks. Katsuki looks taken aback. "Seriously, I can cut up your pants if you prefer but then you will have no pants to wear at all. Is that better?", she keeps scolding him.

Katsuki lets go of her wrist in surprise. He didn't expect the woman to raise her voice at him. Y/n's brows are furrowed in anger. Her cheeks are blushed and she wrinkles her nose a bit. Katsuki didn't expect her to get angry or to look this cute when she is. Y/n keeps glaring at him but doesn't move. Katsuki grinds his teeth. Eventually, he pulls his hands away completely.

Finally, y/n reaches for his pants button and opens them. She helps Katsuki shimmy out of his pants being particularly careful when they have to pull the fabric over the wound. Katsuki's face is burning red and he avoids y/n's eyes staring at the sky angrily.

Y/n shakes her head in dismissal. "Seriously, didn't think for you to be the shy type.", she tells him as she takes the bottle of alcohol. Katsuki doesn't answer her and keeps staring at the sky. Truth is, Katsuki's not shy. He's proud of his body, dick included. If a woman wanted to see it, Katsuki would be cocky and eager to show. However, this is different. Right now, he's in a weak position and y/n holds a certain power considering he needs to entrust his wounds to her. It doesn't sit right with him submitting further to her by taking off his pants.

"Alright, this is going to sting.", she warns him as she pours the alcohol over the wound. Katsuki doesn't even flinch. His muscles tighten however indicating that he does feel the pain. Y/n lets the needle and threat soak in the alcohol for a moment. Meanwhile, she takes a cloth and the alcohol and starts cleaning the wound on Katsuki's bicep.

When she's done with that, she moves to the cut on his face. She's met with Katsuki's angry stare. She holds his stare. No way she's going to yield when she's the one helping him. She reaches for his face and carefully cleans the wound on his face. The alcohol must sting otherwise Katsuki wouldn't break eye contact with y/n all of a sudden.

Y/n sighs. She feels bad for Katsuki. He fought bravely. It's unfair he got hurt in the first place. Carefully, she raises her hand to his other cheek and lets her thumb run over his cheek. Now, Katsuki avoids eye contact on purpose. He's not used to a tender touch like this and it makes him feel uncomfortable. Y/n has to snicker at his stiffness.

Katsuki finds y/n's eyes again when he hears her soft giggle. He's surprised to find her looking at him softly. It makes his stomach feel all tingly and mushy. Meanwhile, y/n enjoys seeing the mighty Katsuki Bakugou all flushed and embarrassed. She decides to push it a little bit further by reaching for his face again planting a soft kiss on his cheek. When Katsuki instantly turns his face away. Y/n has to laugh at his beet-red face.

"You're a bitch, you know that?", Katsuki mumbles. Y/n continues to chuckle to herself but continues to clean the wound. When she's done, she picks up thread and needle. "Alright, this is really going to hurt now.", she tells him and points at his leg. Katsuki nods and prepares himself for the pain. It's not the first time, he needs stitches.

Y/n works quickly and carefully. It's actually also not the first time, she's stitched someone up. She can hear Katsuki grinding his teeth in pain. If she didn't need to concentrate right now, she would tell him that he was damaging his teeth. When she's done, she puts some rash cream onto the stitches and wraps some bandages around it.

Katsuki's relieved that y/n's done. He has to say, she worked quite expertly on his wounds. Clearly, she has done this before. He relaxes a bit and only grunts at y/n when she pats his head. He lets his back flop onto the ground. He's absolutely spent.

Y/n starts to unload the dragon who watched the two of them intently the whole time. She fetches the bedroll and Katsuki's cape. After she has prepared the bedding, she helps Katsuki to get on it and puts the cape over his leg. His pants need to be cleaned and mended first. Katsuki doesn't even argue with her about it. He's out within minutes.

Y/n watches Katsuki snore and she finds herself worrying over him. She's sure she did a good job treating the wounds but there's always the danger of infection. She tries to get the worry out of her head by setting up camp. She builds a small fireplace and unloads the bags. Then, she sets out to find something to eat.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Unfortunately, y/n isn't a great hunter even if she had a bow and arrows. Therefore, she can only stick to gathering wild vegetables, berries and mushrooms. She fries them in a pan with some fat and the spices Katsuki carries with him.

The smell of the food wakes Katsuki up. The sun is just about to set. Y/n is kneeling next to the fireplace cooking food. He groans as he sets up. The adrenaline of the fight kept the pain in moderation. After taking a nap, the pain hits him in full force.

When y/n hears him groan, she swirls around, a worried look on her face. Katsuki tries to wave her off, not wanting to have the woman fretting over him. Y/n hurries over to him nevertheless and checks his forehead. If he got an infection, he wouldn't have a fever already but one can never be too sure. Katsuki slaps her hand away and gives her a sort of growl. Y/n snickers at him which makes Katsuki a bit angry. But not too much. He doesn't want to admit it to himself yet but he likes that y/n is worried about him.

Y/n disappears for a moment and fetches him a plate of food. While Katsuki eats, y/n starts boiling water for tea. Katsuki watches her carefully.

Y/n moves around relaxed and confident. Katsuki thinks back to the frightened woman who arrived at his camp just mere days ago. He prefers this version of y/n to the jumpy, insecure girl he met. He picks at the food she has made. It's quite good for the simple ingredients she had at her disposal. Considering this and the way she treated his wounds, she'd make a good mate, Katsuki decides.

He snickers at the thought how she got angry at him earlier. She sure as fuck has got some fire in her, he thinks. He has to admit he was surprised when she jumped on the bandit's back earlier. He thought the attack would leave her frozen in fear. She also stabbed a man's hand without thinking twice. Considering this, it's surprising that she didn't stand up to the men who hunted her. Then again, they outnumbered her and carried long-distance weapons.

Katsuki is ripped out of his thoughts when y/n stands in front of him handing him a cup of hot tea. He takes the cup from her and y/n sits down with a plate of food for herself. He watches her eat.

"Why are you staring at me like this?", y/n asks growing irritated by how intensely Katsuki is staring at her. She's noticed it earlier when she boiled the water. She puts her fork down and meets Katsuki's gaze. Katsuki holds her gaze, then lifts his hand and brushes a strand of hair behind her ear. This takes y/n by surprise and she feels heat rushing into her cheeks.

So far she's seen Katsuki angry, irritated and more angry. While he wasn't necessarily violent towards her, he's always rough and kind of mean. This tenderness is something that catches y/n off guard. "It's probably the pain and exhaustion that makes him this way.", she thinks to herself.

After dinner, y/n tidies up around camp for a little bit while Katsuki settles back onto the bedroll. When she's done, she sits next to the fire poking the hot embers. Katsuki props his head onto his hand wondering what she's doing. It's time to settle for the night.

Despite that, y/n feels restless. The attack today caught both of them off guard. Y/n can't deny that she wasn't paying attention. She totally relied on Katsuki for the whole trip. She figured that Katsuki would catch something like this before her anyway. And if not him, then the dragon. She decided that she will keep watch tonight. Katsuki's not in the condition to fight, so she will ensure their safety somehow.

"Y/n.", Katsuki calls out to her. His voice sounds low and raspy but not angry. It's surprisingly quiet for a man who always speaks so loudly. Y/n turns around to him in surprise. It's the first time Katsuki ever said her name. "Y/n, come over here.", Katsuki tells her even though he knows y/n doesn't understand him.

To his astonishment, y/n does get up and walks over to him. She lets herself plop onto the ground next to him. Katsuki makes grimace. It's not exactly what he meant but he takes it.

Sitting up, y/n keeps her eyes focused on their surroundings. She doesn't want another surprise attack to happen, especially now that Katsuki is injured.

Katsuki watches y/n's intense stare into the distance with discontent. While he does find it amusing that frail little y/n looks so determined (as if she could actually protect them in case of danger), he also finds himself getting increasingly irritated. Katsuki Bakugou doesn't like to be ignored.

“Oi!“, Katsuki barks. Y/n's eyes are still focused on something far away. “Oi!”, Katsuki repeats louder and nudges her. Y/n is ripped out of her thoughts. “Hm?”, she mumbles and turns her head to him. “It's getting cold. Come here!”, Katsuki demands and pats onto a spot closer to him. Y/n crooks her head. “What do you want?”, she asks and shrugs.

Katsuki is not used to having to ask twice for what he wants. Usually, his people hurry to follow his orders, or, he just takes what he wants.

Katsuki grabs y/n's injured shoulder and pulls her down to his level. The stinging pain in y/n's shoulder keeps her from struggling against Katsuki's action. Before she knows it, she is tucked under Katsuki's armpit. Her head is leaned against his shoulder as he curls his arm around her tucking her closely to his side.

Relaxed, Katsuki leans back. Meanwhile, y/n is frozen stiff in place. She didn't expect Katsuki to make such a move on her. Actually, she didn't expect Katsuki to make any move on her at all. So far, he didn't seem interested in her like that. She assumed she was more like a burden to him... or a pet to take care of.

Y/n doesn't even try to get out of Katsuki's grip. Instead, she tries to relax. Which proves itself kind of hard. Katsuki's too close. He's radiating off warmth and his smell floods y/n's senses. It's hard to tune out his presence and the proximity.

Maybe she shouldn't be embarrassed about this. It's not like she didn't think about Katsuki like this before. It certainly flashed in her mind here and there. Despite his mean demeanor and wild look, he's still an attractive man and y/n is only human. Previously, she felt silly for thinking this way about him. One does think about the barbarian leader like that. One fears him. However, it's hard to fear him in moments like this. He's more human than he leads on and in these moments it shows.

Y/n sighs and twists in Katsuki's arms. Katsuki grunts in response and pulls her closer. Y/n stops moving and lies awake. The light from the fire slowly fades as the fire goes out. Eventually, Katsuki's breath slows down and his grip becomes less tight.

Y/n can't sleep. She feels too anxious. She's not sure whether it's because of what happened today or because Katsuki keeps her so close. When she's sure Katsuki is sound asleep, she slips out of his grip. She walks over to the dragon who seems asleep as well. She plops down next to the beast and leans against it.

With open ears, she stares into the night.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

Tag list: @graviewaviee @cosmicbreathe @tsukikoxo @nnubee @witchbishsblog @elajede @bsallergy @frxcless @berryvioo @eyesforbkg @shamelesjaroflaffytaffy @pastelbaby1111 @iamlizardgod @plvt0fvtvre @hello-peanutdoodle-blog @guccirosegold @kookiemyfeelsposts @sweetblueworm @54fangirl @sakurarr1122 @rv19 @leeliyah @king-dynamight @confused-smol-fan @xmaudx @waterstarz @pinkwhiskerglitter @adeline96 @zoom1374 @fingui @giuli-in-earth @colouringfrogssittinginleaves @futuristicallykawaiiturtle @tragedyofabrokensoul @dynakats @rebel-loves-anime @cloudxluv @itsssyagurll @sunshineandwitchery @cloudxluv @hollykanuki @atouchofmidnight @nutellaenjoyer @musicbecky @miacitocco @cassouandco @penguinlovestowrite @sleepykittycx @bakugouswh0r3 @xxjesshuxx @helenamaximoff @ssssssws-world @k1tk4tkatsuki @gh0stgirl333 @anon-mouse223 @bexxs @i-am-ms-rebel-heart @wannabeisekai @spragaraga @faemagic88 @kolakoke @faetoraa @cax-per

[Please comment if you'd like to be tagged in future chapters]

501 notes · View notes

daenysthedreamersblog · 3 months

Text

KNUCKLE VELVET

Nothing in my heart is hoping you'll come back

Too cold to know what I don't have without you

summary: your main goal in life was to take care of your family, and you had been... until a new peacekeeper comes to your district leaving death and pain wherever he stepped

pairings: peacekeeper!coryo x reader

warnings: MDNI! violence, death, blood, coercion/ manipulation, swearing, power imbalance, hitting, choking, dub-con, oral sex, fingering, p in v sex, unprotected sex, guns.

notes: omggg so this actually was supposed to be a completely different story when i started, but it took a side turn and ended here. its not nearly as dark (so sorry) as i originally intended but hoping where i lacked in darkness i made up for in heartbreak so hope u all still enjoy :)

Death had been your shadow since you could remember, or at least it had felt that way since you were a young child. You saw it for the first time when you nearly drowned in the lake with you sister, it stared at you while you choked on your own short life. It had taken your mother, infected your father, it loomed over you incessantly like a cruel god. You tried hard to keep it at bay, to run from it, make it lose your scent, but it was obsessive, possessive of you. It would come for you some day.

And in a crowded, too-loud, scorching room you saw your death in his beautiful face.

With delicately furrowed brows you shoved the heel of your hand into the dough the ache ever present in your left wrist. You ignored it, focusing on kneading the dough.

Your father was a baker, or at least he had been before he had fallen ill. It wasn't anything special, mostly selling what he could out of your childhood home or trading it for supplies. You got by, your family got by, better than most he always reminded you. It was fine, an easy job, a distracting mundane task that sometimes supplied leftovers you couldn't complain about. So here you were, kneading bread when he no longer could.

You placed the towel over the bowl and wiped your hands off on your apron as footsteps creaked from behind.

"Started without me?" Your sister yawned walking into the kitchen eyeing the three bowls of rising dough.

"Couldn't sleep." You untied your apron and placed it on the counter as she tucked her chin into your shoulder.

She sighed, "You worry too much."

You did, someone had to, but you bite your tongue. "You can clean then." You chuckled walking away from her.

"We should do something tonight." She is already moving the dishes around and wiping off the counters as you look over your shoulder at her, your hand on the wall. "Would be nice to get out of here for a few hours."

You smile, "Sure." And then you disappear down the hallway to your father's room. He's in bed, half asleep when you sit down near his feet making sure he was breathing. "Are you hungry?" You roll your wrist in your hand as you ask him.

His head turns to take you in, "No."

"Did you take your medicine?"

"Yes." His eyes dart to the left and you know he's lying. You sigh as you walk forward pulling open the drawer to find it empty.

You can't look away from it. "I'll get more."

"She is right, you worry too much." He taps his foot against your thigh, "How's my bread?" He ask you to distract you from the tiredness in his voice, from the pale color in his skin, from the fact that he was dying. All you wished then was to take his illness onto yourself so he nor your sister had to suffer.

Once all the bread is made and prepared to be sold, your sister and you leave in the night. You slip on a blue dress and small grey cardigan taking off down the gravel road towards town. Fresh summer air clears the flour from your lungs as you walk next to her arms linked at the elbow a lightness in your step as you try to forget the woes at home.

"Does that band still play?" You asked as the building comes into sight various individuals moving in and out if it.

"Yeah." Her voice is solemn. "They're good but..." It wasn't the same since they lost their singer. She had died in the games, or at least that's what everyone said but you didn't remember, you didn't watch the games if you could help it. Then everyone had moved on like they always did.

You and your sister entered the warm room littered with people from your district and off duty peacekeepers. Most of them were friendly, and the ones that weren't rarely came here on their nights off so you let your shoulders relax. You watched the band perform a few songs with mason jars filled with clear alcohol, even indulging your sister in a couple dances when a familiar face caught your eye, one that had helped you far too often than you deserved. "Last drink?" You nodded your head to the bar. "Don't go too far."

She waved you off still swaying to the tune of the guitar as you disappeared through the crowd. You kept your head down clutching the empty jars as you walked. He was talking as he walked in a perpendicular direction perfectly lining up with where you needed to hit him. You threw a glance over your shoulder the same time your body collided with his, glass jars falling to the floor with a violent crack. "I'm so-Oh." His eyes meet yours as you bend at the knees to try and pick up the broken pieces.

"Medicine." You whisper out when it's just the two of you near the floor. "My father. I need...Please."

He rubs a hand over his face, "I'll try, but...I'll try."

You look at his face knowing he sees the desperation there, "Thank you."

"Need any help?"

Your eyes shoot up quickly staring at a beautiful death.

You've never seen him before, you would know with his clear blue eyes and white blonde hair shining out above the crowd like a beacon. He's standing across from the mess staring down at you, "It was an accident-!"

"You're bleeding." He says drawing your attention to the sudden stinging pain across your palm, the red liquid bubbling up from the fresh cut.

You shake your head, "It's fine."

"We should get that cleaned up." You open your mouth to protest, but he only slips his hand under your arm helping you up. "I insist." You glance back at your friend, Gavin, who often did help you with various needs your father had in exchanged for baked goods, and then you looked back at the other peacekeeper dragging you away.

He leads you towards the back as the band continues to play a loud song. "Sit." He points to an empty barrel, "I'll be right back." And then he disappears back out into the crowd. You glance around the empty room filled with supplies and unused musical equipment. Tentatively, you climb onto the barrel to sit admiring the gash along your hand, the bleeding was slowing, but it did look rather nasty. "They didn't have much," Your eyes shoot up, following him until he stands in front of you with a wet rag and a few bandages. "But it's better than nothing."

"You're new." You observe as he takes your bleeding hand.

He presses the rag to the wound the wince slipping out, "Got in yesterday."

He starts to try and clean it. "Do you like it here?" He scoffs to himself causing the corners of your mouth to turn up. "Dumb question." He glances up at you face close enough your can see the shades of blue in his eyes.

"It has it's charms." He dries off your hand before finding the large gauze pad to tape around it.

"Where were you from?" You regret it as you ask, as a sudden darkness comes over him throwing the room into silence the music a distant thrumming from beyond. You watch him tape up your hand with cheap supplies until it covers the cut neatly. "Thank you."

He doesn't drop your hand, "Are you always clumsy?" He traces the small scar on your pinky.

"Occupational hazard." You watch his face as he looks at you once more the question in his pretty eyes. "I bake, had a few run in with knives."

His mouth quirks up, "I hope you don't often run into knives or off duty peacekeepers."

You take your hand back, "I don't make a habit of it."

"You could...Make a habit of it." He stares down at you his thigh suddenly warm against your knee. "At least certain ones."

You take a sharp breath, "We both know that's not a good idea." You slide off the barrel, chest forced against his as you move and then your sliding past him. "Thank you, again. I should go find my sister."

"See you around clumsy girl."

The blush bites at your cheeks and you hope he can't see it in this light, but you suspect he does as something flashes across his face. You don't stick around to find out as you head back into the crowd. You find your sister talking with another peacekeeper, "I'm gunna head home." You show her your hand.

"Be safe." She smiles going back to her brown haired friend. You glance over you shoulder finding that man who helped you watching you, you should tear your eyes away from him, but he should as well, but here he was, staring brazenly at you something burns under your skin.

You blink shaking your head and turn to leave, tugging the cardigan tighter around your shoulders as you walk home alone. You often did, you never encountered any trouble, but something felt off. The hair on your neck stood up the whole way home like something-someone was watching you.

You turned to look, but nothing was there.

The sun drenches the kitchen in an orange glow as you carefully measure out flour failing to keep it balanced with only one good hand. You scowl down at your bandaged palm as you dump the contents into the bowl. You should just wait for your sister and make her do it, but you opted to let her sleep in to throw yourself into a distraction.

What if he wasn't able to get anymore medicine?

Were you supposed to watch as your father withered away and let death come into your home once more?

You're so lost in thought you don't even hear the front door open until it shuts.

He's standing there in front of the closed door taking up every space he wanted to, and doing it beautifully. You struggle to form the question, to string together a sentence to convey your confusion. He answers anyways, "I wanted to check on you." He motioned with a finger to your hand.

You glance behind him, "How did you kn-!"

He steps further inside before you can finish, taking in the sight of your kitchen/makeshift bakery. "Do you need any help while I'm here?" You know your expression must exhibit the shock still running through your veins as he stands in your home because he smiles softly and rolls up his sleeves, "I'm sure it would be easier than kneading with only one hand."

You submit and take a step back, "Sure uh..." You motion to the bowl, "It needs two more cups of flour." You watch him walk forward, too clean for the room despite the grim coating the tips of his fingers. "You can wash your hands in there." You point to the sink.

"How is your hand?" He asked as he runs his long fingers through cool water.

You glance down at the now tarnished bandage across your palm. "Only stings sometimes." You look back up at him, "My left one gives me more trouble."

He turns off the sink and uses a rag to dry his hands off. "Why's that?"

You watch him with careful eyes move around your kitchen to collect the supplies he made you abandon. "Just years of abusing it." He eyes your left wrist and then scoops out flour. You have to show him how to measure it out properly but he gets it for the most part. You feel yourself relax watching him add it all to the bowl and mixing it.

"Now what?" He asked over his shoulder.

"We let it rise." You walk over to throw a clean rag over the bowl.

"How long?"

You can't help the smile. "A minimum of five hours."

He put his fist against his hips, "Well what do you do while you wait?"

"Make more dough."

So you do. You stand next to him this time walking him through each ingredient helping by throwing in the teaspoon of salt for him. You find yourself laughing as the time slips away, as you sprinkle out the flour for him to knead the dough into. You enjoy the way his body feels near yours, how his arm accidentally brushes against you. He isn't the best, but you had a feeling he never did something like this before, and he was helping.

He wipes the back of his hand across his forehead, "How are you not more buff?"

You flex your right arm, "I think I'm quite scary."

He smirks down at you bringing his hand up to wrap around your bicep, "Terrifying." His hand burns your skin as you stare up at him, as blue eyes drink up your face like cool water on this horrid summer day. He's too close, he's too warm and you watch the droplet of sweat slide down his temple.

Your mouth waters. You blink and step back, "I usually don't make this much in one day."

"So you're using me?" He jokes as you slide the tin to cook the bread in.

"Something like that." Your cheeks are flushed and you gently take the loaf from him to place in the tin. "My sister can do the rest. You probably should head back before you get in trouble."

He nodded, "I brought you something." You open your mouth to protest not wanting to push your luck with all his generosity, but he digs into his pocket anyway pulling out fresh medical grade bandages no doubt from his peacekeeper base.

"Oh I can't." You whisper.

"I insist." He takes your hand anyways your body moving forward slightly. "I feel awful about being the reason you got cut up."

You glance up at him as he takes the old wrap off. "You didn't..."

He only smiles to himself as he cleans off the cut because maybe he was. You remembered hitting Gavin on purpose, remembered picking up shattered glass over hushed conversation, and then he was standing over you fresh blood leaking from your hand. It didn't matter, not truly, at least not to you. It would heal and fade and barely be a memory.

His thumb slides over the freshly clean bandage across your hand, "If you need anything..." Your eyes meet as he holds onto your hand, you want to tell him theres no need. Well there was but he couldn't know that, it would get everyone involved killed.

"You've been kind enough."

"Hmm." His other hand comes up, fingers brushing away flour coated hair from your face. "I don't mind."

You nearly sigh as his fingers trail down your face, "Thank you." You whisper out his fingers holding your chin between them.

"Clumsy girl." Something darkens in his eyes as his body lets off too much heat leaning down towards you.

Your breath catches feeling the warmth of his own against your face. You're not supposed to do this, he's not supposed to do this, but you can't seem to care as a slickness forms between your legs. Your lips part and he's quick to press his thumb into your bottom one the tip poking into your mouth antiseptic and flour leaking onto your tongue.

The floorboards down the hallway creak, and he drops your hand the same time you step away from him. With a blazing blush you try to kindly smile at him to avoid the feelings crawling up your spine, to avoid whatever awkwardness might arise.

He dips his head in farewell and leaves before anyone sees him in your kitchen.

Your sister muses beside you as you move around the small stand tidying it up to busy your hands. The frayed edges of the bandages were a good indication that the wound was healing but you kept it wrapped tight while you had something decent covering it. You trace the line of dust colored tape remembering the feel of his warm palm pressed underneath and you hate the skip in your chest.

You glance up eyes meeting Gavin and all pulse inducing thoughts vanish. He frowns as he shakes his head, your heart plummets realizing he won't be able to get your father any medicine. He's gone the next second as your thoughts pound down on you with every worse case scenario flying through it. You go to look at your sister, but she's speaking with someone.

The peacekeeper she had been with the other night is handing your sister money a tender smile in his lips as he pushes too much into her hand. "My Ma will love these." He points to the loaves he wants. "She misses district cooking, says the flour in the Capitol doesn't taste the same." His eyes find your surprised ones and he only motions to the loaf, "Your sister told me all about your famous sourdough, so I had to come try it out."

"Sejanus." She tells you.

"Thank you." You nod studying him, "Your mother is in the Capitol?"

Sejanus's eyes grow distant. "Yeah." He doesn't continue and you know better than to push.

"Sejanus." You look towards the familiar voice your new blonde acquaintance walking up to his side. "Is he bothering you?" He jokes.

"Quite the opposite." It's your sister that responds an innocent pink tint in her cheeks.

The blonde smirks at you, "I'll wrap these up for you so you both can be on your way." You pulled the loaf back and turned around to wrap it up for him.

"How long have you known Gavin?" You tried not to straighten up even though you felt your body locking up at the mention of him.

"Who?" It sounded so stupid coming out of your mouth, too high pitched as your fingers fumbled with the tie on the bread. You never called him by his name, it was easier to pretend you didn't know him at all.

"Gavin." You turned cradling the loaf in your arms. Your eyes scanned the market, you saw your sister and Sejanus conversing off to the side leaving you alone in interrogation.

You chuckled awkwardly handing over the bread. "I don't know who that is."

But his hand came around yours as you held it out for him, long fingers trapping yours a shock going up your bones wherever skin met skin. "Hmm. Must have been a mistake then."

You offered him a smile, "Do you want anything?" You needed to changed the subject, if he saw you with Gavin somehow besides when you ran into him, if he knew... "Don't you want a little taste of all your hard work?"

"I didn't bring any money." He slipped the bread into his hands.

But you were being rash as you sliced a piece for him, "Here, free sample." You watched him take it, "Don't tell anyone I let you have one."

He popped it into his mouth, "It'll be our little secret clumsy girl."

You turned away to hide your blush as your sister returned, "We should go out again tonight." She tried to phrase it as a question, but her voice was too loud and you had a feeling her and that boy planned it all.

You glanced back at them, at those pretty blue eyes, and your worries seemed to be a little bit smaller. She nudged your leg but you didn't need much convincing wanting to let her have as much joy while she still could, "Fine."

She lets you borrow another dress, a dark green one that falls above your knees flowers knitted along the bodice. You hate that your stomach is in knots as you walk with her, you hate that you're interested in what you will find, interested in him. You knew it was wrong but you couldn't help being intrigued how he made your heart race.

She slides through the crowd with you holding your hand with a rough grip to drag you with purpose. She knew where she was going. "Sejanus!" She beams dropping you hand and rushing towards him.

"I got you guys drinks already." He says holding out two mason jars of clear liquor.

You take it graciously and peer around the room suddenly feeling like you were intruding on whatever your sister was planning for her night. So you push around them and climb onto one of the empty barrel chairs and sip on your drink watching the couples spinning around the dance floor.

"I think Sejanus has a little crush on your sister." You feel his chest against your back first as his words float down to you both of you watching the pair laughing together in serene oblivion. You fight the urge to lean back into him.

You take another drink to calm your nerves as his fingers splay along the table near you. "Is he nice?"

His mouth in near your ear now, lips pressed to the shell of it. "Nicer than me."

You swallow turning your head slightly to take in his face so close to your own, "Are you nice?"

"I'm gentle when I want to be." His eyes take in your lips and then float back up again. You tug at your bottom lip the room suddenly beginning to feel too warm, too small. "Dance with me." He pulls back straightening up.

"Oh that's not-!"

But he has your hand in his, and he's helping you to your feet leading you away to the dance floor moving you around until his other hand lands on your hip pulling you in close. The song is slow, but you barely hear it as your breaths come in too loud with his chest pressed against yours. You let him lead watching the small smirk spread across pretty pink lips as your feet move in tandem with his, "Look at that." He chuckles, "My clumsy girl knows how to dance."

My clumsy girl.

It makes your stomach flutter and you know you should stomp out whatever was growing there, but you let him come closer, let his thumb trail across your left wrist to feel your quickened pulse. "Does it always hurt?" He asked.

"No." You can't look away from him even as his eyes are trained on your weak wrist. "Only when I use it too much."

"Hmm." He stills. Then he's slowly bringing your left wrist towards his mouth to plant a single kiss to the veins running underneath it.

Your face burns, your skin burns, you're overwhelmed by the heat.

Someone shouted and your head whipped around as bodies slammed into one another a fight breaking out in the middle of the room. You took a step forward to find your sister but the hand wrapped around your left wrist is dragging you back, yanking too hard where he shouldn't. He was pulling you from the crowd away from the brawl and people shouting, you looked over your shoulder seeing Sejanus sheltering your sister away as well. The side door flew open and slammed shut making you jump by the sudden loudness as the noise of The Hob became distantly quiet.

You turn towards him in the dark alley and can only get a single breath in before he's moving towards you, backing you up against the brick wall, caging you in.

"What are-!"

He swallows your words with a punishing kiss. You're mind goes blank. You feel his hands under your jaw cradling your face, his tongue grazes your bottom lip begging, baiting for you to open but the shock seals you shut. You taste the moonshine on his mouth, the stale flavor of minty military toothpaste and your hands finally go to his chest to push yourself away from him.

"We can't."

He only digs himself further into you smashing your mouths together once more. This time its his teeth that sink into your bottom lip roughly, sharply, until the taste of rust takes over everything else. You gasp in pain as he uses that to shove his tongue into your mouth. He tilts your face up more melding your mouths together and for a moment you do get lost in it, in the blind overwhelming passion, but theres something else there you don't turn your head towards as he grips you too tightly, like he doesn't want you to slip away into the night.

You kiss him back, you even tangle your fingers in his clothes savoring the way he consumed you.

His hand goes to your waist inching up your ribs with every devilish swipe of his tongue. Your eyes fly open as his thumb slides across the underside of your breast. Your hand goes to his wrist to still him, but he grabs it to pin it to the wall above your head.

"Ouch," You whisper out as he bends the joint too far. "You're hurting me."

His lips ghost down your neck, "Sorry," Your eyes flutter close as his teeth graze your carotid. "Can't seem to help myself."

"We-we should stop." You try to get your hand back but he's holding it too tight. "Someone could see us."

He goes still, finally pulling his head up to stare down at you. "Like who." It isn't a question and your brows furrow, "Are you worried your little boyfriend Gavin will see?"

"Wh-What?" You almost laugh. "I don't even-!"

His hand wraps around your throat, not hard, but enough to shut you up. "You're lying. I know theres something going on between you two, I saw the way he looked at you that night, and again at the market, all forlorn and devastated."

"He's nobody." It hurt you to say that after his kindness all these years.

"At least we agree on that." He yanks your jaw forward to sneer down at you, "I don't like sharing clumsy girl." He drops your hand and lets go of your face letting you roll the weak joint around.

You glance up at him, "Why are you being like this?"

He doesn't look at you just watches as he shifts his foot around, "I'll walk you home." He grabs you by the bicep pulling you from the alley and leading you home.

The walk home is silent as you trudge slightly a step behind him suddenly aware of how naive you had been to become tangled with him. He was a peacekeeper, a pawn for the Capitol, why did you ever think he could be something else too? Yet, you still felt something fluttering as your eyes took in his tall frame, remembering running hands along his muscled chest as he kissed you.

"Thank you." You tell him as he deposits you at your door. He did make sure you got out safely during the fight, and walked you home when he didn't need to. You met his blue eyes, maybe there was more to him than rough edges.

He doesn't respond only takes your face in his hands and kisses you roughly sucking on the throbbing wound along your lip until you groan out in pain again, and even then he keeps kissing you, keeps biting you until he finally steps back. His eyes look you up and down before he turns around and heads back into the darkness.

You watch his figure disappear, you stand there for a moment staring at the space he had occupied tracing the bruising lip he had given you still tasting the sweat, and spit, and blood.

You turn your face to the sun letting the early rays drench your skin. It was quiet out here, away from the district, only the birds and bugs to keep you company while the rest of the world slid away from existence.

You let the grass sway against your feet as you curled your legs underneath you staring down at your freshly uncovered hand. It had healed, but the small pinkish scar ran along your palm. You traced it with a sigh unsure where to place everything you were feeling regarding the man who has now given you two wounds.

As if on queue the ground is being crushed by boots and you whip your head to the side watching him approach you. He stops a few feet away a bunch of dying dandelions in his hand, "Your sister told me you might be out here." You hug your legs to your chest as you watch him step forward more. "I wanted to come apologize. I don't know what came over me. I think I had too much to drink and got angry about something stupid." He stops in front of you, blocking the sun holding out the bundle of yellow weeds. "These are for you."

You study his face, sunlight leaking out around his head like a halo casting his shadow over your body, and then you hold out your hand for him to place them in.

"Angry about what?"

He takes it as a sign and sits down next to you. You glance down at the dandelions. "I would have rather given you roses," He reaches out tucking hair behind your ear making you look at him; you know that wasn't what he had been upset about. His hand trails down your face brushing softly along your bottom lip. You wince slightly, "I didn't mean to hurt you."

"We're not supposed..." You trail off the words seeming ridiculous in your head, but you weren't supposed to be together.

He inches closer to you until his leg is touching yours, "I know."

It didn't seem like it would stop either of you as you feel yourself leaning into his touch, "Just don't do it again." You find yourself saying taking his excuses and letting him cup your face to lean in towards you. Your breath hitches as his whole hand slides along your jaw, body heat radiates off him like the oven in your kitchen after a day worth of baking and you melt into it. You let him turn your body, let him lay it down on the bed of grass.

His bottom lip brushes yours and you close your eyes. You're aware of everywhere his hands are touching you, your hip, your jaw, aware of his thigh against the front of yours. His tongue licks upward hitting your top teeth and you sigh into his mouth as fingers dig into flesh, as your hands come up to his chest, as he kisses you slipping his tongue into your mouth, slowly, exploring the texture and groove of your mouth. Your hands twist into clothing, his grip hardening as you kiss him back gently, tentatively, like you know you shouldn't but you can't help it.

His hand covers your breast, kneading flesh through your clothes and you find your fingers around his wrist, the protest climbing in your throat, but it struggles to come out as his thumb passes over your nipples. It's overwhelming and raw and wrong. None of it makes sense, not as his mouth kisses across your jaw, down your neck, sucking the sensitive flesh as he rolls your nipple through fabric.

You feel his smile against your neck as you moan dragging his fingers down your body to slip under the hem of your dress. Your hand flies to his wrist again as he climbs up your thigh, he lets you wrap your fingers around his arm, "Shh..." He mutters into your skin. "Let me." He kisses down the column of your throat. "Let me make you feel good." He kisses you collarbone and slowly your fingers are slipping off of him. "Good girl." He traces the fabric of your underwear, sliding his fingers under the side as your toes curl into grass.

With another soft kiss he pushes two fingers inside of you. You close your eyes turning your head as you take a deep breath feeling him curling inside of you, feeling him push in deeper.

"Look at me." He whispers as his hand begins to move in and out of you at a gentle pace. You slowly turn your head, the heat staining your cheeks red as you take in his face. "Do you like this?" You bite your lip nodding your head as he strokes a sweet spot inside of you. "Tell me." He mumbles onto your lips.

Your mouth parts in a gasp as his palm presses down onto your clit and he's swallowing your pleasure. "It feels good."

"What feels good?" He's moving faster, his hand thrusting harder into you. He licks into your mouth caressing the moan out of you, "What feels good clumsy girl?"

"You!" You pant into his open mouth sweat glistening off your pounding chest.

He pulls back to stare down at you, "You gunna cum for me?" You squeeze your eyes shut, back arching into him the pressure building in your stomach as his hand shifts to press his thumb down on your clit to move in tandem with his hand. You feel your legs shaking beneath him, "You are. You must." He sighs contently and it's enough to throw you over the edge, heels digging into the ground, hands gripping his shirt as you clamp down around his hand. You have your eyes squeezed so tight the sun blinds you when you finally open them, as the orgasm blows over you like the breeze pushing the blades of grass.

You don't even realize he pulled his hand out until he's standing over you feet planted on either side of your spread thighs.

"What are-!"

His soaked hand is running along his cock, stroking himself over you. "Just lie there." He tells you with his tongue between his teeth, eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he fucks his fist to your exposed body. You want to look away, not stare, not pay attention to the lewd sounds his hand was making as it slid up and down his hard length.

But you can't help it. Not as he pants out curses, not as he drinks in your body, your face like a man starved for water. You meet his eyes, dark and focused on you and find yourself mesmerized by him.

"Take them off." He grunts out motioning to your drenched panties. "Now." You're still shaking from the orgasm, at least you think, as you slide them down your legs. "Show me." He moves his hand faster as your brows furrow slightly. He presses down on your thigh with a hard boot and you bite your cheek to cover the whine of pain, "Show me."

You let your head relax onto the grass as you part your legs for him to stare at your bare cunt. You watch clouds go by in the blue sky listening to him groan as he fucks his hand to the sight of your naked girlhood. You fist the bottom of your dress chewing on your swollen bottom lip.

Suddenly hot ropes of cum splatter across your bare chest and dress as he slowly keeps pumping his fist letting every drop leak onto you.

The world is darker as he blocks the sun once more, like a fallen angel losing its light as his cum dries on your sweaty skin. He tucks himself away before kneeling down across your torso. He runs two fingers through the clumps of white along to tops of your breast, stares at it, then stares at you. "Open." Your lips part slowly and he's pushing his fingers into your mouth shoving cum onto the back of your tongue. "Lick it off." Something strange creeps up your spine, something you are not sure you like, as your tongue swirls around his fingers taking the salty substance down your throat. "My clumsy girl." He flattens his fingers out, pressing your tongue down and then he pulls them out. He runs his hand along your chest once more smearing everything across bare skin, watching it shine in sunlight along your naked chest, slipping it under the top of your dress to coat it along your breast. He takes his hand back, admiring his work, and wipes his hand off on your clothes.

He picks your underwear off the ground and tucks them away. Then he's walking past you, leaving you lying there.

The sun feels colder as it hits your body, as you trace the boot shaped indent he had left in your leg.

A week passes by and you never see him. You find yourself searching for him involuntarily wherever you go. You glance out of your kitchen window to see if he's walking up to your home, you peer around the market to see if he's paroling the perimeter with the other peacekeepers, you even find an excuse to pass by the base to see if he's just beyond the fences.

You weren't sure why you were doing it, you weren't sure why it tugged at something inside of you, you weren't sure why deep down in your subconscious you felt...relief.

You didn't study that feeling too much.

Maybe he had left, shipped off somewhere else far away from you. Maybe he had gotten what he wanted from you and now he would move on to the next naive girl. You hated that he possibly viewed you as naive, you hated that you knew it was true. You had been naive. You always tried so hard to be smart with your heart, but the first glance at a pair of pretty blue eyes had made you forget, made you clumsy.

You shook your head as your fist pounded dough, falling in love with a man like that would be stupid. Falling in love with him would be like falling in love with darkness; frighting and consuming unless the moon was out. You didn't even know darkness's name.

No, you had just let him touch you far more than you should have simply because you enjoyed the way he kissed you, like he wanted to swallow you completely to keep you with him. You liked the way he made you feel like you were wanted, like you were his. You didn't want to be his...well maybe in a different world that had a different answer.

There was something else there, something horrid that chilled your bones whenever he looked at you in certain lights. You found your relief sitting right next to that feeling.

The door creaks open and your head spins so fast hoping he's finally come to see you.

Your heart sinks, "Gavin." You blink to hide worry, "You shouldn't be here."

He comes into the room more, "I know, I'm sorry. I felt awful about.."

"It's not your fault." You offer him a reassuring smile even though its fake. You tried to understand, but mostly you felt angry.

He sighs leaning against the counter across from you, "Well I had to keep trying." He digs into his pocket before sliding the vial over to you. You stare at it too shocked to move, "I was only able to get one but-!"

You're running around the counter to hug him, "Thank you." He pats your back as you pull back to beam up at him like life had somehow been shoved back into you. You step back grabbing up the vial to tuck away.

"Just make it last a month." He tells you, "I don't know when I'll be able to get more."

You nod heading to a cabinet and pulling down two loaves of bread to give to him as payment. You push them across the counter at him, "Thank you." You repeat because thats all you feel; gratitude and hope.

He scoops up the bread, "Your sister has been hanging around that Sejanus a lot."

You sigh, "I know...he seems nice." You smirk over at him, "But you know how peacekeepers can be."

"Oh I know." He chuckles but nods. "He's a good guy, hotheaded about stuff he shouldn't be, but he's alright." He knocks his knuckles against the counter, "I should head out. Take care kiddo." Gavin walks to the door leaving you in better spirts than he came.

You spend the rest of the day cleaning, sitting by your father's bedside after giving him half a dose of the medicine. He doesn't ask where you got it from, and you don't tell him. You know he suspects how but he never brings it up choosing to let you both live in the bliss of unknowns. You wait until he falls asleep to leave his bedside closing the door to leave him in peace.

It's dark outside as you close the curtains on all the windows before picking up the boxes of trash you needed to take outside. You sigh heavily as you hoist them up onto your hip and push the door open.

The outside is quiet and moonless, dark and empty, an amber street light offering the only glow along your home to guide you on the path around the house. Once everything is out of your hands you finally hear the crunch of gravel, the hair on the back of you neck stands up.

You stare out at the darkness feeling it stare back.

"Hello?"

Your body is slammed backward against your home before you're crumpling to the ground. A hand wraps around your arm to pull you to your feet to shove you back against the wall.

Your heart skips. "You're a liar." He snarls in your face before shoving your head back with the palm of his hand. "I hate liars."

"I-I di-!"

He slaps you across the face, it snaps to the side in a stinging blow. "You said he was nobody." You're too shocked to respond, to ask. "Why the fuck was he here?" Ice trickled down your body as you realize he had saw Gavin here today.

You slowly turn your head, "You never came...I looked for you."

An owl hoots off in the trees as his silence engulfs you. He holds your face between his thumb and finger before coming closer whispering onto your lips, "And then you were all over him like the little slut you are." You stare up at the black sky, "Don't even deny it I saw the two of you hugging in your little hovel."

"It's not what it looks like."

He lets go of your face only to slap it the other direction blood filling your mouth as your lip split all over again. He takes a step back and you try to regain control of your breathing.

"You said you wouldn't hurt me again."

"No you told me not to." He grabs you by the hair and flings you to the ground. "And I don't need to listen to you." Your knees hit the dirt first and you try to move, try to shove away, but his hand is twisted in your hair holding you in place in front of him. "You want to act like a slut." You hear him unzipping his pants. "You'll get treated like one."

You let your eyes close and ignore the sounds of him, ignore what is about to happen, ignore that just a few days ago you had wanted this, wanted him. He tugs on your chin and you let him open your mouth to push himself into it until he hits the back of your throat. His hand hits the wall as he sits there on your tongue for just a moment the taste of him dripping down your throat, it taste like the sweat you had seen slide down his forehead in your kitchen, taste like the scent of him when he bandaged your hand and his body had been so close. You despise how good it is, despise that your body warms. He pulls back and slides his cock back into your mouth over and over and over again until fresh tears spill down your face, as spit covers your chin. He pushes your head back, your hands coming up to grip his thighs fighting the urge to touch him more, fighting the urge to bite down to make him stop.

"Fuck." He breaths and a soft moan leaves your throat causing him to laugh at you. "Like my cock that much huh?" He slams himself deep into your mouth growling as your head hits the wall behind you with the force, "Such a fucking whore."

You don't, you can't, you won't.

But your tongue darts out and your nails dig into his thighs and he's fucking your mouth until he spills down your throat.

"Don't swallow it." He commands pressing his forehead into his arm against the wall. You don't because he told you not to as his cock twitches against your tongue until it begins to soften. He pulls it out and tucks himself away before bending down to gaze at your ruddy tear stained face. "How does it taste?" He pushes hair away from your cheeks smiling as you don't respond his cum pooling in your mouth. He shuffles to the side before running something along your hands, "You feel that?" Your fingers trace the ridges, the grooves, recognizing the shape fear pouring out you. "Yeah that's right. I would hate for something bad to happen to you...or your sister." Your eyes try to stay on his face instead of the gun in his hands. "Don't ever fucking lie to me again." A thumb strokes your bottom lip, "Okay you can swallow now."

You gulp it down, letting the remnants of him slide down your throat as your dignity sat in the dirt between your knees. For a moment you stare at each other, his face half covered in darkness, half illuminated by lamp lights, and for some reason you just want him to kiss you again, hold you. His knuckle brushes the corner of your mouth wiping away whatever cum was trailing down your face. He stands up helping you back onto your feet.

You want to tell him to leave you alone as a tear slides out of your eye, but he cups your face. He leans down, brushing his lips along yours. "My clumsy girl."

"I...I'm not..." You close your eyes wondering which part of the sentence you were trying to disagree with, but he kisses you. He tucks his hand into the base of your skull pulling you closer to him and you find yourself giving into the sensation, giving into him. It consumes you, he consumes you, delving into your mouth, tasting the salty tears, the remains of him still wedged between teeth. You can't even break away from him, he has to be the one to pull away first.

"Don't make me hurt you again." He says it so gently you almost agree with him.

You pull back slightly to stare up at his face coated in the night sky. You feel paralyzed in his arms like a fear shaped boot broke through your vertebrae as the question muddled your brain.

How does this end?

"Sejanus!" You sister's voice floats through the room and your groaning as you stand up soothing the ache in your knees. "What brings you out here?"

Your heart stops in your chest as blue eyes meet yours. You hear the blood pounding in your ears as you stare at him, as he stares at you the room tunneling in on him. You can't even hear Sejanus's reply to the question, but he's digging into his pocket for money as your sister moves around the kitchen.

Your mouth feels dry as your eyes look towards the room your father slept in the same time his does. "How is your father?" You snap back to Sejanus who is now looking at you. "Your sister mentioned he was ill."

"He's fine." You clear your throat moving behind your counter.

"What happened to him?"

You're not sure where to look. "He had to work in the mines...it messed with his lungs."

"I'm so sorry." Sejanus says and you genuinely believe him. "I'm supposed to attend medic training maybe I could find some way to help him."

"How kind of you." Your sister replies as she wraps up loaves he overpaid for and suddenly walking outside with him leaving you alone in the kitchen with this man.

The room feels like its squeezing in on you as he drinks in your frightened expression. He moves, coming around the counter to be standing a few inches from you. You watch his hand come up to trace his fingers along your cheek. "Did you like it?" He whispers against your head. "Don't pretend you didn't." Blue eyes flicker around your face and he begins to chuckle at what he finds there, "I bet you fucking touched yourself to the taste of my cock in your mouth, came so hard with my cum still on your molars." He came close, breath fanning around your face, "You would do the same around my cock isn't that right?"

A tear slipped down your cheek in defeat.

"Say it." He cooed hand sliding down your body to grip at the flesh of your ass pulling your body flush against his. "Fucking tell me." He growled teeth against your own.

"I did." You whisper bile rising in your throat as you remembered sliding your hand, still slick from your spit on his cock, between your legs when you came back in the house. "I did."

"Hmm." He takes your left hand running his nail along your ulnar bone. Then he's stepping away from you, turning around, and leaving without another word.

You slide down the wall with your head in your hands confused, overwhelmed, ashamed. There was only one thing to do to stop this tidal wave of psychological torture you were inflicting on yourself.

You wait for the next hanging, you wait for the next distraction when everyone's heads are turned away, and then you slip out into the night quietly making your way to the peacekeepers base. It's sweltering hot as you crouch behind buildings and slip between broken fences to get where you need to go. You feel sweat dripping down your back, sliding down the side of your temple as you keep to the shadows waiting...waiting...

You used to know his schedule so well, but you had become distracted, sloppy and now you weren't sure if you would even see him tonight to plead for his help. This was stupid, this was silly even if you did find Gavin what were you to say? This devious blue eyed man was stalking you, harassing you? You had let him. You had let him into your home, into your life, let him defile you knowing it was wrong, knowing you were courting death. Even if Gavin believed you his commander would just find a way to make it your fault and get you in trouble somehow.

Your shoulders deflated. You felt stuck.

You glance beyond the wall at the medical building. How simple would it be to slip inside and pull what you needed while no one was watching.

You're moving before you can talk yourself out of it, slipping inside the unguarded door to the thankfully empty room. It smells clean with neat unoccupied beds lining the wall and you wonder how much good they could do if they actually offered to help the district's people. It motivates you to start searching, digging through draws to find anything that could help your father. You feel adrenaline rushing through you making your vision too focused as you sift through vials of medicine that wasn't what you needed, your heart is racing, pounding in your ears as the quiet outside beats down on you.

You pause, it's too quiet. You got inside too easy. It shouldn't be this easy. The hair on your neck stands up a feeling you only got when-!

Flood lights creep into the window shining against his beautifully wicked face as the tears slide down your unblinking eyes. You couldn't look away as he slowly walks forward. He comes near you, face pressed into the side of your hair. "Little thief."

You feel him push hair off your neck to trace your jaw. "I didn't st-!"

His hand is around your throat quicker than a snake's strike and he's shoving you until your back hits the metal cabinet against the wall. "You as bad a liar as you are a thief." You claw up his arm as he stares you down, "I wanted to see you tonight, walked all the way to your little hovel just to find out you weren't there." He squeezes harder as your vision pulses at the edges, "Is this a little rendezvous for you and that stupid boy?" You furrow your brows in pain, in confusion so he slams your head back against the cabinet your ears ringing. "Don't play dumb I know you came here for him." He came forward, "You belong to me."

You fingers loosen on his forearm as you plead with your eyes. I know, I know. You try to tell him so he lets you go, lets you breath.

He does and you gasp for air, blinded by it, overwhelmed with oxygen you don't even realize he's shoving his hand inside of you. "Stop!" You croak out. "Please." But it's too breathy as he presses his forehead to yours curling his fingers as you plead into his open mouth. "I didn't-I didn't do..." You trail of into a moan as his palm presses down against your clit.

Blue eyes stare you down and for a moment you forget he's angry, you forget you're scared.

He yanks you from the wall and shoves you face down into one of medical beds. It groans as your hand tries to force yourself up but its too weak so you're flinging backwards towards him as he hoist your dress up. "Don't." You plead. "Don't do this." You swallow, "He used to help my father. I'm sorry. I-I only want you please, not-not him."

He leans down, kissing your shoulder. "Then don't you want this?" You feel his hard length press against your body.

"Not like this." You squeeze your eyes shut, fingers digging into the metal frame of the bed.

"How would you have me then?" His mouth grazes up your neck. "In your little bed spread open for me?" His mouth presses against your ear, "Or would you want to be top? Up against a wall? Out in the grass and dirt on all fours like an animal?"

His teeth dig into your ear lobe, "I-I want to look at you." You had imagined it, on the nights you came to the images of him above you, rocking into you with gentle ease. It was candle lit and sweet and everything he never had truly been. You tried to turn to look at him, "I want to know your name."

"No." He pulls away from you. You lay there for a moment wondering if this was all some sick way to scare you, that he wouldn't actually do anything. "Don't worry. I don't want you like this either." He shifts around and soon enough cold metal is skimming across your inner thigh.

"Wh-!"

He pushes the gun into you before you can breath. You cry out at the intrusion, your back arches as something burns from inside of you that you know you shouldn't like. He pulls it back slightly to push it in again and again and again thrusting the weapon in and out of you until you start panting. "Please." You whimper unsure what you're pleading for and he's too quick to slide his hand underneath you, rubbing circles into your clit as he fucks you into this thin mattress with his gun. You're a mess, your feet struggling to hold you as your climax builds rapidly. You feel yourself clench around it fisting the sheets, groaning into them to muffle the sounds.

You fucking moan.

You're not even sure if its in pain or enjoyment. "Like that huh?" He asked pressing down onto your clit hard, the ridges on the gun hitting some strange delicious angle. "Like me fucking you with my gun." You squeeze your eyes tight feeling the heat pooling in your stomach, you even push your hips back to take more of it. He growls, "Gods you're a sick fucking slut for it."

Maybe you were delirious, maybe you were everything he said you were, maybe it was the fact he could kill you right now with one slip of his finger, but your orgasm slams into and your gushing around his gun like some pathetic whore fingers twisting into sheets. You're overwhelmed with it, the darkness around you blending together as it takes you under and spits you out. You feel him yank it out of you and set it carefully on the bed beside you.

You feel wrong, you feel empty as you lay there against the bed in a post orgasm bliss and all you want to do is cry. "Come here." The bed dips as he sits next to you, his arm wrapping under your body.

"Let me go!" You sob but he flips you around to cradle your shaking body in his arms. "Let me go." You try again, weaker this time as your body leans into his, as his hand strokes down the side of your head. "Let me go..." You close your eyes as more tears stream down your flushed cheeks.

He never does.

He holds you for a while, his chin resting atop of your head while he caresses your body in his arms until the sky outside the windows starts to split into purples and pinks. He unravels himself from you guiding you to your feet, and without a single glance he walks out of the room. You stare after him loneliness engulfing you in its grey flame.

You drag yourself out of the building and back home, your own disgusting pleasure sliding between your thighs the entire walk.

You go to your father's room taking up the seat beside his bed and close your eyes for a second. "You're sad." He said quietly.

"I'm tired." You sigh.

He chuckles, "Same thing." You meet his gaze, "Does this have anything to do with that peacekeeper?" You sit up straighter unintentionally. "He came by earlier looking for you." You can barely hear what else your father says as you stand up going to the bedside drawer. You catch snippets of him warning you, telling you to be careful, but your eyes narrow on the empty drawer.

The empty drawer.

"He was in here?" It cracks on the way out.

But the front door flies open and your sister is standing in the bedroom doorway out of breath and frantic. Your eyes meet and you know something horrible has happened because of you.

Death was breathing down your neck.

The wind blows your unbound hair back as you stare shocked at his shackled feet dangling in a suspended moment in time. You can't bring yourself to look at his face, at that sweet face that had always helped you time and time again. It was pale now, bruised and cold, and dead.

He was dead.

Gavin was dead, hanging there like he had been nothing.

The tears leaked down your face.

"It didn't make sense at first." He starts. You don't even jump at his voice behind you, nor do you move as he comes closer to you. "Why you purposely ran into him that night we met, or why he was watching you in the market, or why he came by your home, but then you said he had helped your father." You take a shaking breath, "Your sick father." You felt him behind you now, "I found all those empty vials in your home, the same vials you were probably trying to steal from the medical building." You hear him digging into his pocket pulling out an empty clear vial and throwing it at your feet.

The last of your father's medicine.

"I-I needed..." You choke out terrified. Because it was empty, because it was supposed to last you another month if you stretched it, but now it was gone and so was any chance of getting more.

"Daddy needed it more."

You slowly turned to look at him, "He didn't deserve this." You can feel his body hanging heavily like the rope was tied to your own hands. You had practically kicked the stool out from under his own feet that sent him hanging.

"No, he didn't." He cocks his head to the side. He steps closer to you tucking hair behind your ear and his gun looms behind him like a twisted guardian angel.

You stare up at him, "You're a monster."

He leaned down and snarled into your mouth, "Yes I am."

He was never going to stop, he was never going to leave you alone.

You shove him roughly and take off flying past the hanging tree, flying past Gavin's dangling body and into the woods behind it. You run further and further into the woods, you know he probably is faster, more trained than you, but you don't stop, you can't stop. Green and brown blur past you as you sprint through the forest. You try to look over your shoulder to see how far away he is, but you're too busy dodging trees, jumping over loose logs.

Then your foot snags of vines and your tumbling into the dirt. Your left hand takes the brunt of the fall and you bite down the cry turning swiftly ready to kick him away from you, but he never comes.

You sit up frantically looking around for him, but he's no where.

It's too quiet, so quiet the sound of your pounding heart blares into you, so quiet you hear the bullet as it whizzes past your head. It hits the tree behind you, splintering wood, and you don't wait as you scramble to your feet to keep running. You don't look back, you don't look down, you just keep running even as your body groans in weary pain, even as the next gun shot sounds off around you.

He was hunting you like the prey he always saw you as.

You pump your arms faster, push your legs harder zig-zagging your way through the trees as bullets hit the trunks around you. You're running faster than you can breath the only noise in your head was the fear pumping through your veins. Your lungs burned hotter every breath that spat out of your mouth as branches smacked off your face, arms, skin, blood splattering in its wake as you ran. You kept running, you kept running even though it hurt more than the idea of giving up.

You threw yourself behind a tree shoving your palm into your mouth to quiet the rattling gasp you took.

He wasn't far, you could hear leaves crunching underneath heavy boots.

You stifled the whimper.

He was whistling to himself as he slowly walked through the woods soft rain drops plopping down on the leaves above. "Clumsy girl," He sang as thunder clapped overhead. "No need to hide from me." His foot slowly snapped over twigs causing you to jump as he neared you.

You hear him shift and then the bullet hit the tree bark shattering around you as you take off again, but this time he's shooting at your feet dirt splattering across bare ankles. He's not shooting at you, he's herding you. And you had fallen for it.

His arm wraps around your neck yanking you backwards and slams you against a tree wet hair slapping across your skin, and then you're staring down the barrel of a smoking gun. He peers at you, "Why'd you run?" You spit at his feet causing him to laugh as he lowers the gun grabbing you by the throat and squeezing. "Why'd you run?" He presses in close, his nose digging into your cheek and you try to gasp at the firmness between his legs, but nothing comes out. You stare upward at the canopy of leaves as it goes in and out of panicked focus, as the life is choked out of you. Lighting cracks across the sky, rain drops hitting your purple face.

He lets go, lets you finally take a breath, lets your vision return to take in his devoid face.

There's nothing there but blue emptiness.

"You killed him." Your voice cracks. "He was just-!"

He takes you by the hair and throws you to the ground. You start to claw at him, kick at him to get him away from you, but he knows your weak spots all too well having studied every bad habit you had willingly showed him and grabs your right hand to pin it into the dirt. With as much strength as you can muster in it you slap him with your poor left hand pain ricocheting down the tendon. In one swift movement he plants his boot on your left wrist and presses down until you feel the fragile bones snap.

He doesn't cover your mouth as you scream, as pain blinds you, as you writhe under him sobbing rain pouring down now around you turning the ground into mud. He pushes hair off of your face, attempting to be tender after breaking your pathetic wrist drinking in the sounds of you agony like a God of pain, like crushing your bones was a form of foreplay. You roll your head away to take in the sight of your mangled hand twisted in all the wrong directions. It feels numb, you feel numb.

Then you are both staring at each other trying to breath. He watches your chest heave, you watch his mouth part eyes finally meeting. You're afraid to speak, afraid to move. Rain melts your skin as you lay there suspended in a moment of disbelief the distant pain washing away into the dirt beneath you.

"Why'd you run?"

"Because I'm afraid of you."

"Wrong answer."

He flips you over to lay you in the wet dirt as he climbs over you his belt buckle ringing in your ears, his gun thrown carelessly into the mud. No, no, no you panic as his hand pushes your skull into the ground smearing it to the side of your face, as you feel him between your legs. You frantically look around and with pain suffocating you, your broken left hand wraps around his gun and you slam it backwards into his head.

He tumbles off of you as you stagger upward pointing the gun at him wavering on your feet.

He laughs at you. "Well go on then." He nurses the bruise forming on his temple. You're shaking as you hold the weapon at him barely able to keep it upright, but he climbs to his feet. "No... we both know you're not capable of that."

"You don't know anything about me." You try to seethe, but it comes out feebly.

"Don't I?" He cocks his head to the side. "I know if you kill me you'll hang for it, and then your father will die too." He takes a step forward until the gun is pressed into his chest. "And who will be there to comfort your dear sister."

You dare let yourself smirk, "Sejanus. You said he was nicer than you."

His features falter for a millisecond, but then the mask is back. "Which we both know isn't nice at all."

Your finger quivers against the trigger. "Anybody is better than you."

His hand reels, and you think he's going to knock the gun from your hand but instead he slaps you across the face the gun firing into the sky. The force of the blow sends you back into the ground, but you're already moving again despite the sting in your cheek, the blood and dirt in your mouth, running through the storm crashing down onto everything. You see the break in the trees, the dark blue expanse of freedom if you could just get to it.

You gasp coming to an abrupt halt.

You look down.

You watch in a calm shock as blood blooms like a rose across your dress.

The pain never registers, not soon enough as your knee gives out first and you collapse back onto the ground watching him tower over you. You press your hand into the wound feeling the stinging anguish it causes while he watches your broken body bleed out on the forest bed. You were going to die, and all you could do was stare up at him while you hemorrhaged.

He turned on his heel and walked away leaving you to die alone.

You started crying then, crying and holding your weeping wound as the realization of it all crept into you.

"Come back." You sobbed out. "Come back." You whispered, rain and tears drenching your face.

Something flapped above you the black bird taking flight screaming your words out into the woods. "Come back." They called, "Come back." You watched them soar above you smudging together through the water in your eyes. It became a sad quiet song to drift you off into nothing if you let it. You didn't know how far into the woods you were exactly, but maybe someone heard the gunshots, maybe you could get up and try to make it home. Your body felt warm from the blood coating you and you figured you'd never make it home ever again.

You waited for Death.

Boots pounded into the dirt coming up towards you quickly scooping up your limp body and running with it. You groaned in pain trying to look up at him but gave up as your body dangled in his arms. He clambered up wooden steps and soon a door was slammed behind you quieting the storm outside.

You finally looked at him as he gently set you on the floorboards. He tears your dress down the middle examining the bleeding wound, and then he's digging. You scream, your vision going away at the sheer excruciating pain of it, you hope you'll just pass out soon but you feel his fingers inside your stomach, hear every wet noise as blood pours out of you.

You barely register the small ping as it hits the floor beside you. You relish the relief even as his hands press your shredded dress fabric into the bullet hole.

"Breathe." He tells you. "Just breathe."

"You shot me."

His brows are furrowed as he pulls the bloody clothes away and stands up rummaging through things. "I need to close it." Stuff clatters to the ground as the shiver racks through you. He comes back hold a fishing hook and line. You try to brace for it as it pierced your skin, as he tries to close the hole he caused. You flinch but the pain is secondary to everything going on around you, all you can seem to focus on is his face.

"You would be beautiful if you weren't so evil."

A ghost of a smile from him, "So, I'm your villain then?"

"Why else are you doing this?"

The muscle in his eye twitched and maybe because you're going to die he actually answers. "My whole life, all I've wanted was power." He pulls the line through your skin again as your teeth chatter. "With you..." He had power over you, he had control and ownership from the first moment he saw you, commanded you and you submitted so easily. He pushed the hook back through.

You weakly smile, "I must be pretty special huh?"

Something crosses his face, something you don't examine too closely. It's gone within seconds his hands tying off the stitch, "You're nothing."

He leans back studying the hack job of a suture he attempted on you, watches blood still slowly trickle out of it as you continue to shake in shock. "Yeah well...my blood is on your hands."

He stares down at his maroon stained fingers and then meets your gaze. He moves for you scooping you up in his arms and carrying you back out of the door. It's still raining as he walks with your limp body, mud squishing underneath his feet and then water, you hear splashing as he wades through the shallow water with you until his chest is submerged. "Are you going to drown me after all that trouble?"

You stare up at grey clouds as your body floats along the gentle waves. He laughs lightly, "No." He stares down at you running a wet hand along your cheek dirt coming away. "I'm cleaning the blood off."

You let him. You let yourself float lifeless in the dark water as lightning scatters across the clouds. You blink. You breath. You try to stay alive as your wrist throbs, as blood continues to spread out beneath you.

His hands are far gentler than they've ever been as they skid across skin cleansing you of all his sins. You can't stop looking at him, as rain drips off his lashes onto your lips quenching a thirst you know shouldn't be there. He looked so peaceful, kind even, the hero in this twisted story and you figured you had died on that cabin floor. Light was going to split the heavens and take your body, or maybe the ground would open up to drag you into hell.

Water sloshed in your ears. Maybe you would be stuck in this in between of your death, forever wounded, with him.

"Will you tell me your name?" You whisper as rays of sun peak out from behind treacherous skies.

He swallows as he begins moving back to shore, "If you don't die I'll tell you my name."

You close your eyes, body swaying with each long cold step he takes back to that cabin. You knew he wouldn't take you home, not until he knew he wouldn't get in trouble for murdering you. He uses a knitted blanket to dry you off and sets you back on the floor. No, you hadn't died yet as the chilling pain racked through your bones, "Am I gunna die?"

"I don't know." He kneels by your side. "I don't know." The rain still softly patters down against the roof as he watches you breath, "Why'd you run?" He whispers.

Your ribs burn as they expand, as they try to get oxygen to your struggling heart. And maybe because you're going to die you actually answer. Your lips part, mouth dry and numb, as tears slide across your face. "Because I'm afraid of what it makes me."

"What?"

"Falling in love with you." You watch his teeth grid, watch his fingers flex. But nothing else. "Will you hold me..." Your breath rattles, "While I go."

He pauses for quite a while, so long that you let your eyes close. The floor boards creak as he shifts, as his body lays down next to yours, as his arm tucks under your head and he pulls you close to his warm chest. You listen to his heart as yours slows. "I'm leaving." He starts, "I leave for officer training in the morning and I'm never coming back."

"Good." You nod. You'll never see him again, and yet it brings new tears to your eyes.

His fingers trace the curve of your ear, "Look at me." You tilt your head up to him and he leans down softly pressing his lips to yours. You pull your face from him letting the shaky breath leave you, and then you kiss him again.

He opens you up gently swirling his tongue into your mouth, caressing your own in its own embrace as his hands shift your body. You whine out in pain, but he doesn't stop until he's hovering over you. You don't stop him either. He kisses across your jaw, down your throttled neck, licking the hand print bruise he had left there. You wrap your good hand around the back of his neck to hold him closer to you as his own kneads into your breast. He keeps moving lower wrapping his mouth around your peaked nipple lavishing it with his tongue, sucking and biting it so tenderly it makes your back arch into him for the cost of more pain.

He moves down more until his head is between your thighs, prying your burning muscles open, kissing your clit first before running his tongue along it. "Look at you," He peers between your legs chuckling to himself, "And I'm your villain." You run your hand along his buzzed hair moaning for it, for him as he traces delicate circles into your clit fingers pushing inside of you making pleasure consume you so much you hardly remember your wounds.

He makes you forget them too easily. He wraps his mouth around your clit and sucks against it pressing down hard with his tongue until you see stars, until he has you completely undone by him. You moan out into the air as you cum against his face feeling him licking at you as you ride through it.

He picks his head up climbing back up your body, he stills taking in the botched wound in your stomach. He runs his tongue along it before kissing it ever so softly.

"Why did you save me?" You ask as you stare up at him listening to him unbuckle his belt once more. "Why did you come back?"

He blinks, "Because you asked me to."

You feel him plant himself between your legs, "Would you stay," A shaky breath. "If I asked you to." You had wanted and feared this and now you're not sure if you could ever want anything else.

He pushed inside of you slowly, stretching you open in sweet agony and relief. It's blinding and painful and nothing could have ever prepared you for how it would fill you completely. You breath into his open mouth on yours, feeling him slide in deeper, deeper, deeper until you're more full of him than yourself. "No."

Then he shifts to pull back, to slam back into you as you cry out in pain. Not at him, at everything else. You stare up at him the hard metal of his dogtags hitting against your face with every thrust. Your nails dig into his back, legs coming around him to pull him closer, feel his warm skin on your own. He nips at your bottom lip and you don't care that it hurts anymore, you don't care that he hurt you at all. He feels too good inside of you. His hand sneaks between your bodies to press into your clit, "Cum on my cock." He groans into your feverish skin the rough chain cooling your skin.

"Tell me your name." You moan tilting your hips for him. "I want-I want..." You want to know it, know him.

He only fucks you harder, unforgivably harder that has you squeezing your eyes in pain and ecstasy. He bites down on your jaw, digs his teeth into your jugular, taking piece after piece of you. He breaks skin, he splits you apart seam by seam until theres nothing left of you. You would let him crush you, break you if he wanted, as long as he didn't let go. You groan out as his tongue laps at the wounds he gave you, as his fingers dig into your waist to thrust into you hard until you finally cum around his cock pounding into you.

"My clumsy girl," He smiles into your collarbone. You're nodding, your arching your back for him, letting your pleasure consume you as his cock hits every deep rooted thing inside of you. You don't even realize he started moving faster, pounding into you harder. His hands grab you by the ribs and he's spilling inside you thrusting slowly as he pushes everything deeper. Until finally he stops moving.

You don't move, you can't. "I was supposed to win." Your chest hits his with every heavy breath, with every sacred word, "And then they died and I got sent here." Your throat feels incredibly dry. "It still isn't enough, I want more." He stares down at your right hand, then slowly traces the white gash along it from the night you met him. "Come with me." Your brows scrunch in confusion at his whispered confessional, "Come with me." He repeats again running his finger back over the scar.

"Where?" You croak.

He brushes his thumb over it once more, "The Capitol."

The images flash across your mind as you watch him. You by his side in pretty clothing sitting in a warm glorious home with food that wasn't leftover stale bread. Images of lounging on soft couches with his arms around you, with kisses sweeter than sugar and sunlight on your naked skin. He doted and cared and made you matter. And after years of constantly caring for others around you, it was an addicting daydream.

But it's gone like smoke on a mirror. You could only see death in his face, and as sweet and tempting that death would be it would be anything but. He wouldn't kill you softly. He wanted you in a cage for only his enjoyment and control and it would break you down until you no longer existed. He didn't truly care, he just wanted to prove he could, prove that he already had.

Blue eyes meet yours, your answer to him being read there as he finally pulls out of you the hollowness ringing through your soul. He stands up, tucking himself away before rummaging through the house he brought you inside of, then he comes back kneeling by your limp left hand. He gingerly takes it and ever so slowly begins to wrap it up tightly to set the bones back in place. You too numbed by the pain to register it, so you watch his face while he tends to your wounds. Then he sets it back on the ground but you grab his fingers before he lets go completely.

You tug on his ring finger. Stay, You say with your eyes in more ways than one, Stay. He could be free here, away from a haunted past that had made him vengeful and power hungry.

He doesn't say anything. He just lays down next to you, pulling you close once more as your eyes shut, as you drift off into nothing within his arms.

By morning he's gone.

You lay on that cabin floor as the truth sinks in. You're not dead, and he's gone.

He was gone. You were happy about it. You glanced around the cabin eyeing the white shirt spread out for you the silver chain draped across it. You reach for it fingers wrapping around his dog-tags.

You trace his name.

You tug the shirt on your body slipping the dog-tags around your neck and with the little strength you have, you stand up. It takes you a while but you leave the cabin tenderly walking back towards the damp shore. You wade out into the water, like he had done with you broken body, and lean back until you were floating weightless on your back, staring up at the bright sun.

He wanted his power, and he never would find that here; it would never be enough for his starving rotted soul. For some reason your heart hurt more than the ever bullet did.

You wished for his shadows. You wished for his death.

Your father died when winter came, it was too cold, and without medicine, once the winter fever set in he never had a chance.

Your sister does all the baking now. Your left hand never healed properly making it too difficult to use it, you try to help her in other ways, but baking reminds you of him and makes the wounds burn even though they were healed, you hate that they healed. You hate him.

You run your hand along the chain around your neck, the dog-tags tucked deep beneath your clothes. All you had left of him was that precious metal and a gunshot wound, and as you watch him sworn in as president, as your sister sells bread beside you, you hope one day Death sends a baker to destroy Coriolanus Snow.

endnotes: hi friends!! hope u enjoyed!! this story legit was so fucking hard to write. it had a whole different concept and characters and everything but it just never clicked with me even tho i had so many ideas but i couldn't figure out how to move through it fluidly. i rewrote this whole thing SO many times bc i couldn't connect with it, had to take a break, and finally ended up here with a version that wasn't what i set out for it to be, but ended up enjoying it a lot more ? i think hormones got to me and i just made it really sad instead of vicious :) but anyways!! love u all so much!!

#daenysthedreamersblog #coriolanus snow #coriolanus x reader #coriolanus smut #dark coriolanus snow #coryo snow #coryo x reader #the ballad of songbirds and snakes #the hunger games #coryo #coriolanus fanfiction #coriolanus x you #coryo x you #president coriolanus snow #coriolanus fic #sejanus plinth #coryo smut #peacekeeper!coriolanus snow

249 notes · View notes

mostlysignssomeportents · 7 months

Text

Google reneged on the monopolistic bargain

I'm on tour with my new novel The Bezzle! Catch me TONIGHT in SALT LAKE CITY (Feb 21, Weller Book Works) and TOMORROW in SAN DIEGO (Feb 22, Mysterious Galaxy). After that, it's LA, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and more!

A funny thing happened on the way to the enshittocene: Google – which astonished the world when it reinvented search, blowing Altavista and Yahoo out of the water with a search tool that seemed magic – suddenly turned into a pile of shit.

Google's search results are terrible. The top of the page is dominated by spam, scams, and ads. A surprising number of those ads are scams. Sometimes, these are high-stakes scams played out by well-resourced adversaries who stand to make a fortune by tricking Google:

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/phone-numbers-airlines-listed-google-directed-scammers-rcna94766

But often these scams are perpetrated by petty grifters who are making a couple bucks at this. These aren't hyper-resourced, sophisticated attackers. They're the SEO equivalent of script kiddies, and they're running circles around Google:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/24/passive-income/#swiss-cheese-security

Google search is empirically worsening. The SEO industry spends every hour that god sends trying to figure out how to sleaze their way to the top of the search results, and even if Google defeats 99% of these attempts, the 1% that squeak through end up dominating the results page for any consequential query:

https://downloads.webis.de/publications/papers/bevendorff_2024a.pdf

Google insists that this isn't true, and if it is true, it's not their fault because the bad guys out there are so numerous, dedicated and inventive that Google can't help but be overwhelmed by them:

https://searchengineland.com/is-google-search-getting-worse-389658

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Google has long maintained that its scale is the only thing that keeps us safe from the scammers and spammers who would otherwise overwhelm any lesser-resourced defender. That's why it was so imperative that they pursue such aggressive growth, buying up hundreds of companies and integrating their products with search so that every mobile device, every ad, every video, every website, had one of Google's tendrils in it.

This is the argument that Google's defenders have put forward in their messaging on the long-overdue antitrust case against Google, where we learned that Google is spending $26b/year to make sure you never try another search engine:

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-10-27/google-paid-26-3-billion-to-be-default-search-engine-in-2021

Google, we were told, had achieved such intense scale that the normal laws of commercial and technological physics no longer applied. Take security: it's an iron law that "there is no security in obscurity." A system that is only secure when its adversaries don't understand how it works is not a secure system. As Bruce Schneier says, "anyone can design a security system that they themselves can't break. That doesn't mean it works – just that it works for people stupider than them."

And yet, Google operates one of the world's most consequential security system – The Algorithm (TM) – in total secrecy. We're not allowed to know how Google's ranking system works, what its criteria are, or even when it changes: "If we told you that, the spammers would win."

Well, they kept it a secret, and the spammers won anyway.

A viral post by Housefresh – who review air purifiers – describes how Google's algorithmic failures, which send the worst sites to the top of the heap, have made it impossible for high-quality review sites to compete:

https://housefresh.com/david-vs-digital-goliaths/

You've doubtless encountered these bad review sites. Search for "Best ______ 2024" and the results are a series of near-identical lists, strewn with Amazon affiliate links. Google has endlessly tinkered with its guidelines and algorithmic weights for review sites, and none of it has made a difference. For example, when Google instituted a policy that reviewers should "discuss the benefits and drawbacks of something, based on your own original research," sites that had previously regurgitated the same lists of the same top ten Amazon bestsellers "peppered their pages with references to a ‘rigorous testing process,’ their ‘lab team,’ subject matter experts ‘they collaborated with,’ and complicated methodologies that seem impressive at a cursory look."

But these grandiose claims – like the 67 air purifiers supposedly tested in Better Homes and Gardens's Des Moines lab – result in zero in-depth reviews and no published data. Moreover, these claims to rigorous testing materialized within a few days of Google changing its search ranking and said that high rankings would be reserved for sites that did testing.

Most damning of all is how the Better Homes and Gardens top air purifiers perform in comparison to the – extensively documented – tests performed by Housefresh: "plagued by high-priced and underperforming units, Amazon bestsellers with dubious origins (that also underperform), and even subpar devices from companies that market their products with phrases like ‘the Tesla of air purifiers.’"

One of the top ranked items on BH&G comes from Molekule, a company that filed for bankruptcy after being sued for false advertising. The model BH&G chose was ranked "the worst air purifier tested" by Wirecutter and "not living up to the hype" by Consumer Reports. Either BH&G's rigorous testing process is a fiction that they infused their site with in response to a Google policy change, or BH&G absolutely sucks at rigorous testing.

BH&G's competitors commit the same sins – literally, the exact same sins. Real Simple's reviews list the same photographer and the photos seem to have been taken in the same place. They also list the same person as their "expert." Real Simple has the same corporate parent as BH&G: Dotdash Meredith. As Housefresh shows, there's a lot of Dotdash Meredith review photos that seem to have been taken in the same place, by the same person.

But the competitors of these magazines are no better. Buzzfeed lists 22 air purifiers, including that crapgadget from Molekule. Their "methodology" is to include screenshots of Amazon reviews.

A lot of the top ranked sites for air purifiers are once-great magazines that have been bought and enshittified by private equity giants, like Popular Science, which began as a magazine in 1872 and became a shambling zombie in 2023, after its PE owners North Equity LLC decided its googlejuice was worth more than its integrity and turned it into a metastatic chumbox of shitty affiliate-link SEO-bait. As Housefresh points out, the marketing team that runs PopSci makes a lot of hay out of the 150 years of trust that went into the magazine, but the actual reviews are thin anaecdotes, unbacked by even the pretense of empiricism (oh, and they loooove Molekule).

Some of the biggest, most powerful, most trusted publications in the world have a side-hustle in quietly producing SEO-friendly "10 Best ___________ of 2024" lists: Rolling Stone, Forbes, US News and Report, CNN, New York Magazine, CNN, CNET, Tom's Guide, and more.

Google literally has one job: to detect this kind of thing and crush it. The deal we made with Google was, "You monopolize search and use your monopoly rents to ensure that we never, ever try another search engine. In return, you will somehow distinguish between low-effort, useless nonsense and good information. You promised us that if you got to be the unelected, permanent overlord of all information access, you would 'organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful.'"

They broke the deal.

Companies like CNET used to do real, rigorous product reviews. As Housefresh points out, CNET once bought an entire smart home and used it to test products. Then Red Ventures bought CNET and bet that they could sell the house, switch to vibes-based reviewing, and that Google wouldn't even notice. They were right.

https://www.cnet.com/home/smart-home/welcome-to-the-cnet-smart-home/

Google downranks sites that spend money and time on reviews like Housefresh and GearLab, and crams botshittened content mills like BH&G into our eyeballs instead.

In 1558, Thomas Gresham coined (ahem) Gresham's Law: "Bad money drives out good." When counterfeit money circulates in the economy, anyone who gets a dodgy coin spends it as quickly as they can, because the longer you hold it, the greater the likelihood that someone will detect the fraud and the coin will become worthless. Run this system long enough and all the money in circulation is funny money.

An internet run by Google has its own Gresham's Law: bad sites drive out good. It's not just that BH&G can "test" products at a fraction of the cost of Housefresh – through the simple expedient of doing inadequate tests or no tests at all – so they can put a lot more content up that Housefresh. But that alone wouldn't let them drive Housefresh off the front page of Google's search results. For that, BH&G has to mobilize some of their savings from the no test/bad test lab to do real rigorous science: science in defeating Google's security-through-obscurity system, which lets them command the front page despite publishing worse-than-useless nonsense.

Google has lost the spam wars. In response to the plague of botshit clogging Google search results, the company has invested in…making more botshit:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/16/tweedledumber/#easily-spooked

Last year, Google did a $70b stock buyback. They also laid off 12,000 staffers (whose salaries could have been funded for 27 years by that stock buyback). They just laid off thousands more employees.

That wasn't the deal. The deal was that Google would get a monopoly, and they would spend their monopoly rents to be so good that you could just click "I'm feeling lucky" and be teleported to the very best response to your query. A company that can't figure out the difference between a scam like Better Homes and Gardens and a rigorous review site like Housefresh should be pouring every spare dime it brings in into fixing this problem. Not buying default search status on every platform so that we never try another search engine: they should be fixing their shit.

When Google admits that it's losing the war to these kack-handed spam-farmers, that's frustrating. When they light $26b/year on fire making sure you don't ever get to try anything else, that's very frustrating. When they vaporize seventy billion dollars on financial engineering and shoot one in ten engineers, that's outrageous.

Google's scale has transcended the laws of business physics: they can sell an ever-degrading product and command an ever-greater share of our economy, even as their incompetence dooms any decent, honest venture to obscurity while providing fertile ground – and endless temptation – for scammers.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/02/21/im-feeling-unlucky/#not-up-to-the-task

#pluralistic #monopoly #seo #dark seo #google #search #enshittification #platform decay #product reviews #spam #antitrust #trustbusting

717 notes · View notes

leonw4nter · 6 months

Note

maybe like a lil drabble (or whatever you’d like to do) where instead of hunnigan working with leon, it’s the reader. and they be all flirty and cute and kinda like 👉👈

tbh it can work for anything post-re2r, even if its still before re4r. you can do how he acts around you in different eras (if you want to at all, or just choose an era)

sooo whatever you have most inspo with! thank youu

RE4R!Leon x FOSAgent!F!Reader drabble

After Ashley and Luis had gone to sleep in the small ramshackle shed Leon had managed to locate for the night, he sat by the entrance of their temporary shelter and turned on his comms, waiting for his radio to pick up a stable wavelength to relay information back to HQ. The dingy little thing still wouldn’t pick up a frequency, which the blond didn’t wonder about since he’s been thrown around one too many times, the walkie-talkie probably also got a small beating along with the impact his body took. After giving a small pat to the black box in his hands, he finally managed to hear the static of his handler’s voice.

“Condor One to Roost, baby Eagle is currently taking shelter in this… dilapidated hut,” he sternly reports. “Along with Sera. Luis Sera.”

A moment of silence fills the air, accompanying the gentle pitter patter of the rain on the thickening mud before you respond to his reports.

“Hmm… aerial imaging tells me you’re near a lake, am I right? Can hear the rain from here,” you say.

“Yeah. We’re not too far from a lake,” he responds. “Guess we got eyes in the sky too, huh.”

He hears a faint little breath coming from you, probably a soft scoff. He smiles to himself, the first time in a long time before he brings his wrist near to his face.

“What time is it back home?” he asks.

“1300.”

“You should probably get some rest, baby. Don’t worry about me, I’m making sure we all get out of here in one piece.”

“I want to but I can’t bring myself to,” he hears you softly respond. “I can’t risk losing you, you know. I gotta keep guard on comms 24/7 even though I know you’re great at your job.”

Leon’s heart squeezes a little bit; he knows how important rest is to someone, which is ironic considering how he hasn’t had proper rest in over 96 hours and is desperately craving a good, lengthy sleep though he doesn’t mind if it means keeping Ashley and the flirty Spaniard safe and sound. He won’t mind, most of all, if it meant keeping in touch with you.

“And besides, I have reports to send to Graham– location updates, aerial view images, all that jazz. I have many things to work on,” you say before he hears you yawn quietly. “It’s not like I can just stop doing these because I’m tired; at the end of the day, the president is a father who wants to know how his daughter is doing all the way on the other side of the world. He’s worried sick.”

“And at the end of the day, I’m just your boyfriend who wants to make sure my girlfriend is still taking care of herself despite all her workload,” Leon responds. “I know baby, I know but still take some time to rest– even for a little bit.”

A soft sigh can be heard from your end.

“Fine. But aren’t you supposed to be resting too? Don’t see any threats within a 3-mile radius, you’re good.”

“Nah. Gotta keep watch, can’t be too vigilant. You’ll be the one resting for both of us tonight,” he says.

“Leon.”

“I’ll get rest later, honey. I promise,” Leon pleads.

Another sigh. Gosh, Leon hates how you’ve been sighing a lot more lately, which meant that a lot was weighing on your mind.

“Promise me that. Or I’ll personally fly there to beat your ass.”

“I’d rather you beat something else of mine instead,” Leon jokes.

“I’ll remind you, agent Kennedy, that we’re still on government-operated frequencies so I highly recommend communicating in a professional manner.”

“Ma’am yes ma’am agent Kestrel, the absolute love of my life.”

“I’m going to go on the break you’ve been forcing me to have instead.”

Leon chuckles to himself, a small puff of air leaving his cracked and pale lips.

“Okay, okay. Good night, baby. I’ll talk to you 4 hours from now.”

“Good night, hon. I… I miss you and… please stay safe,” you sincerely whisper to him, unable to switch off the frequency connecting you to him.

“Me too. I miss you. I love you,” he says before turning the radio off and placing it back in one of the many fancy pockets he had.

He props one leg up while he sits, resting his forearm on his knee as he looks out into the dark and foggy scenery. The rain would be nice if he was back home with his girlfriend, cuddling and joking in the bed of their shared apartment instead of this miserable hellhole infested with mutants and murder-crazed cult fanatics. As much as he wanted to bring along a locket or a small picture of you he couldn’t, out of making sure that there would be no traces of foreigners that the crazy locals could use to somehow involve all of America into this. A faint creak of the rickety wooden floorboards has the hairs on the back of his head standing, his hands flying to the sleek silver pistol on his holster to point it at the source of the noise, only for the source of the noise to be the nosy Spaniard who was unfortunately very much wide awake and conscious throughout the conversation he had.

“Didn’t know you had a ladylove, sancho.” was all the man said after raising his arms up as the agent pointed his gun at him.

Leon put his gun back down, the usual smoulder and frown taking its place back into his haggard features as he sat back down and stared out into nothingness again.

“Didn’t peg you as the type to call a lady ‘baby’ or ‘honey’,” he teases. He walks up to Leon, taking a spot beside him and placing a cigarette to his lips before lighting the end of it with his lighter.

“‘You should probably get some rest, baby’,” Luis repeats with a sly smirk as he shoots Leon a curious look.

Leon simply gives him a death glare, squinting his eyes before turning his attention back to somewhere that isn’t irritating or getting on his last nerve.

“That’s not what it was.” It was what it was.

“Mhm, Sancho.”

“You be thankful she hasn’t ratted your ass out to the president yet,” he hisses.

“Good point there,” Luis sneers. “No… no anything then?”, to which Leon responds with silence.

“Then… perhaps she’d like to go out for a jive, a little dance of bachata with me,” the Spaniard presses with a shit-eating grin. “Since you two don’t seem to be anything.”

“Back off from my girlfriend,” Leon blurted as he froze the man in front of him with his steel blue gaze.

Luis puts out his cigarette, chucking it somewhere and gets up as he walks back to where he ‘slept’ moments ago.

“Okay, sancho. I can clearly see that you’re hers,” he comments. “I guess only you have the pass to call her ‘the absolute love of your life’. Buenas noches, amigo.”

With a wink, he lays back down on the floor and turns to his side to fall asleep.

NOTES - It feels great to finally get back to posting again!!! It's been quite some time and since I'm finally finished with the third quarter and my tests, I'll be more active with posting fics :)) Requests have been marinating in my inbox and I know ppl have been waiting for quite some time so here's the request, more otw!!!! I'm also eepy rn so I'm going to go to bed after I post this <3 Neways, thanks for reading my works and I <3333 UUUU!!!!!! HAVE A GREAT DAY WHEREVER YOU ARE <3

#leon kennedy #resident evil #leon kennedy x reader #leon kennedy x y/n #leon kennedy fluff #leon s kennedy #fluff #leon scott kennedy #leon s kennedy fluff #biohazard #resident evil 4 #re4 remake #re4 #resident evil x reader #resident evil 4 remake #re4r

353 notes · View notes

winchestersisterimaginessss · 1 month

Text

Dead in the Water - Supernatural Imagine

Request: Can you pls do Winchester sister x brothers (but she's closer with Dean) dead in the water and Winchester sister drowns and almost dies!

warning: drowning, near death experience

A/N- I hope you like it!! Please request more, I love them!

You sat down next to Dean and watched him circle a section of a news article about a girl who drowned to death. Her name was Sophie Carlton and looking at her picture in the paper made you shiver.

You couldn’t imagine what it was like drowning to death. It had to be one of the worst ways to go. Your thoughts were interrupted by the waitress coming back to the table.

She leaned over it so her boobs were practically dangling in your brothers face and you sighed.

Sam made his way over to both of you at the table.

“Can I get you anything else?” She asked staring directly at Dean.

“Just the check, please,” Sam said, sitting next to Dean and shooting him a look.

“You know, Sam, we are allowed to have fun once in a while,” Dean groaned. He looked back over at the waitress and pointed, “That’s fun.”

You cringed, “Okay well do fun when I’m not here.” Dean looked across the table at you almost like he forgot you were there. “Fair enough, sorry kid.” He said as he turned his attention back to the newspaper.

“Take a look at this. I think I got one.” He said tossing the news paper towards Sam.

“Sophie Carlton, 18, last week. Walked into the lake, doesn’t walk out,” he started, stealing you a glance knowing you were going to feel some type of way about the case. He knew you like the back of his hand.

You just felt so bad. She was so young and she was absolutely beautiful. Looking at her picture made your heart hurt. Maybe it was because you were close in age so it hit a little closer to home? You didn’t know, but it didn’t settle right with you.

“Authorities dragged the water, nothing. Sophie Carlton is the third Lake Manitoc drowning this year. None of their bodies were found either. They had a funeral two days ago.” he finished.

“A funeral?” Sam asked.

“Well they probably needed some kind of closure. That’s such an awful thing to happen to someone, I can’t imagine the pain her friends and family are feeling.” You said with so much empathy.

You always were so sensitive and understanding of everything. You had so much empathy and sympathy in your heart.

Dean looked towards you shooting you a soft smile. He knew that you were super sensitive and got too connected to the people involved in cases. He loved that about you though because your big heart made their tough life a little less cold hearted.

“But people just don’t disappear, other people just stop looking for them,” Sam said matter of factly.

Oh great here we go, you thought.

“Something you want to say to me?” Dean asked giving Sam a look.

“The trail for dad- it’s getting colder every day.” Sam said.

“What are we supposed to do?” Dean asked.

“I don’t know. Something. Anything.” Sam replied exasperated.

“You know what? I’m sick of this attitude. You don’t think I want to find dad as much as you do?” He questioned Sam.

Your heart started to race. You didn’t like conflict between your family when it was already having problems.

“Yeah I know you do it’s just th-“ Sam started before Dean cut him off.

“I’m the one who’s been with him every single day for the past two years while you’ve been off to college going to prep rall-“ This time you interrupted Dean, afraid that he was about to say something that would set Sam off.

“Hey both of you! We will find dad, but until then, let’s just kill everything bad between here and there, okay?” You said looking between the two.

Sam sighed turning to Dean, “How far?”

——-

You were staring out the car window watching the scenery pass you by. You couldn’t help but wonder where your dad was or if he was even alive. You were fidgeting with your fingers, fighting back tears thinking of all of the different scenarios your dad could be in.

Dean glanced at you through the rear view mirror. He was already worried about you and he knew their dad missing would send you into a meltdown sooner than later.

You were incredibly family oriented and always wanted to make sure your family was taken care of. You didn’t like conflict because you would say that your family already lost one person, it doesn’t need to lose another. It didn’t do much good because there was always conflict with your dad. Then Sam walked out and it felt like just you and Dean for a while. It always hurt Dean’s heart because you were just a kid and he wished you didn’t have to grow up like that. He also knew that growing up like that was one of your main causes of your anxiety.

His thoughts were interrupted when he saw a tear slip down your face. He immediately reached back and put his hand on your leg.

“Hey kiddo,” he said as you made eye contact with him through the mirror, “what’s going on?”

You quickly wiped your tears not even meaning to shed one in the first place. “Do you think dads okay?” You asked.

His eyes softened, “I know he’s okay kid. Okay? Everything’s going to be okay. Trust me.”

You nodded, “Okay, yeah, I trust you De.”

He stole another glance at you. “Get some shut eye for me kiddo alright? We’ll be there in about 2 hours.”

You nodded and closed your eyes, letting sleep take over you

———

“Rise and shine kiddo, we’re here!” You heard Dean say.

The three of you got out of the car and walked up to Sophie’s house. Dean knocked on the door and another boy answered. You assumed it was her older brother.

“Will Carlton?” You asked.

“Yeah that’s right.” He replied.

“I’m Agent Ford, this is Agent Hamhill and Wilson. We’re with the U.S. wildlife service.” Dean said as he showed his fake I.D.

Will let you in and took you to the lake that claimed his sister.

You looked out and saw their dad sitting at the dock alone. You couldn’t help, but feel absolutely terrible for the man. It made your heart hurt knowing he was staring at the water that took his daughter’s life.

Your attention was brought back to will speaking. “She was about 100 yards out. That’s where she got dragged down,” he said softly.

“What makes you sure she didn’t drown?” Dean asked.

“She was a varsity swimmer. She practically grew up in the lake. She’s as safe out there as in her own bathtub.” He explained.

“So, no splashing? No sign of distress?” Sam asked.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you.” he shook his head.

“Did you see any shadows in the water? Maybe some dark shape breach the surface?” Sam questioned.

“No, again, she was really far out there,” he replied.

“You ever see any strange tracks by the shoreline?” you asked.

“No, never. Why? What do you think is out there?” Will asked.

“We’ll let you know as soon as we know,” you gave him a small smile, as you and Dean started walking off.

“What about your father?” Sam asked. You and Dean stopped, turning to Sam.

“Can we talk to him?” Sam asked. You didn’t want to talk to his father. The sight of him already wanted to make you cry.

“Look, if you don’t mind, I mean, he didn’t see anything, and he’s kind of been through a lot,” Will explained.

“We understand,” Sam nodded and the three of you walked back to the Impala.

——-

“Now, I’m sorry, but why does the wildlife service care about an accidental driving?” the sheriff asked, walking all three of you to his office.

“You sure it’s accidental? Will Carlton saw something grab his sister,” Sam explained.

“Like what? Here, sit, please,” he said, motioning to three chairs across from his desk.

“There are no indigenous carnivores in that lake,” he said.

“There’s nothing even big enough to pull a person unless it was the loch ness monster,” the sheriff tried to joke not knowing how far off he might not be.

“Yeah, right,” Dean said, shooting us a look.

“Will Carlton was traumatized, and sometimes the mind plays tricks. Still, we dragged that entire lake. We even ran a sonar sweep just to be sure, and still there was nothing down there,” he explained.

“That’s weird, though. I mean that’s the third missing body this year,” you said.

“I know. These are people from my town. These are people I care about,” the sheriff sighed.

“I know,” Dean said.

“Anyways, all this. It won’t be a problem much longer,” the sheriff crossed his arms.

“What do you mean?” Sam asked.

“Well, the dam, of course,” the sheriff said.

You looked to Sam and Dean.

“Of course, the dam, it uhhh, it sprung a leak,” Dean said.

“It’s falling apart, and the feds won’t give us the grand to repair it, so they’ve opened the spillway. In 6 months, there won’t be much of a lake. There won’t be much of a town either, but as federal wildlife, you already knew that” the sheriff said.

“Exactly,” Dean replied.

“Sorry, am I interrupting? I can come back later,” you heard a voice from behind you.

You all turned around and noticed a smiling woman. The three of you stood up, ready to introduce yourself.

“Agents, this is my daughter,” the sheriff said.

“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Dean,” Dean smiled, shaking her hand.

“Andrea Bar. Hi,” she smiled.

“Hi,” Dean whispered.

“They’re from the wildlife service, about the lake,” he explained.

She looked taken aback, “Oh,” she said softly.

You noticed a small kid behind her.

“Oh, hey! What’s your name?” You gave him a friendly smile. You’ve always loved kids and you’ve always been good with them. You guessed you were so good with them because Dean was so good with you.

He looked at the three of you before turning around and walking away. Andrea looked at us before following after him.

“His name is Lucas.” The sheriff said.

You continued to watch as you saw Andrea sit hand him crayons.

“Is he okay?” Sam asked.

“My grandson’s been through a lot, we all have.” He replied, walking to his office doors and opening them for you to leave.

“If there’s anything else I can do for you, please let me know.” He said.

“Thanks,” Dean said motioning you to walk in front of him. He guided you out and were met with Andrea again.

You let Dean have a moment with her because you could tell he wanted to flirt with her. You were more than okay with that though. She was so pretty and from what you could tell was incredibly sweet. She wasn’t like the waitresses who threw themselves at your brother.

He asked Andrea for directions and somehow got her to walk us there. You were walking next to Sam behind Dean and Andrea when you both overheard Dean, “Kids are the best huh?”

You and Sam both looked at each other and smirked.

“There it is. Like I said, two blocks,” she said, turning to face the three of you.

“Thanks,” Dean smiled.

“Must be hard with your sense of direction, never being able to find your way to a decent pickup line,” she said smirking at Dean as she walked away.

“Enjoy your stay!” She laughed. You liked her, she was funny.

You and Sam turned to each other snorting and holding in your laughs.

Sam turned to Dean, “ ‘Kids are the best’? You don’t even like kids,” Sam said flabbergasted.

“I love kids,” Dean said.

“Name three children that you even know,” Sam said. He saw Dean about to open his mouth when he added, “and you can’t say Y/N.”

Dean sighed and pulled you into his side, ruffling your hair. “I so can say Y/N.”

You pushed him away chuckling, “I’m 16!” You whined.

“You’ll always be a kid to me, kid.” Dean smirked. You shook your head smiling and playfully bumped into him.

He put his arm around you and the three of you walked into the motel.

——-

“So, there’s the three drowning victims this year,” Sam started.

“And before that?” Dean asked.

You sat next to Sam as he clicked through old news articles from his laptop.

“Uhhh yeah, six more, spread out over the past 35 years. Those bodies were never recovered either. If there is something out there, it’s picking up its pace,” Sam sighed leaning back in his chair.

“So, we got a lake monster on a binge?” Dean asked.

“This whole lake monster theory, it just bugs me,” Sam sighed.

“Why?” you asked. Dean stood behind Sam.

“Loch Ness, uhh Lake Champlain - there are literally hundreds of eyewitness accounts. But here, almost nothing. Whatever it is out there, no one’s living to talk about it.” Sam sighed. He opened up a list of victims.

Dean squinted his eyes and pointed to the screen, “wait , Bar, Christopher Bar. Where have I heard that name before?” Dean asked, pointing to the screen.

Sam clicked the link on the article and it was a picture of Lucas. His hair and clothes were wet and he was wrapped in a towel.

“Christopher Bar was Andreas husband, Lucas’ father. Apperently he took Lucas out swimming, Lucas was on a wooden floating platform when Chris drowned. It took two hours before the kid go rescued.” Sam read off and zoomed in on Lucas’ photo.

You frowned. That poor kid, you thought. He must have been terrified.

“Maybe we have an eye witness after all,” Sam stated.

“That’s just terrible! No wonder he was so freaked out,” you said sympathetically.

“Watching one of your parents die isn’t something you just get over,” Dean stated.

You snapped your head in his direction. Something about that sentence just resonated with you. You knew he was most likely talking about your mother, but the way he said it made you think that he thought your dad was dead in a ditch somewhere.

You watched him closely and when he noticed you looking at him, he sent you a soft smile.

——-

“Can we join you?” Sam asked, spotting Andrea sitting on a bench.

“I’m here with my son,” she smiled.

“Oh, mind if I say hi?” you said, walking to him.

Sam and Dean sat next to Andrea, talking to her.

“Hey buddy! How’s it going?” you asked, squatting down to his level.

He continued sitting there, drawing when you noticed a bunch of toy soldiers next to him.

You chuckled, “my brothers used to play with these and then they passed them down to me” You smiled at the memory.

He continued to draw, ignoring you.

You sighed, sitting next to him.

“So you like to draw?” You asked smiling down at him looking at his drawings.

“Wow these are pretty good! You could be an artist when you grow up.” You said grabbing paper and a crayon to join him.

“I always wanted to be an artist growing up,” you said softly.

He continued to ignore you.

“You know, I think that you can hear me, you just don’t wanna talk and that’s alright buddy,” you started.

“I don’t know exactly what happened to your dad, but I know it was something really bad. I think I know how you feel,” you said empathetically.

“I’ve been through it too.” You signed.

“Anyway, we’ll, maybe you don’t think anyone will listen to you, or uhh believe you. I want you to know that I will. You don’t even have to say anything, you could just draw a picture of what you saw that day, with your Dad on the lake,” you said.

He continued to draw.

“Okay, no problem. This is for you,” you gave him your drawing. It was of your family that you loved so much and wished we’re together.

“I think it’s a pretty good drawing if I do say so myself,” you chuckled.

“I’ll see you around Lukas,” you stood up to leave, giving him a pat on his head before walking away.

You walked over to your brothers and Andrea.

“Lucas hasn’t said a word, not even to me, not since the accident,” Andrea sighed.

“Yeah, we heard. Sorry,” Dean said.

“What are the doctors saying?” Sam asked.

“That it’s a kind of post-traumatic stress,” she sighed.

“That can’t be easy for either of you,” You said softly feeling bad for her family.

“We moved in with my dad. He helps out a lot,” Andrea nodded.

She looked back at Dean.

“It’s just… when I think about what Lucas went through, what he saw….” Andrea said softly.

“Yeah, kids are strong. You’d be surprised with what they can deal with,” Dean gave a soft smile, glancing to you.

“I just wish…. oh hey, sweetie,” Andrea said, as Lucas walked up.

He handed you a drawing of a cabin.

“Thanks!” You gave him an encouraging smile.

He continued looking down and walked away.

——

“So, I think it’s safe to say we can rule out Nessie,” Sam said, walking into the hotel room.

“What do you mean?” you asked as Sam sat next to you and Dean.

“I just drove past the Carlton House. There was an ambulance there. Will Carlton is dead,” Sam said.

You gasped putting your hand over your mouth.

This was awful and now their father had lost both children.

“He drowned?” Dean asked.

“Yep, in the sink,” Sam replied.

“Oh my gosh, what?” you said, sighing.

“So, this isn’t a creature. We’re dealing with something else.” Dean said.

“Yeah, but what?” Sam asked.

“I don’t know. A water wraith maybe? Some kind of demon?” Dean suggested.

“Maybe it’s a spirit,” you said.

“Well we do know one thing. It has to do with Bill Carlton. I mean it took both of his children.” Sam said.

“Yeah, he has to be involved somehow,” Dean started.

“Wait, I’ve been asking around,” Sam said glancing at both of you.

“Lucas’ dad, was Bill Carlton’s godson,” Sam pointed out.

“Let’s go pay Mr. Carlton a visit.” Dean said standing up.

——

You saw Mr, Carlton in the same spot you saw him at last time. Sitting on the dock staring into the water. This time having lost both children. Your heart hurt for the man even more. This was so sad.

“Mr.Carlton? We’d like to ask you a few questions if you don’t mind,” Sam said, as you walked up to him.

“We’re with the department of-” Dean started.

“I don’t care which department you’re with. I’ve answered enough questions today,” he replied hastily.

“Mr.Carlton, your son said he saw something in that lake,” you started.

He continued staring out into the water.

“What about you? Have you ever seen anything out there?” You asked him softly trying to understand his pain.

“My children are gone, it’s worse than dying.” He said. “Please leave.”

You all nodded and walked away.

“He’s defientely been through hell, but I think he’s hiding something.” Dean stated.

Walking to the car, something just didn’t feel right to you. You glanced up and noticed the cabin

“Huh,” you started, pulling out the drawing Lucas drew, “Maybe Bill’s not the only one who knows something.” You finished, matching the cabin to Lucas’ drawing.

——

“I’m sorry, but I just don’t think it’s a good idea,” Andrea said.

“I just need to talk to him, for a few minutes,” you said.

“He won’t say anything, What good’s it gonna do?” she argued.

“Andrea, we think more people might get hurt,” Sam explained.

“We think something’s out there,” Dean said.

“My husband, the others. They just drowned, that’s all,” she said, getting upset.

“If you truly believe that, then we’ll go,” Dean started.

“But if you think there’s even a possibility that something else could be going on here, please let me talk to Lucas.” You finished Dean’s words.

——

“Hey, buddy. Do you remember me?” you asked, taking a seat next to him.

He didn’t acknowledge you and continued to draw. You noticed his drawings, all of them were the same red bike.

“I just wanted to thank you for your last drawing, but I need your help again,” you said.

You took out the cabin drawing from your pocket and showed him.

“How did you know to draw this? Did you know something bad was gonna happen?” He continued drawing.

“Maybe you could nod your head yes or no for me,” you offered.

“You’re scared,” you noticed.

“It’s okay, I understand. I get scared too you know. I’ve seen some bad things happen and I was scared too. It’s alright to be scared, but it also helps to be brave. I try my best to be brave. It’s what helps me-“ He cut you off, handing you another drawing. It had the red bike, a boy, a church, and another house.

“Thanks, buddy,” you smiled, taking the drawing and standing up.

“Thank you, Andrea,” you said, as the three of you walked off.

“You’re so good with Lucas, Y/N/N,” Dean said coming from behind you and rubbing your back.

You smiled softly, “I learned from the best.” You said, glancing at him.

He looked at you confused, “What is that supposed to mean?” He asked.

“I’m just so lucky to have you De. With dad gone, you’re the only person who hasn’t left my side my entire life. You’re the only constant and you raised me. I’m good with kids because your my role model.” You said.

Dean stopped walking and pulled you back into his chest. “Hey, everything’s going to be alright.” He said, hugging you, knowing you were feeling the effects of your dad being gone.

“I love you kid,” He gave you a big squeeze before letting you go.

“I love you too.”

The three of you got into the car and drove off.

—-

You looked over the drawing that Lucas gave you.

“Okay, so we have another house to find,” Sam said.

“There’s about a thousand yellow two-stories, houses in this county alone,” Dean groaned.

“See the church? I bet there’s less than a thousand of those around here,” you sassed.

Sam chuckled while Dean sent you a bitch face.

—-

You arrived in front of the church and found the little yellow house just like the drawing showed.

The three of you walked up to the house, knocking on the door. An elderly lady answered and invited you all in.

“We’re sorry to bother you, ma’am, but does a little boy live here by chance? He might wear a blue ball cap, has a red bicycle,” Dean asked her.

“No, sir. Not for a very long time. Peter’s been gone 35 years now,” she sighed.

“The police never…. I never had any idea what happened,” she explained, looking at a photo of him.

“He just disappeared,” she turned to the three of you. The pain in her voice made you want to cry. The elderly always got you good.

“Losing him, its, you know, it’s worse than dying,” she said shakily. You turned away as a tear slid down your cheek. You wiped it as fast as you could and turned back to her.

She looked down at the floor crying, reliving the memory of her son. You started gnawing on your lip so the tears didn’t start flowing again.

You decided to speak up to distract yourself. “Did he disappear from here? I mean, from this house?” You asked.

“He was supposed to ride his bike straight home after school, and he never showed up,” she replied. You nodded your head softly and looked around the room. You noticed a picture of Peter and another boy in the mirror.

You stared at the photo and then turned it over.

“Peter Sweeney and Billy Carlton, 1970,” you read out loud.

You all glanced at each other, connecting more of the dots.

“Thank you so much for your time, ma’am. And I’m very sorry for your loss.” You added as the three of you headed out the door.

——

“Okay so this little boy, Peter, vanishes and this is all connected to Bill Carlton somehow,” You started.

“Yeah, it kinda seemed like he was hiding something,” Dean replied.

“And Bill, the people he loves, they’re all getting punished,” you said.

“So maybe Bill killed him?” Sam suggested.

“Yeah, Peter’s spirit would be furious. I’d want revenge, it’s possible,” Dean agreed.

Dean drove down the now familiar road, back to the Carlton house. As the three of you got out of the car, you started looking for him.

“Mr, Calrton!” Sam yelled.

“Uhhhh guys,” you said, seeing Mr. Carlton on a boat, going out in the water.

“Crap,” Dean said as you all took off to the dock, yelling for Mr. Carlton to turn back.

“Mr. Carlton! You need to come back! Turn around!” You shouted.

“Turn the boat around! Get out of the water!” Dean and Sam yelled.

He looked back at the three of you and turned back around. He continued out and you saw what looked like an explosion. The boat was thrown airborne, being shot up into the sky. The three of you jumped and Dean tucked you into him trying to shield you from the loose pieces flying off. The impact threw Bill from the boat as it came crashing down on top of him and the lake swallowed everything up like it never even happened.

Dean was breathing heavily, “Damn it.” He said, letting you go.

—-

The three of you walked into the police station and saw Andrea sitting with Lucas. You noticed he looked incredibly upset.

“Sam, Dean, Y/N,” Andrea said, surprised to see you three.

“What are you doing here?” the sheriff asked her.

“I brought you dinner,” she replied.

“I’m sorry sweetheart, I just don’t really have the time,” he sighed.

She looked at the three of you and then back to her dad.

“I heard about Bill Carlton, is it true? Is something going on with the lake?” Andrea asked.

“Right now, we don’t know what the truth is, but I think it might be better if you and Lucas went home,” the sheriff said.

Lucas’ head shot up, he looked absolutely terrified. He ran to you, pulling on your sleeve.

“Lucas, hey. What is it? What’s wrong?” you asked, squatting down to be eye level with him.

He was staring you in the eyes almost like he was pleading with you. He continued to freak out and pull you.

“Lucas, it’s okay. It’s okay,” Andrea said, trying to pull him away from you.

“Hey, hey, Lucas. It’s okay,” you said rubbing his arm.

Andrea rushed him out of the police station. He turned back to you and continued his pleading look. You knew something was wrong.

You watched him leave, looking concerned before noticing the sheriff storm into his office obviously stressed out. The three of you followed behind him.

“Okay, just so we’re clear. You see…. something attack Bill’s boat, sending him, who is a very good swimmer by the way, into the drink and you never see him again?” The sheriff asked.

“Yeah, that about sums it up,” Dean replied.

“And I’m supposed to believe this even though I’ve already sonar swept that entire lake and what you’re describing is impossible and you’re not really wildlife service,” he added.

Uh oh. How did he find out?

“That’s right, I checked. The departments never heard of you three,” he said, crossing his arms.

“See, now we can explain that,” Dean started, looking at you and Sam for an answer.

“Enough, please. The only reason you’re breathing free air is one of Bill’s neighbors saw him steering out that boat just before you did. So we have a couple of options here. I can arrest you for impersonating government officials and hold you as material witnesses to Bill Carlton’s disappearance, or, we can chalk this all up to a bad day, you can get in your car, you put this town in your rearview mirror, and you don’t ever darken my doorstep again,” he said, raising his voice.

This was serious and you were getting kind of scared by his threats.

You looked at Sam.

“Door number two sounds good,” Sam replied. You and Dean nodded in agreement.

“That’s the one I’d pick,” the sheriff practically growled.

——

As you were making your way out of town you just couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong. Lucas was terrified and he was looking at you for help. You had to check on him.

“Dean, please. We need to go back,” you begged him.

“Y/N/N, I don’t think that’s a good idea. We told the sheriff we’re leaving,” Sam sighed.

“I know something is wrong! Please you saw his face, he was terrified!” You exclaimed.

“Please, let’s just check on him and then we can leave and never come back to this town ever again.” You said, trying to reason with your brothers.

Dean froze for a minute and turned right, going back into the town.

——

You walked up to Andrea’s front door with Sam and Dean.

“Are you sure about this?” Dean asked you, but trusting you completely.

Before you even had the chance to ring the doorbell, the door swung open. It was Lucas.

“Lucas? What’s wrong?” you said, panicking noticing that he was hyperventilating.

He ran up the stairs and pointed to a door that had water leaking from under it.

He started banging at the door. You pulled into you as Dean kicked the door open. He and Sam ran into the bathroom and pulled Andrea from the bathtub she was drowning in. You were hugging Lucas, trying to get him to calm down.

——

Sam was talking to Andrea as you and Dean tried finding some answers. It definitely wasn’t an accident that Peter went after Andrea.

You were looking through their books when you found one that had “Jake - 12 years old” on the cover.

You opened it and your eyes widened when you saw a picture of an old boy scout troop.

With the sheriff, and Bill Carlton.

“Dean,” you called out to him.

“Yeah,” he replied.

You tossed him the book.

—-

“Do you recognize the kids in these pictures?” Dean asked Andrea as he put the book on the table in front of her.

“What? Uh, no, except that’s my dad, right there. He must’ve been around 12 in these pictures.” She said looking at the photos.

“The connection wasn’t to Bill Carlton. It must’ve been to the sheriff,” Dean stated, looking between you and Sam.

“Bill and the sheriff, they were both involved with Peter,” Sam said.

You glanced to the side and saw Lucas looking out the window. Something was wrong.

“Lucas? Lucas, what is it?” You asked him.

He turned to the door, opened it and walked out. You all followed behind him.

“Lucas? Honey?” Andrea called from behind him.

He came to a halt in the middle of the yard and looked up at you.

You glanced at Dean.

“You and Lucas get back to the house and stay there.” Dean told Andrea.

Andrea nodded and pulled Lucas away.

The three of you took your shovels and started digging into the dirt. You heard a clang as you hit something.

You looked up at Sam and Dean before they pulled whatever it was out of the ground.

It was a rusty, red bike. It was Peter’s red bike.

“Peter’s bike,” Sam said, out of breath.

“Who are you?” You heard the sheriff’s voice from behind you. The three of you turned around as he cocked his gun. Your heart dropped.

Immediately, Dean stepped in front of you, grabbing your arm and keeping you steadily behind him. He didn’t let you go, “wow, wow, hey.” He said to the sheriff trying to get him to put his gun down.

Sam glanced at you and then looked back at the sheriff.

“Put the gun down, Jake,” Sam said as he raised his hands up.

“How did you know that was there?” He asked, still pointing the gun.

“What happened? You and Bill killed Peter, drowned him in the lake, and buried his bike?” Dean asked.

“You can’t bury the truth, Jake. Nothing stays buried.” Dean finished still keeping you behind him.

Your heart was pounding. You’ve never had a gun pointed at you before.

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about?” The sheriff said, starting to get even more frustrated.

Holy crap, he was going to shoot one of you. He was seething with anger. You were so scared and knew you were trembling. You knew Dean could feel you shaking too because he gave your arm a reassuring squeeze.

“You and Bill killed Peter Sweeney 35 years ago. That’s what the hell we’re talking about,” Dean replied.

“Dad!” Andrea yelled, running up to all of you.

“And now you’ve got one seriously pissed off spirit,” Dean explained.

“It’s gonna take Andrea, Lucas, everyone you love. It’s gonna drown them. It’s gonna drag their bodies to God knows where, so you can feel the same pain Peter’s mom felt. And then, after that, it’s gonna take you, and it’s not gonna stop until it does,” Sam said.

“And how do you know that?” He asked.

“Because that’s exactly what it did to Bill Carlton,” Sam said.

“Listen to yourselves. You’re insane,” he said, continuing with the gun.

“We don’t really give a rat’s ass what you think of us, but if we’re gonna bring down this spirit, we need to find the remains, salt them, and burn them to dust,” Dean said.

“Now tell me you buried him. Tell me you didn’t just let him go into the lake,” He continued.

“Dad, is any of this true?” Andrea asked, her voice shaky.

“No, don’t listen to them. They’re liars and they’re dangerous,” the sheriff said.

“Something tried to drown me. Chris died on that lake. Dad, look at me,” Andrea yelled.

You peaked around Dean. Where was Lucas?

“Tell me you- tell me you didn’t kill anyone,” Andrea begged.

The sheriff sighed.

“Oh my God,” Andrea whispered in disbelief.

“Peter was the smallest one so we used to bully him. We held him under water a little too long and he drowned. We let go of his body and he floated into it. It was a mistake Andrea, we were kids. But to say I had something to do with these drownings because of some ghost? It’s not rational.” He pleaded with his daughter.

“Where’s Lucas?” You blurred out from behind Dean.

You heard Andrea gasp and look behind you. You turned behind you and saw Lucas by the water.

“Lucas!” You yelled as you all ran towards him.

As you got closer to him, you saw something pull him in and under.

“Oh my God!” Andrea cried.

You ran harder and pushed ahead. Once you got to the dock, you dove into the water. Dean dove in after you and Sam turned to Andrea.

“Andrea, stay there,” Sam yelled before diving in after you and Dean.

You swam and swam, pushing yourself all the way to the bottom of the lake trying to find Lucas. You couldn’t see anything because the lake was murky and your vision was blurry from the water. You felt around frantic at the bottom of the lake when you felt your lungs burning. You swam up and took in a huge breathe when you got above the water. You looked towards your brothers hoping that one of them had Lucas, but they were both empty handed.

You dove back down determined to save Lucas. You swam in the opposite direction when you see a blurry figure. You swam down ignoring the burning of your lungs that were begging for air and grab his arm. It was Lucas! You tried pulling him up, but had no luck. That’s when you noticed Peter below him, pulling him down. He didn’t care about you though, he just wanted Lucas so you kicked him in the head a few times. To your surprise it worked.

Peter let go of his hold on Lucas and you were able to yank him up. You pushed your legs harder, swimming up with Lucas. You were running out of energy and your whole body burned. You finally got to the top and clung onto the dock with Lucas in your other arm.

Dean was right there and pulled himself onto the dock, grabbing Lucas from your arms. You let out a gasp and was finally able to breathe. Your big gulp of air was cut short when you felt something grab your leg and pull you back under.

You panicked which was just about one of the worst things to do, but you weren’t prepared to be brought back down under the water. You were surviving off of a half breathe of oxygen and could feel your lungs start to burn. You thrashed at Peter, definitely not conserving your energy and definitely not doing what you were supposed to be doing during a situation like this. You couldn’t help, but panic. You didn’t want to die! You felt Peter drag you further and you let out a scream, bubbles floating above your head. You could feel your limbs growing heavier and your fight grow weaker.

As you were slipping away into nothingness, you felt Peter’s hold loosen and then disappear. Hope flooded over you as you felt arms around you pulling you back to the surface, but your lungs won and you took in a huge breath of water and everything went black.

Dean broke the surface with you and noticed how limp you were. This time Sam pulled himself onto the dock and grabbed you from Dean’s arms. He laid you down on the dock and immediately started CPR. Dean pulled himself over the dock and cradled your head, “Come on kid,” Dean cried as Sam was performing CPR on you, “Come on!” He was wiping your hair from your face as Sam continued trying to save your life.

“Wake up, let me see those big brown eyes that I love so much, yeah? Come on kiddo,” He pleaded.

Just as Sam finished a breath, you jolted to the side coughing up water and gasping for air. Sam sat back in relief, trying to catch his breath as Dean reached to pat you on the back.

“That’s it kid, that it. It’s alright, cough it all out.” He said. “You’re okay, your okay.” He reassured you as he noticed tears streaming down your face.

Your body was weak with exhaustion so you collapsed onto your back and took in one deep breath. The near death experience definitely traumatizing you as you looked at your brothers shivering. As Dean was taking off his leather jacket, you saw Lucas in Andreas arms and you softly smiled knowing you saved him.

“Hey bug I’m going to pick you up alright?” Sam asked you.

You looked up at him and nodded.

As he pulled you up, Dean handed him his jacket and Sam wrapped you up in it.

You were freezing cold and trembling in Sam’s arms as he walked to the car. “Hey, hey, you’re okay. I got you Y/N/N and I would never let anything happen to you. And neither would Dean. Ever.” He softly spoke. He knew that this was terrifying for you and his heart broke. You were just a kid.

Dean started the car and blasted the heat. Sam laid you in the backseat wrapped in Dean’s jacket and then took his own jacket off. He placed it on top of you and sent you a soft smile.

They both got in the car and drove back to the motel. Dean glanced back at you multiple times through the rear view mirror making sure that you were still okay.

——

The three of you walked to the Impala from the motel, getting ready to leave this town behind.

“Y/N, Sam, Dean,” you heard Andrea call out.

You turned around, seeing her and Lucas. “Hey!” You smiled seeing him.

“We just made you some lunch for the road. Lucas insisted on making the sandwiches himself,” she smiled down at Lucas.

“Can I give it to them now?” He asked. You smiled even bigger seeing that he was talking now.

“Of course,” Andrea replied.

“Well, let’s go load these into the car, yeah?” You reached out to Lucas to hold his hand. He grabbed it and you walked off together. Sam trailed behind you, giving Dean and Angela some privacy.

——-

“Alright, now that you’re talking, you have to remember this phrase. I want you to repeat it back to me,” you told him.

“Zeppelin rules!” he exclaimed.

“That’s right! Up high,” you gave him a double high five and chuckled.

Sam was looking at you smiling. You were an exact replica of Dean.

“Take care of yourself, Lucas,” you said and gave him a quick hug.

You looked to the side and saw Andrea give Dean a kiss.

You smiled and looked back at Lucas.

“It looks like we’re leaving now. Stay brave, kiddo,” you said. He nodded, running off to Andrea.

“Let’s hit the road. We’re gonna run out of daylight,” Dean said, walking to the front seat.

“You’re blushing,” you teased.

“Shut up,” He chuckled and shook his head. All three of you got into the car.

“She was pretty, I liked her!” You said as Dean drove off leaving Andrea and Lucas in the distance.

#supernatural #spn #spnfandom #spn fanfic #spn imagine #supernatural imagine #dean winchester x sister!reader #dean winchester #dean winchester imagine #dean x reader #sam and dean #sam winchester x sister!reader #sam winchester imagine #sam winchester #sam x reader

120 notes · View notes

replenaryindulgence · 28 days

Text

Before the Light

Azriel x Calida (ka-lee-duh)/Reader

Summary: After getting lost in the woods on a camping trip and finding herself in an unfamiliar land, 22-year-old Cal must decide what she's willing to do to get back to her life if she still wants it.

Word count: 5.5k

Warnings: Panic, creepy guy in the woods

a/n: I know there’s a lot of backstory, I promise it’s worth getting through! I really wanted to set the stage and for you to get to know our MC.

I didn't intend for this to be so long, but d*mn my little hamster brain kept running on that wheel!!! The MC's name might seem a little strange, it's of Irish origin & I thought it was pretty and unique. Also, she's a redhead because so am I and me plus Azriel equals two (iykyk). Plz let me know what you think! Thinking about throwing in a slight love triangle moment with Morrigan eventually because how dramatic would that be & because our reader might be a little bi aren't we all? Strap in!!!

I'll try to update this as soon as I can! It might be a week or so. (P.S. my asks are always open! Thanks for bearing with me while I relearn how to use tumblr lol)

Chapter 1

“I don’t think we’re doing this right. No, definitely not, this piece is supposed to bend across that one.”

“You suck at this An,” Jack threw back.

“I suck at this? You didn’t get it right either asshole,” Annie quipped.

You shook your head, amused by the twins struggling to put together the first tent. The ground beneath the large pines was littered with dried needles, perfect for kindling. Circling around, you collected them into your jacket pocket.

“You hearing this, Cal?” Jack called out to you.

Turning to face your friends, you couldn’t help but laugh.

“You guys are ridiculous,” You threw back, reaching for a small pine cone at your feet and rolling it in your palm.

You walked back and tossed your growing pile of fire-starter near the center of the clearing. It was still a few hours from dusk, but the hike had been long and you were eager to set up and be done with it. Jack and Annie were tasked with the tents while Brooke gathered rocks for the fire pit and scouted the area, something about checking for bears. A ridiculous idea, you had thought, though if you trusted anyone here with your life it was probably Brooke. Your guess was she wanted to get away from the bickering for a while.

The sweat from the hike still clung to your skin, sitting sticky and uncomfortable beneath your jacket. It’s much cooler now than it had been on the trip in. You touched the back of your hand to your nose to warm it. The sun’s rays peeked through the ever-rising pines, and you welcomed the sparse heat. Closing your eyes, you tilted your head back and let the afternoon look at you. Your feet shuffled slightly until light touched your face, and vibrant red filled your vision from behind closed lids. This moment reminded you of being a kid, observing and learning about the world around you. You tried to remember the last time you felt peace like you did now. It seemed as though no matter how hard you tried to clutch it, life slipped quickly through your fingers like sand. The years passed and suddenly, nothing was the same. But, this moment felt still; the sun was warm, and the lake welcomed you back with familiar hands.

”You’ve been a real help,” Jack whispered, startling you. His arm brushed yours, you smiled at the sky.

“It’s nice that we’re staying out here. I love the cabin, but I think we could all use the seclusion,” you responded, meeting his eyes. He nodded back, folding his arms. Brown hair stuck to his forehead, damp with sweat.

“Seclusion, huh?” He teased.

“Seclusion, isolation, freedom from the expectations and burdens of society,” you replied dramatically.

“Okay, Thoreau, can we get some help sorting through the bags?” He questioned.

Before you could respond, you saw movement beyond the trees. Brooke approached and Jack walked over to help her with the arm full of small rocks she carried.

“No sign of bears,” she stated shortly. “Only one tent? I’ve been gone for twenty minutes.”

Brooke wasn’t angry, she just had a way about her. A way that was quick to say what was on her mind, and without much thought to how it would be taken. You learn to let it roll off of you when you’ve known someone for years. She’d been your and Annie’s suitemate freshman year. As a sensitive person, you found her bluntness unpleasant, but Annie liked her, and eventually, you came around.

You’ve known Jack and Annie longer than you can remember. Your parents were once very close; you’d spend weeks out of the year at their cabin just east of the lake. When your parents divorced it got ugly and uncomfortable, like a festering wound, until neither of them came back to the cabin. You were grateful for that. The cabin, the lake, it remained a place untouched by the crumbling debris of your parents’ failed marriage. Jack’s mom had pulled you aside and assured you that you’d always have a place with them. You knew she meant it. Mrs. Henley, Ruth, was a soft-spoken woman, but always sincere.

The cabin was almost two hours from the water by car, if cabin was the right word for it. You never talked about how much money the Henleys had, and they didn’t seem to care what your family had in comparison. The twins’ Dad, Eric, ran a few publishing companies in Washington, one in Oregon. After graduation, Mr. Henley lined up an internship for you as an editorial assistant, and asked you to persuade Jack to stay in Washington and work for him. A fruitless task, you were sure. Jack was over living out west, he wanted to travel the states, maybe move abroad for a while. No entry level job at his Dad’s company would sway a 22 year old from the intrigue of adventure.

A month ago, Annie suggested we spend these last few weeks before the fall, fully together. Camping was never your favorite, but you couldn’t say no to Annie. Not when you knew she was right. After graduation, you’d spent the summer mostly together, in your apartments in Seattle, at the Henley’s house in the city, or at the cabin. It felt right, it felt how it always did. But now, the discomfort of change was more tangible, less abstracted by time. Jack was talking of moving east with a friend you’ve known since high school and Brooke was heading to Alaska for grad school. Lucky for you, Annie didn’t seem in a rush to solidify plans, besides staying in the city. Who could blame her, with parents like that?

You joined Annie in the one set-up tent, helping her spread a blanket over one of the thin camping mattresses. You worked silently, unpacking a small pillow, another blanket, and hooking a portable light onto where the poles crossed inside the tent.

“You don’t need my permission, you know,” Annie said, breaking the silence.

You furrowed your brows. “Permission? For what?” You continued looking through the bags, setting one aside and adjusting the blanket beneath you.

"With Jack," She said, smiling at your confused look as she grabbed a bag of peanut M&M’s from her bag. She tilted her head back, letting a few fall into her mouth.

You didn’t know what to say. “It’s not like that,” you assured.

”It’s always like that,” she smiled at you, offering the sweets in her hand.

You took them, rolling your eyes. Annie assumed everyone was in love. You were definitely a romantic, but you also knew what disinterest looked like. You and Jack had shared a few lingering touches and almost-moments on drunken nights, but it didn’t sway you to gamble your friendship on the possibility that he was interested in anything serious. You were content wondering what could have been. You were typically more fond of fiction, anyway.

“Annie, come help me finish setting this up,” Jack called. She smiled at you once more before disappearing from the tent. You laid back, thankful for the swift death of the conversation.

…

The second tent was up much quicker than the first. You had organized them; Annie and Jack’s bags in one, Brooke’s and yours in the other. A small pile of sticks and pine needles glowed atop a circle of rock in the center of the camp. Jack and Brooke had found a small log and somehow managed to carry it over. You sat on it with Jack, rubbing your neck, the ghostly weight of your bag on your shoulders. You tried to pack light, but you brought a few books along; a mystery about a kidnapping that took place at a summer camp, some fairy book Brooke had suggested, and, possibly, one too many sweaters, which added some weight.

The sun was setting now, teasing the horizon with a gentle touch, and although it meant the temperature would plummet, you were eager for sleep. The heels of your feet ached, your calves felt stiff, and you were sure you needed to drink more water.

Brooke poked at the fire while Annie was engrossed in her phone, probably looking at pictures she'd taken on the hike in. You and Jack shared dried mango slices while you searched the shared playlist Brooke made for the trip. All Things End by Hozier began playing, and you smiled absentmindedly at the memory of hearing it live.

"Everyone is so quiet," Annie said, interrupting the hiss of the crackling embers. She and Brooke sat on a blanket across from you.

“I’m exhausted,” You responded with a yawn, staring vacantly beyond the campground. You thought you could spot the glitter of sunset on the distant water.

“Let’s get in the lake,” she laughed. “The cold is supposed to be good for your nervous system, or something.”

The prospect of dipping into the lake woke your body slightly, sending a buzz down your spine. You liked the rush of adrenaline, the euphoria following it.

“I’m in,” you responded with a smile. Brooke looked behind her, towards the direction of the water, and back with a scrunched nose, but eventually agreed. You turned to Jack, he only groaned. Still, he stood, mumbling something about how men weren’t built for cold water. Tell that to the Vikings, you thought.

You grabbed the thin towels from your tent, and headed towards the water.

…

Pebbles crunched beneath your boots. It was a short walk to the mouth of the lake, Brooke had chosen a good spot to camp. You quickly stripped them along with most of your clothes, leaving you in a thin bra and hiking shorts. You dipped one foot in the water, wincing at the temperature. Your friends stripped behind you, while you tried not to lose your nerve. Jack was taking pictures of the sunset from a few feet away, and you quickly slipped out of your shorts while he was preoccupied. Brooke and Annie took to your sides, and the three of you stood apprehensively at the edge of the lake, glancing over the water that expanded before you.

“It’ll be worse if we think too much about it,” Annie said, folding her arms to hold her body.

Brooke took a few brave strides and sank below the surface, cursing as she came up, before tilting her head back and letting the water caress her. Annie squealed before following suit. You blew out a huff of air, trying and failing to compartmentalize the chill in the water. When it got to your stomach your body shivered. No, this definitely wasn’t helping your aching muscles. You pressed on.

The water kissed your chest, then your shoulders. Finally, you gave in, dipping your head under. It wasn’t unbearable, but you weren’t sure you’d last long. You felt your pulse slightly in the back of your head as you swam under the surface. It had been almost 80 degrees today, but the water refused to acknowledge that. You broke the surface with a gasp, turning to face your friends who hovered near the edge of the lake. Why had you been so enthusiastic about this idea? You watched as Jack strolled over and dropped his clothes in a pile near the rest, quickly avoiding his gaze. Annie called out to him that it wasn’t so bad, and he shook his head in disagreement as he stood with the water just above his knees. He folded his arms, holding himself how Annie had. You stilled, lowering your head so your nose and eyes peaked just above the surface, and watched him sink further. You took a breath and sank below once more.

You had always loved the water. Brooke said it was biological, that it calmed something in the animal of us to be near it. When you were younger you pretended you were the half-blood offspring of Poseidon, counting how long you could hold your breath in it before your lungs felt like fire and you got light-headed.

You felt something touch your hand, and you lifted yourself from the water and your daydreaming. Jack had swum out, treading water as he watched the sun set over the mountains behind you. Water trickled down his face, gathering in his lashes, and his golden skin was cast in a reddish-golden light. He looked ethereal.

Turning, you faced the sunset. The sun lit the sky beyond the mountains in the most vibrant hues of red and orange. Where the darkening sky above you met the sun, pale shades of pink gathered. There was a good ten minutes of light left, and you thought that you’d never forget this moment. The beauty of it burned into your eyes. You saw it even as you blinked.

You broke the peaceful silence, "It feels like everything’s changing. I hate it." Change felt like putting on a new leather jacket. It chafed in all the wrong places.

He sighed, “Everything is changing. I for one am excited to leave this oppressive ass place.”

You thought of the vastness of the city, the lake that expanded before you, the mountains that climbed ahead, and wondered how anyone could call this oppressive. You knew he meant the people, but the city was big and it seemed like an excuse for wanting to leave. You stayed silent, sifting through your thoughts.

“Dad sure is glad you’re staying. At least one of us won’t disappoint him.” He added, wiping his short hair back from his face.

You laughed at the idea of his Dad ever being disappointed in either him or Annie. Their parents were unusually understanding people. Of course he wanted his kids close to home but he never was the type to force anyone’s hand. Sometimes, you thought Jack wanted a reason to brood.

“He wants you to stay, but I know he’ll live vicariously through you wherever you go, he’s an adventurer at heart. Maybe we can write about it when you get back,” you replied, smiling as you thought of the times you sat around their Dad’s faded armchair as he read you and the twins stories. He filled your minds with images of half-human creatures and monsters that swallowed ships whole. Of wars waged over beautiful women. Greedy dragons and cursed rings.

He replied with a smile and a ‘maybe’, and you pictured his portrait in the back of a travel book. ‘Everyone has a story to tell,’ His Dad had said to him years ago.

You heard laughter and splashing behind you as your friends jumped out of the lake.

“You’re just like him,” he added, nudging your arm underwater. You raised your brows in question.

He continued, “You should come with me. No author came up with anything interesting to say by staying put. New York, maybe Italy, or Ireland. You’d get plenty of inspiration there.”

“I want to be where the publishing action is,” you joke, “And I’m no storyteller, at least not yet.”

“Yeah right, you’re a natural,” He adds, “You’ve got an eye for it.”

You admired how sure Jack was. You liked how it felt to be near him, it put you at ease. He smiled and you could just picture late nights in the sticky bars of Dublin and Vespa rides along the coast.

Of course, you’d agree you had an eye for storytelling, otherwise you'd have wasted the last four years of your life. But, you didn’t have the option of relying on your rich parents for support as you found yourself at the Cliffs of Moher. The Pacific North-West was beautiful, you couldn't believe anyone would want to leave. You’d travel one day, maybe after you’d settled into your career. Until then, this would have to do. You looked out as the sun took its last breath, bowing to the mountains, passing its watch over to the moon.

“Let’s go, I’m freezing!” Annie called out from the shore.

"I’ll start dinner," Brooke added, attempting to shake the last of the water from her short hair.

You didn’t wait for Jack as you made your way to them. You hurried out, thankful for the thin veil of darkness as you dried off. Jack dressed beside you, his hair falling in short ringlets over his brows. He caught your eye and you pulled your towel over your head, hiding your face, and squeezing the lake from your hair.

…

The fire started quickly, and you ate slightly gummy re-hydrated pasta that Ruth made for the trip with her food dehydrator. You were sure this was the first time they’d used it. Shortly after dinner you fell prey to the lull of darkness and excused yourself with a ‘good night’ leaving your friends by the fire. The blankets in the tent felt damp. Great. Your sweats, thankfully, weren’t as bad. You fell asleep to hushed conversation, burrowing deep into your hooded sweatshirt.

You awoke to a sharp, shining light. Brooke was reading something next to you. How long had you been asleep? You hummed a greeting, burying your face further into your blanket, and sank deeply into the comfort of sleep.

The next day consisted of meals around the fire and a short hike to get a better view of the mountains. You trailed behind your friends, deep in thought as you failed to push away Jack’s suggestion that what you needed was travel. You thought of Bilbo refusing to leave the Shire.

Annie crept scarcely close to the edge of a boulder and you tried to hide your worried face while Brooke took her photo. They pulled you in for a group one, and you held tightly to Brooke as she captured your smiling faces.

The day seemed shorter than the one before, the sunset was more of a dulled pink, dimmed by low-hanging clouds. You made s’mores and failed at telling ghost stories around the fire before turning in early. You grabbed the fairy book from your bag, deciding the mystery should be read in the safety of daylight. You were on page 32 when Brooke joined you, crawling into the tent and kicking pine needles onto your blanket.

“I swear fantasy writers all had a meeting and committed to only writing weak, sex-depraved female leads,” You tell Brooke as she slips into her sleepwear.

“That or they become the best fighters and magicians all of a sudden. Can’t a girl just be a girl?” She adds.

You laughed in agreement and attempted to discuss the female archetype in fairy lands while she settled in. You pressed your legs to hers for warmth, and she opened a book about the history of the local tribes in Washington. Your thoughts drifted from the page, unable to comprehend the last paragraph of world-building you attempted to read twice, and you let your head fall back to your pillow. The serenade of cicadas filled your ears, and you tried to commit the sound to memory. A vision tugged at you, of laying on a porch swing in your mother's arms, listening to the cicadas call as she read to you from your book about flower fairies. You laugh at how little you’ve changed, and how much you’ve changed.

“My mom used to read me this fairy book when I was a kid. I’ve probably heard it a thousand times, and I swore I saw fairies in my backyard. My grandma told me if there was a ring of mushrooms, a fairy had been there and I looked all over the yard for them,” you admitted, the memory vivid and colorful in your mind.

“My brother and I used to build little homes for them out of sticks and leaves,” she added. You enthusiastically agreed, remembering sitting outside of your grandparents’ house arranging pieces of earth with your cousins. Hours content in the world of your imagination. You missed that part of yourself, the child in you. You thought of her as you drifted asleep.

…

The next day the sky was filled with thick puffs of soft gray clouds, the air cooler than it'd been a few days ago. You started the morning off slowly, accompanied by Annie as you laid on a blanket near the water and read. Lunch had been brought to the lake, the four of you determined to spend the whole day in this spot.

Hours later you sat, Jack at your side, and watched as Annie and Brooke swam further and further out. So far this week you’d gone hiking, swimming, read your books, and walked around looking at fauna. You weren’t sure what camping for a week looked like. The longest you’d camped out was two nights, and it was technically in the backyard of the twins’ house.

“What time are your friends getting here?” You asked Jack as you chewed the inside of your lip. He sat with his arms resting on his knees beside you.

"Mmm, around five I think," he responded, glancing at his watch.

A few of Jack’s friends were coming to camp for the rest of the week. They were nice guys, and you weren’t exactly feeling antisocial, but you wished it would have stayed just the four of you.

“Dylan’s bringing is his girlfriend I think,” he added.

You hummed in response. You liked her, maybe it wouldn’t be so bad.

Mirroring Jack, you looked at your watch; 4:14. Wanting to spare yourself from awkward small talk and having to help set up tents, you decided you’d go for a run along the shore soon. The energy bites Brooke had made and the coffee you drank with lunch were making you restless, anyway. You sat with Jack a little longer, and at half past four you stood, slipping back into your shoes.

Jack laughed amusingly when you told him of your plan, seeing through your avoidant ploy, but he just reminded you to be careful and to be back before dark or they’d have to form a search party. You called out to Brooke and Annie and they both echoed a warning too. A ‘be careful’, and a ‘bring your charger just in case.’

Back at camp, you threw your small solar charger into your jacket pocket, along with a granola bar, and drank from your water bottle. Anxious thoughts filled your mind, though you weren’t sure why. You’d woken up slightly on edge this morning and chalked it up to the company arriving soon. The path you’d run would be easy and mindless, no reason to worry. You’d stick to the shoreline, and come back the same way long before it got dark; the shore near the camp would be unmistakable. You took a breath and willed your stomach to settle.

You tied your hair up, swinging it to your back, then wrapped your jacket around your waist and began jogging towards the water. You’d gotten a little addicted to running this past year. It trained your breathing and focused your mind, something you’ve been trying and failing to do all your life. In Seattle, you always ran the same four-mile route from your apartment to around the park and back. It took you a few weeks to map down the perfect path. Past the gift shop at the end of the block, steering clear of the traffic near the middle school a half-mile down, and along the widest sidewalk that led to the park closest to your apartment. You focused on your breath and willed your anxious mind to focus on your surroundings. The pines loomed above you, it almost made you dizzy to look at them. The water reflected the mood of the sky. You could see a small group of people kayaking in the water towards the East side of the lake.

One mile down.

Deep breath in, deep breath out. The trees thinned out near the edge of the lake and the view was stunning. You sometimes felt like you couldn’t fully experience how beautiful it was here, not in the moment. It would hit you on the way home or when you’d get your film back from being developed. You almost brought your camera but decided it wasn’t worth the risk.

Two miles down.

Stopping, you caught your breath as you snapped a photo with your phone, then slid it back into the band of your leggings and picked up your pace. Your mind drifted to the book you were reading.

Three miles down.

Your headphone cord swung annoyingly across your chest, and sweat started to prickle your forehead. A large boulder sat in your path and you swerved around it.

Shit. You threw your hands up on instinct, hitting something hard. Blinking for a moment, you steadied yourself. How had you not seen this tree? You brought your fingers to your face and winced as your eyebrow stung. Your eyes fell to the blood prickling the back of your hand. You felt it suddenly, the annoying ache of scraped skin and you cursed yourself for being unobservant. You looked at your watch with a sigh; 5:09. You tried not to let your injury annoy you as you turned to start the journey back towards camp.

Your heart sank. Head darting back and forth, then behind you. Eyebrows knit in confusion.

The lake was gone.

Ripping your headphones out, you scanned the forest before you. What the hell?

Okay, you thought, don’t freak out, don’t panic. Just think. Did you accidentally run further from the shore? You knew the lake was North and camp was West. You looked above you for the sun to verify, but the clouds had gotten even thicker. You scanned the forest confused, trying to find the boulder you had swerved just moments ago. How hard had you hit your head?

Shit. You grabbed your phone and opened the compass app to verify your direction, chewing on your lip nervously as it loaded. You sighed in relief, yes you were facing North. If you walked forward there’s no way you wouldn’t see the lake soon.

Goosebumps prickled your arms and neck. When did it get so cold?

Throwing on your jacket, you tucked your headphones into your pocket and gripped your phone anxiously. You took deep breaths and tried to settle the sick feeling in your stomach. You’d be fine.

You walked further and further North, anxiety creeping up into your body with each step. You settled into a light jog and searched for anything familiar. The minutes dragged on. The panic set in. You checked your watch again; 5:15. Keep going.

Darkness flashed suddenly in the corner of your eye and stopped you in your tracks. You swung your head toward where it’d appeared. Your ragged breathing broke the suffocating silence of the forest. Your anxiety screamed into your mind, animal, and all you could think of was Brooke’s comment about bears, but there was nothing. Just you and the never-ending expanse of trees. Did you have a concussion?

The wind howled behind you, and your body reacted before your mind. Shivers ran up your spine into your neck and you ran. Hopping over fallen branches and swerving between trees. The forest grew thicker, swallowing you whole. You felt your vision tunneling; you were panicking but you couldn’t stop moving. You spotted a clearing ahead and prayed to whoever was listening that it was the shoreline. A low-hanging branch scraped your shoulder as you reached the field. The field. Not the shore. Your eyes searched wildly.

The darkness appeared again, but stood still.

Not darkness, but pure blackness against the muted brown trunks of the forest. You turned to face it, and there, at the edge of the clearing stood a man in a black suit.

All thoughts left your mind. Something in your DNA clawed at you to run, but you stood, perhaps in shock, staring at this man before you. He was much taller than you, you could tell even through the distance, with golden skin and hair black as night.

Seemingly out of thin air, another man appeared by his side. Something covered him, or hung behind him, extending above his head. They looked like… What the hell? Was there a group of guys out here role-playing? Your head ached, this wasn’t happening, this had to be a hallucination, maybe from the injury and the anxiety.

The man in the suit took a step further into the clearing and slipped his hands into his pockets. You stood frozen at the edge of the clearing. He cocked his head to the side and squinted, seemingly assessing you. You thought of the group you saw kayaking and a small amount of hope hit you. Of course you weren’t the only people out here, you were bound to run into someone. You could ask for directions back to the lake. If they were playing make-believe in the forest that was their business. A woman with a long brown braid and a dark leather suit walked into view next and you took a calming breath. A woman.

You swallowed your panic but it stuck in your throat as you took a step forward and lifted your hand to wave. You hoped they didn’t see you shaking. There was a woman, yes, but the two men kept you at edge. Everything seemed out of place.

“Hey, sorry you startled me,” you began with a nervous laugh. “I was running along the shore but I went a little too far, do you know how much further North the lake is from here?” you inquired, heart beating in your throat.

No answer. The suited man looked to the woman next to him, and the man with the giant fake wings kept his arms held tightly at his thighs. Seconds passed.

“Your costumes are great,” you added, trying to sound at ease, and gesturing to the man’s wings. He took a step forward, but the suited man stopped him.

Time to go whispered into your mind and you managed a tight smile, as you took a few small steps away.

“Well, I better head back to my group,” you called out. You needed to put more distance between you. You needed to get the hell out of here.

You started to jog away, but something shot out into your path. You slammed to a stop. Another man, with shoulder-length brown hair half-tied up, clad in black leather gear and the same towering wings rising above his head stood before you. What the hell? He looked at you with creased brows, and glanced at the group of people to your right. He pressed his lips in a line, eyes darting back to you. Your heart raced; you felt like prey. Every hair on your body stood and every instinct told you to run, but the man in front of you was huge. At least six foot five.

You had to go. Whatever this was, you needed to remove yourself from it. They couldn’t run very fast with those things hanging on their back, anyway, right? You took a step back and glanced beside you. You could break for the trees and start heading West.

You began to move, but something stopped you like you'd run into an invisible wall. Whipping around, the suited man now stood before you, just feet away. Your eyes met his. They almost glowed an unnatural purple. He was handsome, they all were, which freaked you out even more. The man next to him looked at you sternly, like he was assessing a threat. What the hell is this?

"I need to get back to my friends, they’re waiting for me," you lied, straining to keep your voice even.

The man spoke back in a language you couldn’t understand. You tried to pick out familiar words but the dialect was too strange. It wasn’t Native, or any of the Latin languages from what you could tell. You looked to the woman who stood slightly further back, with pure plea written on your face. Her eyes softened and she spoke back in the unfamiliar language. She would help, you convinced yourself.

They conversed once more. You took a step back, but hands wrapped around your arms tightly, fingers digging into the sleeves of your jacket. You tried jerking them away, but the long-haired man held firm.

Panic now coursed through you in a dam-less stream. “Please, just let me go, what do you want?” you begged them all, looking to the woman once more. She and the suited man exchanged glances before turning to face you. So this is how you’d die, crossed your mind. What kind of sick game had you stumbled into?

The man spoke once more and took a step closer. You looked to the man at his side, the one with towering wings. His hazel eyes met yours. You searched his face, what you were looking for you didn’t know. Sympathy maybe? His jaw loosened slightly and he held your stare.

You turned to the purple-eyed man before you and pleaded again. He responded, nodding, but you didn’t understand. Tears filled your eyes. A scream pierced your ears. Your scream. It tore its way up your throat as a hot, white pain pierced your brain like a jagged knife. Your knees gave out, but the hands gripping you kept you upright. A golden-brown light filled your blurring vision. Your head fell back, heavy, and your mouth hung open in agony as your body finally gave in.

Darkness washed over you.

...

Ahhh! I'm so nervous to post this but so excited! Already getting started on Chapter 2. Sorry this was so long LMAO I just really wanted to set the scene for some hard-core angst.

#azriel fanfic #acotar x reader #azriel spymaster #azriel shadowsinger #a court of thorns and roses #acotar #acotar fanfiction #azriel x reader #azriel angst #rhysand acotar #rhysand is a baddie #feyre archeron #cassian

115 notes · View notes

darknight3904 · 2 months

Text

𝕿𝖍𝖊 𝕽𝖆𝖈𝖊

ᴀᴇᴍᴏɴᴅ ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ x ꜰᴇᴍ!ᴏᴄ! ᴛᴀʀɢᴀʀʏᴇɴ

ᴘʀᴇᴠɪᴏᴜꜱ ᴘᴀʀᴛ / ꜱᴇʀɪᴇꜱ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ /ᴍʏ ᴍᴀꜱᴛᴇʀʟɪꜱᴛ

This chapter takes place 3 months after the previous one, Rhaella is once again living in Kings Landing.

129 AC

"You are ten and four and you have never been swimming?"

"I have not."

"You used to live on an island!"

Aemond's exasperated tone has Rhaella laughing. Her friend is entirely too worked up for the topic of conversation.

"I never learned when living in Runestone. And the sea can be rough so I never tried when I was living at Driftmark." Rhaella explained

"We are going swimming." Aemond suddenly declares pulling her up, off her bed that was covered in books and poorly drawn illustrations of Vhagar and Sōna.

The flight into the King's Wood was short and rather warm as Rhaella flew close to Aemond and Vhagar. Aemond had claimed to know of a beautiful lake that he swore was not as rough as the sea.

"I will keep you from drowning." He had declared before climbing atop Vhagar. Aemond had been at least correct about the beauty of the lake. Rhaella's eyes widened from atop Sōna when the glittering water came into view.

"It's perfect isn't it?"

Aemond's voice reached her eyes as they landed. A boyish grin sat on his face as he reached his arms up to catch her when he dismounted from Sōna.

"I can get off my dragon just fine on my own." She laughed as his hands let go of her waist.

"Come, the waters are always warm during the afternoon." He says, ignoring her

Vhagar lets out a loud grumble and Rhaella can feel her heated breath as they walk away from their dragons.

Rhaella ungracefully pulls at her riding clothes. The leather is slick with sweat and will have to washed but it feels amazing to be in nothing but her chemise and small clothes as the sun beat down.

Aemond hadn't taken into account the lack of clothing this particular venture would entail. Sure, they couldn't swim in their dragon-riding clothes, but he also wasn't expecting to see Rhaella stripping hers off like they had offended her. He finds his eyes wandering as he stands a few paces away from her. Her silver hair is in a single braid down her back as the last bit of dragon-riding clothes all off her.Her body is mesmerizing as her white chemise seems to glow in the sun. Aemond finds himself suddenly shy as his mind begins to fill with erotic thoughts, thoughts he certainly shouldn't have towards his closest friend.

"Do you plan to stay on the side forever? You said you were going to teach me to swim." Rhaella calls as she wades into the water so it's up to her knees.

"Oh right."

He fumbles with his own clothes as he keeps his eyes on the overgrown grass and wildflowers that litter the ground below him. When he finally stands beside her, water laping at his knees and upper thighs, she's laughing at him.

"You look as though you've seen a ghost."

Perhaps he has, her silver hair is paler than the moon as the sun beams down on them.

"So, how do I swim?" Rhaella asks

Aemond tries, he truly does, but Rhaella is, for lack of a better word, terrible. He tries to teach her how to float on her back and she comes back up coughing up enough water to fill an entire flagon. Then, he tries to show her how to tread water and she's gone under again, He wraps his arms around her and pulls her back up, treding water for the both of them. By the time the sun is beginning to go below the trees, he has managed to teach her a simple doggy paddle, nothing more.

"It is a good thing Runestone is in the Vale and not near any water." Aemond sighs as they lay in the grass together.

He is exhausted after rescuing Rhaella from her demise multiple times today. How could she fly a dragon but not swim well?

"I suppose so." She sighs beside him

"What do you have to sigh for? I did all the hard work today." Aemond declares

"Are you forgetting I almost died, multiple times today! That is tiring work!" She defends

"I was the one rescuing you!" Aemond argues

"What about the time you let me go for too long? I could've died!" She gasped

"I thought you had it that time!" Aemond laughed

Rhaella's laugh joins his own in the open air. Away from the peering eyes of the castle, Aemond has never felt more free. Rhaella's laugh is sweeter than any birdsong and he decides he'd love to stay here forever.

The quacking of ducks fills the air and Aemond's mind drifts to supper. Perhaps he could catch one and then cook it for them. He didn't want to return to the castle but the prospect of an empty stomach has him thinking about it. He sits up, letting his eye scan the area. Vhagar and Sōna are sleeping about a hundred paces to his right while the ducks that are flaunting about are just on the edge of the water. twenty paces to his left. He pulls his dagger from his crumpled mess of clothing beside him.

"What in the seven hells are you doing?" Rhaella asked, suddenly sitting up, alarmed at the blade in his hands.

Aemond reaches to hook a finger under her chin and turn her face to the ducks.

"Dinner." He says simply

"Are you some savage Hill Tribesman?" Rhaella asks, clearly not happy with his idea.

"I am starving. You wouldn't want your savior dying of starvation would you?" His tone is light and airy but he is serious about catching a duck and cooking it. The pain in his stomach is becoming unbearable.

"You are not killing that duck, Aemond." She scolded him, "Look there."

He follows her pointed finger to where a mother duck swims to what was going to be dinner. She has five baby ducklings close behind. The other duck, his dinner, quacks loudly before joining his mate in the water.

"You were going to take a father duck from his duck family." Rhaella laughs

"I am certain hundreds of ducks die each day, Rhaella." He grumbles, placing his dagger back in its sheath.

"Oh, my poor sweet starving prince," Rhaella's sweet tone isn't as enjoyable as it was a few moments ago.

"If you're going to mock me, you should get Aegon, he is good at that." Aemond feels his expression souring at her teasing words. He could let the duck go but he hated when people patronized him.

"I have food. In Sōna's saddle bag. Wait here." Rhaella says

Aemond watches her skip off to her sleeping dragon to retrieve whatever she's brought. Sōna is a beautiful dragon, the only egg to hatch from a clutch laid by Silverwing during Queen Alysanne Targaryen's trip to Winterfell. The dragon later being named when it's scales turned out to be the same color as the North's snow. Aemond remembered reading about the dragon in a book, it had said the North's ancient magic had changed the dragon's color and left it devoid of color, except for its ice-blue eyes, akin to the wall itself. Even Sōna's dragon fire was a different color than normal dragon's, her flames were a pale orange in contrast to Vhagar's red.

"I hope you like apples," Rhaella says, tossing him one.

She has returned with an armful of apples, bread, and even a hunk of cheese. When had she grabbed all this? He had dragged her out of her room as soon as he heard she couldn't swim.

The apple is deliciously sweet as the juice runs between his fingertips while he bites into it. Rhaella sits beside him, munching on her own.

"I didn't mean to upset you." She said suddenly

"What?" He asks, too focused on the apple

"When I called you my sweet prince." She says "I was...being honest."

Aemond watches as her face grows red and she looks away from him. She had meant to call him that? Why though? He was planning on murdering a duck because he couldn't stand his own stomach's grumbling.

"I hope you're not mad at me." She says, suddenly taking his hand in hers. Juice from the apple stains her skin and makes a sticky connection between their skin.

Warm wind blows Rhaella's damp hair off her shoulders and messes with his own as he lets her fiddle with is fingers. She slides his silver ring off his middle finger and places it on his ring finger. He feels his face heat up as she looks back up at him, her violet eyes meeting his own.

"I'm not mad." Aemond truthfully says, "I'd never be mad at you."

Hehe I love writing fluff.

Gave a Sōna back story there because I thought she deserved it. Sōna is currently 70 as Alysanne visited the North in 58 AC and I like the idea of Sōna hatching in 59 AC. As I wrote this I envisioned Meleys to be about 10-15 years older than Sōna and Caraxes to be about 5-7 years older than Sōna. Basically, I plan to age everyone up including the dragons. So, spoiler alert, I'm making Viserys' diseased ass live longer than he did in the show/book.

Aemond One shot I wrote yesterday

Next Part

Comment below to join the taglist. (The taglist is not by chapter, once added, you will remain there unless you ask to be removed.)

Taglist:

@caspianobsessed

@starryhiraeth

@franzelt

@holymusicalmothman

@koobratzy

@schelfinser

@mizuki80

@flusteredmoonn

@sunmigs

@mizuki80

@dramioneforevertilltheend

@fix5idiots @canpillowscry

121 notes · View notes

baldysgate · 11 months

Text

Quiet Moments

HALSIN/GN!TAV SFW || ACT II SPOILERS || CONFESSIONS || FLUFF || 2ND PERSON POV ||

No Warnings just a giant sweet druid and Tav slowly confessing their feelings. Mention of Tav having healing spell.

NOTE: A bit of fluff between ACT II & III for Halsin.

You hear him before you see him, a loud grunt from along the lakes shoreline as you make your daily rounds after a long day. The sun is close to sinking past the horizon, everything bathed in an orange hue.

The Druid sits on the soft white sand, back against a bit of driftwood that made its way ashore, one arm winding a white cloth around the other as he does his best to stifle the pains that rise up in his chest.

"You know there's spells for that." You say softly as to not startle him, and despite the pain he turns his head with a smile that creases the corners of his lips.

"Ah, hello." He leans back, the old wood creaking beneath his weight, "afraid I ran out after the last battle." He sighs and even though hes in pain theres still a warmness in the way he speaks.

And so he came here to lick his wounds? Halsin had joined only a fortnight ago and yet you were learning that the druid did not like taking up space, ironic given his size. It hurt to think he would rather suffer such pain than inconvenience anyone around him. You wondered just how often he'd done this exact same thing as archdruid.

"Here." You offer, sitting on the driftwood with a soft smile, "Let me see."

His brows turn up slightly, as his lips parted only to close again, relinquishing the cloth to your mercy.

The bit he had managed to wrap soaked the cloth with red stains, pulling it away from the angered gash ever so softly as to not cause him further discomfort. With you near he seemed to stifle the sounds even more as the wrapping finally came free. The wound was deeper than expected.. had he really intended to hide this?

"It is not as bad as it looks." He seemed to notice your alarm.

"Halsin, " your voice was soft, but firm, "I need you to take care of yourself. Maybe in the grove things were different, perhaps such things even went unnoticed. But I need you here. We need you here."

He looked up towards you, grey eyes looking into yours with a look of surprise. As if no one had been concerned for him in years. A pang in your chest to think it had taken so long for someone to care as much as he had done for others.

"I understand. Perhaps I have been a bit hasty in my eagerness to lift the shadowcurse..." He admits, "sometimes I let such things cloud my mind."

A gentle admittance, only the surface of something so much deeper. It had only been a few weeks, but you had grown fond of his company.

"It can't have been easy." You breathe, soft tingles sprouting from your fingertips as they press against the angered skin around his wound, "the shadowcurse. Thaniel. Biding your time in that grove and wishing you could just do *something*. I can understand your impatience… But you must take care of yourself first."

The faint light glows and the wound begins to lessen, angered flesh slowly mending. It's entrancing to watch the red lines slowly pull together once more until all is left is tanned skin.

The silence has gone on for too long, glancing up to meet soft eyes beneath heavy brows. Halsin does not look away, as if he had been studying the lines of your face. "I am lucky to be in such wise company." He says softly, still looking into your eyes.

You chuckle, realizing your hands are still against his now healed arm, the faintest warmth touching your cheeks, "Hardly that. I just know what it's like to be frozen in fear of failure."

He looks away then, as if giving such things words were far too much. Those grey eyes staring off to watch the sun begin to sink and give way to twilight, "I suppose that is what it is. Fear. Pity that I had sought to give words to such hollow feelings for so long and here you are to sum it up in one simple word." He lets out a sound between a laugh and a sigh, "Perhaps I have been afraid all along."

Feeling the melancholy that radiates in his words you lay a gentle hand against his shoulder, "Archdruid or not, it does not make you unbound to fear. Or any feeling for that matter. Like nature, there is a balance to all things."

The soft brush of his calloused fingers caress against yours, nearly daring to intertwine with your own. The feeling steals the breath from your lungs. But as quickly as the feeling is there it is gone again and you pull your hand away from him.

Now was not the time for such thoughts of bodies intertwining and sweet poetry spoken between lovers. It is true the druid had been a steadfast and loyal companion who you had grown to admire perhaps more than you had anticipated. But he had his own goals, as did you. The threat of the Absolute would leave no room for anything else.

"Your words always have a way of quieting the unsettling of my heart. I am truly grateful." He turns to look at you once again, a soft smile lined his lips.

"I am always here, should you need me." You smile back.

"And I, for you."

The moment feels far more intimate than when his hand brushed against your own, slowly being bathed in a blanket of night. The Moonglow accentuates the lines of his face, each one like a story woven into a tapestry. You recognize- not for the first time- how handsome he is.

"We should get some sleep. Tomorrow we make our way to moonrise towers and break the Shadowcurse once and for all." The confidence is more in your voice than movement, rising up to stand. You knew if you sat any longer there would be more than just words exchanged between you.

"Together I have no doubt it will be so. Go now and rest, dear friend. I need only a few moments to reconvene with nature." His voice is gentle, as if soothing a lover.

"Goodnight, Halsin." You turn to walk away.

"Rest well." He says just loud enough for you to hear it.

—------------ z z z

The fight had been unlike any your party had seen before. Hells, who could even have imagined fighting a God mere days ago? And yet here you all sat–tired, but alive. So many things had been revealed it made your head swim. The sounds of chatter between everyone had become overstimulating after a day filled with revelations and adrenaline that you quietly excused yourself and headed for a lone hill just outside of camp's light.

The land stretched out before you, the soft sounds of crickets and the rustling of nocturnal animals scattering on the hunt were all to be heard. It was a welcome sound after the infernal drumming of the Absolute that echoed in your mind just hours earlier. After such a grim and dark place the world seemed brighter, even if just for a moment. With a deep sigh you sit amongst the grass, back against the lone willow whose leaves danced in moonlight. The air was cool, a welcoming breeze as if thanking you for ridding nature of such a blight.

Your hand touches the damp grass, a bit of dew from when it had rained earlier, the smell hanging in the air. To your surprise your fingers glide against polished wood, looking down to see the familiar sight of a lute stashed away close enough to be shielded from the weather. It’s a dingy old thing..but someone had taken the time to repair small parts that had decayed or broken. Fingers plucked a string in curiosity and it let out a warbled off tune note.

“Ah, I see you’ve found my hideaway.” A familiar deep voice says from behind you , turning your head to catch Halsin walking up the hill, the light of camp accentuating his large stature.

“I didn’t mean to intrude.” You are already moving to stand but the druid gestures you to sit as he follows, taking the spot at your side.

“Not at all, such a place is better with company.” Halsin makes a gruff noise as he sits against the grass next to you.

“You’re not injured, are you?” You ask, remembering the other night.

“Far from it.” He smiles, looking out into the forest, “Perhaps a bit sore…But I feel better than I have in quite some time.” His eyes turn to you, the smile even softer still “You truly are remarkable.”

His gaze sends a shiver through you, hiding behind a chuckle, “I can’t take the credit, without all of you the outcome would have been far more grim.”

He seems to regard you for a moment, as if mulling over your words, “Perhaps. But without your leadership we would certainly be worse for wear.”

The familiar heat rises in your cheeks, turning back to look out at the landscape as you press your back against the large willow. There’s a pang of pain and you draw your arm upwards which sends the pain shooting through your shoulder with a hiss.

Halsin moves to steady you but his hand only hovers against your arm, “Are you alright?” He asks, voice lined with worry.

You wave to him, “Fine, fine. I think the adrenaline is finally wearing off. Just a bit of an ache, starting to feel my age.”

He chuckles, a warm sound that’s deep in his chest. He’s older by far, but he makes no mention of it.

“Here.” He gestures finally, motioning for you to scoot forward. There's an unmistakable trust between you both that makes you follow his suggestion without question. He stands up just enough to nestle himself between the tree and you, long legs coming to rest on each side of your own. The feeling is now burning at your ears, feeling his hands against your back and drawing upwards towards your shoulders. He kneads with his thumbs against your tired muscles and you have to stifle the pained sound that leaves your lips.

“Does it hurt?” He asks, his voice nearly at your ear as he lessens the strength in which he attempts to worry the knots from tired muscles.

“No, no. Just a little rough going at first” You mutter out, "but it feels nice..." leaning forward as Halsin returns to his efforts.

The night of the tiefling party darts back into your mind. When spirits were high and the drink was adling everyone's mind. Regardless if you partook, the mood had given you the courage to lay your cards on the table. You had known him less than a day but the strength in which he spoke, the soft reassurance in your brief meeting had made you want him more than anything.

Which is why it hurt when he had kindly dismissed your proposition. He'd seemed interested enough, but a small part made you wonder if he'd simply meant to let you down easy. That perhaps you had read too far into things since then.

And so the days had gone by, busying yourself with the tadpole and dodging death at every turn. It helped to pry your mind from the rejection but every so often Halsin would praise you with his kindness or look from across the fire and it all came crashing down again.

And now with his hands against your back, forcing sighs and groans from your throat only furthered your confusion.

As if sensing your very thought he chuckled, "Do you remember the night of the celebration in the grove?"

It's unfortunate that your shoulders tense, as he feels the tension immediately before you can think to control it. "Yes, very much so." The sound is but a whisper on the wind.

"I was enamored with you then." He chuckles, unfolding completely, "I had resigned myself to dying in those warg pens, drawing my last breath knowing I had failed to right the Shadowcurse from over a century ago. And yet when the world seemed darkest it gave me you."

Your hand brushes against the leather of his pants, his hands slowing their work as you turn your upper body to look into his eyes, a look of surprise washing over your face.

"But when you asked me to share in a moment of pleasure, well, I was hesitant only in that my mind had been elsewhere. To not give you my full attention then would've been less than you deserved.” His gaze is warm.

“But say it isn’t what you want anymore and I will remain here-as a friend, by your side.” He adds, though there is hesitancy in his words, as if the admittance from you alone would shatter him whole.

You breathe in deeply, smelling the earth and something distinctly Halsin. A smell of blended herbs, wood and moss. Over the past few weeks you had only wanted him more… A man who had already given up so much and was willing to part with more for the ones he loved. Hells, he’d thrown away everything to follow you into the depths of despair only because he had promised you he would. You didn’t want to take anymore, only to give, even if it was for just a little while. He had voiced his propensity to roam in both heart and soul, to be unbound as nature designed. It was enough in this moment to know this was truly where he wanted to be.

“Halsin.” His name is sweet as it falls past your lips, “ There is nothing I want more.” you smile, readjusting to sit on your knees, turning to him and taking his hand into your own and feeling the rough calluses formed from years of hard work, pressing the palm against your cheek. “We don’t have the luxury of thinking far past today.. but whatever this is- for however long it will be- I want it with you by my side.”

He breathes a deep sigh of what you can only understand is relief, rubbing his thumb against your cheekbone, “You have no idea how I’ve longed to hear those words.” His eyes are on you, the flecks of gold around his irises bright even with only the stars for company, “Come here, to me.” His voice is low but welcoming.

You lean in, his hand at your cheek guiding you to him as your lips meet. It feels like the world crumbles in on itself, the kiss first soft and unsure soon growing passionate and desperate. His other hand moves to your back, pulling you into him so that your bodies press against one another. Your heart is hammering in your chest feeling his tongue dance with yours, running your fingers through chestnut brown hair.

Needing air after what felt like hours you pulled away, a smile pressed against his lips, “That was far better than I could have ever dreamt of.” He admits, his hand against your neck with a soft caress of his thumb against the vein there.

“You stole the words right out of my mouth.” You smile, a fleck of light catches your eye, a glowing ball of green light that draws your attention.

A sea of fireflies dance around the willow, their lights illuminate a sea of stars that swayed with the wind. The sight makes you gasp, watching them grow near before flitting away into the night.

“It seems Thaniel approves.” Halsin chuckles, pulling you into him so that your back rests against his chest, both of you watching the green lights dance before going out. It only lasted a few long breaths but it is beautiful against the blue of night. You can feel his breathing, a steady rise and fall of his chest that could easily lull you into a soft slumber.

There was no telling how long you both lay there, stretched out under the willow tree staring up into the stars. His arms found their way under yours, his warmth like the sun as the night began to cool. At some point through the talking and soft touches your eyes began to close, trying to force them back to just feel the moment for just a bit longer.

"Rest." He whispers your name , breath hot against your ear, "I am not going anywhere."

It's all you need as your eyes finally close and drift off into a peaceful sleep.

#halsin #halsin x tav #halsin x GN!Reader #gn!tav x halsin #tav #bg3 fanfic #fanfic #sfw fanfic #halsin x reader #halsin/tav #bg3 #baldurs gate 3

418 notes · View notes

letterstotheflre · 2 years

Text

𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐈𝐕𝐘 𝐆𝐑𝐎𝐖𝐒 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐍𝐎𝐖 𝐈’𝐌 𝐂𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐃 𝐈𝐍 𝐘𝐎𝐔) || 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐘𝐋 𝐃𝐈𝐗𝐎𝐍

summary: it's his fault. daryl knows that. he should've realised sooner that he knew exactly what those mushroom's would do to you once you ate them.

cw: 18+ only. dark fic [ft. sex pollen, dubcon, mentions of previous noncon drugging (on daryl), outdoor sex, grinding, fingering, squirting]

a/n: soo here is my first big daryl fic! honestly, this might be my favourite fic i’ve ever written :3 it was very fun to write and somehow i really liked writing daryl dialogue/inner monologue (his accent is just so fun lol). once again, this was supposed to be a very feral smut fest and ended up having a lot of emotional moments and inner daryl turmoil </3 i still hope you like it :)) || also very unrelated side note, but i think “gold rush” by taylor fits the daryl in this fic v much (it’d be from his pov, not yours)

“Where d’ya think we should go next?” You ask Daryl around a mouthful of the lone rabbit he hunted earlier this afternoon.

Finding food is getting harder and harder, not to mention you’re running out of your water supply. It’s obvious you need to move your camp to a better area, preferably somewhere near a lake or river. The question is, where is that exactly?

Daryl shrugs, turning the rabbit leg between his dirty fingers around. He takes a rough bite.

He doesn’t know, and to be honest, he doesn’t really care. Now that the prison fell and with the group scattered to the winds, he doesn’t have much hope for anything. He had gotten a little too comfortable there, his first mistake, and now look where it landed him. Had he learnt nothing from his first camp with Merle, then the camp in Atlanta, then the CDC, and finally the farm? He had enough experience under his belt to know that things always took a turn for the worse, especially when everything seemed safe and peaceful. Yet he still let his guard down.

The thing is, the prison… the prison was different. It was well protected, with several feet of fence that kept the walkers far from the main building. They didn’t have to worry about any walkers creeping into their cells and taking a bite out of them in the middle of the night since they were able to clear their side of the prison in a matter of days. They had guns and ammo, food and water. Hershel and Carol even taught them how to take care of crops. Hell, they even got their hands on some cattle! They didn’t need to scavenge the woods for some meagre squirrels any more.

Things were looking up. He had even started to think that maybe, just maybe, they could spend the rest of their lives there. But then the Governor showed up and everything went to shit.

So now here he is. No Rick, no Carol. Alone once again. Well, not exactly alone– he had you for company.

It’s not that he doesn’t like you– he likes you more than just a normal amount if he’s being honest with himself. It’s just that… you’re a dead girl walking. He doesn’t know how you’ve made it this far, and by all accounts you shouldn’t have. Before all this, before the virus and the walking dead, you were a preschool teacher. You had lived in the city your entire life, in a nice house located in a nice neighbourhood with nice parents. If he had to bet, he’d say you were even prom queen back in the day.

There had been no need for you to learn how to hunt, scavenge, track, shoot a gun or even handle a knife. Daryl had been the one to teach you how to shoot a gun in the air, volunteering immediately when Rick brought the subject up and completely ignoring the amused, knowing smile on his friend’s face.

If he focuses hard enough, he can still hear the sound of your happy laughter the first time you hit the center of the target. Can still feel your chest pressed to his in your celebratory hug.

“Think I saw some train tracks a couple miles east yesterday. If the others saw ‘em too, they’re probably following them thinkin’ we’re doing the same,” you ramble on, not letting his lack of answer deter you. “Maybe we could find Rick or Maggie.” You lean forward so you can reach the mushrooms you picked up today, plop one and then another inside your awaiting mouth.

Daryl watches as you chew, eyes judging. He had been adamant that you shouldn’t eat them, shouldn’t even touch them.

“Stupid girl,” he growled, swatting your hand away from the cluster growing on the bark of a tree. “Didn’t ya mom tell ya not to touch things you never seen before?”

“Ain’t stupid,” you bristled at his tone. “I know these, they used to grow ‘rond some plants in the garden back home. Pretty sure mom put them in our soup ev’ry now and then.”

You don’t let his lack of answer deter you. “Think I saw some train tracks a

Daryl kneeled beside you, broad right shoulder touching your left one, and examined them closely. He was sure he had never seen them before, not in the woods from his hometown nor in any of his hunting trips since the outbreak started. “Nah, these ain’t safe,” he concluded.

“Yes, they are.”

“No”, he enunciated the word to make it as clear as possible. “They ain’t.”

“Yes, they are,” you scowl and plush a couple from their roots. “I ain’t stupid nor useless. I know I can eat these.”

Daryl rolled his eyes. “If ya want to kill y’self just to prove a point then fine, be my fuckin’ guest,” he snarked. Then he got up and kept walking in silence, not even sparing you another glance.

He shakes his head firmly. “Nah, no train tracks.”

“What? Why?” You ask, surprised. “It’s our best shot at findin’ the others!”

“Ain’t no one to find, girl. S’better if ya stop kiddin’ yourself.”

“How could you say that?!” You look at him like he’s a monster. Daryl clenches his jaw. “They’re our friends, our family! We can’t just give ‘em up for dead as soon as things go south! Not after everything!”

Daryl throws away the bone in his hand and looks at you with fury. Don’t you get it? Merle, Sophia, Andrea, Lori, T-Dog, Dale, the list goes on and on. You’re the only one he knows for sure he has left and he’ll be damned if he has to add your name to the list too because you want to search for ghosts. You are his responsibility now. His voice is loud when he says, “Yeah, we should! ‘Cause if you saw those tracks y’know what it means? Means other people saw ‘em too. Bad people. And if ya go ‘round there, lighting fires and singin’ those stupid kid songs you sing all day like you’re in a fuckin’ musical or some shit y’know what they’re gonna do? They’re gon’ kill ya, or worse. So drop the fuckin’ topic and finish yer dinner.”

There really is no room for argument. You drop your gaze to the floor and gulp down the lump in your throat, bringing your knees to your chest. Everything is silent for at least an hour, the only sounds coming from the crackling fire and Daryl’s chewing.

And then you call his name.

“Daryl?” Your voice is different; breathier, quieter. Almost like you can barely string the letters together. “I don’t feel very well.”

He’s on his feet in a second, the argument forgotten as soon as he heard your mumbled call. In three quick steps he’s standing in front of you. He kneels so you’re the same height and cups the side of your face. “Wha’s wrong?”

You blink sluggishly, revealing your dilated pupils, and lick your lips. “I don’t know,” you slur. Your breathing gets heavier. “I think– Oh God, I’m so hot,” you complain, almost ripping the zipper of your jacket in your haste to take it off. You throw it away like it’s made of molten lava. Before he can stop you, you take off your long sleeved shirt, leaving you in just a tank top, and lean back against the fallen tree trunk with a relieved sigh.

It doesn’t make any sense, Daryl thinks. It’s almost winter in Georgia, you should be freezing, but there are no goosebumps littering your skin that might signal you are cold in any way. In fact, you’re even trying to roll your cargo pants up to relieve your legs from a nonexistent blistering heat.

Daryl presses his hand to your forehead and is surprised to find it slick with sweat. “Y’re burning up,” he says, though he guesses you could probably already tell. He takes one of your arms and inspects it closely, looking for any wounds that could potentially be infected. “Where ya bit?”

You shake your head. “No, no. I didn’t see any walkers today.”

Your arms are in pristine condition, save for some sparse moles and freckles and a single healed scratch on your forearm he remembers you got from running around the woods so carelessly. There’s no sign of a bite or infected cut.

“Did ya get close to anyone sick back at the prison?” He knows it’s stupid to ask– everyone had taken their rounds of antibiotics to prevent another possible outbreak, and it’s also been a week since the prison fell. If you had been infected, you would’ve showed symptoms earlier on, but he doesn’t know what else to do.

“No, I was with Beth ‘n Judy.” Suddenly, you gasp in pain and clutch your lower stomach, pressing your thighs together. “Daryl, it hurts,” you whimper.

The pain in your voice breaks his heart. You look so small, curled up in a tight ball like a wounded animal. He brings you into his lap and shushes you, “I know, I know.” He rubs your back in an attempt to soothe you. “Just lemme think for a second, ‘kay? M’gonna fix ya.”

He wrecks his brain for a solution but keeps coming up blank. He doesn’t have any idea as to what the hell caused this– one second you were fine and then the other you were bending over in pain. Did you touch something? Eat something? Was the water contaminated? Did some poisonous plant graze your skin? Was the rabbit he killed infected and he didn’t notice?

The tip of your nose tickles his neck as it moves from his collarbone up to his jaw, your rib cage expanding beneath his broad hand when you take a deep breath. He grunts at the strange sensation. “What are y’doin’, girl?”

Your hands curl around his shoulders, the leather of his vest crinkling beneath your tight grip. “You smell so good,” you mewl, taking in another whiff of his scent.

What the fuck.

He doesn’t know where the random compliment came from. He knows you have to be lying though– it’s been weeks since his last shower. His last one was five days before the prison fell and it wasn’t even a proper shower, just a scrub down with a rag, a bucket of water and some soap they found in the last supply run. That’s why he says, albeit a little disheartened, “Y’re talking nonsense.”

You shift in his lap, pressing your chests together and Daryl has to force himself not to react to the feeling of your boobs against his chest or to the movement of your wiggling hips over his crotch. “Am not, am not,” you babble, pressing small wet kisses to his neck and trailing your palms down his strong arm. “You– you smell so good. Feel so good. So big. I–” your breath hitches when you grind against him, relief morphing your previously pained features. “I need you, Daryl.”

His hands that were previously laying limp on either side of him are suddenly held by your softer, smaller ones and moved to your thighs. He drops his gaze, watches you control his hands. Up and down, up and down. The light coming from the fire illuminates the remnants of your dinner. You shift directions and now his hands are on your ass, forcing him to squeeze and grope as you keep grinding against him.

He stares intently at the leftover mushrooms and all of a sudden he’s 23 years old and Merle’s laughing his ass off as Daryl finishes the dinner his older brother had insisted on cooking. He remembers now, the desperation clawing at his chest when the shrooms started making effect. Remembers how Merle dragged him to a club in the city and patted his back in encouragement. “Go wild, baby brother! Lord knows ya need this.”

Misery is heavy on his shoulders. He wants to throw up– he was wrong before. He did see those mushrooms before. He had eaten them and been under their control. And now you were suffering the same fate he had all those years ago. Because of him, because he failed to realise sooner.

You move his hands up to your waist, your stomach, your breasts. He never wanted it to be like this. He had hoped, stupid as it was to dream about something other than mere survival, that if he ever got the courage to confess his feelings it’d be when everyone was safe again. When you didn’t have to sleep in tents and cars and pray to God he found any semblance of food. When you’d finally have a house, or a room, or at least a bed.

He’d be soft with you, just like you were with him every day.

Now, as you grind and moan above him in a lust filled rut, that dream will remain that. Just a dream.

He tears his hands from your grip, one settling on one side of your hip and the other cradling your cheek. Heat emanates from your skin like you’re a furnace. Daryl leans forward, lips brushing yours as he promises, “M’gonna make it better. That okay?”

You’re not in the right state of mind but he still asks for any semblance of peace of mind.

“Please,” you whimper, little crystal beads gathering on your waterline.

After months of pining, he finally closes the distance between you and presses your lips together in a firm kiss. Your mouth is soft and plain against his, trusting him enough to follow his every command as he devours you completely. He uses the hand on your hip to help you smooth down your otherwise stuttered grinding, drinking down every sweet little moan and gasp he elicits out of you.

That’s what you are– sweet. Sweet to touch and taste and feel. Sweet even in the way you cling to him, use him to relieve the affliction between your legs he accidentally caused.

Daryl holds you by the back of your neck, feels the warmth of your breath as you moan his name. “More. I need more,” you cry. The tear tracks on your cheeks glimmer in the warm fire light. “M’so empty. Need you to fuck me. Please, please, please,” you beg like a broken record, forcing your fist into Daryl’s chest and twisting his heartstrings without mercy.

“Don’t cry, doll face,” he rasps, brushing away your fresh wave of tears. You inhale shakily, leaning into his touch and nuzzling his palm like a touch starved kitten. Your hands tremble as you unbutton your jeans, struggling to pull them down from how sweaty you are and how sticky the insides of your thighs became. Daryl silences you every whine with a kiss and helps you pull them down to your shins, not willing to risk taking off both your shoes and pants completely in case you need to make a quick escape.

“I said I’s gonna fix ya and I am. Just need a couple minutes first.” You make another noise of complaint that turns into a relieved sigh when Daryl pulls your panties to the side and teases your folds with the tip of his fingers. “Need to get ya ready first. This all for me?” He asks, gathering all the slick dripping out of you.

“Mhm,” you hum, eyes closed in bliss as he toys with you. You nudge your noses together. “Always for you, Daryl. Only you.”

You really need to stop playing with his feelings like that. You’re talking out of your ass, he tells himself, letting your desire and need for relief control your words. Still, it’s nice to hear. He can’t deny that. Maybe he can live in this fantasy bubble a little longer, at least until reality crashes down on you both and you have to come to terms with what happened and decide to never see him again.

He circles your weeping hole, taunting you, then plunges a lone finger inside when you look like you’re ready to pounce on him. It’s easy, oh so easy, for him to slip in. He thought it would be harder, given the fact that he knew you haven’t slept with anyone since the apocalypse started. Not that he kept an eye on you or anything, he just happened to notice how your tent and cell were always silent, much like his. But you’re so wet that your cunt practically swallowed him right in.

You tap his shoulder needily, mouthing the word “more”, and bite your lip to stay quiet when he adds a second finger and then a third. You could cry from how happy you are right now.

“That enough for ya, ya spoiled girl?” He scoffs, rubbing circles on your swollen clit with his thumb.

You can only nod as he buries his fingers up to his knuckles, curling them and feeling the rough calluses as he prods inside you in search of your soft spot. When your loudest moan yet lets him know he found it, he abuses it, creating loud squelching noises that have him smiling.

Euphoria sends a shiver down your spine and makes your entire body shake as you cum, a small stream of clear liquid hitting Daryl’s wrist and dripping down to his jeans. “Shit,” he whispers, amazed.

He made you squirt.

Daryl’s still staring at his dripping wrist as you paw at him with a heaving chest, fingers curling around his brown plaid shirt. Your nails could nearly break the fabric. “You promised,” you sob. “You promised you’d fix it. That you’d fuck me. Don’t you want me?”

He tears his gaze away from the mess between your legs in shock. How could you ever think he doesn’t want you? When you’ve consumed his every waking thought and haunted his every dream. When the only thing he wanted to do when you looked at him with those glimmering eyes was to follow your every command word for word. When he didn’t want to just fuck you– he wanted to keep you safe and warm, wanted to make sure you’d never know hunger.

He grabs your jaw, fingers tightly pressing on your warm cheeks, and snarls. “Don’t ever think I don’t want ya.” He tugs you to him so he can kiss you, unbuckling his belt with one hand and pulling down the zipper of his jeans. Your own hand joins his and squirms under the rough fabric so you can take his cock out from behind his boxers. His jaw clenches at the feeling of your soft hand around him, so different from his own. Untouched by decades of manual work, protected by dutiful applications of hand creams (he's heard you tell Beth how dry your hands are now and how much you miss your favourite hand cream. He’s been looking for some on every supply run ever since).

He spreads all the wetness stuck to his fingers over his cock, his stomach doing a summersault when he sees you biting your lower lip in want. You guide him to your entrance, gasping in unison when the mushroom tip slips past your soaking wet folds. Slowly, you sink yourself down, Daryl mouthing at your neck as you get used to the thickness of his cock as it threatens to split you in half.

“Relax,” Daryl grunts, the scruff covering his cheeks scratching at the tender skin of your cleavage. He goes back to playing with your clit, knowing it’ll allow the tension to leave your muscles and he’ll be able to push in the remaining two inches.

Once he’s buried to the hilt, you take a shuddering breath in and slowly start to bounce. “Wanted this for so long,” you babble. “Wanted you, Daryl. A-And now you want me,” you smile, increasing the speed of your bouncing. You chant, “You want me, you want me, you want me.”

Daryl nods, teeth gritted as he feels you tighten around him, walls pulsing. You collapse on his chest, hips still grinding in search of any form of friction. With a firm and secure grip, he grabs your ass and uses it as leverage so he can pound you down on him. For once, he’s not worried about loud noises or stray walkers or even unknown strangers stumbling into the scene. No, he just worries about you and your sweet cunt keeping his cock warm; about your lips on his neck, your hands gripping his hair and your dulcet “uh uh uh’s” ringing in his ears as you cum for the second time.

He lifts you off of him just in time to shoot ropes of white all over his shirt, biting your neck to muffle his grunts of pleasure. For once in what seems like a lifetime, the walker infested woods are completely still, only both of your laboured breathing breaking the unusual silence.

Until you speak in a meek voice and it’s like he’s suddenly doused in cold water. “Daryl?”

He drops his forehead to your clavicle and shuts his eyes tightly, heaving a sigh. This is it– the moment where he loses you, where you run away. Forever disgusted with him. Afraid of him for breaking your trust.

After another beat of silence, you call his name again. “What happened?”

He straightens his back and rubs his face. He clears his throat. “It was the mushrooms,” he refuses to look at you as he explains the events of the night, unable to stomach the look of disgust he’s sure is all over your pretty face. “The ones you picked up today. I thought I didn’t know them but I did. They’re some kind of… aphrodisiac or some shit like that. Merle…” he trails off, skipping over the reason he knew about them in the first place. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. “Y’were feeling so sick ‘n those things… with the amount you ate they would’ve– they would’ve killed ya if I didn’t…”

“You saved me,” you state, cradling his face so that he can see you. His face is all scrunched up like he wants to cry and he hates himself for it– he has no right to feel like shit. He shakes his head. “You did. You saved me. I would’ve died if you didn’t do as I said, as I wanted you to.” You kiss his lips chastely. “Y’know, I meant what I said earlier. While we were…”

“Nah,” he scoffs. “Y’were just saying shit ‘cause of the drugs. S’okay, ya don’t have to worry ‘bout my feelings.”

“No,” you frown, disconcerted that he always seems to bring himself down without even realising it. “I meant it. I’ve wanted you for a while, since– since the CDC, actually. When we played that card game after dinner and ya helped me get to bed since I was too drunk to even stand.” You smile as you remember the feeling of his arm around your waist and the soft pat on your head once you were resting on the pillow. You tuck some strands of hair behind his ear and his throat dries. Shrugging, you say, “I just never thought you liked me that way.”

Daryl weighs his options, wonders if he should take a leap of faith or pretend he’s never thought of you that way. This is too much for him. He’s scared to bare his chest wide open only for you to dislike what’s inside. But then he sees the earnest look in your eye and behind it, the fear that he won’t say anything at all.

“I do,” he gets out through the fist clutching his vocal chords. “Like you. Like that, I mean. I–” He shuts his eyes at how useless he’s with words (another reason why you deserve someone better than him). However, instead of rolling your eyes at him or making a derisive sound like he expected, you simply giggle at his uselessness, reaching for him once more.

He lets you kiss him and touch him as much as you want. You trace his brow bone and cheekbones with the soft pads of your fingers, play with the ends of matted hair and twirl them around your index. When you yawn, he makes sure you have your top and jacket back on and lets you rest on his chest. He stretches his arm so he can reach his discarded crossbow and leaves it on his side. “C’mon, go to sleep. I’ll take first watch.”

pls reblog if u enjoyed it, it’ll make me twirl my hair and kick my feet :3

#daryl dixon x reader #daryl dixon imagine #daryl dixon smut #the walking dead imagine #the walking dead fanfiction #the walking dead #daryl dixon

3K notes · View notes

shyinsunlight · 2 months

Text

snippet from a wip / 900 words // update: posted on ao3

There’s something very unsettling about Tom Riddle.

Cedric can’t put a finger on it. Whether it’s the way he moves, all long limbs and eerie fluidity, the dissecting gaze he follows them with, or the way he speaks, with an accent that doesn’t match his manners.

Maybe it’s how he feasts on Harry’s presence like a religious zealot, or how his eyes wander up and down on Harry’s body as if he’s seen the skin and flesh underneath.

It makes his stomach clench and his skin crawl, but there isn’t anything specific he can pinpoint, and Harry… Harry doesn’t seem to be bothered by any of it at all.

Tom pops up around the campus like a flicker of lightning and disappears just as quickly, often leaving Cedric wondering if he was actually there or if Cedric is simply going mad. But there’s no way it’s all a coincidence. No way in hell, because it happens over and over, and it feels like he and Harry are playing some fucked-up game of tag.

First, it’s a bad film stuck on repeat: in the morning at the pool, around lunchtime in the cafeteria, in the afternoon near the Humanities building. Tom is always there like a shadow, and Harry is always blissfully oblivious to the fact that they’re being stalked. It’s undeniably stalking, even if it seems harmless on the surface.

[...]

“Talk to him, Harry. Tell him to fuck off, to leave us alone, or we'll go to the police and—”

Harry tenses at the word.

---

Almost five years of radio silence, and then this. Tell about scratching a bone-deep wound.

Harry doesn’t know if he should be pleased that he’s given space or pissed that he’s being ignored. Fond nostalgia and resentment brew a sweet poison.

This is bullshit. This cannot go on, he decides after seventeen consecutive days of Tom playing a ghost. He makes Cedric paranoid and grouchy, and Harry’s not having it. If Tom wants to talk — he bloody should — then Harry will let him. If he doesn’t want to talk, Harry will make him, because this limbo they’re in is just fucked up.

Just as fucked up as the way his pulse skyrockets when Tom turns his head to the side, letting that curly strand of hair fall over his eye. He glances at Harry as he tucks it back behind his ear, sending a tingle down Harry’s spine before nausea takes over.

Friday evening is the time. They’re in the library and it’s late. Only a few eager students linger around, but even they head to the pub when the sun sets. By the time Cedric stifles the first yawn, it’s only the three of them left. Harry and Cedric sit by the window, and Tom sits three rows away, not even pretending to read anymore.

Cedric aggressively ignores Harry’s meaningful glances.

“Go, Ced. I’ll meet you in the dorm in half an hour, and then we can still go down to the lake if you’d like.”

“Nah, it’s too late for that. Practice tomorrow morning, remember?”

Harry nods, but he’s looking at Tom. “Yeah, sure. No lake then. I won’t be long.”

“Tell him to fuck off,” Cedric grunts. He stifles another yawn that makes Harry yawn too, then grabs his bag and leaves with a promise of getting some wine.

When the echo of the closing door dies away, Harry gets up and strides to Tom’s desk with more confidence than he actually has.

“What the hell?”

“Harry,” Tom pushes his chair back and stands up.

For once, there’s no teasing glint in his eyes, no smirk on his lips. Only a sober gravity, as if all his cards were on the table, drill out, Harry’s win being an open-shut case — except that Harry doesn’t know if he wants to win. What is winning, anyway, when both roads lead to purgatory?

“You can’t just keep following me like this and not say a word. The least you can do is fucking talk to me.”

“I find no fault in my method,” Tom takes a step closer so they stand eye to eye. Harry’s grown a few inches taller than him, but the urge to cower still springs up inside. “But since you can’t seem to resist talking to me, I suppose I can indulge you a tad.”

Attractive is a colourless word. He’s a goddamn stunner, a piece of art carved out of white flesh. He smells of soap and tea leaves and crisp autumn air, and the scent sets off an avalanche of memories. Harry mentally punches himself for remembering the taste of his tongue.

He pushes Tom against the closest bookshelf, against Beaver and Chomsky and Forsyth. He’s crushed like paper by Harry’s trained body, with the two of them pressed so tight they can hear their heartbeats echo off the spines.

“Is this the best you can do?” Tom groans with a roll of his hips, half-amused, half-serious.

“You wanna fight?”

Harry lives by many strict rules he’s set for himself. He breaks every single one of them when he kisses Tom.

Tom grabs his face and pulls him closer, a slither of tongue meeting parted lips. The grip is firm but the skin is soft, and Tom tastes like sin and sugar, deadly and divine. Harry shatters into shreds and is put back together.

“Fighting’s not on the list,” Tom gasps into his mouth, hand slipping under Harry’s shirt to palm his hipbone.

It’s a frenzy; feet drag, fingers clench and noses bump as they struggle to catch their breaths. The kiss, born out of hurt and another emotion Harry doesn’t dare to admit, translates to pure desperation.

#tomarry #lenora-writes

68 notes · View notes

mrsnancywheeler · 9 months

Text

the lakes (10) // finnick odair x f. reader

summary: it's supposed to be over, you and Finnick are supposed to spend the rest of your lives helping each other heal. living as peacefully as possible, but the the third quarter quell throws a wrench in your domestic bliss.

previous chapter / next chapter

midnight rain

warnings: angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, manipulation of someone's feelings, hypothermia which I did my best to research, near death experiences, reader has familial issues, mental illness, self-hate, terms of endearment, backstory heavy, no use of y/n, unedited, the love triangle that was never really a love triangle

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

“What do you think would have happened if this never happened to us, if it was just you and me, at home?" Conway’s voice pierced through the night air, you could hear every breath as you laid on his shoulder. Desperate for some type of body heat.

A question that you could answer truthfully, “Eventually we would have gotten married and you'd have taken over your family business, your sisters and I would have absolutely made the most out of everyone in the marketplace.” As much as it hurt you to think about, you doubted Finnick would have come back to you if none of this had occurred. He'd leave you alone to “protect you" as he claimed without an obvious reason and your love would have faded into an unfinished fairytale of what could have been in the back of your mind. You hated to think about it, but Conway was the person you would settle to be with if you couldn't have the love you wanted.

“You really think so?" His fingers were tracing something on your sleeve that you weren't focused enough on to try and decipher. “My family, everyone at school always thought so, but you could have anyone you wanted." No you couldn't, the person you'd wanted most in the world had pushed you away, the only person your soul ached for.

“You could've had anyone to Conway."

“No, I couldn't have." He shook his head with a bitter smile.

“Yeah, who was that one girl?" You scrunched your eyes shut trying to recall her name, “Meena!” Your eyes snapped open,"You dated Meena, she was sweet.”

"Only to try and make you jealous.” He muttered, softly. Finnick had always remarked how Meena looked like you, how Conway was unbelievably entranced by you, for reasons you'd never understand. You didn't know what to say back, it hadn't worked, you'd actually been ecstatic for him to have found someone. "I wouldn't have picked Meena.” He wanted you to say you wouldn't have picked Finnick, you could tell, but you couldn't say that.

"Then, it would've been you and me, and I would have driven you mad.” You averted, giving a breathless laugh.

There was a glimmer in his sad eyes and he gave a slight smile,"No you wouldn't have.”

You smiled and nodded, "Oh I would have, I'd want to do this and that, when all you wanted was to stay home. Then you'd want to go crawfishing and I'd grumble to stay in bed.” It would have been good enough, satisfying enough, but it would never be what you and Finnick could've had. You were both creatures of extraversion, you'd go where he went and make do, if he wanted to fish you'd go along to read or let him convince you to join, if you absolutely refused he'd eventually yield to you. If you'd decided to rot away in your head Conway would desperately want to help, but Finnick would, he'd take care of you, but also force you out of it. If Finnick was everything you needed, everything you wanted, everything you yearned for, Conway was perfect for everybody else.

“That would've been okay with me." Okay. Not like puzzle pieces fitting together, just two books sitting by one another. “Kids?" There was the other thing, Conway would be a great father and needed to be in a sense, but it scared you. How could you raise a child if they were constantly close to being thrown into the predicament you were in now? You would have loved to have kids if the government was different, if none of these chains were locking that up, and Finnick was the same. Children would be perfect in another world, another time.

Yet you humored him, “How many?" No kids would be in danger since both of you wouldn't be able to come out of this alive.

“Four?" Conway leaned tilted his head to the sky, “Two boys, two girls."

“Five, three girls, two boys, take it or leave it." If you tried hard enough you could somewhat convince yourself it was just the two of you, back home, living the life everyone expected you to live. To imagine you'd just settled. He was handsome, so handsome any girl would have adored him, he was sweet and hardworking. His family cared so deeply and was basically your own. The universe stretched itself thin for you and Finnick, if it stayed still it would've been you and Conway.

He laughed and looked back at you, “I'll take it, any day, I would have taken it." He had to know, if you got out you would run right back to him, but the fantasy was better than thinking about that, at least it was easier at some points to tell yourself Conway knew. “Would you take care of my family?" He whispered, face settling into some type of seriousness.

“Of course I would." Even if you'd never be able to look at them again after what you were doing which they surely knew about, you would pour as much money into their pockets as you could.

He looked away from you, his eyes glossy with unshed tears as he stared into the dark. Like he was ashamed to say what he was going to, “It's just, it's always been all of us. They begged me to come home and I don't know, I don't know what I'm supposed to do. And you-" Conway choked on whatever he was going to say, “I'm sorry, I don't want to be an ass, I'm just trying to be honest." He wiped his face of the tears that weren't even falling, but you could see it all on his face. It made you absolutely ill with yourself, he was right, his family was so tight-knit it would be a major hit to all of them if he was gone. Yet here you were playing with him like some sort of toy to get you to the top. He was spilling all of his heart to you, saying what was hard to say and you pulled strings. You buried your face in your freezing hands.

“It's okay." Your voice was muffled, eventually pulling away as you looked at him. “You're right, you don't have to say it. But even if they aren't like yours it doesn't mean they don't need me, I'm the one in the markets, Conway. Mom’s too sick to do it, Dad has to go out and work, and Avonlea has to take care of Mom. No one else is going to do it and they wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.”

It was unsaid that even if that happened it didn't mean you'd break the seemingly impenetrable walls of their bond, a trio you weren't meant for. Maybe it wasn't worth it, if you got out you'd help them, but wouldn't be part of their team, you wouldn't be able to look at Conway’s family without being eaten by guilt on the spot, your best friend would be dead and it would be your fault, all you'd really have is Finnick. But maybe that was enough for how desperately your soul longed for him.

“I'm sorry."

“It's not your fault." You didn't blame the Games either, as far as you were concerned you were the only one to blame. You didn't know when you'd begun to cry, but the way the biting cold hit your wet face made you shiver.

Then his arms were pulling you closer, “No, that was wrong of me, I didn't want to make you cry. Your family is just as important as mine." That only made you cry more. If you weren't so unpleasable you could have been content with him, happy even, that wouldn't have stopped this from happening, but maybe you would have felt less guilty or let yourself die with him, the way you would die for Finnick.

“You're too good to me, Conway. Much too good, you deserve a Meena." You were trying to wipe away your tears, but they were coming much too quick.

" I don't want a Meena.” Then his lips were on yours and for a second it was comforting, which only fueled your nausea. It didn't matter that you were young and confused because you knew he wasn't the one, that this had been what you wanted from him just so you could be with someone else. That beautiful, kind Conway was a means to an end and this was all supposed to end one way.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

It was hot, sweat was clinging to your skin, and your head still stung. You almost couldn't bear to be too close to Finnick and his unnatural heat that was usually so comforting, but he was hovering around you so much that it was nearly impossible to get a few steps away as you all ran through the jungle. Cannons began booming off one by one as everyone finally decided to sit down. There was more guilt this time, most of these people you knew pretty well and had spent time with in some capacity over the years. Even if you hadn't killed any of them, you were still alive when they were gone, how was that fair? Nothing was, nothing had been for so long, never in your lifetime.

“I guess we're not holding hands anymore." Finnick laughed and it caught you so off guard that you couldn't help it when your scoff turned into a laugh as well. Hitting your forehead on his shoulder. The irony of it all, how you'd held hands in solidarity against the Capitol only to tear each other's throats out down here.

“You think that's funny?" Katniss asked, you understood why she was so appalled by his comment, you truly did, but his comments had always evened out your thoughts before they became all consuming. His humor brought light to the dark.

"Just a little bit.” You demonstrated with your fingers, even though it was definitely more than that.

“Everytime that cannon goes off it's music to my ears. I don't care about any of them.” He pointed at the sky, shrugging his shoulders.

“Good to hear." Katniss pulled some weapon out of her quiver to point his way. You couldn't help yourself when you tossed one of your knives up to catch it, as badly as you needed Katniss out of the arena you wouldn't let her attack Finnick. Even if he could defend himself, which he demonstrated perfectly well as he held his trident right back at her. At the end of the day you two were still the team, you could only get her out if she'd cooperate and it would be very unlikely if she went for Finnick that she'd trust anybody after that.

“Wanna face the Career pack alone? What would Haymitch say?" Finnick’s brow quirked, you briefly made eye contact with Peeta. He looked so uncomfortable, looking for an opportunity to decrease the tension.

“Haymitch isn't here." Katniss replied, not backing down. Peeta began to stand.

"Let's keep moving.” His voice broke the tension when Katniss stood as well, maintaining her own eye contact with Finnick, she looked so untrusting, so angry. Finnick grabbed your free hand as you stood. Then he was behind you, slightly grabbing the back of your head.

“We should have cleaned it, you could get an infection." Finnick frowned.

“I'll be fine, Finnick." You smiled, it wasn't like the plan was supposed to take longer than a couple days. You doubted you would die of an infection in that time. Planting a light kiss on his cheek before you tugged his hand to keep walking.

“Let's not tempt the fates." He muttered, silently insisting to be the one who pulled you along instead. Peeta was cutting down the vines as you all walked forwards, making way to see ahead. You glanced at Finnick, how could he still be so breathtaking when he was dripping with sweat? Maybe you were too lovesick for disgust at this point, but it amazed how despite all the grime the bronze of his skin still shone and you would have bet people would still line up for a minute of his time.

“Take a picture, it'll last longer." He flashed those pearly whites at you and you rolled your eyes despite feeling your cheeks get somehow hotter.

“You're a real comedian, Odair, I'll give you that. I mean I'm basically dying of laughter." You deadpanned, rather unsuccessfully, when you stumbled over some branch. Finnick's hand helped you maintain balance, but he was laughing at you just as quick.

“Angel, you don't need to fall for me, I'm already your husband. There's really no need to be so desperate." You playfully hit him.

“And you're just so helpful, I could have died.” You shrugged, over exaggerating as much as you probably could.

"That would have been a rather pathetic way to go, don't you think?” He teased, "And after all that talk about how you could take care of yourself.” Finnick tutted and you shoved his shoulder again.

Katniss' scream instantly tore you out of the moment," Peeta, no!” The machete hit some sort of forcefield ahead and he flew back, roughly hitting the jungle floor. She was immediately scrambling for him, grabbing his face. “Peeta?" Her voice shook and it hit you that maybe it wasn't an act like you and Finnick had theorized, maybe the bare bones of it all showed there was a pure, raw love there even if it didn't always seem that convincing to people who weren't Capitol citizens desperate to eat up any act. “He's not breathing. He's not breathing, he's not breathing! Peeta!” Katniss cried out and Finnick immediately ran to him, pushing Katniss away.

She'd pulled out her bow when you ran up, “Katniss he's just trying to help." You put your hands up as you slowly approached her, she looked panicked, confused and Finnick's lips were on Peeta’s. It looked like her brain was running so fast it hadn't even registered that it was CPR. Finally it looked like it had clicked and she put the bow down, running back over Peeta. You followed, cautiously placing your hand on her shoulders. “It's okay, he's gonna be okay.” You couldn't know that, but it was all you could think to say.

“Peeta, Peeta." She was begging, voice trembling and you saw yourself in her. You'd be the same way if anything happened to Finnick, her desperation proved to you that beyond all else she truly was in love with the boy from the arena.

“Come on Peeta." Finnick said gruffly, doing rough compressions on his seemingly limp body.

“Peeta, please wake up." Katniss was cradling his head and you squeezed her shoulder trying to be as reassuring as you could.

“He will, Katniss, he will." You nodded mostly to yourself. Her body was shaking from her tears.

"Please wake up.” Her body rocked back and forth as Finnick muttered continuous "come on’s,” continuing his attempt to revive Peeta. Suddenly he was gasping for air and Finnick sighed in relief. “Peeta! Oh my god!”

“Be careful, there's a forcefield up there.” Peeta said softly and Katniss laughed through the tears before kissing him. By now you doubted anyone could think their love was all a performance, it made you want to cry as well. Finnick's hand slid back into yours, squeezing it. Telling you that you were in fact on the same page, it amazed you how with looks and touches it was as if nearly every thought the two of you shared could be communicated.

“Oh my god, you were dead. You were dead, your heart stopped.” She stroked his hair, like she was terrified she'd never get too again.

“It's okay, it's working now." Katniss hugged him before they worked to get him standing up again. She was so soft, so caring, which you knew from the act with Rue the year before, but it was so moving to see in real life. All the things that really made her such a good symbol of the rebellion, not the hate for the Capitol, the love for other people.

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

By day 3 it was pouring down freezing rain, buckets of it. Only a few more cannons had gone off and you couldn't reason how this would make the games more interesting, watching people die of pneumonia or something of the like. You'd figured out the boots were made to be pretty resistant to water and prevent as much sliding in the mud as possible, but it was basically up to your ankles in muck. Trudging along was a chore within itself, you couldn't even start a fire to keep warm, even if you'd strung up the tarp to keep it from the rain the wood around was all soaked. Every once in a while the four of you would string a tarp in the bare trees, one on the ground, huddle together for some sort of heat, lay the small plastic covers on you and pass the match between your hands as quickly as you could. Before they could burn out and you were terrified you'd run out, that all sense of heat would be gone.

You'd been so cold and exhausted that it took everything in you not to groan as the four of you picked berries. Grateful that Conway had paid enough attention at that station to know which one's were poisonous. Your hands were so numb it was nearly impossible to grab them, nevermind the fact that you were being soaked in the frozen droplets since it was Marlowe and Birch's turn with the plastic covers.

“Your lips are blue." You were startled when Conway was suddenly in front of you, staring at you with concern. You tried to move your hand to touch your lips but it refused to do what you wanted. Then you mumbled something so incoherent you couldn't even tell what you'd been trying to say. His hand pressed to your face, which you only knew from being able to see it. “She's like ice." He looked at the other two anxiously.

“Me too." Birch muttered and Marlowe shot him a glare before approaching you. Fingers touching your neck, searching for a pulse.

“We should set up the tarps, get her out of the rain.” Marlowe advised, looking at the two boys. "I think she's hypothermic.” Everything was a rush to you, it was so confusing. Why were you out in the woods? Conway was here, but who were these other people? It was hard to walk when Conway had led you into the makeshift shelter. “Her jacket is soaked through, hopefully her shirt isn't as much, we should take it off."

“That'll make her more cold." You were pretty sure that was Conway's voice.

“Water makes it worse anyways." The female voice rang out in your ears. Before some other ringing sound came through, this time you were sure you weren't delusional when everyone else's heads looked around. Conway instantly stood up to search for whatever it was.

When he came back it wasn't him you were seeing, there was Finnick. Gorgeous, sunshine Finnick. Your lips tried to move to say something to him but it was too difficult. By the time you felt them move an inch he was gone and it was Conway once again.

“This is huge." He remarked, bringing in some sort of package. Were you ok the boat? None of your surroundings made sense.

“Must have incredible sponsors." Another male voice rang out, who was that?

“It's a blanket!" Your jacket was being torn from your stiff muscles as something surrounded you. Was wrapped around you and your head was laid down. “You're gonna be okay."

"There's a broth too.” The female voice said again, you were seeing Finnick again standing over you, wait no it was your father. Hovering over you as if you were your mother. You just wanted to rest, this was all so overwhelming. Whoever it was was urging you to open your mouth to put a spoonful of something inside. Which was extremely difficult but eventually you managed to, the swallowing was even harder, but it did fill your insides with a pleasant warmth. Everything was such a rush you didn't know when you'd slipped into sleep.

You knew eventually you'd woken up, feeling somewhat warmer, more conscious. You knew people's names at the very least. Conway had his arms wrapped around the blanket, providing even more heat. Marlowe was laying by your side, trying to exude more heat even though she cold herself and Birch was by her side.

“You're lucky to have a mentor who could get you something like that and the sponsors to support it, most people die of hypothermia in under an hour, at least back home." Marlowe said when you'd looked at her. She wasn't bitter or angry about it, at least not at you.

“Yeah." Your voice was so hoarse you almost didn't recognize it. “Thank you for not leaving me for dead. I wouldn't have blamed you, the probability of me dying and dragging the group down waiting for me was pretty high.”

Marlowe just shook her head, "No us four until the end, we'll talk about it more then.” She looked back at the top of the tarp, listening to the rain drops. " When you're done being on the brink of death you'll share the blanket though, right? It's freezing out here.”

You let yourself smile a little,"Yeah of course.”

𓈒⠀𓂃⠀⠀˖⠀𓇬⠀˖⠀⠀𓂃⠀𓈒

I literally cried writing this guys, I thought it wouldn't get it out but happy new year!!! I'm so grateful for all you reading and interacting with this story, I'm ecstatic that so many of you love my brain rot ideas. if you enjoyed feedback, likes, comments, reblogs are all super appreciated and my ask box is always open even if I'm super slow about it. love you and thank you so much again 💋

taglist: @coriolanussnowswife @avoxrising @artsyaquarium @jennaaaaaaaaaaaa @secretsicanthideanymore @darlingsoulbeautifulthoughts @thatonegayloser616 @kybermp3 @meri-soni-meri-tamanna @ravensinthedaylight @innercreationflower @uhnanix @aesthetic0cherryblossom @yourdailymemedelivery @ang3lflor @maxinehufflepuffprincess @prettybiching @miserablebl00d @wowzabowza69 @nomorespahgetti @problematicpastry @abaker74

#finnick odair #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair x y/n #finnick odair fluff #finnick odair angst #finnick odair x reader fluff #thg #finnick odair x reader angst #finnick odair x you #finnick x you #finnick x reader #finnick imagine #finnick odair fanfic

293 notes · View notes

kawakalalala · 9 months

Text

Outlaw: 1

INTRODUCTION POST!

wc: ~1.8k

tags: pretty much just kissing, nothing too crazy yet!

a/n: thank you all so much for being patient with me while i crank this bitch out! i’m really excited to see what u guys think :3

You’d heard the voice before. Hundreds of times. His voice rattled your bones like a late August thunderstorm over the lake.

“Hands up.”

You turn with your hands in the air expecting just to see Jerry Anderson, the sheriff who’d been after you since you were old enough to run.

There was never even a thought to not run. You could weasel your way out of anything; you’d been running your whole life. But something in you kept you from grabbing at the gun on your hip.

“Ain’t nowhere to run no more, huh?”

You weren’t sure what came over you. ‘Easy’ wouldn’t have even begun to describe how quickly you could kill this man. In a hundred ways. But you knew what you needed, and you knew what the way to get that was. It was surprising for you to see a second person, behind him, taller and broader, with a face hidden by the shadow of a hat.

“Looks like it.” You drop down to your knees and lay down your revolver, kicking it out of reach. The Sheriff was surely on top of the world right now. He’d been trying to get you for years after the killing. It was personal, but not on purpose.

The broader figure starts to move, slowly becoming illuminated by the soft glow of your campfire.

You couldn’t remember the last time you saw Abigail Anderson. You almost didn’t recognize her, but there was no way you could've forgotten the way her freckles bit her cheeks, the soft bump in her nose, and the softness of her jaw. She’d worn her hair in a braid then too, but now it was long enough to dangle past her shoulder blades. Had that much time really passed?

She passed you and walked up to Belle, the liver chestnut overo mare. She wasn’t as fast as she was when you met her; she needed a little more grace around turns, and her white fur started to bleed into warm brown on her face. You loved her more than you could love anything, because there wasn’t much to love about the life you led.

“Don’t tie her to your horse,” you turn to face Abigail, “she’ll bite him in the ass.”

She exhales with the faintest likeness of a laugh.

“How d’ya suppose we’ll get her back to town then?”

You shrug, knowing she’d follow you wherever you went. You don’t notice you’ve been handcuffed until you go to stand up.

Jerry Anderson was kinder to you than he should’ve been, considering what you’d done to him. His hand is heavy on your shoulder as you pull yourself onto his wagon.

✦✦✦

You wake up to the light from your cell’s window prodding at your eyelids. Large enough to see everything, (including Belle, hitched up outside, still sleeping).

“They decide where I’m goin’ yet?” You shout at Abigail, scribbling away on some papers near the front door.

There were a handful of things that were convenient about your position: the sheer size of your town made it so it was only necessary to have a few cells in the sheriff’s department. (if you could even call it that.) And that you always had company.

“No. We ain’t even sent out the mail this mornin’. Give it some time.” She laughs.

“Whatcha doin' over there?”

“Nothing,”

“Well ‘nothing’ seems quite time-consuming.”

She finally turns around and looks at you, and you see her clearly now. The light scar across her cheek, her soft blue eyes, her supple, soft pink lips, and the toothy smile she gives you when she asks, “What are you getting at?” Seeming only slightly annoyed.

“Nothing.”

“I’ll be sure to get the mail with your papers sent out today,” A smile pulls at her lips, but you don’t notice it.

You’re picking at your nails when you ask, “This all you do all day? Seems like I’m a mighty fine companion to keep around.”

“What do you do all day then? Steal and kill?” She turns back around in her chair.

“Pretty much,” you stand up and stretch, a groan escaping your lips. “I love murder.” You try to stay as deadpan as possible, but you can't hold back a giggle, sitting down with your back against the cell door and peering out the window at Belle.

“I’m serious,” her tone changes, “Why on earth would you want to live runnin’?”

“It was freeing once, “ you tell her, the back of your head against the heavy metal bars of the door, “but freedom gets lonely sometimes.”

“Seems real convenient that this revelation is gettin’ had after you been caught,” there's an edge to her voice, but it’s still smooth and cool, like a stone in the palm of your hand.

“It ain’t no revelation, darlin’, I just finally made a choice,” you say matching her edge as best you could, “and your Daddy ain’t do no catching, I let him have me. ”

“Bless his heart,” she says, “but I’ll believe you there. He couldn’t pour water out of a boot if the directions were on the bottom.” You both laugh, and for a brief moment, you forget what brought you here in the first place.

She turns around to look at you. For a brief moment, you and Abigail are 12 years old again. The wind whispers her name, and you’re watching the sunrise on your walk to school. You like her because she doesn’t talk about boys. She doesn’t talk about much of anything. You like her company, and she likes yours. At the end of your twelfth summer, she doesn’t want to walk with you anymore, and you don’t ask, or even wonder why. You walk to school alone until you drop out at 15. You turn to look at her.

The door opens, and you watch as Jerry walks in. The way he looks at you makes your stomach churn.

“Mornin’ sir,” you smile at him, and he ignores you.

“You can put her outside y’know,” he says to Abigail, like you aren’t even there. “them stalls under the barn lock.” He laughs, and your blood boils.

“We’ll see.” Abigail tries to forget about the hard part of this job. She’s always trying to forget about the hard part of this job. She knew you once.

You hold your tongue until Jerry leaves. He talks to Abigail a bit longer, and makes another offer to “get rid” of you for her.

Part of him stays when he walks out the door. Suddenly you realize what you’ve done. The fantasy of a free life might’ve been attainable if you were a less successful bandit, but there’s no way you’ll ever be a free woman.

You’re never going to be free. You’re going to die here, with a failed childhood friendship and a man who wants you dead. You’re never going to feel the sun on your skin again.

You’re going to die here or somewhere worse. You’re going to watch your life walk by you and you’re stuck behind bars because of a stupid one-off thought you had. Your breathing gets heavy and your head spins, and suddenly you’re grabbing onto anything you can get ahold of.

You should’ve fucking shot him.

✦✦✦

“What in the hell was that?” her voice is cool and smooth, even when she tries to have any semblance of urgency.

“Dunno.” You’re both on the ground. Her right hand cradles the back of your head, holding your hair off your neck, and her left holds a glass of water to your lips.

“That ever happen before?” Her eyebrows are furrowed with concern, and you stay silent, taking a sip.

She doesn’t seem to mind. She watches you intently, readjusting her hand on your neck. You set down the water and look at her.

“Why’ve you been so damn kind to me?” Your eyes well with tears, and her furrowed brow softens, just a little. “I’m a criminal, Abigail, I’m not- I’m not a good person.”

“I ain’t a good person neither.” Her voice is almost a whisper. “Have some more water.”

“Okay.”

You’d never been one to listen to anyone. You were entirely uninterested in being told what to do. But the way she spoke to you was different. You didn’t seem to have a problem taking orders from her, because she genuinely seemed like she cared. She wasn’t patronizing or arrogant.

“I’m sorry I stopped being your friend.” Her hand is warm against your skin.

“That was so many years ago.”’

“Don’t make me less sorry.” Her hand moves slowly from your neck to your jaw.

“I’ll give you a second chance,” Your eyes dart from her blue eyes to her lips, and for a moment, everything goes silent.

“I’d like that I think.” She inhales sharply, and drops her hand. “I got some paperwork to fill out. D’you need anything?”

“Yeah, I think so,” You say before kissing her softly, just once. You pull away and look at her, and you lift one hand to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. She looks at you like you electrocuted her. “Think that’s all.”

Something clicks in her head and she lunges to kiss you. It's sudden, but it’s soft. She’s soft. You reach down to replace her hand on the meeting of your neck and jaw, and she places another hand on the small of your back. Tension releases in your shoulders that you hadn’t noticed was there in the first place. You place a hand on each of her shoulders and push her backwards, still following her lips with yours. You can feel the muscle in her shoulders, but she’s pliable and obedient in your hands.

Your tongues dance against one another with the same cadence as the wind in the grass at the end of your twelfth summer. And as the light of the sun on your twenty-sixth summer falls over the same grass, you pull away from Abigail to look at the small smile pulling at her mouth, the flush across her cheeks, her pupils blown and her lips only slightly swollen.

“Whatcha lookin’ at me for?” Her voice is almost a whisper.

“You’re beautiful, Abigail. Damn near the most handsome woman I ever seen.”

She can’t bring herself to say anything in response. She can’t even bring herself to look up at you. She can’t bring herself to lock you back in here, and sit out at her desk and watch, let the state take you away and hang you for your crimes.

“I’m gonna get you out of this goddamn place.”

“You’re what?”

#abby anderson #abby anderson x reader #abby tlou #tlou part 2 #tlou x reader #tlou2 #lesbian #abby anderson hcs #abby anderson x reader smut #abby anderson smut #abby x reader #tlou #the last of us #tlou fic #tlou abby

173 notes · View notes

alavestineneas · 9 months

Text

Glass and mirrors

pairing: young!coriolanussnow x fem!reader summary: There is one thing the world needs to know about her: she didn't become a star overnight. She was born to be one. warnings: canon-typical violence, mentions of mental illness, narcissism, blonde men who need therapy, unhinged women, people in shitty relationships and toxic industries word count: 4.6k PART TWO IS HERE

author's note: Hello and welcome to our small community of people who have fallen victim to the charming (and evil) blonde man! This fic is heavily inspired by the edits of models that pop up on my ticktock feed every day. Shout out to them and the talented editors who bless my eyes with their creations. As for YN this time, prepare to be on quite a ride because she, surprise-surprise, is evil! In my head, there has to be at least one victor who feels no remorse at all; they can't all be morally good (and relatively sane) people. Also, the obsession with beauty in this fic is, in fact, intentional, so bear with me. Feel free to comment or insult the author in the comments, but only if you are creative with it. Enjoy and see you in part 2!

In all of her short childhood, she always loved mirrors. Her grandma used to joke about it with her old friends while they shared lunch at the factory: ''That empty-headed child wants to do nothing but stare at herself all day.'' The women would laugh, their raspy voices making the glid, already filled with toxic fumes to the brim, hotter. YN didn't mind; she would pretend not to hear them, clinging to the machinery in front of her instead. She would get out of here sooner or later, and she'd see whose laughter would be left echoing all through the narrow streets.

She wasn't born to rot in this place like these people were; YN was sure of that. Not with a face like hers, with manners she taught herself from the bright magic box in their cramped commune apartment, where a few times a year the government played the show. It was supposed to be a punishment, YN reminded herself each time, but it didn't look like one. She watched the children eat more food than she had seen in a month and then cry on the stage in front of millions. She wouldn't cry if she was there, that was for certain. People die every day here, but none of them get to dress up in the jewels provided by the wealthiest people she has ever seen.

It was funny how they had all the money in the world and still chose to dress so horribly. Mismatched fabrics and smudged colours on their faces, like the colours of the lake near her house—the factories polluted it with dyes, turning the water green, purple, and sometimes even pink. That's how she got her old grey dress to be such a pretty lavender colour. It didn't matter that everyone at school laughed at her, even Miss Kyla; she was horrendously ugly anyway, her hair resembling the colour of unwashed underwear. YN wore her dress with pride, mimicking the voice of the funny multicolour-haired man on the screen, chatting with long o's and a's.

That's how she ended up here, on the first floor of the newly renovated training centre, with a drink in her freshly manicured hand. She had two hours before her stylists would need her again—a time designated for sleep, which she apparently so greatly lacks. YN doesn't care; she went without sleep for much longer than two days. Instead, she does what she loves the most—turns on a shiny screen and watches the golden letters appear: the 15th Annual Hunger Games.

It starts with reaping, as always, but YN skips that part—she doesn't like seeing herself in those dirty rags, although, as papers would later state, ''nothing could make this girl ugly, even if a potato sack was put on her body.'' She likes interviews better. Luckily, the wait is not very long; soon enough, her favourite host pops up, his hair shimmering with sea green.

''And now, our dear viewers, I am more than pleased to announce our next tribute from District 1—please let her hear how excited we are to meet her!'' His voice booms through the theatre as the crowd erupts into applause.

YN moves gracefully, a beaming smile on her face matching that of a host. Her gloved hands wave at the supposed people in front of her as if they were guests at her birthday party. But most importantly, dress. The one she chose herself, arguing over it with her stylist for the last few hours, the one that fitted her perfectly. Capitol enough to appeal to the audience, district enough to highlight that she isn't one of them—she is something new, undiscovered, and worth keeping an eye on. It's almost not a dress at all—the sparkling, sheer fabric of beautiful white, with stars gathering at her chest and bottom to finish the ''almost naked'' look. And the crowd goes crazy for it. People shout, and the splashes of the cameras blinding her create a new melody that is so unfamiliar to YN's ears. Admiration. The thing she craved for so long.

''Alright, alright,'' Lucky Flickerman smiles, gesturing for the crowd to settle down. ''We don't want to scare her off now, do we?'' He turns to her, a microphone in hand. ''What's your name, sweetheart?''

''YN Y/L/N. And I am afraid you can't scare me off, no matter how hard you try. The thing is, I am here to stay,'' she jokes, cocking an eyebrow at the man beside her.

''Oh, how I love your confidence! Now tell me—we heard you are a volunteer—the first in the history of District 1! Are there any special ties to the girl who was supposed to stand here tonight, or what's going on?''

''Well, I was dying to see you in person, of course—no pun intended.''

Oh, there weren't any ties to the girl, or the boy, for that matter. No, YN simply wanted to go at her peak chance of winning—countless years of secret preparation in the factory; working a night shift after school and full days of weekends; hours of studying every plant and animal known to mankind—all to ensure that she wouldn't waste her chance like most kids here did.

''That's an honour coming from your lips; we are happy to see you in the Capitol, Miss Y/L/N. Since you came here by choice, what strategy are you planning on using in the arena? Maybe something tied to your district's craft?''

''If you promise to keep this between us, I'll confess—I will use my charms to make everyone fall in love with me and watch them fight by promising the winner a kiss—and then I will take it from there.'' YN turns to face the lights, staring directly into the camera for a few seconds. The crowd laughs once more, some going so far as to cheer and whistle in excitement. ''But in all honesty, I think I have a fair shot—I would win in a day if it meant the unlimited supply of those amazing cupcakes with sprinkles on top.''

''Well, in that case, you should definitely get a good rest this night—you are not the only one who got your eye on them! Ladies and gentlemen, prepare for the Cupcake Games tomorrow, and don't forget to sponsor this lovely girl right here if you want to see her win! And now, a short word from our sponsors.''

Cupcake jokes are still funny to her, even after two years, although she got sick of them a week after her victory and was just as sick of all the titles papers came up with to fit her into the candy girl box. It served her well, for which she is grateful; the sponsors did send her a shitton of things, although mostly useless.

Next is the introduction of everyone else; YN doesn't care to look at it for more than just a few seconds, speeding it up to maximum. It's boring to no end—how do Capitolees watch it every year with such excitement? She stops to look only when her face appears on the screen, covered in crimson blood.

She counted six canons when she finally stopped to take a breath in and look at her surroundings. That was about right, although YN didn't count how many times she pulled a knife out of somebody's still-warm body and lurched into another nearby. The sand soaked up the blood fast, she noticed, stepping over the pile of what used to be her competitors and walking towards the cone-shaped something. Nobody in sight—each one of the ''better'' kids is now dead without a chance to kill each other, to kill her, and ''others'' will die like flies under the hot sun of what looked like a desert. YN noticed that some even left behind the given jackets; she collected them before stepping into the Cornucopia, claiming them as her own. Not everyone grew up in hot factories, she thought to herself, so they have no chance of knowing how cold it gets at night.

YN doesn't like how the uniform looks on her; the T-shirt hangs around her frame too loosely. It's evident that she didn't eat enough back then, but it was tolerable. The dried blood looked worse; with her stoic face and eye colour, the streams looked too grotesque, almost unserious; it didn't fit the look she was going for. Her hands itch to wipe it before YN remembers that it's non-existent now—the girl on the screen is just a recording. She forwards a little more, looking for the commentary of the first night from the hosts—their excitement and praise never get old—but hears knocking at her door just as she is about to press play. YN glances at the clock—it's too early for the prep team, so it must be someone else—and turns off the TV just to be sure she heard it right.

When the knocking continues, she shouts a quick ''Come in,'' after checking her reflection on the now dark screen. ''Ah, Maggie!''

''How many times do I have to repeat that my name is Mags, not Maggie? Not Mags with fangs either, to be clear. Just Mags.''

''But everyone calls you that! And I want to be special,'' YN whines, laying back on the sofa.

It's Mags. YN likes Mags. Mags is the only girl besides her on the victors' list. Mags is the one who is always down to eat lunch together or to watch the new collection in the magazines. She is funny and down to earth, and, most importantly, Mags doesn't take bullshit from anyone.

''Even more special?'' Mags smiles, opening the fridge to look for something edible. There isn't much; they both know that YN would never eat something to ruin her figure. ''I saw your photoshoot on the street today. It's beautiful.''

''Thank you,'' YN smiles. She doesn't remember which one of her campaigns was supposed to air today, but it doesn't matter. ''Are you here for the promo again?''

The curly-haired woman nods, not looking up from the shelves. ''I hate it. I wish they would just leave me alone, so I can go home and forget about all of this.''

YN is always weirded out by such comments from Victor from 4 but never says anything. Not everyone was born to be in front of the camera; if that were the case, her talent wouldn't be so special anymore. ''It's our job, Maggie. They'll never leave us alone.''

''I know.'' Mags sighed, planting her body on the sofa beside her.

They are different, but YN thinks it's better that way. They are the same age, both 20, and that's about the only thing that ties them together. YN watches as her friend's chest rises and falls as she stares at the ceiling, her long, curly hair in some type of twist. YN would never style it like that, but Mags doesn't ask, so she stares at her in silence, trying her hardest not to compare them. She knows what type of conclusion will sparkle in her brain, but she doesn't want to admit it. Mags is her friend, her only good friend, so something inside YN fights hard to leave her alone. It's an unusual feeling, almost foreign, but YN wants to make an exception. She thinks Maggie deserves it.

''Are you okay?'' the woman asks her, finally snapping out of her trance. ''You are less talkative than usual.''

''Oh, yeah—just a little tired from work, that's it.''

Work. It's not the type of work people can really get tired from, and if anybody thinks otherwise, they never worked a day in District 1. Sometimes, YN can still feel the burning cloud of steam hitting her face when she closes her eyes. The work she does in Capitol is child's play—photoshoots, interviews, promotional campaigns, and runways. She is the only one with this kind of hectic schedule, the only one who is interesting enough for the general public to want to see her everywhere they go. Multiple shows a day wasn't uncommon; photoshoots until five a.m. were basically her usual routine; she did so many of them that she never remembered the brand name for more than an hour.

''Well, I hope I don't interrupt your me-time,'' Mags notes. ''Panem knows you need it. ''

''You worry too much about me. Better tell me about how life is in 4—anything new?''

There is probably nothing exciting, but it feels nice to listen to somebody talk with such love for their home as Mags does. It's also a great opportunity. YN catches every subtle expression and every movement of her friend with attentive eyes, making sure to parrot them later. She noticed from the recording today that her speech misses a certain effortlessness.

Curl and twist, curl and twist—YN has learned the pattern by now, sitting in front of the gigantic mirror, surrounded by a team of stylists. Hair, make-up, nails, and toes—five people work hand in hand for her to appear for two minutes on the long podium. The backstage is loud, and a lot is going on—last-minute changes, alterations, and quick touch-ups. YN doesn't bother to look around; she closes today like a face of the collection, and after she is done with this podium, the day is finally coming to an end.

''Oh, YN, darling, here you are!'' The bald man in his forties appears on the horizon of her peripheral vision, clasping his unnaturally white hands together. ''How are you doing, my little star? Anything you need?''

She is irritated to no end; her team booked seven shows for her today; she hadn't had anything to eat in the past six hours; and the loud music makes her head throb. But she doesn't voice any of that—nobody really wants to know how she is feeling.

Just like she guessed, the man doesn't wait for her response. ''There have been some changes in the order today, sweetheart. Jenovia will be closing today, and you will walk in her dress instead,'' the man says, turning to face her styling team. ''Change the hair to fit, and take off the blue in her make-up—it won't match. Good luck!''

''Do what he says,'' YN announces, her mouth twitching just a little. She is furious. To have that blonde bitch Jenovia walk in the best dress of the collection YN inspired? Over her dead body. Or, should she say, over Jenovia's? She will figure it out but do so later. Now there are only four girls before her, so she needs to be ready.

''Three, two, one! Go, go!'' the stage coordinator shouts, opening the curtain for her.

Right and left, hip and hand, followed by the strong clicking of her five-inch heels. The music is even louder here, with the beets vibrating through the runway and pouring into her bloodstream. She doesn't pay any attention to the glass floor underneath her. Surprisingly, her training before games helped her model more than one could guess. YN doesn't see anyone but the blinding lights lining the podium—not that she needs to see the hungry faces of the spectators. It doesn't matter what piece of fabric covers her body; they are looking at who wears it. Final pose at the centre—no smile is her go-to. Hold and turn is the golden rule.

''Here you are!'' One of the seamstresses grabs her hand, pulling her into a small, curtained space with countless clothes on racks. ''Calio wants you to hold a purse for the backstage photo and lose the belt. Where the fuck is the golden belt?'' she shouts, searching for one. ''Wait here; I'll go find it,'' she finally announces, running away before YN has the chance to suggest anything.

YN looks around, carefully moving the laying rags with her foot. She mentally goes over the outfits labelled with names, rating them one by one, until her eyes stop on the white dress. The closing dress, the one she was supposed to model. Underneath it are velvety black high boots.

The idea comes to her mind quickly: she steals a needle from the nearby table and carefully places it inside the shoes, making sure it looks like an accident.

''Finally,'' the woman returns with a belt in her hands, oblivious to YN's half-smile. ''Put it on and go; they are already waiting.''

''Of course, thanks.''

YN isn't sure how much time has passed before she hears a scream, standing up from her place in the corner with a blanket around her exposed shoulders. Surely enough, Jenovia is on the floor, crying crocodile tears—a needle inside her heel deep enough to make a few of the girls around her gag.

''What the fuck happened?'' It's Calio, the boss here; he was ordering her around before.

''I don't know,'' all the blonde girl can manage before bursting into tears one more time.

''Well, can you walk?'' he asks, kneeling to take a look.

''No,'' Jenovia whispers, her hand holding her bloodied foot.

The bald man sighed, more annoyed than concerned. ''We need a replacement. You,'' he points at YN. ''Take it off and change into the dress. Quick!''

YN does what she is told in no time; she doesn't want to wait until Jenovia suddenly gets better or the man finds a better-suited girl to close. After a few minutes, she is almost ready; she only needs the lipstick to finish it off.

''We don't have time!'' the man roars, dragging her to the exit. ''Here!'' He puffs out her hair and adjusts the layers of fake pearls covering her neck. ''Three, two, one! Go, fucking go!''

And go she does. A few steps on the runway, and she discovers that lipstick is still in her hands. YN puts it in the pocket of the enormously large black coat that hides the gorgeous white dress underneath. Step after step, her long black boots draw patterns on the glass. She will have no choice but to buy them; YN doesn't care if it's stupid. They helped her, so she will have them.

It's time for the final pose: YN takes out the lipstick from her pocket and applies it with two swift motions, blowing a kiss to the camera. It will definitely be a hit with the photographers. YN throws one last look before turning around and returning to the curtained exit. On her way back, when the lights lower to follow her back, she can see a little clearer. In the sea of vibrant hair colours and clothes, the platinum-blonde hair and a simple black suit stood out too much not to notice. There is only one person who could afford to look so simple—YN knows it. An opportunity of a lifetime.

She makes another stop in the middle of the podium, right in front of his seat. The coat slides off her shoulders effortlessly, and YN catches it just when the fabric is about to hit the floor. The crowd goes crazy, clapping and whistling at her tricks, but YN has no wish to entertain them any further. YN pauses for a moment, her eyes meeting icy-blue ones, before turning away and finishing the show. There is one thing the world needs to know about her: she didn't become a star overnight. She was born to be one.

Since the last show, she has done fifteen more—day after day, opening and closing. Her little trick got her where she wanted to be, with more money than one person could need in a lifetime and nowhere to spend it. Even now, standing in the long hallway of the training centre, she wears nothing she bought herself; all are gifted, sent, or handed by the adoring fans. Like a rag doll, with no say in how she looks or what she does, YN hears everyone say that it was ''a price of fame''. She doesn't think so; she was told what to do long before she tasted real butter on her toast.

The sliding door to her apartment moves almost without noise. While most victors complain that the lock system reminds them of prison, YN is grateful to have it. The thought of some crazy fanatic waiting for her in the dark isn't the most pleasant one. The designer bag finds its place on the floor, soon joined by the coat—room service will clean it up later. The heels slide off her feet quickly, leaving bloodied marks on her skin, but YN doesn't care enough to do something about them.

''Forgive me for joining you without an invitation.''

YN turns around, her hands grabbing the keys in her hands tighter. She mentally goes over her means of escape or fight—a mirror could easily be broken and used as a weapon; if necessary, she could also grab a nearby ottoman. The man in the chair doesn't look too impressed with her thought process. His lips curve into a smile, blue eyes staring at her with undivided attention. A suit, not very different from the one he wore at her show, was a deep brown colour.

''Mister President,'' YN breathes out, lowering her hand.

Coriolanus Snow. Light, almost white hair frames his face like a halo, with his suit hugging his waist just enough to highlight the broad shoulders. YN saw him on TV a couple of times, but seeing him in person was something entirely different. It's like the air shifts around him and changes with his presence.

''I believe we met before,'' he humours her, his eyes shining with mischief.

The light knocking on the door doesn't leave YN any time to answer. She presses a button near it, fixing her hair before opening it. YN tries to look as composed as possible without betraying her nerves—why was he here? ''Yes?''

''The dinner, Ma'am.'' the room service declares, pushing a cart in front of her.

YN nods, even though she didn't order one. ''Leave it here,'' she says, gesturing to the place nearby. When the door closes and she is alone with the man in her room again, her heart skips a beat.

''I took the liberty of ordering; I hope you don't mind.''

Even if she did, she knew better than to say anything. Instead, YN watched as the man stood up and took the dishes from the cart, placing them on the coffee table, before turning to her once more.

''Please, have a seat.''

She does what she is told, sitting down on her king-sized bed—the chair is already taken by him—and waits for the blonde man to start speaking. He doesn't right away, choosing to pour a glass of wine for her and himself.

YN watches the dark liquor pour into the glass, swirling with each drop. She isn't hungry—she rarely was—and the soup he ordered looks more like vomit than a dish, but she still takes the spoon and carefully places it into her mouth. Her lipstick stains the silverware with colour, leaving a small circle right at the end—that's when the man finally decides to speak.

''Dare I say I am a huge fan of your work ethic? Everyone who I've spoken to is very satisfied with your,'' he pauses, searching for the fitting word, ''dedication .''

''Thank you, Mister President,'' YN replies with a polite smile before returning to her soup. She watches him only from the corner of her eye. The way he cuts his steak with his ringed fingers and the way he places a small bite in his mouth before his lips close. There is a subtle roughness in his movements, a power play of some sort.

He catches her gaze and, for a moment, is silent. ''You probably wonder why I am here in the first place, outside of the amazing steak they cook here, of course. The thing is, Miss Y/L/N, that you are popular not only with the general public but with people higher in power as well. One may even say they fell in love with the way you present yourself.''

''I am pleased to know that, Mr. President, but I am only doing my job as a victor.''

''Then you will understand the weight of my dilemma. Those people who have served Panem all their lives faithfully usually don't ask for much recognition; they work because they want to build a better future for all of us. So, when they do ask for a small favour or two, I am more than happy to satisfy them. But recently, all they ask for is you .''

''I believe I don't quite understand. They want to meet me?''

''You can phrase it like that, yes. For a night or two, of course, with all expenses covered.''

It's heavy, the understanding of what Mister President really implies. The thought of someone's hand roaming her body brings her dinner up YN's throat. ''Why?'' Her voice is shakier than she would like, but she is more focused on composing the rising anger than noticing it.

''I am sorry, Miss Y/L/N, but I am afraid there is nothing I can do; I am greatly outnumbered. Unless,'' he starts but doesn't finish his sentence.

''Unless what?''

''Unless you are seen with me.''

His piercing blue eyes look at her, but there is nothing in them. Her chances are limited, and he knows it. There is something rogue in him beneath the veil of chivalry he offers. YN smiles at him. That's what this whole charade was about—he wants her. Coriolanus Snow, the most powerful man in the whole world, wants her.

''Of course, Mr. President. That's very generous of you.''

''Mister President is too official, don't you think, Miss Y/L/N? Perhaps we could find a more informal way of addressing each other?''

''Informal?'' YN asks, tilting her head to the side. If he wants her, he'll get her. ''What about Mister Snow?'' The buttons on her shirt are easy to manage—a few quick motions, and it slides off her shoulders onto the cream cover. ''Or, Sir Coriolanus?'' The pants are a little trickier, but YN learned that backstage, every second counts, so they soon also pool around her heels, the fabric hitting the floor with a slight thud.

The blonde man watches her intently, his eyes following every move of her hands. His legs are still spread wide on the lime-green chair as he slightly leans back. YN can't tell if he is enjoying her antics or not, but frankly, she doesn't care; she is enjoying it. The way her shadow dances on the wall, the way the air shifts in the huge room, transforming it into a tiny stage. YN looks at him with mischief, with superiority, even. After all, she is the show here. Why not let Mr. Savior think it is for him?

''Come, Mister Snow,'' she says, throwing it in his face like a bone to the dog.

He doesn't have the haste to join her; on the contrary, he stands up painfully slowly. His tall figure almost seems to stretch as he raises, covering the floor lamp behind him fully. When he finally circles the table to stand above her, his presence is overwhelming. YN lets him stand between her legs, his unusually cold hand on her thigh.

''I prefer Coriolanus,'' he whispers in her ear, lowering himself enough to touch her ear with his velvety lips. He pulls away slightly, planting a kiss on her cheek instead. ''Have a most pleasant night, Miss Y/L/N.''

And then he walks away. YN watches as his figure disappears behind the sliding door before she lets out a breath she didn't realize she was holding. Her gaze instinctively finds her reflection in the nearby mirror; there is no reason to shine if no one watches her.

153 notes · View notes