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#I'm so pissed I missed the voting for this

savemefromanepicoftimewasted · 3 months

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The Gang's All Here

Biker!John Price X Wife!Reader

It was adorable, you were the mom of the group when it came to everything, especially when they were on leave. You’d invite everyone over and feed them until they were all too full.

a/n:this fic was inspired by this GORGEOUS artwork by @yakowo and I could not get the idea out of my head, also for anyone who voted in favor for the tattoos? you're welcome (P.S. I'm so sorry for making you guys wait MONTHS for this!)

(These are the tattoos I picture John having!)

John wasn’t the type of person that you’d expect to come onto base riding a motorcycle, a Harley Davidson no less. So, when Soap and Gaz were outside cracking jokes together their jaws dropped as John parked the roaring beast. When the hell had he managed to find the time to ride? It felt like they’d been gone for the last year nonstop. Gaz had heard all about how much you missed John. It was adorable, you were the mom of the group when it came to everything, especially when they were on leave. You’d invite everyone over and feed them until they were all too full.

“Laswell approved the time off, we’re gonna get to spend Halloween with the missus this year.” Gaz was probably more excited than anyone.

It may have been due to the fact you were all planning on matching, Gaz had picked Simon’s name from the hat, while you and Johnny were going to be matching. John downright refused, saying he couldn’t trust the boys to pick his costume. He’d made you swear to secrecy, no one was allowed to know his costume until Halloween. You weren’t complaining though, not after he’d promised to let you help ‘grease him up’.

“Better not get too rowdy this year, lord knows Johnny nearly got arrested last time.” Of course that had been because someone had tried to roughly grab you when John was off getting you drinks.

The boys had always been quite protective of you, doing whatever they could to make sure you were safe and keep all the creeps away. You’d been married to their captain the entire time they’d all known one another, so you were the co-captain in their eyes. Johnny was definitely the most protective, he saw you as a little sister(even though you were older than him). Simon would simply glare at anyone who looked at you wrong, scaring them off before they could utter a single word. Gaz would throw down with anyone who dared utter a single bad thing about you, how dare you disrespect his co-captain!

“He said he’d be on his best behavior, something about not wanting to anger the missus this time.” You’d turned into a scolding mother when Johnny began to act out, it was hilarious to watch.

John had thrown you over his shoulder even while you were kicking and screaming to be put down so you could continue your scolding. Johnny learned that night not to piss you off lest he deal with your wrath for the rest of the night. It was a comical thing, knowing you could insight fear into a man who sees death for a living.

“Better not, she told me they’re doing matching costumes and I can’t risk her needin’ to get a costume last minute.” That wasn’t to say you wouldn’t be able to find something from your closet, but you’d planned this months prior.

“Simon and I are too, you’re gonna be the odd man out captain.” Gaz smirked over at the other man, noticing the way his brow raised slightly.

“You and Ghost are wearing matching costumes? How’d you convince him?” Simon wasn’t afraid to let loose and enjoy himself, but wearing a costume to match with Kyle? That was shocking.

“Said he wanted to wear something to help get some attention, can’t say much else.” Gaz was going to keep his lips sealed until halloween had arrived, it was going to be the surprise of the century.

John knew better than to try and pry, this was out of his hands and as long as you were happy, he was happy. His mind began to wander for a few seconds, what would the holidays be like when you had your own little tots running around. You’d probably dress them up into cute halloween costumes and take them trick or treating. It didn’t sound like such a horrible thing at the moment, seeing you take the little ones up to the doors to get candy you’d sneak for yourself. No, no thinking about things like that when you’re at work and have important things to do, like a mountain of paperwork.

“Keep an eye on things and make sure the new recruits aren’t acting like idiots, please.” John waited for Gaz to acknowledge his words before heading down to his office.

The picture from your wedding day was the only one he’d been willing to take to base with him, not wanting to risk the wrong person knowing about you. His wedding ring sat alongside his dog tags, resting against his chest every day. It was a reminder that no matter how stressful things could be, he would always go home to you at the end of the day. They weren’t due for another assignment until the end of November, mainly because Laswell needed more intel first. Maybe that was the only reason they were allowed the few weeks of leave that was granted. Oh well.

It was nearing seven at night by the time John realized he hadn’t so much as left his desk to get a drink or even a bite to eat. Shit, you were going to absolutely ream his ass when he got home and you found out. This wasn’t the first time, and absolutely wasn’t going to be the last that he’d completely forgotten about himself. Simon had given him hell from time to time, telling him he needed to eat before you showed up at the base yourself. It had only happened once, though that was more due to the fact he needed the paperwork he’d forgotten and not because he hadn’t left his desk for..ten hours.

Standing up and stretching his tired limbs he groaned at the exertion and cracking from his idle bones. Shit, he had definitely been sitting for too long if standing for a few seconds sent shivers down his spine almost instantly. Time to get something to eat and head home for the next few weeks. He’d barely made it out of his office before Johnny was running over with what could only be described as childlike glee.

“Captain! Was hopin’ I could catch you.” The plus side of working alongside Johnny was that he could get shit done when necessary, the downside is when he was excited the man could talk forever.

“Just grabbing a quick bite and heading out, have you got your leave papers yet?” John didn’t have much time to talk, not if he wanted to make it home before you were in bed already.

“Just this mornin’, I wanted to ask about the bike.” Johnny was nervous, given that the last time he’d seen one was nothing more than a quick glance on their last mission.

“What about it?” John turned into the cafeteria, grabbing a plastic wrapped sandwich that was most likely made that morning.

Johnny wrung his hands together nervously, if questioned he would vehemently deny that his palms had become sweaty when asking his higher-up about something as simple as a motorcycle. Maybe he could just ask you about it instead, surely John had told you some things here and there and you’d managed to pick up any information.

“I uhh, I was wondering where you got it, she’s a beaut.” There, he’d ripped off the bandaid and didn’t need to make this any harder than it needed to be.

“Found her through a seller, she was in pretty rough shape so I’ve been fixin’ her up on leaves.” The bike was John’s pride and joy, second of course to you, but he loved his harley in a different way.

“Oh! Okay, that’s cool.” Johnny nodded, keeping a slight distance between himself and his captain.

“Any reason you’re asking?” John grabbed a bottle of water before turning to sit down at one of the open tables.

Johnny felt his nerves skyrocket, how does one admit they’d always wanted to ride but were too afraid of nearly getting themselves killed? His mother had given him hell for it, saying he’d lose his life by being reckless. It had deterred the idea for years, but seeing so many bikes made him want to do it anyway.

“No reason, see you later cap.” Johnny nodded once before heading out of the room.

John wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t confused, it wasn’t often that people even saw him on the rumbling biped vehicle, but given the opportunity he always took it. Nothing more invigorating than feeling the wind whip around you, the sound of the bike echoing behind. You would beg John to take you for a ride constantly, especially on date night.

The recruits were quiet as they sat amongst themselves, discussing what their next drills would possibly be. It suddenly hit John how old he was, he’d been so used to making sure that everyone else was taken care of that he hadn’t taken the time to really look at life. You’d both discussed having children when the both of you were truly ready. If it came down that neither of you would truly be ready for a child, then neither of you would become parents. He’d just be the fun uncle that could send the kiddos home hyped up on sugar.

After he’d finished his sandwich and water it was time to head out. Any paperwork was sent off for review, and if it wasn’t up to Laswell’s standards she could wait until he was back. Getting home and relaxing for the rest of the night was high on his priority list at the moment. Maybe the two of you could order take out instead of cooking, maybe even a glass of wine to go along with it. You’d be dealing with everyone in a few days anyway, god where had the year gone that it was already Halloween again.

The sun was nearly gone by the time John had made it out of his office, grabbing the keys to his bike and heading towards the garage. Ghost’ voice was booming, words sharp as a whip towards whomever he was angry with. John sighed deeply before turning towards the shooting range, if it was a new recruit this could get ugly fast. And much to his annoyance it was not one, but four new recruits, each of them looked terrified as Simon nearly towered over them.

“Do you think this is a joke? Something to laugh about?!” Ghost was enraged, hands clenched into fists by his side.

“No sir.” They spoke in unison, each with their heads down, gazes locked on the floor.

“The next time you come in here thinkin’ you’re gonna play with the weapons, I will have you removed, permanently.” Ghost took gun safety quite seriously, one wrong move could end the lives of multiple people.

“Yes sir.” They all nodded, waiting for further instructions.

“Get out of my sight.” Ghost crossed his arms over his chest, waiting until they all scrambled away before turning to face John.

There were no words shared between the two men, neither of them needed to say anything to get their points across anyway. However, John wanted to make sure that Simon would be alright before leaving for the night.

“Still coming over for Halloween?” John was still curious on what Gaz had picked for the costumes, couldn’t be too bad.

“I promised your missus I would anyway.” No one on the task force could tell you no, it was adorable.

“I’ll see you then, make sure the recruits stay out of trouble.” John nodded at him, heading down to the garage so he could get home to you.

The night air was cold, bike rumbling beneath him as he wound his way along the roads that lead to your shared home. He’d sent a quick text to you before he left, telling you to order dinner so the two of you could relax together. Good food, a glass of wine, and the most amazing wife that he could ever ask for sounded like a perfect night to him. Now if he could ignore the clawing thoughts that came with work that would be even better. Laswell knew better than to call him unless it was an absolute emergency that he needed to attend to.

The light was on outside as he pulled into the driveway, parking the bike and waiting until it was settled to step off. The sound of music echoed through the partially opened window, the sound of your voice following along with the lyrics. John snickered to himself, it was definitely a song from your younger years, it was definitely a 90’s boyband. If you were letting loose, what would he walk into? Shaking off his shoulders he headed into the house, locking the door behind him before slipping off his boots.

“Baby!” You ran over, throwing your arms around his neck in a tight embrace.

“Hello to you too, having a party without me?” John’s arms wrapped around your waist, pulling you flush to his body.

“Never, can’t have a party without the man of the hour.” You pressed a light kiss to his lips, giggling as he tried to pull you back for more.

The two of you laughed happily, dancing together until the doorbell rang loudly, letting you know your dinner had arrived. You had mentioned a movie you’d wanted to see earlier that week, talking about how scary it was from your friends. John could handle some little movie no problem at all, everything about it was fake anyway.

“Alright, got our food, drinks, time to turn on the movie.” You wiggled into your seat, pressing play on the remote before digging in to your food.

The movie, for lack of a better word, was absolutely terrible. It was sort of a tradition in your home that during October you would watch corny horror movies whenever John was home. It was something you’d been adamant on, refusing to let the tradition die out. Of course you’d watch the classic horror movies to help break up the monotony of the bad ones. John had insisted you watch The Thing recently, until you remembered the kennel scene. Watching poor animals, even fake ones, get hurt always makes you upset.

“What do we watch next? We’ve got a few days before the party, and you don’t need to go back until after.” You popped a few pieces of popcorn into your mouth, chewing slowly so you didn’t get any kernels stuck between your teeth.

John pondered for a brief moment, he’d loved watching the classics, but maybe something new could be better? No, something from the 90’s maybe.

“What about Candyman?” It was one of your favorites, having grown up as a horror fan you clung onto the infamous movie.

“A man after my own heart.” You giggled and grabbed your remote to turn the movie on.

The only light in your living room, besides the TV of course, were the string lights you’d hung up in the middle of September. You’d claimed it would help give ambience to the movie watching experience, and John definitely had to admit that it had. It gave off an eerie vibe that he couldn’t quite place, but given that it was Halloween he wasn’t going to complain.

You could practically recite the movie, the way Tony Todd portrayed the character of Candyman so well never ceased to amaze you. You’d wanted to have a career in film making, but given that the industry was one of the hardest to get into, your dreams were crushed.

You wouldn’t have met John had you followed your dreams.

You hummed softly, it was true, had you followed your heart you would have never met your husband. Sure you probably would’ve met someone in Hollywood, but it wouldn’t have been the same.

“Wait, what are you wearing for Halloween?” You glanced over at your husband.

“I’ve got a pair of overalls I’m gonna grease up. Go dressed as a mechanic.” John was nothing short of efficient. He’d found them one day after going through his clothes and tossing out anything that was either too old, or had holes to be thrown away.

“Hmm, that works.” You turned and put your attention back onto the movie on your screen.

You and Johnny would be matching, while Simon and Kyle would technically be matching. It had started as a joke but after discussing it, you had all agreed and the plans were set in stone. The costumes arrived a few weeks after you’d ordered them, the boys all paying you back right away. John of course had no idea what you were wearing, and you weren’t going to tell him until the very night of. It was going to be quite the surprise, you couldn’t wait for him to see.

Halloween

You were pulling on your undergarments, not wanting to spoil any surprises your husband might find later before quickly pulling on your dress. You’d been tempted to order a wig to truly match but you didn’t want to risk it. Instead you fixed up your hair, placing the headband before pulling on a pair of pantyhose. After a quick glance in the mirror you were happy with your look, pulling on the shoes and heading down to the living room. The boys had all crammed into your home, each of them taking their respective costumes to go and change. John had run to the store to get one final bag of candy, promising he’d be back in time to head to the party.

Kyle walked out in his amazing glory, the fluffy coat showing off his amazing physique.

“I have to admit, you make an amazing Ken.” You snickered and twirled your finger, telling him to give you a full view.

The costume was perfect, down to the headband and sunglasses he’d managed to find last minute. It was the only thing missing out of his entire get up.

“What can I say? I was born to be a total stud.” He smirked before bursting into laughter, both of you righting yourselves as Johnny walked out.

“I forgot how much I hated wearing boots sometimes.” Johnny muttered to himself.

The two of you had dressed as Velma and Daphne, Johnny had offered to be Velma since he was already a natural brunette. You weren’t going to argue with the man, the dress gave your husband even easier access.

“If you can tuck the bottom of the sweater under itself, it’ll look better.” You walked over and helped him adjust the dark orange sweater, brushing down the fabric of his skirt.

“Bettah?” Johnny glanced at you, hoping you could head out soon.

“Much.” You smiled and stepped back from him.

Before any of you could say anything else Simon walked out of the guest bathroom, the hot pink outfit causing all of your jaws to drop open. How Kyle had convinced him to dress up as cowboy Barbie you weren’t entirely sure, but god did he look fantastic.

“I have to admit, you look fucking hot right now.” Your eyes were wide, hands reaching up to mess with the green scarf wrapped around your neck.

“Thanks, this is all Kyle’s idea.” Simon tossed his bag down beside the couch.

“I’m not complaining, those pants are doing so much for your ass right now.” Your cheeks heated up before you caught the way Johnny was also eyeing him. At least you weren’t alone.

The sound of the front door opening suddenly caught your attention, your husband made it home with a few minutes to spare. Such a procrastinator that one was, now you’d be rushing out the door to get to the party.

“Sorry! Nearly got into a fight with someone who almost hit me on the way home. I just need to get dressed.” John dropped the candy into the large bowl, turning to face the rest of you.

His eyes landed on Simon first, a slight brow raised before he saw Kyle, followed by Johnny, and then lastly you.

“Don’t tell me. Kyle and Simon are Barbie and Ken, and you two are Daphne and Velma?” John snickered as he slipped off his shoes quickly.

“Good job, now go get dressed so we can leave!” You all but pushed your husband towards your bedroom.

You could discuss the costumes later when you were actually where you needed to be for the night, right now was not the time. The plus side is that you were within walking distance of the party, the downside was that you were definitely going to be late.

“Jeez, your arms look even bigger.” Kyle blurted out as Simon flexed his arms. Johnny was practically drooling at the sight.

“Alright, you guys head outside and I’ll see what’s taking John so long.” You waited until they’d all left, mainly to make sure poor Johnny didn’t pass out.

Shaking your head you made your way down to your bedroom, pushing the door open slowly so you didn’t startle him.

“Hey hun, are you…” You trailed off as you saw your husband, the white tank top he’d dirtied and greased up showed off the sleeves of tattoos as well as his back piece beautifully.

“Hmm? Oh, yeah, let’s go hun.” John spritzed a couple sprays of cologne before heading over to you.

You watched the way his muscles ripped beneath the fabric, eyes glancing down to his legs beneath the coveralls. The arms over his coveralls were wrapped around his waist, giving him the look of being an actual mechanic. Jesus you weren’t going to be able to keep your hands off of him at this rate.

“I’ll have to remember to have someone take a photo of us when we get there.” You grabbed your wristlet and headed out of the house with John.

The other three, that were locked in a heated discussion, all fell silent as they saw their captain in a tank top.

“Holy shit, you’re covered in tattoos?!” Kyle was floored, he’d recently found out his captain rode motorcycles, but seeing this? This was all new.

“Oh, yeah, I’ve had these for years.” John merely shrugged, wrapping an arm around your waist as you all made the short walk to Kate’s house.

The music was loud enough that you could hear it outside, but it was clear that everyone was still able to have conversations. Kyle, Simon, and Johnny all took off the moment you got inside with John, causing you to roll your eyes. You just wanted one photo to at least remember the night, the costumes looked so good too!

“I’ll make sure they take a photo before we head home tonight, promise.” John pressed a kiss to your hair, leading you further into the party.

“Thank you.” You smiled as you leaned against him, avoiding any of the grease that could ruin your dress.

The party was lively, everyone complimenting your costume as well as John’s even asking a few questions about his tattoos. John was proud of the work he’d had done, especially the back piece he’d sat through over five sessions for. You loved when John got the recognition he deserved. The man was downright gorgeous, and you were reveling in the fact that he’d chosen you out of everyone.

The hours flew by, the drinks flowing through your system before John cut you off. He wasn’t going to risk getting you drunk like last time. You’d taken photos with all of your friends, giggling at the couples costume that Farah and Alex had done. He’d dressed up as a dinosaur while she was dressed like a handler. Everyone took photos with John, claiming they wanted to show off the tattoos he had and see if they could get something half as good. You knew better, it was only because of how gorgeous your husband was. You weren’t blind, even in regular clothes John was the most attractive man you’d ever met.

“Hey, why don’t I take you home? It’s getting late anyway.” John could see the way your eyes were drooping closed, exhaustion seeping into your bones.

“We gotta round up the boys too.” You’d offered up the spare bedrooms so they didn’t have to worry about driving home so late at night.

“Already did, sweetheart, so let’s go.” John scooped you up into his arms, saying goodbyes to everyone before making your way out of the house.

Your eyes slowly slipped closed as you rested against his chest, your feet sore from standing in the kitten heels for the last five hours. John didn’t so much as complain as he carried you to your shared home, opening the door to let everyone inside. Johnny didn’t hesitate to rip off his boots, tossing them aside before ripping off the sweater. John raised a brow at the younger man, watching as he hurriedly picked up his discarded items.

“Sorry, sir.” Johnny wasn’t going to let them lie around, would never do so in someone else’s home, but getting to strip down was his only thought.

“Just clean up, that's all I ask.” John turned and headed up to your bedroom, laying you on the plush mattress before turning to change into his own pajamas.

Your soft snores filled the air, chest rising and falling slowly as you slept peacefully on your bed. John chuckled and finished getting changed, turning to help you out of your own clothes. His eyes widened as he realized you had gotten new lingerie, jaw dropping open. He’d talk to you about it tomorrow, right now you were exhausted and needed some sleep.

After grabbing one of his more oversized shirts he helped ease you into the fabric, pulling off your headband and setting everything onto the dresser. You hadn’t so much as flinched the entire time, assuring John that you were completely asleep. He headed down to the living room, making sure the other three were settled before turning off the lights. It was fun getting to see everyone dressed up, simply enjoying themselves with good company.

“Thank you, for being the best thing I could ever ask for.” John crawled into bed beside you, pulling you flush to his chest.

You murmured softly in your sleep, wrapping your arms around his waist. There were definitely some things that the two of you needed to talk about.

Those could wait, for now he would simply hold you and enjoy himself.

tagging: @gaylemonshark @thesinsoflust @dante-mightdie @mh073099

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sleepykye · 10 months

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Under the sakura trees..!

{ Summary }

Okay so, the hashiras decided to have a little party at some fancy restaurant. But muichiro had a secret relationship with you, and he didn't go to the party. OH YEA the party is compulsory. Forgot to mention it ~

ANYWAY, 2 hashiras decided to go hunt him down and down right drag him to the party. Until they saw both of you cuddling under the sakura trees !! 😆🫶

The hashiras decided to have a party as a farewell party for the retiring hashira, Uzui Tengen. Not something they should celebrate though.

Rengoku booked a table in a fancy restaurant and told the hashiras that the party is COMPULSORY. And anyone who didn't attend, would be hunted down by two random hashiras !

At the party, only eight hashira made it to the event, one didn't. Oh boy, I wonder who it is ? Shinobu asked " who didn't make it ? There's only eight hashiras "

mitsuri worriedly said " I think it was tokito-san ! He might have forgotten because of his amnesia !! "

shinobu said " impossible, I wrote on his palm a permanent marker of the date and time of the party and the location. "

Uzui scoffed, before exclaiming " well, then 2 fellow hashiras are gonna have to look for him. Who is it gonna be ? How about we vote for who to go ? " everyone agreed with the idea and started casting the votes.

Well well well, don't be surprised now. Hehe I'm gonna purposely select the 2 hashiras that don't get along.

In the end it was tomioka and shinazugawa !! Tomioka looked like he was glad because he could go out and miss out on the party, but shinazugawa looked pissed.

Both of them looked everywhere, before their last stop to look for him, the sakura trees.

Y/n's pov

"Mui, aren't you gonna go to the party ? Your already late" you said, sitting beside him.

" no, I am not going to go, I bet its gonna be boring. And who would want to go to a party by themselves when I have you here ? " muichiro asked.

You could feel your face getting hot when he said that. You buried your face into his chest while he wrapped his arms around you.

"The sakura's are beautiful..aren't they ?" Muichiro asked while caressing your cheek.

Your back on his chest as you both watched the sakura blossoms together.

Muichiro's hands wrapped around your waist as you sat on the hashira's lap. It was truly a blissful moment together.

Sitting in silence and admiring the sakura blossoms, it was very comforting to watch them slowly fall onto the ground. One even fell on your head

Giyuu and shinazugawa's pov

"Shinazugawa, I found them." Tomioka said, hiding behind a tree and spying on both of you. "

"Har ? Them ?" Shinazugawa asked, in curiosity of who was with the mist hashira, he saw the both of you cuddling under the sakura trees. His expression softened as he looked at the both of you. "Well, let's just leave them be, we will just tell the hashira's that we couldn't find him." shinazugawa scoffed while waving his hand.

Giyuu internally wished that the both of you have a long relationship and wished good luck for tokito if he ever wants to marry you.

Ok this took me 2 lazy days to finish. It still looks kind of short though 😭

#muichiro x y/n #mist hashira #muichiro tokito #muichiro tokito fluff #muichiro #muichiro headcannons #muichiro x reader #muichirou x reader #muichiro tokito x reader #mist pillar #kny muichiro #kimetsu no yaiba #kny #kny x reader #kny x y/n #kny x you

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gentlebeardsbarngrill · 3 months

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01/18/2024 Crew Recap

TLDR; Summary: #HoistTheAds and Astroglide OFMD both happening tomorrow 1/19/24; UK Fans We Need Your Help!; New Hashtags/Petition Link; David Jenkins/RhysDarby/TaikaWaititi Troll us with Hidden Stuff; More Articles; Petition Status, News That Gives Us Hope for S3, and Rhys Darby in Shorts.

Note: Please feel free to let me know if I missed something important, if I'm incorrect, if the formatting pisses you off, or whatever, I take constructive feedback <3 thx lovelies.

Need to catch up on recaps? ofmd daily recaps

==Things You Don't Want To Miss Tomorrow 1/19/2024 and 1/20/2024==

EDIT: HOIST THE ADS: This might be starting at 12 EST - https://www.tumblr.com/renewasacrew/739916790295052288/join-us-in-just-over-10-minutes-at-midnight-est?source=share

#HoistTheAds is finally coming to NYC and LA tomorrow. There will be Flyovers, Billboards, etc. As of right now it looks like its just happening every few minutes on the billboard for the next day.

Tumblr Info

Twitter Info

==Astroglide Watch-A-Long at 1/19/2024 1 PM PST ==

To clarify exactly how it works, basically what they're doing is asking you to stream on the service of your choice starting at Season 1 Episode 1, and Astroglide (and Squishables might be joining) will be tweeting reactions as they go.

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=UK Fans! We need your help! @lamentus1 was kind enough to give us updates on the efforts going on over the UK!=

UK specific OFMD fans in groups on Tumblr, Twitter and Facebook are trying to come together to push for the BBC to air OFMD Season 2 in the UK since they haven’t done so yet!

So many UK fans can’t actually watch the second season *legally* based off a tumblr poll that @lamentus1 did recently, and a third of fans who voted can’t even watch OFMD because it’s not on in their country!

The current plans are:

Email two key people at the BBC:

Sue Deeks (Brought OFMD to the UK) --- [email protected] Charlotte Moore (Chief Content Officer ) --- [email protected] Email Prompt: if you need an example:

Send Tweets regarding wanting Season 2 to Air on BBC on twitter (same hashtags from @renewasacrew I believe but it that's incorrect please let me know!):

BBC2 IPlayer

The ongoing twitter thread for this is here

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====New Articles ====

BBC fans fight to save cancelled show, with petition reaching 58,000 signatures

'Our Flag Means Death': Fans Rally to Save Cancelled Show'

Our Flag Means Death: Fans campaign to save queer pirate comedy

---Articles in Dutch---

Fans pikken cancellen van Our Flag Means Death niet en tekenen massaal petitie --------------------------------------------------------------------------

=Cast and Crew Seen in the Wild=

**START OF DISCLAIMER: This whole thread on Djenkins and Taika's mother in law is fan theory at this point, read into it as you will, but think of it like tabloid news**

The most exciting and I think ... brain candy worthy today was Rhys and David posting a BTS picture of Rhys in the colonial hat/outfit. It sparked some interesting ideas on the status of season 3.

I have to say, hats off to the folks over on twitter @fowlfiend for making this connection

Earlier today, Chaos Dad, David Jenkins posted the following picture of Rhys that Rhys shared on his Instagram with a song attached to it called "I'm a Man" by Jobriath.

Now, all well and good right? Rallying cry to all the crew! BUT Twitter folks think there's a deeper meaning and I'm inclined to agree.

How fucking cool is that? Thank you to @lamentus1 for pointing out also that Chaos Dad's post had the "three finger" I love you which is yet another 3 today.

Add to that, Taika's Instagram's been pretty quiet lately, and he happened to post a picture today of his mother-in-law @veraora on IG for her birthday, which just happens to have... 3 pigeons in it. Once again, thanks @lamentus1 for bringing this to our attention. ---also please wish VeraOra Happy birthday!

Now, could all of this be just coincidence? Sure, but where's the fun in that? Seems like we're going on a treasure hunt.

**END OF DISCLAIMER: This whole thread on Djenkins and Taika's mother in law is fan theory at this point, read into it as you will, but think of it like tabloid news**

===Other Chaos Dad Posts on Twitter===

=Hashtag Updates / How you can help=

@renewasacrew Has done some cool stuff and made saveofmd.com direct to the petition site. This should help with being able to share more easily. Full thread here on tumblr

Today's Goals and Hashtags Per @renewasacrew

#ArentYouGLAAD #SaveOFMD #TheNumbersWereThere

=Petition Status Updates=

Petition hit 60K all!!!! GREAT JOB! Just in time for Time Square tomorrow!!

I didn't see a drastic change on a lot of the fundraisers so I'm not adding those today--- I think we've had a big day as it was with the stuff around David posting without posting about season 3.

So I thought I'd end with some more info from our lovely @TheCozyPirate on twitter, the lovely person who exposed the information about how s3 was already in preproduction. They seem to have more insight in a lot of this.

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=So if your question is, is it making a difference? Why doesn't dad just come out and say it? Here's some insight:=

And this next one helps me to feel like we're still heading in the right direction. "If there were nothing viable, he would be able to say that. He would never, never let this go on if hopeless". I think is pretty uplifting.

Lastly, I think you all should be damn proud of yourselves with these calls, as a former Customer Support Person, I appreciate you all so damn much for keeping it kind and polite! Stede would be proud!

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Finally-- one last thing, since today's theme on tumblr is trolls getting all up in our faces, just remember you do not have to engage with them if you don't want to. If you want to have kind discussions, and you feel up for it, go for it, but don't feel obligated to defend the community.

We all know we care, we all know we're doing a great fucking job at taking care of each other, helping awesome causes, and still having fun while doing it. You don't have to prove to anyone that you are allowed to enjoy your pirate show that means something to you and spend a few bucks to support it.

Don't let people who are struggling with their own trouble take your light. Enjoy things, have fun. You deserve it.

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On a lighter note to end on: I have a serious question for all of you.

Who gave this man the right to wear these fucking shorts? Good god.

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dorianwolfforest · 3 months

Text

Ok apparently some people missed this, and it is my favoritest of star stable lores, so welcome to the most prolific source of star stable dunk jokes, the Ride with us campaign and it's charity.

Ever wonder why we say horsegirl is a slur? Or why we say horsegirls bite? Look no further than the absolute wreck that was star stable trying to do something good with their money.

The day is august 25th. The time? Time for revolution. Star stable online launches its shakiest campaign yet, and they do it on every possible platform. Youtube, Instagram, Twitter, even their website which still has a permanent addition. It's truly taking the world by storm.

Standing on hopes, dreams, and a mildly skewered survey sent out weeks prior, Star stable proudly proclaims that horse girls are crazy, obsessed, and weird, and that they are bullied for this. Well, no longer, they cry. They come bearing a hashtag that only massive social backlash could topple. "Reclaim horse girl".

People were (rightfully) pissed that they were likening horse girl to a slur that could be reclaimed, star stable pushed back, people got even more pissed, and finally they course corrected and changed the hashtag to "yes i'm a horse girl" because, despite our jokes, horse girl is in fact not something that can be likened to slurs people need to reclaim.

Their claims were so hilariously insane that people thought screenshots from the promotional video were photoshopped

On august 25th, they release the code RIDEWITHUS which would give every player an ingame hoodie, and with every redeem, star stable would donate 1 SEK to an unspecified charity. They did not further specify anything about this charity, only that it was meant to be for anti-bullying. As we all know, not all charities are good, so I personally didn't redeem the code until I knew where the money was going, and oh boy did I have to wait.

Over the course of the next 35 days, star stable made several instagram posts describing the results of the survey they sent out that launched this entire ordeal. I could screenshot all the individual posts but that's a lot of work so here you go, here's the source behind the information found in the posts instead.

When I asked on twitter why we weren't allowed to know what charity the money would go toward, I received the response that starstable were very busy trying to figure out a platform to let people vote for one of multiple charities that they had deemed fit (I was not told what the options would be).

A few days after the instagram posts ended, on october 4th, we were told what charities we were going to be voting for. The vote took place in a Google form, a decision a month in the making. The two charities we were allowed to pick between was Friends and Children's helpline. Finally knowing where the money would be going, I felt comfortable redeeming the code with only THREE days left until the code would no longer work and the charity collection would end.

The code stopped working october 7th, on october 10th we were finally told, officially, that 150 286 kr was going to children's helpline and then star stable raised their prices by 10 % immediately afterward and the Ride with us campaign died and wasn't mentioned ever again, kept alive only by people censoring the words horse girl and biting each other.

Truly a fuckfest. A beautiful moment in time.

#sso #ssoblr

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hard--headed--woman · 3 months

Text

I briefly talked about it with someone here and it made me think so much that I had to make a post about it - why don't misandrist men get as much hate as misandrist women ?

They are men who think men are horrible and say it. Yet they do not receive the same amount of hate as a feminist saying "I hate men".

There's an example that I find interesting and that I thought I'd share : some decades ago, a very famous leftist french singer, Renaud, made a song that quickly became very popular and loved. It's called "Miss Maggie" and it basically says that men are trash and that women are superior. The thing is, absolutely everyone praises him for it and loves that song. I guess there are some conservatives and incels who hate it, but the vast majority of the country, men and women, loves it ; people say Renaud is amazing and a genius for writing it and that the song is wonderful. Here is a link if you want to listen to it :

(He also criticizes Margaret Tatcher in that song but I won't talk about it in this post because it's not the point).

Here are some lyrics (with the english translation) just so you understand what I'm talking about :

(Bourgeois women or whores

Who are often the very same

Normal women, stars or uglies

Females of all kinds, I love you

Even to the worst moron

I dedicate these few verses

Born of my disgust for men

And their warrior morality

Because no woman on the planet

Will ever be more stupid than her brother

Nor prouder nor more dishonest)

(Woman I love you because

When sport becomes war

There are no chicks, or very few

In the hordes of fans

Crazy fanatics

Drunk on hate and beer

Defying the morons in blue

Insulting the bastards in green)

(The atomic bomb

Didn't come from a female brain

And no woman has on her hands

The blood of Native Americans.

Palestinians and Armenians

Testify from their graves

That genocides are a male thing

Like SS, bullfighters

In this fucking humanity

Murderers are all brothers

Not a woman to compete)

(Woman I love you, above all, at last

For your weakness and for your eyes

When a man's only strength

Is his gun or his cock

And when the last hour comes

Hell will be full of morons

Playing soccer or war

Playing who pisses the farthest)

Everyone loves that song and Renaud didn't receive any hate for writing it. Now imagine if a woman had written it? Just imagine the amount of hate a female singer would receive if she wrote a song like this. That could ruin her carreer and I am not exaggerating.

Renaud is also known for saying other misandrist things. I remember watching an interview with him, in which he's said that "Women are always there to heal wounds, repair damage, get things done... Unfortunately, there are still too few of them in important positions where they can participate in decision-making", "The oldest form of discrimination is discrimination against women. They are the first group we decided to hate and oppress", "Politicians and religions don't want to let women be more than virgins or whores. They don't want to let them be human beings, women, fulfilled people, with a personality, who work...", "It's not long since women have had the right to vote in France. And what's more, when I see women voting for a man, it gives me the same feeling as if I saw a crocodile going to a leather shop of its own free will...".

And in the comments, absolutely everyone was praising him, calling him a king, an angel and what not. No one to call him names or to tell him horrible things. No one to act as if he's said the craziest thing ever, no one to act as if he committed a crime. Sure some people disagree and insult women, but there is not a lot of hatred against him. Again, a woman would have received a lot of hate if she had said things like that. Just read what men have to say about Delphine Seyrig criticizing the patriarchy and the "indifference of men".

The point of that post isn’t to say that Renaud is The Feminist Ally, that he's perfect and one of the good guys or whatever. I just want to point out that a man criticizing men, saying he hates them, calling out their behaviour (and even saying women are superior!) will never receive the same amount of hate as a woman barely saying "I hate men" or ever way "nicer" things. Sounds like everyone knows why we hate men and even agrees with us deep inside, and just hate when women speak up about it. Sounds like they don't have a problem with misandry but with women 🤷🏽‍♀️

#radblr #radical feminism #misandry #anti misandry #misandrist #proud misandrist #men are trash #radfem safe #radfem #radical feminist safe #radical feminists please touch #renaud #miss maggie #french music #Spotify

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cowboydisaster · 1 year

Text

The Fire In Your Eyes

part IV: colter

originally posted on 8 march 2023

pairing: Arthur Morgan x fem!reader

word count: 14k

summary: you and the others ascend into the mountains with the law hot on your tails. A nasty storm picks up, making matters worse for everyone. You're bed ridden and ill, trying to heal both your physical ailments and your mental ones.

a/n: this chapter is huge, and important! Firstly you all voted and decided that reader should have a nickname given by Arthur that all the gang members call her, and that comes up in this chapter. Plus we get some really good fluff between reader and Arthur. Thank you to margowritesthings for always rising up to the massive chapters I've been throwing at her.

warning: wounds, gore, mentions of past trauma and post traumatic stress

SERIES MASTERPOST

The wind whips through the air, chilling everyone to the point of numbness as you all ascend the mountains in hope of some form of sanctuary. John and Micah are still out scouting ahead, and Arthur’s now been sent out too, in search of a place to hole up. Everyone is hungry, frozen and afraid. Who knows how close the rest of the Pinkertons are, or if they were bold enough to follow you up into this hellstorm. You have no idea how many days you’ve been traveling, two or three? To be fair, it's been hard to keep track in your state.

Your back is resting against the wooden slats of the wagon, curled up to fend from the whipping blizzard. The canvas on the conestoga-style wagon provides little defense from the storm. With everything going on, the girls are huddled around you, keeping you covered in blankets while fighting your protests. Your skin is icy to the touch, but youre so hot. Cold sweat runs down your forehead, covering you in a sheen. Your eyes are red and sunken in as you shiver and groan. The sewn up shot in your thigh is swollen, red and oozing. It's infected, and if Grimshaw doesn’t get you some help soon… Well, you’ll be on the pile with Jenny and Davey.

You peel a blanket off of yourself, groaning, mind foggy from your body fighting to stop the infection. You’re so hot, it's torturous. Immediately, Tilly covers you back up with the blanket.

“Please- I'm so hot.” You moan, whimpering at the throbbing pain that is shooting down your entire left leg.

“I know, I do, but if you take this off you’ll freeze to death.” Tilly argues, and you know she’s right.

The wind is loud, but even through it you can hear Dutch yelling. He’s driving the wagon with Hosea, and both are praying for some shelter.

“Arthur! Any luck?” Dutch hollers over the wind, and you perk up at the familiar name. All the girls, wrapped in blankets and coats, huddling around Jack and you, glance in the direction of Dutch.

“I found a place where we can get some shelter. An old mining town, abandoned. It ain’t far. c’mon!” Arthur yells back before spurring Taima in the direction of your sanctuary. Everyone in the caravan lets out a breath, relieved at any kind of hope.

The wagon continues on while you fade in and out of consciousness, the fever too much for your body to handle at times. The closer you all creep towards the mining town, the more Grimshaw’s anxiety grows. She doesn’t know if you’re gonna make it much further, but by god she won’t let anything happen to you. They’ve lost too much. The wagon comes to a stop, and you blink your eyes open, watching as everyone files out of the wagon.

“Miss?”

It’s Dutch, he’s come around to the back of the wagon, extending a hand out to help the women and Jack get into a building. Despite your best efforts, you can’t bring yourself to move. Your muscles strain, but the pile of blankets is too heavy and you’re too weak.

“I can’t-” You whisper, pissed off that you’re incapable of handling your own at the minute. Asking for help isn’t exactly your specialty, but the cold sweat running down your forehead combined with your heavy, flushed and swollen eyelids prove enough that you’re unwell.

Dutch places his hand on the floor of the wagon, pushing himself up into the back. He peels the blankets away from you to find your once white shirt from however many days ago drenched in sweat and dried blood. You’re practically gasping for breath, panting in the frozen air, it doesn’t appear that you’re winning the battle against your body.

“Oh, miss… Here, let’s get you down.” Dutch whispers before taking your arms and helping you to climb down. It hurts like hell, climbing out of the wagon. Every muscle in your body twitches and aches, and the wound in your thigh throbs and oozes, it’s awful. Eventually, with Dutch’s help, you manage to stand in the calf-deep snow. He supports all of your weight, which you’re begrudgingly thankful for. Truthfully, he’s the last person you want help from right now, but without it, you’d be dead in the snow already. Slowly, you both shuffle through the damp, icy snow, trying to ignore the way it soaks your pants and freezes onto your eyelashes. You can see, foggily, the lantern lights of other gang members that are filing into a large, abandoned wooden building. You whimper at the idea of shelter, shuddering and tripping as the frozen air wars with your fever.

“Almost there..” Dutch whispers to you before yelling towards the building, “Miss Grimshaw, Mister Pearson! We need help!”

Dutch’s arm is tight around your waist, and the other holds a lantern in the air as he guides you through the door of the building. You’re struggling to stay awake, vision blurring as Dutch guides you to an old, makeshift cot off the main room. The warmth is immediate. There's no fire in the keeper yet, but the protection from the wind alone is noticeable. You’re not sure if you should be thankful for the shelter, or upset that the warmth worsens your fever. A few people rush over, standing around you as he lays you down.

“I am not losing anyone else! You get her patched up. I don't care what it takes!” Dutch hollers, pointing to you for emphasis as he glances at the miserable, frozen faces around the room.

You hear the slip of a knife, the shred of denim as Susan cuts away the patch of denim from your thigh to get a better view. She makes a noise of distaste, one that worries you. The skin around your stitches is red, and hot to the touch, with pus leaking from the suture holes. You arch your back against the wooden cot, gritting your teeth and groaning as she prods at your leg.

“We’re gonna have to redo these, I'm afraid, and you need dressings for this once I'm done. Abigail! Bandages!” Grimshaw orders around. You nod, a tear slipping down your cheek.

“Am I- You think I’m gonna be alright, or…?” Your voice is barely audible, like a breath on the wind. You’re not ready to die, not before you’ve even lived.

“You’re gonna be just fine.” Grimshaw says with a tight lipped smile, grabbing Strauss’ medical kit once again. She’s lying, both for her sake and your own. She has no idea if you’ll pull through this. Infections are bad, and in these conditions, with no supplies? Well, your chances aren’t good. Jack is quietly crying in the corner, wrapped up in his momma’s arms, and next to his cries you hear large boots thumping against the wood, someone has entered the building. The footfalls grow quicker, rushing into a light jog approaching you. You force your eyelids to part, providing a thin view.

“Shit, Grimshaw? What’s going on?! She okay?!” Arthur growls, skidding to his knees at your bedside to help. He’s covered in snow, cheeks bright pink from wind whip, and his black hat is covered in a thick white dusting of ice. He’s suddenly more awake than he’s been for the last three or so days, and despite his lack of sleep, there is nothing but clarity and fear on his face when he sees the state you’re in. You look so small on the bed, so frail.

“I’m fine, Arthur.” You whisper, hand snaking down the mattress to rest on top of Arthur’s. Your lie doesn’t faze him at all, and he runs his eyes down your hip and thigh to where Grimshaw is cutting open your stitches, squeezing your hand as he does. Your nose wrinkles at the pressure and pull of Grimmshaw’s hands on your thigh.

“Mr. Morgan, she needs medicine and she needs it now. Got a bad infection. I’m afraid she can’t wait much longer.” Grimshaw states, looking up to your pale, sickly face. Arthur rests the back of his hand against your forehead, and you grimace, head pounding from everything that's going on.

“You’re burnin’ up real bad,” Arthur’s stomach turns with anxiety as he glances between your eyes and Grimshaw’s hands, “I’ll find some medicine. I will.” He growls, as if making himself a promise.

You know he may not be able to keep it. It took days to find this place, and he won’t make it far in the storm. John and Micah haven’t returned yet, and the chances of him finding medicine is low. If he leaves now, he might as well sign his death certificate along with yours.

“No- please don’t go out there, Arthur. The storms too bad.” You protest, hanging onto Arthur’s hand with every bit of strength you have in you, little as it may be. Arthur squeezes your hand, kneeling down to look into your eyes.

“I'm not just gonna sit around and watch you die. I'm goin’ to find you medicine.” There’s no room for debate in Arthur’s eyes. Begrudgingly, you nod your head, terrified that your illness is going to get more people killed. Once you nod, he leaves go of your hand. You wince, gripping the corner of the cot till your knuckles turn white as Grimshaw pulls the ruined sutures out of your infected thigh.

“I’m going too. Anywhere that has medicine could have food or supplies too. And maybe we’ll run into John or Micah on the road. Who knows where they are in this storm, I just hope they’re okay.” Dutch says, cracking his knuckles through his thick black gloves as he steps over to you.

You don’t try to protest as they head out the door, and you're thankful for Grimshaw’s stitching, as the pain keeps your mind off the fact that four of the gang members are out in the storm of the century, two are buried outside, and two are missing.

—

You drift in and out of sleep, eyes fluttering open and closed as the girls take shifts holding cool rags over your forehead, helping you sip cool water and changing your bandages. You have no idea how long you’re out, but at some point you wake up, once again surrounded by the frozen wind.

“W-what?” You whimper, eyelashes fluttering in the snow as you attempt to come to your senses, despite the pain that radiates through your entire body, and the fog that clouds your mind. There's a solid strength under your knees and your neck that you can't place. But it's warm, soft and strong. The chilly wind feels ethereal, and you want to cover yourself in its blissful coolness that soothes the fire blazing through your body.

“Takin’ you to your cabin. Miss Grimshaw got it fixed up. There's a real bed in there, it’s warmer, be better for you to heal.” A familiar, gruff, voice says. Despite the freezing, howling wind, there is a warmth against your side, radiating and wrapping around you. You want to push away from the heat, already too hot from your fever, but as you weakly pull away it only wraps around you tighter. You're too weak to fully protest, fighting to stay awake as your head becomes light and your senses begin to slip away to darkness again. You succumb to the blackness, and the howling, screaming wind grows further away as you lose yourself to sleep once again.

—

A cold, red hand shakes your shoulder lightly, rousing you a little as you groan.

"Hey… hey can you sit up a little for me? It's Arthur."

You squint, eyes fluttering open once again. Your surroundings are unfamiliar, a wooden cabin similar to the one you were in previously, but this one is smaller, cozier. You're laying in a real bed now, a decent sized one, with a thick pillow under your head and a heap of faded serape blankets pulled up over your shoulders.

"Mmmm.." You moan, wincing as your head pounds and your skin boils with a heat that you can't seem to shake. Your hair is soaked through with sweat, and your clothes cling uncomfortably around your body in their wet state. The hand on your shoulder shakes you a little harder now, coaxing you to sit up.

"I- I don't feel good, Arthur." You whimper, feeling unusually weak and vulnerable, but knowing you're not strong enough to do anything about it, "God, everything hurts and I'm so hot." You whisper, tears forming in your eyes at the unbridled misery that you're feeling. Every bone in your body aches, your muscles twitch and cramp from both a lack of food and the infection and it's miserable.

"I know… I know, here. I'll make it better, I'll make it go away, just please- sit up for me, alright?" Arthur pleads with you.

You nod, doing your best to sit up, wincing at the pain it sends through your body. Arthur helps you, placing his hand on your back to help you adjust as you lean up a little and rest your head against the old cracked headboard.

"Good girl… real good. Here." You finally manage to open your eyes and see Arthur holding a little metal cup up to your lips. It's the one that he keeps in his satchel for coffee, but the smell that's arising from the little silver cup is god awful. You're too weak to fight Arthur's cold hand as he presses the metal cup to your lips, tilting it so that the majority of the liquid slides down your throat. You cough lightly, as some of the medicine travels down the wrong pipe, and Arthur uses his thumb to wipe away the tonic that has dribbled down your chin. After a few coughs, and a whimper of misery, the tonic is all down.

"You got me medicine…" You mumble, partially a question and partially a statement. You glance up to Arthur with red, bloodshot eyes and see the worry that lines his face.

"Course I did. I told you I would." Arthur whispers back, placing the metal cup onto the dusty wooden floor. He's kneeling on the hard floor, knees digging uncomfortably into the wood. There's no chairs in the room, but he's not leaving you here alone.

"Scooch over, I'm comin in. Floors tearin' up these old knees." Arthur chuckles, helping you adjust closer to the wall under the heavy mass of blankets. After he's situated you, leaving just enough space for him to squeeze in, he sits down on the bed. He doesn't bother to kick his boots off, resting his feet up on the lower side of the mattress.

"There." He whispers, looking after you with concern, although he's less worried now that you've managed to drink down some tonic.

Your eyes have slipped closed once again, but you aren't sleeping, just resting as your fever has you by the neck. Arthur's body is solid beside you, gentlemanly of course. He brings his black hat down over his eyes in hopes of getting some sleep.

It only takes a few seconds for you both to succumb to sleep. For Arthur, it's the first he's gotten in days. And for you? All you've done is sleep. You'd be irritated with yourself if you weren't too sick to care. Quiet snores and slow breaths pass through the room as the two of you catch up on sleep and heal beside another.

Many things begin to change tonight, shifting the course as they do. The snow turns from a heavy downpour of ice, carried by the raging wind, to a slow sprinkling of fat, light snowflakes. They land on the roof, melting together and dripping chilly water down through the cracks until they splash against the wooden floor just feet away from you and Arthur. The snow and ice outside begins to melt away, just a bit, but it's an improvement from the blizzard.

Your fever breaks, and the red hot blaze that was dragging you closer to the brink of death with its fiery grasps turns to an even, cool temperature. The tonic spreads through your veins, starting the process of mending your leg back together. There will be a scar, a constant reminder of what happened here, but gone will be the pain. As the fever breaks, your sleeping body becomes more aware of the cold, subconsciously wrapping the blankets tighter around your small frame, begging the inanimate comforter to provide you with warmth that it doesn't hold.

And the last change; the one between you and Arthur. Something settles between you two, like two magnets feeling the first waves of force pulling them together. There's something there. There's hope with Arthur, there's friendship and compassion, companionship, and something more, you both just have to find it.

Your eyes flicker back and forth beneath their lids as you sleep, mind lost on a world of stars and flowers. The smell of fresh lilies and wildflowers surround you as you laugh, biting into fresh strawberries under the moon in a field of tall grass. The stars shine so brightly that you're sure they could fall out of the sky and land in your lap. The night is young, the world is beautiful. It's familiar, it's safe and it's good.

…and then you wake up.

Gone are the lillies, the warm night and the breeze. They are replaced by a cold cabin, by a chilly wind that howls outside and water that drips down from the ceiling. You roll onto your back, looking up to see Arthur still beside you. His hat is still resting over his eyes and nose, protecting him from any distractions that may prevent sleep. Your eyes linger on him for just a moment longer, taking note of the slow, rhythmic rise and fall of his broad shoulders, and his beard that has grown a bit since you've fled Blackwater. You sigh, feeling the residual ache in your thigh. Reaching down, you lift the blankets to peek at the wound. You peel back your bandage some, wincing as you assess the damage.

The red ring around it has gone away, and Grimshaw did a nice job on her stitch work. It no longer oozes, but it's still a messy wound. You sigh out of frustration, fixing the bandage and pulling the blankets back over yourself. With the fever now gone, you've gone from one extreme to the other, shifting from an unbearable heat to a terrible chill, and you can't shake it. After a few moments of your teeth chattering, the solid mass of a man beside you begins to stir.

"You alright over there?" Arthur asks, ever the light sleeper. His voice is deep and gravelly from sleep as he takes his hat off of his eyes and places it onto the floor below. He notices your teeth clacking together, and the light shake of your shoulders as you curl into yourself under the blankets.

"Y-yeah, fevers c-comin' down is all." You stutter, trying to restrain your jaw from shaking in the cold night.

Arthur leans in towards you to press the back of his hand over your forehead. His hand is so warm, and you lean into his touch, chasing after the heat that never seems to leave his body. He assesses that your fever is gone, and his worry shifts from you dying of infection to you dying of hypothermia. Your skin is like ice as you shiver and writhe under the blankets, searching for any kind of warmth you can grasp onto.

"Shit, you're freezin'. C'mere."

Arthur snakes his hands under the blankets, pulling you into the crook of his side so that you're partially laying against him, and partially on top of him. Immediately, his body heat wraps around you, as his hands run up and down your arms to create warmth. You shudder, leaning into him as much as possible to chase after the ever giving fountain of warmth that he gives off.

"If I'm makin' you uncomfortable, just say the word and I'll move. Just don't want you freezin' is all." Arthur whispers. He tells himself that this is solely to warm you up, that he would do this for any of the girls. But as much as he tries to convince himself, he knows it's a lie. The feeling of your small, cold hands gripping onto his shirt is one he never wants to forget. Having you so close, he knows he'll likely never get this chance again and he wants to soak up every moment.

"No- no, this is nice." You whisper against him, truthfully. He pulls the blankets over you both, and you're surrounded by his scent under the confines of the blanket. You focus on keeping warm, on getting better, trying not to think about being pressed this close to Arthur. Already you can feel his body defrosting your own, melting away the ice that resides in your fingertips and the chill that shivers up your spine.

You want to distract yourself, to get away from this vulnerable feeling because it's dangerous. You think about what happened with Lenny and Jenny, what happened to the good people who let their guards down and what they lost. You won't allow yourself this, and as soon as you're warm enough, you plan to move back to your side of the bed. He's only in here because there's not enough space in the other cabins anyways, you lie to yourself.

Desperate for a distraction, you think of a topic to bring up. Arthur's hand running up and down your back is far too consuming and you have to find something else to focus on.

"What happened while you were off lookin' for medicine anyway? You were gone a long while." You whisper against his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heart beating against your ear. It's beating a bit quick, and you try not to think about why that is.

"Well we ran into Micah. He got separated from John and we still haven't found him…" Arthur pauses for a moment, concern tracing his words although he would never admit to worrying over his bastard little brother, "We found a big farm up north from here. Seemed like a good place to look but it was overrun with O'driscolls. They started threatenin' us so we took em out and-"

You interject Arthur with a furrow in your brows, confused by the mention of a name you haven't heard before.

"O'driscolls?" You ask, thinking back and deducting that you've not heard of these folks before.

"Guess you ain't been with us long enough to run into them yet -well we've been out further west than them for a while too- They're another gang, big bunch of cruel bastards run by Colm O'driscoll. He and Dutch go way back in a proper blood feud. Bad business…" Arthur says the last line with a particularly dark edge, and you make a note to ask about it at some point in the future. A breeze shakes the little cabin, and you burrow in tighter against Arthur, shivering lightly.

"They had a woman holed up in the basement, it was her and her husband's house. I can't imagine what they did to her. We found her husband shot outside, and then Micah got the goddamn house burned down. It was a right mess." Arthur says quietly, lightly shaking his head as if recounting the day with distaste. You rest your chin on his chest, looking up to see the remorse on his face, knowing he is punishing himself for an act he's not responsible for.

"And the woman…? What happened to her?" You inquire, fearing the worst for this girl. If the O'driscolls are as big and nasty a group as Arthur described, then you can only hope that she's okay.

"We brought her back with us, just till she gets on her feet again… y'know Dutch weren't too happy about finding O'driscolls up in these parts. He wants to hit them first thing in the morning."

You nod, resting your head back on Arthur's chest, glancing up through the cracks of the roof to get an estimate for the time. Your watch, the one you stole off of your current pillow and personal heater, was abandoned in Blackwater. The moon filters through the broken down roof, signaling that it's very early in the morning. You sigh, tracing the moonlight that trickles through until you see a few flickers of light. It's the stars, shining brightly now that the fog of a storm has passed. Arthur is seemingly eyeing them as well, as he speaks.

"Y’know you're like my little star." Arthur whispers, voice gravelly against your ear. You crane your neck to look up at him, pulling your eyebrows together. He doesn't look down to you, feeling too vulnerable to make eye contact.

"Everything that's goin' on, all the chaos, and you're still burnin'." His thumb rubs slow circles on your back as he talks.

"Shinin', bright, beautiful, but'll burn your ass faster than you can blink." Arthur chuckles, not even realizing what he's just said until he feels your breath hitch against his neck. You move your eyes away from the stars to rest your chin on his chest, looking up to him once more.

"You think I'm beautiful…?" You whisper, trying to hide your smile at Arthur's flustered state. His cheeks turn pink and his jaw falls slack as he stutters and avoids your eyes.

"I- I didn't mean nothin' by it, I was just- didn't mean to say- I shouldn't have said that. I'm sorry-" Arthur rambles, cursing his damn big mouth and his thoughts for getting him in this situation that he's digging himself deeper into. You laugh at Arthur's quick embarrassment and self reprimandation. You move to lay on your back so you can better see the stars, still nuzzled tightly against Arthur, with his arm under your head, and his thumb tracing back and forth over your shoulder.

"Y'know my momma used to call me Star before she passed." You whisper, pushing down the emotions as you think of your sweet mother and her all too early fate.

Arthur squeezes you just a bit tighter in a show of comfort when he hears your sniffle. He lost his momma at a young age too. No matter how old you get, or how long it's been, the ache is still there.

"Well I think it's a fittin' nickname for you, considerin' how much time you spend lookin' at em." Arthur smiles, glancing between you lying beside him, cuddled into the crook of his arm, and the twinkling stars that are peeking through the abandoned cabin's splintered roof.

"Star… I think that's gonna stick." Arthur adds, adjusting himself a little and crossing an ankle over the other at the bottom of the bed.

"God Arthur, isn't it just beautiful?" You whisper, awestruck by the stunning, shimmering lights in the sky. They peek down through the cabin's cracks, causing your eyes to fill with them and sparkle as well.

"So beautiful…" Arthur whispers, but his eyes are not looking up. No, Arthur's eyes are fixated on you at his side, until he forces them to pull away on account of decency. He pulls you closer to him, savoring every second and cursing himself for being selfish enough to allow himself this moment.

"You warmer now? Comfortable?" He whispers, so close that you can feel his warm breath on your ear. You try to convince yourself that this is normal, that snuggling tightly in a bed with your best friend is normal.

"Toasty warm, mister." You reply, looking away from the stars to lay back on Arthur's chest. He holds his hand out in the air, waiting for you to situate yourself before resting it on your back, swallowing thickly at your actions.

"Try to get some sleep." He says. It takes only minutes for you to slip into slumber. Arthur on the other hand? He doesn't sleep the rest of the night.

—

"Honey?" A voice calls to you through your sleep. It's far away, beckoning you to join the realm of the living as you come to.

"Hmm?" You respond, too tired to form a coherent answer.

"I brought you some bandages, figure those are gonna need to be switched by tonight."

It's Abigail, and once you realize it's her, you finally perk up. She's standing beside your bed, placing a little roll of fresh bandages on the broken bedside table. You watch her hand release the roll, and notice the little fluttering paper beside it that is being held down by a glass bottle of tonic.

Arthur is already gone, he's been swept away by Dutch to go raid the O'driscolls. It's a foolish move. The gang is barely on its feet. The miniscule supply of food that had been brought from Blackwater has already dwindled, and while people here starve and freeze to death, Dutch is off with the strongest boys on a merry chase. When Arthur had woken up, only a few hours after he'd held you back to sleep, he had brushed a hair out of your face, pulled the blankets up for you, tucked you in and left you a note on the table. Unfortunately for you, when Arthur left he also took his warmth with him.

"Abigail? Could you help me get to the main cabin? It's mighty cold in here and I'm afraid my leg ain't lettin' me put much weight on it."

Abigail turns back to you, smiling.

"Course', c'mere."

She takes your hands, helping to pull you up to your feet. The weight on your leg aches something fierce, but at least the fever is gone.

You step towards the little table, eyeing the paper and tonic. You recognize the paper, the texture and torn edges tell you that Arthur has ripped it out of his journal, scribbling to you with his beloved charcoal.

Star, I've gone after these O'driscolls with some of the boys, should be back by nightfall. Drink the rest of this tonic to keep from getting sick again- Arthur

You pick up the delicate paper, smiling at Arthur's nickname for you. Folding it, you place it in your pocket before reaching for the medicine.

"Star?" Abigail questions, peeking over your shoulder, curious of the note you've been left.

"Yeah, little nickname Arthur came up with. Well, my momma used to call me Star too. Been a nickname since I was a girl, but I haven't heard it in awhile. It's nice." You explain, grimacing before you drink down the few swigs of tonic that are still left in the dark glass bottle.

The note stays tucked in your pocket as Abigail tosses your arm around her shoulders so that she can take some weight off your leg.

"Arthur told me about John last night… I can't imagine what you must be goin' through. I'm sorry Abigail. John is tough though, he'll be okay and we will find him."

Abigail is quiet, nodding her head lightly with a slight wobble to her lip.

"I hope so, Jack would be- what would he do without John?"

You know she's projecting a bit, as Jack is surely not the only one who would be lost without John. There's tension in Abigail and Johns relationship, something likely happened before you joined the gang, but it doesn't change that Abigail loves him. No, love isn't conditional like that.

That's all that is said, all that needs to be said as Abigail helps you to limp outside. Your leg is getting a little stronger but it still hurts like a son of a bitch to fully support yourself, something you'll have to get used to sooner or later because you'll be damned if you have to be helped along everywhere.

The snow is still thick on the ground, but the heavy downpour of snow and ice has stopped almost completely. Instead, the sun shines, finally having escaped the confines of the clouds. Eventually, after some struggling, you both make it to the main cabin where most of the gang is residing.

When you push the door open, the relief is immediate. It's much warmer inside, and you notice that someone already has a fire going in the fireplace.

"Just set me down over here, I'll be fine." You whisper to Abigail, nodding towards an empty bench on the left side of the wall. She gets you situated down on the bench, checking that you're comfortable before heading over towards Jack.

It's a boring day, and you're frustrated on account of your uselessness. Soft cries can be heard throughout the cabin, of friends and lovers who have lost their other halves. You crane your neck to glance out the broken window, sighing and wincing at the sight of two freshly dug graves that are marked with wooden crosses. The one closer to you, separated only by the cold, foggy glass, is marked with a 'J'. You've been repressing the emotion, repressing the memory, not allowing yourself to feel or to grieve. For just a moment, your mask slips down and a pain stabs your heart from the loss that you endured just a few days ago. But quickly you pull yourself together, wiping away the unshed tears and forcing yourself to bottle up like you always do.

You need a distraction, a vent to keep your mind busy so that it can't pull you down into the dark thoughts that threaten to eat you alive. You've been sitting here, not busy for far too long and it's starting to eat away at you, slowly creeping into your mind. You need to do something.

Charles enters the cabin with a pail filled with chunks of meat, and you stand up, putting most of the weight on your right leg as you walk over to him. He sets the pail on a wooden table off the center of the room, next to a decent sized stove.

"Charles, let me." You say, wiping your hands on your coat before taking in the ingredients in front of you. The pail of meat is fresh, likely just butchered. It appears to be venison, and it'll make a nice, gamey stew.

He rests against the table, eyeing you up and down quickly before cocking his head, as if unsure.

“You sure it's good for you to be standing for so long? Why don’t you go sit, its no trouble for me to-” Charles starts to rebuttal before you interrupt him.

“Please- all I've done since we got here is sit, and I need to do somethin’, I need to keep busy. What's good for me isn't sittin’ down and thinkin’ over all the shit that just happened.” You plead. There is understanding in Charles’ eyes, he knows exactly how you feel. Your eyes then travel to his hand, and you remember that he’d been hurt too. You’d seen the burn on his hand when he and Jenny carried Davey out of the boat. Now it's wrapped in clean gauze, pale against his skin.

“Sides’, you’re hurt too. What happened to your hand? Looked like a burn when I saw you on the boat...” You whisper, taking the meat out of the bucket and putting it into a pot, even though Charles never explicitly told you that it was okay for you to take over.

Out of reflex he stretches his hand a little, putting some pressure on the throbbing pain.

“When that oil barrel got shot I was standing too close, had my hand on a metal rail when everything went up in flames, burned me pretty good, but I’ll be fine.” Charles explains, glancing towards the sound of whimpering sobs. You follow his gaze to a woman you’ve never seen before, presumably Mrs. Adler. She’s wearing nothing but a chemise and a coat, her blonde hair is dirty and her freckled face is red and puffy from her cries that haven’t ceased since arriving. Slowly, you bring your eyes back to Charles, checking inside the stove to make sure the fire was still lit and hot. You poke the burning coals and wood with an iron prod that was sitting beside the stove.

“Charles when I went in there… everyone was-” You pause, looking around at all the miserable faces in the room, pausing on Jack and deciding to choose your words carefully, “I saw all the people, what the hell happened?” You ask, thinking back to the passengers on the floor, dead, and the ones cowering in the corner. Charles purses his lips as you take the pail of water that he’d brought in earlier and pour it into the pot. Steam rises from the simmering pot, along with the first mouth watering scents of real food.

“Dutch, it's like he lost his mind in there. Once the boat caught on fire, he was gone, he started yelling, he shot a girl in a bad way. I haven’t been with him long but… it was unlike him.” Charles whispers, distaste coloring his face, and a scowl that matches your own. You nod, thinking over the hell that has been the last few weeks. Nothing can really be said about it, what is there to say? The silence is comfortable as you stir the pot.

“Thank you, Charles. I’ve got this from here, why don’t you go rest, you’ve done plenty.” You thank him, and he dips his head lightly, resting his hand on your shoulder as he steps past you.

The meat simmers in the pot, and the water begins to boil lightly. Amongst your ingredients on the table are a carrot, salted offal, two apples, an onion, rosemary, thyme and a whole lotta rum. It's apparent that Pearson’s priorities were not with grabbing the gang food, but rather fueling his own addictions. You sigh, taking the carrot and pulling your knife out of its sheath. You chop it into slices and add it to the pot, just as you do with the onion and herbs. It's a simple stew, but it's still going to be delicious. The savory aroma begins to fill the room, and soon the hungry bellies of the gang begin to rumble.

After some more stirring, and some additions of more herbs thrown into the pot, you deem the stew done. There are enough metal bowls on the table for everyone in the room, and you fill them almost halfway. As much as you’d like to hand everyone a full bowl, there isn’t enough and you need to ration it. The boys will be hungry when they get back, and you make sure there is enough for everyone.

“Alright everyone, stews ready!” You holler, wiping your hands on your coat once more and watching as a huddle of cold faces light up at the mention of warm food.

Karen and Tilly come up together, arms linked to stay warm. Both are swaddled in coats, and Tilly has a scarf wrapped over her head to protect her ears.

“It smells so good, this’ll be the first meal any of us have eaten since Blackwater.” Tilly sighs, excited and hungry. Karen nods, taking two bowls, one for her and one for Mary-beth who is reading on a bench by the door.

“Thanks for cooking, Star!” Marybeth giggles from across the room and your jaw drops with a chuckle.

“Y'know gossip spreads around this place faster than the goddamn plague.” You laugh. Apparently, Abigail had told the girls about your note from Arthur, and the nickname that he had signed onto the top of the paper.

You sigh, shaking your head and handing out stew bowls to the people waiting in line. You thank Grimshaw for all her help with her leg as you hand her a bowl. Reverend Swanson, who is mostly unfamiliar to you, mentions that he’d expected you to have coins on your eyes when he’d seen you coming out of the wagon. Miss O’shea takes a bowl with a wicked scowl on her face, and Hosea thanks you, wishing you well with your leg before taking his bowl and resigning back to his cabin. Everyone who is there comes up, except for Abigail because Jack is sleeping in her lap.

Once everyone has gone through you turn around and see that Mrs. Adler hasn’t gotten a bowl. You bite your lip, toying with it while deciding to take some to her. Maybe she’ll want nothing to do with you. Maybe she’ll see your place in this gang as no different than the O’driscolls who took everything from her. But you won’t know until you try. Throwing caution to the wind, to take a bowl in hand and carry it over towards her. Her knees are brought up to her chest, and her arms are wrapped around them as she sobs into herself. Once you are in front of her, you hesitate. She hasn’t noticed you in front of her yet.

“Mrs? Do you- Are you hungry…?” You ask, extending the bowl of stew towards her.

Her head snaps up at you, and the glare she sends your way is ice cold.

“Could you eat if you were in my situation?” She hisses with a thick Texan accent. You nod your head, pursing your lips as you begin to turn on your heels to head back to the table.

“Take that as a no then…” You mumble under your breath. You only make it a step away before she calls out to you, gripping your wrist and pulling you lightly so that you face her again.

“I, wait- Im sorry.” She says, feeling regret from pushing you away so rudely just moments ago.

“Please, sit.” The woman offers, gesturing towards the open area on the bench next to her. You extend the stew out to her, and this time she smiles before you sit next to her. You wince as it pulls at your healing thigh, but the pain is already getting better. Mrs. Adler notices, and then thinks back to when the man that had brought her in, Arthur, had asked for medicine from her cabinet.

“You were sick when I got here right?” She asks, eyebrows pulling together slightly as she takes a bite of the stew. Her eyes slip closed for a second as she relishes the flavor. Instinctually, you run your hand down to your thigh, tracing over the bandaged wound.

“Bullet to the leg, I’m afraid… Nasty business.” You all but whisper, once again fighting your memory in an attempt to repress them. Your eyes flicker around the room, and for the first time in a while you see a few smiles. The food has brought some hope.

“Yeah. I'm glad to see you back on your feet then. I… I wasn’t doin’ so well last night. Couldn’t hear much other than my own cryin’, but from what I did hear, you weren’t doing so hot either.”

You’re at a loss for words, not sure whether or not to respond on the matter of her grieving her husband. After a little debating in your head, you decide on the former. If something happened to the love of your life you would probably want to talk about it.

“Mrs. Adler-” You start, but she holds her hand up quickly and interjects.

“Please, call me Sadie.”

“Sadie, I’m sorry for what they’ve done to you. I know how it feels to have someone you love taken from you for nothing other than selfish greed.” You offer, thinking about your Pa. A few tears form in your eyes as you think about him. He was a bastard towards the end of his all too short life, but he was still your Papa.

She smiles, seemingly remembering something, but it falters, and forms into a deep frown with tears rimming her eyes. Watching Sadie remember her husband is like the sun being driven out by a thunderstorm. The good memories flash over her face for a moment before she realizes that they will never be anything but memories. There is no chance for making new ones now.

“I- we…” Sadie starts, tears dripping silently down her cheeks, falling into her bowl of stew. She can’t find the words to express her heartache, or her gratitude towards you. But how could she? How can one put emotions so vast and contrasting into words?

“Jake and I, our farm-” She starts again, unable to put her grief into words. You place your hand on her knee, and she stops to look up at you.

“Hey, it's alright. Don't gotta talk about it now, just eat somethin, yeah?” You whisper, hoping that you haven’t made her feel worse. She looks up at you with a nod, and a sincerity.

“Thank you. You’re the first person who's actually talked to me since I got here. But I guess what could people even say…?” Sadie thanks you, taking another bite of stew.

“It’s no problem at all, Sadie.” You go to stand, but stop when she speaks once again, embarrassed that she didn’t ask your name.

“I didn’t catch your name.” She says, and you noticed the tears have stopped trailing down her cheeks.

“Well,” you chuckle, and tell her your real name, “but the new running nickname is Star, so why don’t you just call me that?”

“Thank you, Star…” Sadie offers sincerely, before letting you go. You smile at her once more before heading back to the table. Jack is still asleep, and you want to get some soup to Abigail. She hasn’t eaten either, but isn’t going to move the poor kid. He’s so young, too young to be going through all this. You pity Abigail, and how hard it must be for her to explain to her son what's going on.

Just as you go to grab the bowl off the table, a hand gently touches your elbow. You turn to see who it may be, needing some food or to give you an empty bowl. To your surprise the person in front of you is Lenny. Your jaw falls slack a little, and your eyes start to water before you stop them. You’ve been avoiding him, because what can you even say?

“Lenny…” You whisper, and there is so much pity and heartbreak in your voice that it sounds foreign to your ears.

He smiles at you, as if everything is going to be okay before he pulls you a little aside, away from the ears of others. It’s then that you see the unkempt look about him, his red eyes and the haunting grief that hasn’t left him since those few days ago.

“You were a good friend to Jenny… and I thank you for that.” Lenny says, glistening tears in his eyes that match your own. You hastily wipe them away, before glancing across the room, out the window to the fresh grave that is haunting you. You haven’t allowed yourself to feel it, to grieve it. You only knew Jenny a short time but in that time she was your friend and she’s gone. It took just a half-second for her life to be erased. Just a moment. If the shot had been off by a foot it would be you in that grave instead of her, and you wonder if it would be better off that way.

“She told me about your plans, about going to Tumbleweed. Lenny, I’m so sorry.” You whimper, asking yourself if Jenny’s death is your fault. They should be in Tumbleweed getting married by now. But Lenny is here with you, with tears in his eyes and a broken heart, and Jenny is buried outside.

“She- that never should have happened.” You pause, thinking over Jenny’s dying wish that she had whispered to you with the last breath of air that ever left her lungs.

“Jenny asked me to tell her how much she loves you… I was there with her, the whole time until she- until she…” You can’t bring yourself to finish the sentence, but Lenny understands, nodding with a smile that holds so much pain.

“I thank you for that, for staying with her. We dont get many chances for love in this life. Im glad for the time we spent together. God I miss her so much already, my sweet Jenny…” Lenny mutters, before pulling you into a hug. He’s so young, just barely an adult, and he’s already lost so much. The grief in the room is almost unbearable. Everyone has lost something, and yet you're the only one who won’t allow yourself to feel. Every time the emotion bubbles up, you stomp it back down. Lenny’s arms are tight around you in a show of friendship and heartache before he pulls away.

“Thanks for all you did for her, even in the end.”

“She would have done the same for me.” You smile, although there is no joy behind it.

“I'm sure she would have, miss.” Lenny adds before tipping his head to you and walking out of the room back to his cabin.

As soon as the door swings back into place, and Lenny’s figure disappears behind it, you let out a breath that you didn’t know you were holding. A few tears and one quiet sob escape from you, but you quickly put yourself back together, wiping away your tears and avoiding the window that gives view to her grave. Just as you’ve finished collecting yourself, a little hand tugs on the bottom of your coat. When you look down, slightly startled, you see little Jack, cheeks pink from the cold as he looks up to you with tired eyes, despite the sleep he's gotten. He tugs on your coat until you give him your full attention.

“Are you okay? When I was with Mama I saw you crying. Is Lenny okay too?” Jack says, his little high pitched voice a light in the dark. You kneel down onto the ground beside him, ignoring your thigh, and once you're on the ground, he holds on to the lapels of your coat. His little chubby features are so worried. Jack’s too sweet for this life, too innocent.

“Yes, we’re just fine, little mister, I promise.” You chuckle, looking into Jack’s sparkling eyes that haven’t yet lost their childlike wonder.

“I was meaning to ask since you woke up, you hungry?” You ask, stretching from the ground to grab a bowl of stew from the table at your back. Jack lights up, looking forwards to his first meal in days.

“Oh yes, please! My tummy has been growling since we got here.”

You smile, handing him the bowl of stew and leaning your back against the wooden wall, still sitting on the floor. Much to your surprise, Jack settles himself right in your lap, scarfing down the soup as politely as he can. You tense for a moment, not expecting him to have sat in your lap. But after a few seconds you relax, resting back against the wall to let him be comforted, the poor boy just wants to be coddled, which is understandable.

“You are a very good cook! Better than Mister Pearson!” Jack says, excitedly. His bowl is almost half gone as he uses his sleeve to wipe away the broth dripping down his lip.

“Well thank you, Jack. Maybe I'll have to cook more often.” You respond. You enjoyed cooking for the gang, even though it's quite different from your usual line of work.

“Oh, please do!”

“Can I call you my aunt?” Jack blurts out, setting his empty bowl on the floor. Abigail overhears her sometimes overbearing son and chuckles knowingly.

“Uh, I- what?” You stutter, at a loss for words. Of everything he could have said, you didn’t expect him to say that.

“Well there's Uncle Dutch, Uncle Hosea and Uncle Arthur. I have aunt Tilly and aunt Karen… so are you my aunt now too? I asked if I could call Micah my uncle, but papa got mad…” Jack whispers, looking up to you with anticipation for your answer. With a little tap to his cherry red nose you respond.

“Well of course I’ll be your aunt, silly.” You smile at the pure joy radiating from Jack as he squeezes you into the tightest hug his little arms can manage.

“Okay so you’re my aunt Star!” He yells out, and your jaw drops with a laugh.

“You too? Has everyone picked this nickname up now?” You chuckle, surprised.

“Sure have!” Jack responds, cuddling back down into your lap.

—

A few hours later you wake up to yelling. You startle awake, gasping and out of instinct you pull your knife out before your eyes are even fully open. It's a habit you’re working on stopping. When you feel that unfamiliar weight in your lap, you pause to realize Jack is still sitting on you, nuzzled into your coat. He’s still asleep, and by the dark night outside, you presume he won’t be waking up soon.

“Abigail?” You whisper, not wanting to wake up the boy.

“I can take him now. Thank you. I didn’t wanna wake you either.” Abigail smiles, coming over from her makeshift bed on a bench. The yelling outside ceases for a moment before it continues again, but it's muffled. Abigail’s eyebrows pull together in worry before she gently picks up her sleeping boy and carries him over to his spot. She settles him down, and you move to stand but the ache in your leg has grown tenfold and is stiff as a board.

“Goddamnit.” You curse, realizing that you’d neglected to take the tonic that Arthur had left you that morning, and had spent all day walking on the bad leg. The lack of medicine combined with the sudden use has swollen your leg up and made it unbearable to put weight on.

Simply put, you can’t get up.

Anxiety suffocates you for a moment as you feel vulnerable and stuck. And yet you’re too proud to ask for help. You desperately want to investigate the noise outside, but you can't even stand on your own two legs. It’s the most frustrated you’ve been in your entire life. With a sigh, you give up, slinking back against the wall. After a while of internal struggle, you begin to drift to sleep again. It seems to be all you can do as of late, but your body is still fighting the latter end of an infection, and has been completely wracked by the trauma you’ve endured.

Your eyes are heavy, winning the battle as you fight to stay awake. That is until a large boot nudges your own on the ground.

“Hey you alright? Why you sleepin’ on the floor?” Arthur asks, standing above you. He looks exhausted, dark circles underline his eyes and purple bruises line his fists, which you choose to ignore.

“Just got tired and decided to stay here is all.” You lie, not wanting to ask another favor from Arthur. All he's done is help you, and you have nothing to give him in return. Asking him for more help would be just another debt to the man whom you can’t repay. He eyes you for a moment, hands resting on his gun belt before speaking.

“I'm goin’ back to the cabin. You headin’ over too?” He asks, gesturing towards the door.Your pride will not allow you this, and so you lie again.

“Yeah, I’ll go over in a few.”

Arthur chews on his lip, thinking for a moment before he dips his head and turns towards the door. His hands rest in the pockets of his large blue coat as he walks past the array of people who are sleeping, sprawled around the large room. He reaches the door and places his hand on the knob, but he doesn’t open it. With a small chuckle, and a shake of his head, he turns around and struts straight back over to you.

“What?” you ask, raising your eyebrow at the cowboy and pulling your coat tighter around your shoulders. One hand lightly massages the sore, tender flesh of your shot thigh.

“You can’t get up, can ya?” Arthur asks, all too amused by your scowl.

“I can get up just fine. Just choosin’ not to…” You mumble, avoiding Arthur’s eye contact. With a sigh, he leans down, wrapping his arm around your waist and helping you to stand. He’s on the same side as your bad leg, and he holds your arm tightly to help you along.

“I said I was fine-” You hiss, wincing when you take the first step.

“Yeah and I’m a dancin’ girl, now let me help you. C’mon.” Arthur jokes, taking his time to help you across the room. He goes at your pace, and you force yourself not to think about his hand on your waist. Slowly but surely you make it outside, across the road, and into the cabin.

As soon as Arthur sits you down on the bed he sighs.

“You are so goddamn stubborn, woman, you know that?” He chastises lightly, grabbing the tonic and bandages that you were supposed to use about… twelve hours ago.

“Been told once or twice.” You rebuttal.

Arthur kneels on the ground in front of the bed, right between your knees to grant him easier access to your wound. He’s careful, slow and patient as he peel back some of the cut denim to take the gauze off of your leg. It’s quiet as he wipes away some old poultice from your wound, apologizing quietly when you wince or tense up. In those moments, when you gasp or tense, his hand immediately leaves your thigh. He doesn’t want to cause you pain.

“Real good…” Arthur says, putting new bandages in place of the old. He glances up to your eyes every now and again to make sure he’s not hurting you, and there’s something so intimate about it. Him kneeling on the ground between your knees, his hand on your thigh as he helps you to heal makes your heart ache in an unfamiliar way and it’s so overwhelming that you have to look away and change the subject.

“So… What was all that yellin’ about before you came in?” You ask, referring to the commotion that had woken you up earlier.

Arthur nods, carefully wrapping the gauze around your thigh.

“That would be an O’Driscoll.” Arthur says, irritated.

You have to do a double take to make sure your ears are working.

“A-an O’Driscoll?! You lot brought an O’Driscoll to the camp where we sleep? Where Jack sleeps??” You bite, eyes wide with shock and confusion. Arthur had just told you last night about this dangerous, cold gang with no morals and a leader that is as sneaky as a serpent.

“Weren’t my idea, Star, trust me.” Arthur says, seemingly as surprised about it as you.

“He’s a harmless feller. Dutch wants to question him for information, that’s all.” Arthur adds, trying to ease your upset.

You nod, accepting his response for what is rather than what should be. One thing about your decision to run with a gang is that you signed up to follow Dutch. You live with his shots, that was your choice. So even though you strongly disapprove of this move, it isn’t your call.

“Okay…” You whisper. The wind howls loudly in the distance, and as you glance out the window you see the graveyard across the way that you've been desperately trying to avoid. Of course, Arthur notices this. He finishes bandaging your thigh before he speaks up.

“How you feelin’?” He asks, squeezing your knee a little. You know what he’s asking. He’s asking how you’re holding up after everything that you’ve gone through. And yet, you have a feeling that he already knows without you ever having to speak a word. You can’t bring yourself to open up, not even to him. You’ve built walls for a reason and taking them down is hard.

“It hurts, but I'll be fine. Grimshaw says the infections already gone down, just gotta keep it that way now..” You say, feigning ignorance to the depth behind Arthur’s question.

You rub at the tender skin around the gun wound in an attempt to ease the ache. By the look on Arthur’s face, he’s not fooled, and you frown deeply, avoiding his gaze. To your surprise, he stands up and sits on the bed beside you. Even as you avoid his eye contact, you can feel him staring at you. When you refuse to look at him, afraid that the tears will start falling, he places his index finger under your chin and pulls your gaze to his own.

“Star…you ain’t gotta lie to me, y’know. Not with me.” He whispers.

Your eyes flutter shut and you try your damndest to hold it in, but a single tear falls down your cheek, and your lip quivers. The conversation with Lenny today was almost too much. It brought back every memory of Blackwater that you had been trying so hard to repress. Arthur wipes the sole tear away with his thumb, smearing it across your cheek before taking both your hands and placing them in his own.

“You’re tough. You’re strong for everyone around you, and you’ve always got this damn wall up. You’re-” Arthur pauses for a second, looking down to his lap in thought before looking back up.

“You’re my friend. You ain’t gotta hide around me, alright?” He whispers, bright green eyes looking straight through your tough facade and boring into your soul.

The tears just start falling and you can’t stop them. For the first time in your adult life, you don’t try to. You bring your hands away from Arthur’s, and up to your face as you sob into your palms. Immediately, Arthur pulls your hands away from your face and wraps his arms around your small frame, swaying you gently on the bed and shushing you. You cling to his blue coat with every bit of strength you have, dampening the wool as you cry.

“I- I can’t believe they’re gone, Arthur.” You sob. All of the passengers that died on the boat, then Sean, Davey and Mac, possibly John. Jenny and Boadicea…You gasp for air, lungs shaking as you release all the emotions that have been building up for far too long.

“I know, I know…” Arthur whispers into your hair, running his hand up and down your back to comfort you. You’ve not been looked after like this in a long time. It's nice to know you have someone to bear your soul too, but right now all you can think of is the ones you lost.

“Jenny- Jenny was my friend!” You half cry, half gasp into Arthur’s coat, clenching your fists so tight onto his coat that your hands are on the verge of shattering.

“She was- she was talkin’ to me about Lenny. They was- They were gonna-” You sob, hiccuping and snotting against him. It's not an aesthetic visual, but it's raw.

“I know sweetheart, I know they was, c’mere.” He mumbles, pulling you against his chest to hold you even tighter.

You don’t correct him for the pet name like you did in Tumbleweed. Maybe you’re too emotionally drained to care, maybe you don’t mind it. Your sobs turn to cries, that turn to whimpers, until after a long while of crying, you're just breathing against Arthur’s chest. His grip on you hasn’t let up, but neither of you have said anything, just swaying and shushing. Your eyes begin to feel heavy again, but you push out one last whisper before they close.

“Arthur… I'm so sorry about Boadicea…”

Arthur sucks in a deep breath, fighting the emotion that bubbles up from the mention of his former horse.

“That wasn’t your fault. You hear me? That’s not on you.” He growls, holding you even tighter. His heart breaks to know that you’ve been carrying that weight. None of this is your fault.

Before long, you’re asleep in his arms. Even after he hears your breathing settle, and the light snores that you make, he doesn't go. He rests his back against the wooden wall and falls asleep with you in his arms. He can’t bring himself to let go of you, even for a second. Terrified that you’ll disappear from his arms or feel the need to close yourself off or be alone again. Because you're not alone, not anymore.

—

You wake up slowly. Underneath you is a slow rise and fall, accompanied by light snoring. You smile warmly before even opening your eyes. Arthur’s arms are still wrapped around your waist tightly.

When your eyes open, you are met with Arthur’s sleeping face. His eyes are peacefully shut, and his lips are parted to allow his little snores to fall from his lips. Besides his absolutely killer morning breath, he looks as snug as a bug. You chuckle, slowly prying yourself from his grip, trying not to wake him. He needs the sleep. You crawl over him, yelping as he snores particularly loudly, shaking you with his rumbles. Eventually you make it out of the bed alive. Arthur is still sleeping, and you pull the blankets up over him.

You want to leave him a note, and pull your leather bound journal out of your satchel. You haven’t opened it since everything went to shit, and you run your hand over the cover before flipping through the pages. The last entry was from a few weeks ago, the night that you had laid under the stars and picked wildflowers. Before venturing out you had written about meeting Jenny. It was also the same day Arthur bought his journal. Oh, how quickly things change.

You eye your last entry for a moment before turning the page, and tearing the next section out. You take your pencil and scribble onto the paper before setting it on the table next to Arthur’s hat. You go to sign your name at the bottom, signing the first letter before pausing for a moment and changing it.

Thank you for last night, really. -Star

It's short and sweet. Once it’s secured on the table, you glance back at Arthur one more time before heading to the door. Maybe it’s from the tender care he had shown you yesterday, or maybe it’s coincidence, but your leg feels much better today. You’re confident enough to head to the main cabin yourself. Your thigh is sore, but not the burning pain that had torn through you yesterday. You walk past the stables, glancing in pity towards the wails of the O’Driscoll being held captive. Some of the snow has melted from the sun, which you're grateful for, as it’s easier to navigate across the road. Still it takes you a bit longer than usual, and you curse whatever may be out there that you’re stuck in this position.

Before you’ve even breached the door, you can hear the arguing, the crying. God, what now? The gang seems to be falling apart at the seams and everyone is shattering. Once you pull open the door, the muffled voices become clear.

“Dutch van der Linde, it has been two days! He ain’t been seen in two days!” Abigail yells, storming after Dutch who is glaring at a very worried Hosea.

“Abigail, your John is just fine. Lost in the storm, he's probably on his way back from wherever he is right now.” Dutch rebuttals, causing Hosea to grow irritated.

“The girl is right, Dutch. He could very well be dead out there. We barely survived here and we have walls, who knows where the poor boy ended up.” Hosea states, worried over the state of the closest relationship he’ll ever have to a son. Dutch turns, glaring daggers at Hosea, but he's met with a glare just as strong.

“I’ll go get him.” You state, and all eyes in the room shift to you. Abigail practically whimpers, uttering out her thanks as you pull your coat back over your shoulders. Hosea steps forward, a look of pity on his face.

“Dear girl, your leg… You’re barely back on your feet, you can’t venture into this mess.” Hosea says, gesturing to the freshly wrapped bandages around your thigh.

You pull your revolver out of its holster, squinting and looking down the barrel to make sure it's clean and fully loaded before you reholster it.

“I have to. For Jack, for Abigail. If he's out there I gotta find him. Sides’ my leg is fine, really.” It’s a bit of a white lie that your leg is fine, but you need to find John.

“I’ll bring him back, Abigail. I will.” You promise, hugging her tightly before heading towards the door.

“Estrella! I'm coming too.” Javier calls out, pulling a patterned poncho over his coat and grabbing a sawed off shotgun from his items. You nod, chuckling as Javier approaches.

“Estrella? I even wanna know what that means?” You laugh, gearing up with Javier.

“It’s nothing,” he laughs, “You think we can handle this? Just the two of us?” Javier asks, holstering his gun before holding the door for you. You walk towards the barn while you think. You’re not even sure who to ask, but you’re not waking Arthur up, he needs the sleep. You chew on your lip for a second, thinking it over before you come to a decision.

“Yeah, just us. We can handle it.”

When you push the barn doors open, you see Charles, sitting in a wooden chair about ten feet in front of the tied up O’driscoll. He’s sharpening a knife, barely paying attention to the smaller man’s cries.

You dip your head to Charles in greeting before going through the open stalls. Boadicea isnt here, and it causes that dull ache to grow a little stronger. You do see however, right next to your still unnamed buckskin, an unfamiliar horse.

“Where’d this guy come from?” You ask, petting the skittish tobiano.

“Oh. Arthur found him when they raided those O’Driscolls. He’s keeping him for now.” Javier says before grabbing the reins to his paint, Boaz. He leads the stallion outside, and you grab the buckskin to chase after him.

“Can you track?” Javier asks, mounting up on Boaz in time with you. He starts off at a trot, leading you towards the main road.

“Yeah, my Pa taught me when I was just a girl. If he was through, I’ll see. I just hope his tracks aren’t covered with snow…” You say, retaining hope that John is alive and well.

“Good. we’ll go back to the main road, try to find where he broke off.” Javier calls back to you, pushing Boaz into a canter. You run after him, pulling your coat up over your nose to protect it from the cold.

You cut across the river, and it isn’t long before you find a few sets of tracks.

“Hey is John’s horse shod?” You yell up to Javier, who chuckles.

“No. That horse is the most sure-footed bastard you’ll ever ride. Carajo, he’s more like a mule than a horse.” Javier jokes. One set of hoof tracks resembles a shod horse, and one an unshod, so you start following the latter trail.

“It cuts across the crick here.” You yell, running across the little creek and picking up the trail on the other side. Javier and Boaz fall behind you, following as you lead the way.

After following the trail for a bit, you come upon a gorge. It causes your limbs to tingle with anxiety, and you try not to look down and see how deep it goes.

“Shit, be careful. There's a hell of a drop here.” You say, navigating your horse around the fault. John was more reckless, his tracks prove that his horse cantered around the gorge, cutting deep as if running from something. After some more following, splatters and drips of blood are evident against the crisp white snow.

“Javier…” You whisper, following the trail that shows evidence of the horse spooking, and jumping around, like there was a fight. More blood is spilled in the snow the further you travel along.

“I see it too…” He whispers, and both of you are less sure that John is okay.

“Oh no.” You mutter under your breath as a large body comes into view. You gallop towards it, sliding your buckskin into a stop as you jump down.

“It’s John’s horse. He must have went on foot from here.” You say, glancing between the initials “JM” that have been tooled into the leather, and the disappearing trail of footprints in front of you.

You take in the poor horse before jumping onto your own. It was brought down and partially eaten by something, either a bear or a wolf, most likely the latter.

“His tracks disappear, but we gotta keep goin’!” You holler over the wind. The cold is almost unbearable as you ascend higher up the mountains, and the snow grows deeper, making it harder for the horses to climb.

“Estrella, the horses are getting tired.” Javier calls up, unsure of when to stop following the lost trail.

You feel your horse’s gait getting sluggish, and feel his breaths become hot and heavy.

“So we’ll go on foot.” You rebuttal, refusing to give up just yet.

After cantering to the top of the hill, you hop down, grabbing a springfield rifle and enough ammo to kill whatever may be prowling.

“JOHN!!” You scream into the wind, receiving no reply except your own echo and the whipping wind. You can barely stand the wind, but you push on anyway.

“I don’t- we dont even know he’s up here.” Javier tries to reason, but you continue to walk away, sliding down a small slope before coming to a ridge that youll have to jump up to. Its taller than you, and you sigh in frustration. Javier notices your hesitation, and he jumps up, grabbing the rock platform and pulling himself up before extending his hand down to you.

"I'll help you, come on." He calls down and you hesitate to take his hand, a scowl formin on your lips.

"I don't need your help." You hiss, knowing fully that you absolutely do need his help. The platform is way taller than you.

"Easy there tigra, I'm just trying to help." Javier placates, and you feel bad for snapping at him. You jump up as high as you can manage, gripping onto his hand and allowing him to pull you up by your arms.

"I'm sorry. Just tired of sittin' down and askin' for help all the t-time." You explain, standing up and dusting the snow off your legs while shivering heavily.

"I understand that." Javier smiles, leading you towards a crack in between the rocks. It's big enough for you to walk through, and you squeeze in, feeling both frozen to death and terrified by the altitude you’re at. Javier is quick to slip in after you, noticing the chills that wrack your body.

“Here this should warm you up.” He extends a bottle of bourbon out to you. The cap is already popped off, and you down a swig before handing it back. The bourbon burns down your throat, warming you as it does.

“Thanks.”

Just as Javier takes the bottle back, you hear a voice. You can't make out what it says, but it's raspy and familiar. You and Javier share a glance before you start running to the other side of the tunnel.

"John!! Keep talkin' so we can follow your voice!" You beg, jogging after the initial sound.

"Help!" John yells, and you dart to the left in the snow until you come upon a dip. Your leg aches, but it doesn't matter. This is too important. You run to the edge of the little cliff and look down.

Down the cliff, John looks up at you, frozen and exhausted. There are bloody gashes in his face, markers of a wolf attack. Blood trickles down his chin, staining the snow white. Really, it's a miracle he didn't bleed to death.

"John, you look like shit." You say before whistling to the horses. Javier is only a few steps behind you, and he hops down into the hole. John groans in pain as Javier tosses him over his shoulder.

"Good to see you both too." John says with a small laugh despite his bleak situation.

"Brother, we were worried about you." Javier says, waiting as Boaz canters up the hill alongside your buckskin.

Once the horses reach you, Javier helps John mount up behind his saddle. You both get on and start cantering down the hill towards Colter.

"Your woman's been worried sick about you, y'know." You holler over the wind towards John who looks far too close to sleep for your liking.

"Oh there will be hell to pay when I get back."

The three of you grow quiet, too concerned with getting John back to really chat. You make it about halfway, pushing the horses as hard as you can through the snow before you hear them.

Howls sound out from the top of the mountain, and you whip around on your horse to see five snow white wolves running down the bank towards you.

"Shit, John looks like your buddies came back to finish their meal!" You yell, pulling your rifle from the holster on your saddle. You flip the safety off, load a bullet into the chamber, aim right for the closest wolf's chest and fire.

The first wolf goes down, and as the shot rings out, the other four falter for a moment before returning to their chase.

You aim for the next closest wolf, but right as you squeeze the trigger, your buckskin trips on a rock hidden under the snow and you miss. The horses are galloping so fast down the mountain, and turning around makes it difficult to aim. The wolves are getting far too close for your liking, and anxiety causes you to have tunnel vision.

You take a deep breath, and as you exhale time seems to slow down. You aim, squeezing the trigger four times and taking down all four wolves. When the last one hits the ground, your vision returns to normal and time seems to resume.

"Fine shootin, lady." John says as you come out of your trance. It's unlike anything you've ever experienced before, and you have to shake your head.

"Thanks." You say, tossing your rifle strap over your shoulder and spurring your horse across the river.

Colter has come into view now, and you see the few people loading up wagons outside. So we're leaving then?

You slow down your horses, coming into the town.

"We need help!" You call out, dismounting and jogging to Javier's horse.

Abigail runs out the main cabin door, and the relief that washes over her face is clear as day. But as she takes in his poor state, it is replaced by concern.

"John Marston where in the hell have you been?!" She yells, rushing over to where Javier is lifting John down.

"Oh you know, up on the mountains gettin' eaten by damn wolves. I missed you too, dear." John jokes, wincing as they carry him inside.

You are left alone outside the cabin, and you take the horses by their reins and lead them the a hitching post. After tying their reins up, you offer both horses an outtake from your satchel, which they greedily accept.

Just as you're about to head back to the main cabin, the door swings open.

"Why didn't you wake me up? I was worried sick." Arthur says, walking hastily towards you before, to your surprise, wrapping you in a hug. It lasts only a few moments, and you exhale, releasing the day's tension as he hugs you. When he lets you go, he leans down to inspect your thigh.

"You okay? It hurt? You shoulda got me up, that was a dangerous trip." Arthur says, worry evident on his face. You raise one eyebrow at him, giggling at his 'mother hen’ state.

"Haven't you learned that I can handle my own yet, Arthur?" You ask, a little offended that he's suggesting you needed help. You know he means nothing by it, but still.

"Oh, I know, trust me I do. But you shouldn't have to do everything alone."

The air grows too serious for your comfort, and you nod towards the main cabin before heading over to the door. Arthur is by your side as you open the door.

"Further East?" Uncle says, getting up out of his chair, "Why don't we just run down to the city and turn ourselves in? How you mean we're going further east?"

"The west is blocked off, we have no choice! We go east, lay low for a little while. We can hide out and lick our wounds. And then my friends, once they have long forgotten our troop, we seek absolution out west, as far as we can go." Dutch says, addressing everyone in the middle of the room.

You and Arthur give each other a look, not too sure about heading further east. Hosea steps up beside Dutch and looks around at his family.

"I don't like it, but he's right. We have nowhere else to go." Hosea adds.

"And where will we go? Do we have a spot picked out? Twenty people ain't exactly easy to hide, Hosea." Tilly points out, and as you look around the room, everyone seems to be at a loss.

"I don't know, dear girl. We'll find it when we come across it I suppose…

An idea sparks in your head, and you step forward from Arthur a bit.

"Actually I may know a place." You interject, and everyone's eyes land on you.

"My daddy was a gunsmith, and every year he took us to this trade fair in Valentine. It's just down the mountain." You say, and Hosea nods, thinking.

"Valentine… I know it, little livestock town, our kinda place." Hosea thinks out loud.

"Just off the town is an open space, hidden in the woods that overlooks the valley. It's well hidden and big enough for all of us. We used to set up camp there every year when I was a girl.

"And it's safe? Well hidden?" Arthur asks, stepping up towards you. You nod, craning your neck to look at him.

"Yeah. There's trees around all sides except for the overlook. Plenty of good spots for lookouts, it's not too close to the road. And we'll have a pretty view too."

"And this place, it have a name?" Dutch asks, stepping forward.

"Horseshoe Overlook."

Dutch and Hosea share a look, thinking it over, before Hosea comes forward and places a hand on your shoulder.

"Thank you miss- what are they callin' you now? Star?" Hosea cuts himself off.

"Apparently." You chuckle, quickly glancing back to Arthur.

"Well it's fitting. You're a bright girl, my dear and you may have just saved our sorry asses." Hosea pats your shoulder for good measure before turning to the rest of the room.

"As soon as Johns back on his feet we are heading out!"

You sink back beside Arthur, looking up at him for a few moments. He knows that look. You're worried. Here you all are, heading towards yet another unknown, another situation that may hold death for everyone. But Arthur will be by your side through it all. And if even just for a little while… that makes it all okay.

#arthur morgan #arthur morgan x female reader #arthur morgan x reader #arthur morgan x you #arthur morgan x y/n #rdr2 #red dead redemption two #red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 fanfic

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writerofadream · 4 months

Text

Fortune favors the Bold ⛓

TDI!Duncan x Juvie Bestfriend! Reader ⛓

Chapter Seven: Dodgeball to the death

You all had been sleeping absolutely terribly the past couple days because Harold fucking snores. So at breakfast, Duncan was trying to eat but could barely move, and you had passed out in your porridge. "Duncan, you look like death dude." Chris's overly cheerful voice rang out.

"Sick it." Ducan hissed before putting his head down on the table. Courtney explained their predicament.

"Wow, four nights without sleep. How much is she hurting dude, how much are you hurting dude? I kinda want to test how far it takes to break, you both." Chris smiled like a maniac. "Want to find out?" Duncan hissed.

Instinctively your whole group hid under the table, getting used to Duncan's anger. But one small snore coming out of your mouth quieted him.

Then Harold walked in with a drawn on mustache on his face causing the place to erupt with quiet giggles.

"That was me!" You raise your hand lazily. Heather began to taunt your team, causing you to throw a knife at her pinning her hair to the wall. "Get your attack dog under control." Heather yelled terrifed trying to get her hair unstuck.

"She don't bite." Duncan waved her off. You smiled weakly flipping her off. "Yes she do!" Heather screamed.

Chris walked in then. "Listen up campers, your next challenge starts in ten minutes, and be prepared to bring it." He announced as you tipped over onto Duncan passing out.

-----

You were playing dodgeball. Everyone had already gotten to the little ring, but Duncan was trudging behind. Once he walked inside he pointed at you looking mildly pissed off. "If you wake me up, it'll be the last thing you do, L/N." You rolled your eyes. Whenever Duncan was tired he got angry.

"This is all your fault, you know?" Courtney hissed at Harold.

Chris explained the rules making it seem harder then it needed to be. You were okay at dodgeball, it was basically like a prison riot. Chris gave you one minute to discuss strategies. Apparently Courtney could read your mind because she said-

"There is no way we are having Little Miss Crazy play. She'll kill them and get us disqualified." The girl whined and you growled. "Don't call me crazy." You hissed dangerously pissed as you stalked over and sat down by Duncan.

The games went on and your team got decimated by the Screaming Gophers. You weren't surprised. Yet, Courtney persisted with her idea of not having you play. So you watched.

You watched as Harold got his ass beat by LeShawna, Heather beat Tyler's ass, Courtney beg for a disqualification, DJ hit poor Gwen, it was a very interesting expierence.

Cody pulled a wild ass move out of his fucking ass. It looked impossible but he used the ball as a boomerang. Everyone was getting pissed on your team, yet Courtney persisted.

You played with Duncan's hair as he slept, and he subconsiously leaned into your hand, mumbling in his sleep. Whenever the other was close, the nightmares seemed to stop. It was... helpful. So when everyone was out on your team... again. Courtney gave this speech. "We need someone, tough, someone who wants to beat the other team to death." Everyone looked at Duncan and you.

"He'll kill us if we wake him up." DJ whispered his fears. "He won't kill us... I hope. He wants to win just as much as us." Courtney sighed not looking so sure. "Now wake him up, Y/N." She ordered. "Why me?" You laughed. "Your the only one who'd stand a chance against him in a fight." She explained and you shrugged. Made sense.

You pushed Duncan off the bench and he stood up growling. "You better have a good reason for pushing me off the bench, pincess." He nearly yelled in your face making you take a step back. "We're down two to zero. If we lose I'm going to make sure it's your ass that gets voted off, sunshine." You yelled back, making him retreat now. He may be your bestfriend, but your fucking Y/N L/N, you don't back down for shit.

He finally realized what was happening around you. "This is dodgeball, why don't you just play, you destroyed the boys last year at the anual game?" He sounded more confused then mad now. "That what's I'm saying, but miss goody two shoes thinks I'll lose my shit." You pointed at Courtney. "That's what I'm here for?" He pointed at himself.

"That's what I said!" You laughed.

"My only condition is that Y/N's co-captain. We both play, or no one plays." He explained to Courtney who nodded. "Here's a stratagey I picked up on our first visit to juvie."

You laughed remembering the event.

"It's called: rush the new guy." Also known as the first time Duncan got his ass beat in juvie rendering him with a broken collarbone and a double concussion. In shorts terms, you all converge on one person while playing dodgeball.

Soon enough you were dominating the game.

It had gotten to the point where it was 2 wins to 2 wins. This was the final game, to decide who won. It went from five players on both sides, to four, three, then two. It was a neck and neck game.

Then it was Harold vs Owen. "Well I can't say it was nice knowing him." You muttered. "Good night, Harold." Duncan sighed squeezing your hand.

But somehow the ginger dodged every ball thrown at him. "Where'd you learn to do that?" Geoff asked the boy. "Figure skating." He replied proudly. "Figures." Duncan shaked his head. Courtney told Harold he was going to have to catch the next ball thrown at him.

Which miraculously, he did.

Your team erupted into cheers. People hugged, but Duncan twirled you before bringing you back into his arms. "Wake me up again and I'll fight you, L/N." He whispered smiled kissing the top of your head. "I'd like to see you try, tiger." You smiled kissing his cheek causing the boy to blush.

You guys were getting closer by the second.

---

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--------

"Nice dodge skater nerd." Duncan 'complimented' Harold as you and DJ carried him on your shoulders cheering his name.

----

If you had asked Courtney, or the twin bestfriends, or Bridgette where you had fallen asleep they would've lied straight to your face and said in a bathoom.

If you had asked Geoff, Harold, or DJ where Duncan had fallen asleep they would've lied and said by the lake. In reality there was two people fast asleep their bodies entangled on Duncan's bed.

Duncan layed flat on his back with an arm as an extra pillow, and your head layed out on his chest, your hair falling down your back. You both were fast asleep, he had his hand sleepily playing with your hair twirling it around in his fingers and you had your hands attached to his shirt twisting it in your sleep.

Duncan wouldn't mind.

He never minded when it came to you.

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malleleothreesome · 4 months

Note

smirk emoji…. can we see a snippet of whichever wip is gripping you most rn 🫣🫶 IM EYEING ALL OF THEM LIKE HEY…. grabby hands

Referencing this post

Um, idk if this classifies as a "snippet" 🤪 but, I swear, this is only a small portion of what I have written...

This is the start of 'Fellow Honest Drunken Confession' (WIP, subject to change. SFW, swearing, gn reader)

To the people who voted on my poll for me to post the Leona/Malleus/Reader love triangle early, this isn't the content you voted for, but hopefully this might hold you over???

Fellow Honest let out an exasperated sigh, standing next to you and your classmates as the massive cruise ship that housed Playfulland amusement park sinks into the abyss of the ocean. His hands are clasped behind his head, and a carefree grin lights up his face. "You know what?" He asks, turning to you. His fox ears twitch atop his head as a salty breeze stirs his orange hair. The night has begun to encroach, a half moon hangs suspended in the starry sky like a pale glowing lamp above the dark waters of the ocean. You stare back into his face, noting his fangs poking out as the tip of his curly orange tail swishes happily. Fellow winks as he laughs his signature haughty cackle. He opens his mouth to speak. "Do you want to grab a drink sometime?"

Ace Trappola perks right up at the mention of alcohol and barrels forward, face beaming and completely missing Fellow's lascivious intent towards you. "Hey, free drinks? You're talking to the right person, man. Hell yeah, let's do it, you're gonna let us drink free? I mean, it's like, the least you could do for trying to human traffic us, am I right?" He does an excited fist-pumping action as Trey Clover trails in his wake, attempting to shush him to no avail, calling, "Ace!" in a desperate hiss. Fellow regards the spectacle with the most blank stare, his ear flicking as a tiny, unnoticed wince of annoyance flickers across his visage.

The monster of a man tilts his head and smiles slyly to you and only you, his eyes sweeping you with interest, "Just you and me, hotstuff. We're talking romantic and steamy. We've got a connection, don't deny it. So. Whaddaya say?" Fellow steps closer, tongue running along his canines as he looks you up and down with a cheeky grin and a twinkle of mischief in his eyes. "You and me, alone together, drinking, talking... I'll be real good to you—I'm an honest guy! All my business is legit now!" he throws his head back with a flourish of his arms, roaring with raucous laughter. After a second, he composes himself, his piercing orange eyes turning sharp as he flashes another lecherous look in your direction. With a slight smirk on the corner of his lips and a suggestive raise of his eyebrow, Fellow leans to whisper in your ear, lingering in the electricity of your aura a bit too long before speaking, making you shiver. His voice drops to a low, suggestive purr as his hot breath grazes your neck, "But, if you like, a little bit naughty ain't out of the question... "

Before you can respond, Ace—unable to be subdued by Trey—makes his way back over and elbows you in the arm. Just as clueless as ever, his freckled cheeks are flushed bright pink from excitement, and you swear he's bouncing with happiness on his toes as he hollers with unbridled hype for the evening ahead, "Free drinks, bro! He's an underworld mobster, dude—a high ranking one—we'll have the VIP treatment if he decides to take us out. Taste of that top shelf, not some gross, warm piss from a barrel they serve everyone else, only the best!" Ace says all this while gripping his heart and fake swooning, holding out his arms in an exaggerated gesture, leaning on your shoulder. "Free top shelf liquor!" Ace shouts to the rest of your classmates gathered around in small groups, waving them all over.

Fellow's eyebrow raises further upward until it threatens to leave the confines of his forehead, a dead look in his orange eyes. His tail doesn't twitch—it stays perfectly still, frozen in an upright arch. When his lips part in a rigid smile and his shoulders begin to shake, the absolute venomous displeasure that radiates off the poor fox is palpable enough that you can practically feel it soaking into your skin. For a minute, all that comes out of his mouth is a jumble of fragmented curse words mixed with giggles. You look over at him in mild alarm, unsure if he has finally reached a state of losing his goddamn mind or if he's about to violently lash out and murder Ace and everyone in attendance on sight.

Fellow holds up both gloved palms, almost covering his whole face as he slowly shakes his head and doubles over, guffawing uproariously and wiping away tears of hysterical mirth from his eyes, tail swishing from side to side again. You are stunned, staring as Fellow wheezes and struggles to get ahold of his faculties. Catching his breath, his eyes bulge and he bellows to the sky with unrestrained joy, throwing his head back, ears flying and pointing upwards, his hat almost tumbling off as his body quakes and his lungs struggle, "The sheer audacity! The unmitigated gumption of this fool—"

"Oh my GOD," he continues to snigger with laughter, almost out of control as his nose crinkles. Before long, he descends into violent snorts, then coughing as his breaths go askew and come short. In a valiant effort to calm himself, he holds up his hands, as if praying, a wicked grin plastered across his face. All Ace does is squint suspiciously at his antics, totally clueless to Fellow's intent. Trey shakes his head slowly, rubbing his face in abject defeat, looking as if he's willing his brain to purge the trauma of ever coming to this place. Fellow makes a poor attempt to control himself, breathing deeply, "Sorry, sorry, it's just funny, oh my God. Wow. He has some balls on him, I'll give him that! I really admire the gall. You know what? This brat might have a career in the biz, I'm serious." The fox beastman reaches out and ruffles Ace's head of red hair like he's some kid, chortling.

He is shaking his head and wearing a very impressed look as his fingers caress his chin pensively, lost in thought, unable to maintain eye contact as he's on the verge of losing his composure again. "Alright, tough guy. Yeah, let's go get boozed. And hey, little bastard," His fiendish grin takes a more sinister tone, fangs exposed as he tilts his head in a cocky way. "Just so you know, if your pathetic college didn't send that sweetheart of a cutie,” he winks suggestively at you, his tail giving a little twitch, before his eyes wander across the crowd of students, obviously unimpressed by your entire class, sneering, “I'd never be letting any of you idiots go. No way! I would have dragged each of you back to my boss by force. Don't test my generosity or my kindness." He shoves his finger into Ace's face, leaning towards him intimidatingly, but the smirk of delight stays on Fellow's face despite his posturing. He's clearly getting a huge kick out of trying to spook and intimidate Ace, who thinks he's some scary, powerful crime lord.

Fellow takes a sharp inhale and clasps his hands shut as he addresses the group, "Now, just for fun, let's get liquored up on the highest rooftop bar, play some poker, do a little dancing..." his eyes flit back over to you, "Maybe some smooches, hey?" A fox yip punctuates his sentence. His eyes return back to Ace, whose lips press in a firm, annoyed line, frowning at the con man. Fellow's eyebrow twitches with incredulous humor as he takes in Ace's defiance, biting his lip for a second as if trying not to give in to another peal of cackling. "There isn't going to be any 'VIP treatment', no 'free drinks', and definitely no 'top shelf', is that clear? Who do you think I am? You think I like doing that type of shit?" he points to the water, gesturing to the decimated remnants of the amusement park. "I'll let you in on a little secret, kid, people don't do those types of jobs because they're loaded.” He leans down to get eye level with Ace, using expressive jazz hands as he puts on a pompous voice, “'Oh, man, my yacht's all paid off and ready, better become a goddamn kidnapping organ trafficker—the glamour! The luxury!' Do you understand what I'm saying, you dinky little shit?"

#Fellow Honest #‧͙+ ̊*・༓☾ Erica Answers ☽༓・* ̊+‧͙#i can't believe im showing this many of my cards but #im proud of this one #i close my eyes and press 'post now'#😳

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starlightshadowsworld · 7 months

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Heroes of Olympus but Jason remembers Hazel.

Hazel was the only one at Camp Jupiter, who didn't forget him.

Imagine than if Hazel is the person Jason didn't forget.

Also just I need more of their friendship.

Hazel showed up 2 months after the war and Jason even in the short time he knew her before going missing, considered her a friend.

Imagine your friend, who's also one of the Camp leaders goes missing.

And no one remembers or does anything about it.

I'd be pretty pissed, looking to solve that mystery and than bam I'm on a quest with mystery boy Percy Jackson.

Hazel would also be the only person other than Reyna who knows what pre-amnesiac Jason was like.

Jason not being suspicious over Nico, because he's Hazel's brother.

He knows how harshly the Camp treated Hazel for her parentage, and that's the kind of stuff he was trying to get rid of.

And thus wants to give Nico a chance.

Jason and Hazel both piecing the world together, Hazel's from the 40's and Jason was raised by wolves.

They've never interacted with the present world.

Jason's definitely had to drag Hazel away from cussing out many a person.

Hazel teaching Jason how to manipulate the mist.

Jason teaching Hazel how to swordfight, both of them sparring and having the most dramatic ass duels.

Hazel was definitely about to jump in when Jason called his father unwise.

And Jason definitely went off on Octavian for blackmailing Hazel so she'd have to vote for him to be Praetor.

Also not for nothing but their both the only Roman demigods who are children of the Big 3.

Who's mother's both loved and we're the catalyst of how they got here.

#hazel levesque #jason grace #heroes of olympus

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dathomirdumpsterfire · 5 months

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Chat writes the plot! Time for more 👑🐲🐟 KotD!

(I realize we might have to retcon a bit if the vote goes certain ways, but I didn't want to limit you guys. Have fun, go nuts, describe to everyone your perfect stewjon head canon, no matter how unique!)

Want to be on the tag list? Have an idea for next chapter? Clicked the wrong option? Reblog or Comment! New? Check the very bottom for the Ao3 link. Latest chapter is down below the cut!🔥

~King of the Dragonfish: Chapter 8~

Not far from the cave system, in the opposite direction of the geothermal vents, is a living grave. Every now and again one of Naboo's massive oceanic beasts meets it's end to natural causes, and sinks into the deep. Here, new life is born.

This particular corpse of a ketho whale has been here longer than Maul has, and with it's slothful rate of decomposition, it may very well be here after he's gone. The deep water chill keeps the body all but frozen, as the mound of it feeds billions of tiny lives. Starfish, squid, shrimp, eels, octopus, crab, manta, and more. No other places in the deep sea have as much variety of life as the grave mounds do.

To Darth Maul, this place is his personal grocery store.

“Hmmm,” the sith hums, floating upside-down and perusing the options.

His favorite are the shrimp. Individual mouthfuls that crunch pleasantly. But can a Kenobi eat a shrimp? He knuckles his forehead, trying hard to remember. So much of Before was lost to him. The jedi was... human? Possibly?

…did humans eat shrimp?

He couldn't recall.

Annoyed, he makes a note to demand answers, later, and gathers a sampling for now. The brown tree fruit… whatever it was called… the inside was not nourishing enough to survive on, he knew that much.

With a sweep of the force the sith lord selects his victims. A few plush crabs, half a colony of little blue shrimp, a few colorful yellow and black fish that he knew tasted buttery and sweet, with a long eel-

He recalls, suddenly, eating barbeque eel on… on… the home place. The red world, with swamps and cliffs.

Maul catches two more eels, wondering if he can make them taste like… before. Perhaps he would cook his food for once? Some of this would need to be heated for the jedi to even stomach it. Probably.

With his catch writhing and confused in an intangible net of force, the dragonfish sith turns back for the warren of caves and tunnels.

He arrives to find the jedi in just his pants and sleeveless vest, busily rinsing his inner tunics with fruit water. His much abused leather boots were clean and shiney nearby, still wet.

Maul sloughs himself up onto land, dragging dinner up with him.

“Will that not simply make your robes sticky?” he questions the other man, skeptical of the tactic.

“They're not ripe, so they're not sweet in the slightest. I'm hoping…” Kenobi shrugs, “it's an experiment. I suppose we shall see.”

“Mnh.”

The jedi stands, turning to him while wringing out the excess fluid. “What have you got there?”

Grinning, Maul tosses the panoply of pissed off sea creatures at him. “Catch.”

The noise Kenobi makes when he takes eel to the face brings such joy to him.

The creatures scrabble for safety as the jedi backflips further away from them. “Wha! Pfss- guh- MAUL!”

Wheezing with mirth, Maul recollects his catch, and presses them all on the surface of the magma rock to boil them dead.

Kenobi looks on in horror, speechless.

After a brief grilling, Maul piles the results together at the base of the slowly deforming orb, and curls up beside it to begin eating. He picks up an eel first, of course, interested to see if the cooking would make it taste like barbeque.

It does not.

It is still good though.

The jedi lays out his clothes to dry and approaches, one hand tucked into an elbow, the other cradling his chin. He mutters, “... at least it was quick,” then clears his throat before speaking up. “Is any of that for me, or was the food throwing just to be for your own entertainment?”

“It is not my fault you cannot follow simple instructions, Kenobi, but yes. Eat what you will," Maul offers, smug.

The man sinks down onto the stone floor, watchful, and starts poking through the options.

Stupid jedi. Doing something now when he is expecting it would be boring and predictable. He will wait until the other man's guard is lowered before tormenting him again. Obviously.

“Tell me, Kenobi, did the tree fruit satisfy your thirst?” he asks, popping a shrimp in his mouth and smashing it with a crunch of his many excellent teeth.

“The coconuts? Yes… thank you. The pile will last me a few days," the man returns.

Coconuts. They are called coconuts. Of course.

Kenobi picks up an eel, handling it's rubbery length with a disgruntled look. “... I don't suppose I could have a small knife? Temporarily? I need to cut this to cook it properly.”

Maul squints at him. “You are lying, jedi.”

The man huffs, holding the limp eel up, “I am not. This is an entire eel, and not a small one either. I need to remove the guts, and filet it, then grill the slices.”

“Why would you remove the guts? The organs are the best part,” he says, even more certain that Kenobi was simply making things up.

The jedi makes a face, “Hardly.”

They glare at each other for a moment before Kenobi looks away, scowling. “Fine, I shall just… eat something else.”

Maul watches him gather up the thin black and yellow fish, and levitate them on top of the rock. He… just leaves them there. For minutes. The cave starts to smell different because of it.

“Your fish is burning, jedi,” he tells the man.

“No it isn't,” Kenobi replies.

Maul rises up on the coil of his tail, looming at something like nine feet tall to peer over top of the rock and look at the crisping bodies. They aren't any more black than before, but they are turning colors.

“They are becoming brown…”

“Good,” the man says, nonsensically.

With the force, Kenobi flips them without getting up to look. The underside is significantly more brown.

The dragonfish sith sloughs back down to the floor, thoughtful. This was cooking… he had cooked, before, many times. This was right, yes… meat turned colors. It… denatured the proteins.

He doesn't know what ‘denatured’ means anymore, but the word itself remains. Maul scowls, trying to poke at the idea.

He looks up at Kenobi, “How… denatured do you need to make… the protein… to make it edible for… humans?”

The other man hums, calling the crispy fish dinner down to himself, but holding it midair for a moment as it dissipates heat. “For humans? Oh, well, I suppose it depends on their immune system. Anakin likes everything mostly raw… but I've known others that wouldn't touch anything uncooked unless it was a plant.”

Ahah. ‘their’. Kenobi was not a human himself then.

“... and your kind?” Maul asks.

“Hmm… I suppose I prefer my own dinner well done, if only for the result of warm, spiced food,” he says, and brings one of the fish closer to himself to begin nibbling. He makes a face at it. “Mng… of which this is not. I'm glad you've brought back scaleless fish, but the flavor does leave something to be desired.”

“You are lucky I feed you at all,” he tells the fool, sneering.

Kenobi sighs, “I suppose anything is better than starving. Though I would really prefer a pan, oil, and some spice to go with it, even just salt…”

Maul gives him a look.

He scoffs. “Yes yes, I know, stop making that face at me. Beggars can't be choosers, I know.”

They eat until both are full, Maul devouring considerably more than Kenobi. He dumps the extras back into the water. The remains might attract future snacks.

“Well, sith,” the jedi says from his spot beside the magma ball, “what now? I'm fed, I'm watered, I'm warm. For the moment, I'm not dying. What are you going to do with me? Torture?”

Maul grins as he returns from throwing the extra away. “Are you excited at the prospect?”

“Certainly not,” Kenobi drawls, crossing his arms.

The dragonfish sith sways closer, passing him by. The other man clearly doesn't want him at his back, so the motion forces him to turn. As Maul circles, Kenobi keeps turning to face him.

Exactly as intended.

With the jedi's attention on his face, all the way turned around from where they began, Maul draws the end of his tail up to whip at the back of Kenobi’s calves.

The jedi makes a little hop, predicting his flanking attack with the force, but he still turns to look behind him. His mistake. Maul takes that opportunity to close the distance, getting a grip on the front of beige vests. Kenobi spins back around, arms shoving outward defensively.

One of his palms slams into Maul’s sensitive gills, painfully, making the sith snarl and take a snap at the offending limb.

Kenobi tries to tumble backwards, to get away from him, but the grip on his clothes is only joined by a tail curling behind his knees, dragging the jedi in.

The prey in his grip fights him, skilled in the force and so much more interesting to subdue than the mindless wildlife outside.

Kenobi works an elbow free, and tries slamming it point first into the tail spiraling about his hips. Maul barely feels it, but he starts trying to capture that free hand all the same. While he's on that, the jedi side steps his tail, and then drops his weight heavily while pushing downward with the force.

Maul loses hold on him entirely.

The jedi folds, rolls, and does half a cartwheel, kicking him in the arm. Then he falls backwards to gain space. The sith gives him none, closing the distance again and snatching at his ankle as the other man spins away. He misses, and has to try two more grabs before he gets a hold of an elbow with a gleeful noise of success.

Kenobi attempts to bite him, with his human-similar jaw and his flat white teeth. How precious. The dragonfish sith giggles, and nips at the air near his fingers. The jedi recoils, desperate to protect the digits of his sword arm, sending a gale of force into Maul so strong it sends him toppling over backwards.

Unfortunately for the other man, he's got a good grip on Kenobi’s arm, so they both go over backwards.

Maul cackles as they fall.

Kenobi bellows.

They tussle on the floor like it's just any old bar brawl for the better part of ten minutes, until -finally- Maul's sheer tonnage and more than a dozen feet of solid muscle wins the fight for him, yet again.

He bears down on his prisoner, grinning with all his many teeth as the man cries out in pain.

“Weak jjjedi,” he croons, so close to Kenobi’s face that the green glow of his eyes illuminates both of their expressions. “I am beginning to think our first battle was a fluke. You cannot seem to best me.”

The jedi struggles under him, trying to get any limb free, fighting for every inch. “It's not my fault you weigh as much as a bantha!”

“Oh? But you like my weight.”

Kenobi shifts left, trying to wriggle his way out of the hold. “What in the blazes makes you think that?”

Maul hisses in amusement. “You roam in your sleep, jedi. You came to me many times last night, seeking my scales and burrowing into me.”

The man underneath him makes a horrified face, his efforts to escape stalling. “I did not!”

Maul lolls to the side, laying beside him instead of on top, pulling those pale hands to his chest and pressing the palms over his hearts. His long black tail curls up and over the man's legs. “Does this position not ring any bells, Kenobi?”

Blue eyes stare down at his hands, at the red and black that peek through his fingers. “...”

Delighted by the other man's emotional upheaval, and the way it made the force around them feel, Maul pushes the gambit a little further.

“How about if I do… this?” he says, sacrificing a hand to bring Kenobi's body closer to his, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, affectionately. “Are you going to nuzzle me again, I wonder? Going to curl up on my chest and drool?”

“No!” the jedi exclaims, shimmying backward.

Maul allows it and watches him with an inviting look, finding that this little facet of Kenobi’s fear was… particularly entertaining.

“Oh? But you slept so well, did you not?” he accuses.

Kenobi covers his eyes with a hand. “It's… it's nothing to do with you. I simply sleep better when…”

“Held?” Maul croons.

The jedi growls, without answering. Delightful.

Maul snickers, playfully snapping his teeth near the other man's neck. Kenobi turtles, glaring at him. “Would you quit that? I know you're not going to actually bite me. I'd be dead in minutes, and that would ruin all your bloody fun wouldn't it?”

The sith draws back humming. The rage in Kenobi’s eyes is… pleasing. Anger is good. He understands.

“Hnnn… I offer you a trade,” he says sweetly.

The jedi's struggles calm, and he stops ducking into such a hilarious and pathetic little ball, but his expression remains pure suspicion. “It's hardly a trade if I'm coerced into it while disarmed and bound,” he complains.

“Do you think I care?” Maul asks him pleasantly.

Kenobi huffs. “Fine. What's your trade, sith?”

“I will promise not to bite your neck, or near it, if you tell me of your species. At length.”

The jedi blinks, slowly, waiting with an expectant air. Maul raises a brow at him.

“You… want to know about… stewjoni?” the man asks, baffled.

“Yessss,” the dragonfish sith assures.

He is missing too many pieces of Before. The jedi will serve him, as prisoner and informant.

🔥🔥 don't forget to reblog tysm! 🔥🔥

-Tag list- (Comment if you want added!)

@obimaulartfire @savageopressbignaturals @icequeen8043 @moonsickvampire @maulish

New? Start from Chapter 1! 👇🏽

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canonmisogynyvictimstournament · 8 months

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does anyone else feel a little frustrated that a lot of people clearly aren’t reading the reasonings and are instead just voting for whoever’s more popular… like people can do whatever they want and obviously this is a subjective contest but idk. some of these results do not seem to be matching up with the propaganda given. i know all these tournaments are popularity contests at the end of the day but i was really hoping people would like, actually consider for this one :/

I do think some people don't read the propaganda, but I also think there are different ways to weigh the misogyny in a story. This isn't, imo, just a contest for what lady had the worst things happen to her, although you can make your choice based on that 100%. But there are other factors you can choose to weigh: how much of a role the misogyny plays in the character's story, how much of a role it plays in the general story, how much it affects the quality of the story (which is to say, how much could treating her right improve the story), how much does it affect your personal enjoyment of the story, how disproportionate is her treatment compared to similar male characters, how severe is it relative to the time period the work was created in, even how much it affected you personally when you first encountered the work (bias comes into play here, but I think this is a valid factor), sometimes just not wanting your favorite lady to get completely crushed (you love her and need to support her!) etc etc (I'm sure I've missed some). The more familiar you are with a character and her work of origin, the more you can and do weigh these factors, so the answer becomes clearer to you. Which is not to say that there aren't some coughing babies vs hydrogen bombs, just that I get why someone would vote for any given coughing baby or even one of the more middleground tactical missiles (as I like to call them) or why pick one hydrogen bomb over another. It is not just recognizing a character that causes bias; it is also having a full understanding of how misogyny is entwined with a character's treatment in a work when up against someone you only have the propaganda to work against. In a similar vein, it can be very frustrating to see a lady whose context you fully understand and have been pissed about for years lose (and this can be especially annoying when you feel the propaganda doesn't do her justice, which is why I have that additional propaganda form up for the duration of the tournament. So, if you're learning that lesson this week or this round, I recommend writing in to make sure it doesn't happen next week or next round for another or the same lady you love because you won't know the thoroughness and quality of a character's propaganda until you see it, at which point it won't change until next round).

But I have definitely been annoyed with this before in other tournaments (and this one too, tbh, although I won't tell you what round, let alone who, during the tournament, so don't ask until it's all over), so I feel you, anon, I really do.

#asks #not polls #I write in super long but grammatically correct sentences I'm so sorry anon

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gaytotaldrama · 8 months

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i wrote some s1 duncney bc i miss them </3

also on my ao3!

Duncan's pissed. This whole time there's been a five-star resort on the other side of the island, while he's been roughing it in the woods and putting up with Chef's crappy food? Yeah, screw McLean. If Duncan had known about the Playa, he would have snuck in to visit Courtney ages ago.

As it is, the first thing Courtney does when Duncan steps off the Boat of Losers is sock him directly on the arm, hard.

"Damn, Princess, didn't know you could pack a punch," he cracks, massaging his shoulder and shooting Courtney the usual smirk. "Glad to see you missed me."

She rolls her eyes, brows drawn into a glare. She's wearing her grey swimsuit, which he used to think was boring and prudish - now he just thinks it's hot.

"That," Courtney proclaims, crossing her arms across her chest. "Was for snuggling up to Heather."

"What, that?" Duncan scoffs. "Come on, you know I can't stand that chick. And she cozied up to me, or did the cameras not show that part?"

"Doesn't matter!" She throws her arms up in the air - long, tan arms, nice - nearly hitting him in the face. "You let it happen! I saw it!"

He just grins. "You know what you also saw?"

Her only response is a mean stink-eye. God, this woman is like no one else.

"You saw me in the confessionals shouting out to you every episode since you got booted off," he says. "You saw me spray paint the walls of my side of the cabin with your skull."

She narrows her eyes. "That was supposed to be me?"

Duncan blinks. "I thought that was obvious."

Is he seeing things, or did the corner of her lips twitch? "Don't think I missed the heart you carved in the back of my totem head."

"Oh, man, they aired that?" Duncan groans. "The guys at juvie are never gonna let me hear the end of it."

"Well, it doesn't matter anyway, Duncan, because I want absolutely nothing to do with you." And she quite literally sticks up her nose at him. "Hmmpf!"

"Riiiiiight. Sure thing, Princess. And you're the only one who came to the docks to see me because...?"

"Just to tell you how much of an ogre you are!" Courtney splutters, cheeks darkening - has it really been that long since he last saw her, or are there more freckles scattering the bridge of her nose than there were before? "I'm a C.I.T. You're a delinquent. It's not hard to do the math."

Duncan holds up his hands in surrender. "Ok, fine. You have fun making out with Harold, then, since clearly he's more your type."

To his surprise, Courtney freezes, mouth agape. "They didn't tell you...?"

He frowns. "Tell me what?"

"Harold's the reason I got eliminated in the first place! He switched the votes when no one was looking, the little twerp." Her hands ball into fists at her sides. "I've been on the warpath for that dweeb ever since. My lawyers say Chris is going down."

"That geeky little snake!" Duncan pounds his fist into his palm. "Who does that?!"

"Someone who wants to get back at a certain mohawked bully, that's who," Courtney declares. "Don't worry, I haven't let him off easy."

"That's my girl." Another sock to the arm. "Ow! The hell was that for?"

"I'm not your girl," says Courtney, and yeah, she's definitely smiling this time. "As if."

"Uh-huh. How's the pool here? I could use a nice, long swim. Maybe with a certain Type A-In-Training?"

"Ugh. You're still so not my type." She glances around, seems to decide it's safe, then snags him by the collar and sticks her tongue in his mouth. "Mmmm!" She breaks off before he can really return the favor. "Come on, Caveman. Let's get you into your trunks."

Blood rushing in his veins like Owen rushes for breakfast, Duncan grins. "Or maybe you should get me out of my - "

SOCK!

"OW!"

#td #total drama #duncney #td courtney #td duncan #really living up to my blog name by posting het fic lmfao #my writing

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themultifandomgal · 1 year

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Alfie Solomons- Love At First Sight Pt1

1921

"Happy birthday love" my aunt Polly says kissing my cheek as I walk into the betting shop

"Thank you Poll"

"Your getting old now" John laughs

"Shut up" I roll my eyes at my younger brother

"Oi Finn get in here" Finn walks into John office "take the odds" John hands the phone over to Finn who takes his place

"Yeah sure"

"Wheres Tommy?"

"Gone to the Black Lion" I tell my brother

"On his own?"

"You know our brother just as well and I do. He does everything on his own until he needs one of us"

"Should I go the the Black Lion?"

"No John"

"What about Arthur? where the fuck is Arthur?"

"Where do you think? at the Garrison drinking"

"Fuck sake" John sighs "it feels like things are getting a bit out of hand" I stop walking halfway in the shop

"Look. I deal with the shop, not Peaky business. You seem like the only one with a sensible head right now. So get things in hand" I walk away from John.

Later on a family meeting is called

"Where the bloody hell is Tommy?"

"He's on his way" aunt Polly says not looking at John

"Alright then, while we're waiting patiently... whisky, left over from the explosion. Good stuff as well" Arthur begins handing glasses out "good stuff as well" he hands me a glass then pours some whiskey in

"Right. Before Tommy gets here, there's a few things we need to get straight between the rest of us"

"You think?" Poll questions John who's stood at the head of the table with his hands behind his back

"Here we go" i mutter downing my drink then pouring more in the glass

"Yeah I do. I want to know, when did we all take a vote on this expansion south?" Polly moves forward with arms crossed

"If you have anything to say, you wait for Thomas"

"Polly's fucking right John" Arthur now chimes in

"Yeah will I see all of the books"

"Yeah so do I John" I roll my eyes

"But I see legal and off track. Sort of stuff you don't see. And in the past year the Shelby Company Limited has been making £150 a day. Right? a fucking day. Sometimes more. So what I want to know is why are we changing thing? we haven't even stepped a foot in London yet and they have already blown up our fucking pub"

"Who said anything about cockneys?"

"Who else?" Esme now pipes up. Tom finally arrives, Esme speaks her mind about not expanding to London, but of course Tommy doesn't listen.

The following week Tommy asks me to accompany him in London

"And no..."

"I know Tom. No back chatting, keep smiling and bat my eyelashes" I wave my brother off as we walk into a bakery

"Who are you?" a young man asks

"We're here to see Mr Solomons" I smile

"I'm sorry he's not available today, you'll have to..."

"Woah Ollie mate let them in" a rough voice says. I look up and see a man walking towards us. My smile grows wider instantly feeling attracted to the older man

"Mr and Mrs Shelby is it just the two of ya?"

"Miss Shelby. I'm his sister" I correct the man

"My apologies. You wanna take a look at my bakery?" the man begins walking, a nod from Tommy tells me to follow "we bake all sorts here. Did you know we bake over 10,000 loaves a week? We bake the white bread, we bake the brown bread all sorts. Would you like to try some" he leads us to what looks now like a brewery "bread? yeah"

"Alright" tommy actually smiles a little

"What would you like, brown or white?"

"Try the brown"

"Brown right and for you Miss?"

"I'll have whatever is the strongest" I smile at the man

"You sure, love? woman don't handle their drink well, right, and I don't want you going home on the piss"

"I think I'll be alright" I take a bottle from Ollie and pour myself a drink, downing in one

"No bad" Tommy says taking his drink

"Not bad? that's stuffs fucking awful"

"I have to agree. That has got to be the worst thing I've ever drank... sorry"

"Na the brown stuffs for the workers. The white stuffs for the boss come look" the man, I now presume is Mr Solomons leads us to an office. Tommy and I sit down in front of him

The meeting in the end works out well other than Mr Solomons pulling a gun out and placing in Tommys face and we are now business partners and it's up to me to go to the meetings with Mr Solomons.

#peaky blinders #peaky blinders alfie #alfie solomons x reader #shelby brothers #sister shelby #shelby sister #alfie solomons x y/n #peaky blinders sister #peaky blinders imagine

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garglyswoof · 8 months

Text

tagged by @stars-and-darkness to post a poll of my wips but i don't really have a following to do that with and there would be 1.5 votes and i'm not here to feel bad about myself all the time so here, just have a snippet of witch!klaus bc the spirit is motivation is it not? to that end i tag @ninzied @carry-the-sky bc i miss both of your writing - here's how to actually do the tag Caroline’s been around long enough to learn that every witch has their own signature, something in the magic that renders its pattern unique, magical DNA you can feel. Bonnie’s magic always carries something in it that feels like...the feathers of a raven, if you were to ask her to put it into words.

Which is distinctly not the feeling that crackles amidst the magical chains pulled taut around Caroline’s wrists, but still, there’s something familiar about it, and right now Caroline is trying to pin it down as an alternative to freaking out. She gives another experimental tug at the band of light that’s wrapped around her wrists and bites her lip to keep from screaming. It burns, worse than vervain, and when she figures out who’s caught her in this trap and why, she’s going to have a few words with them.

The problem is she’s not entirely sure how to get out of this predicament. She’d dropped her clutch when the magic took hold, more out of surprise than the bite of pain - she’s well used to pain, thanks for asking - and it sits with her cell inside a few mocking feet away. She’s not far back from the street, but her hoarse voice attests to the strength of whatever damnably familiar magic is keeping her veiled from passerby. Her arms are strung up, magically chained to a point somewhere up on the building’s painted brick wall, and as she watches a girl dressed to the nines walk by the alleyway, heedless to her shouts, she idly makes a note to pick up a pair of her same boots in red. Can’t let a magical chaining ruin everything.

Nice night on the town, she thinks wryly, staring down at her own shoes where dirt from the alleyway is smudged up the stacked heel. And that’s when she gets truly pissed, because you know, she had a whole evening planned, and getting caught in some sadistic witch’s trap was not in the Yelp review for dancing all night at Cielo’s. She grits her teeth, plants one foot firmly on the wall behind her, and prepares for the burn. She turns her head as her senses register the harsh snap of a voice, but she’s committed in her movement and she violently shoves off the wall, wrists hammering down as she tries to use her vampire strength to dislodge the spell from the building. The lack of friction confuses her, and the ground rises up to greet her face as she falls, untethered. Her fists slam into leather and a pair of hands slide beneath her shoulders and drag her up moments before she hits the ground.

Whoever this is smells impossibly good, she thinks, before raising her eyes to a pair of smirking lips she’d recognize anywhere.

“Hello, love.”

#klaroline #klaroline fanfiction #tag games

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