#and the mark stubble line . YES. I AGREE.

[sungie]

hi! we're (new) moots and i actually was stalking ur blog bc of a super sweet tag u left on one of my posts and i just wanted to let u know that u seem like such a sweet, kind soul <3 u have such good, genuine, and lighthearted energy that's so comforting omg u seem like u would be the ULTIMATE friend irl/online/in general <3 (i also may or may not have read all of ur jjk posts so when i become addicted i'm blaming it on u 😭💖)

AHH HI JANANI!! omg im so happy we're moots i just. completely fell in love with ur writing the way u get the dreamies is so real and domestic AND SO CUTE ?? I WAS SO SOFT READING PLS also i want u to know i just reread it and im sitting here like SOBBING AGAIN + ALSO UR THE SWEETEST i melted reading this !! also psst u radiate the exact same energy everything u just said is exactly how i feel abt u AHH <333

#i also . just love these lines i forgot to mention them earlier but the part about complimenting chenle not completing him I SOBBED THATS SO #SO REAL. AND SO. MY HEART #jeno blowing on home-cooked meals WAAHHHH #i live for jisung rizzler that's HILARIOUS. i can imagine this. and his silly little expression. where he looks so proud of himself. goodb #the way u get jeno is perfect #actually perfect i want to savor those little lines and keep them very close to my heart bc they are so tender and i just-- #HEEHEE THE JJK POSTS UR SO CUTE ILYSM #and the mark stubble line . YES. I AGREE.

[bellezaycafe]

Get Your Shit Together - Chapter 3

genre: 2024 Season AU

pairing: there will be romance but I haven't finalised who yet. platonic! oc x literally the whole grid.

warnings: swearing

context: Sadie, a 20 year old university student from Melbourne, decided to take a gap year and volunteer at 2 Formula One races in different countries.

Sadie's Faceclaim: Maia Mitchell (but you can visualise her howver you want :) )

comments: I guess this is a series now. I'm keeping the title Get Your Shit Together because I think Sadie is the kind of person who pretends to have her shit together but doesn't, so she helps everyone else get theirs together.

Part 1 | Masterlist

----$----

Max Verstappen was in a paddock interview when someone caught his eye. Dark brown hair, round face, sharp nose and a confident aura that compared to no others.

“Wait- hang on. Lewis, Lewis.” The older man looked over and his gaze followed Max’s pointed finger. “Mate, is that who I think it is?”

“Yeah mate, I think so.” Lewis’ smile only grew as he agreed.

“Who are you pointing too?” the interviewer asked.

Max hoped that she was just out of view of the cameras as he said, “the volunteer from Australia. The good one.”

He didn’t know how else to explain his respect for her in English; to him, she was good.

“It’ll be good to finally learn her name,” Lewis mused, scratching at his neat stubble.

“None of you know her name?” The reporter asked.

“No,” Lewis said into Max’s microphone. “I never had the chance to find her after the interviews.”

“I saw her the next day, I apologised for my behaviour to her,” Max commented. “But I forgot to ask her for her name.”

The reporter shook his head. “Alright well, thank you both for your time.”

Max nodded respectfully while Lewis said, “thank you.”

Then they both charged through the crowd towards the last place they saw the woman.

“Bets on her name?” Lewis asked.

“I don’t know. Something very Australian?”

“I feel like she’s a Layla or a Nira.”

"I think it's Sadie," came Lando's voice as he squished himself between the champions. "I asked Dave, one of the McLaren staff."

But when they reached the spot she had been, she'd vanished.

Max frowned and tried to use his height to see her but it was hopeless. Lewis pulled his phone out of nowhere and dialed a number. Lando just sat on the edge of a nearby pot plant.

"Heya," Lewis said into his phone. "I'm gonna need a paddock pass for our garage."

A pause.

"No, ass. I haven't found someone for the weekend and I don't intend to. It's for the girl from Melbourne, the volunteer George told you about... Yes, I know Carmen wants to meet her, that's why I'm asking you for a paddock pass."

Lando laughed from his seat, something boisterous and loud that had surrounding staff glancing over. Max was glad to hear his laugh again, it had been too long since they had hung out.

"No, I don't know her last name. I haven't even confirmed her first name... I can't ask her, she's not in front of me... I don't know where she is, we saw her from a distance... Max and Lando... Alright, fine. We'll find her."

Lewis hung up and sighed with a glance to the sky.

"They won't give you a pass?" Max guessed.

"They need her name first."

"Did you see who she was with?" Lando asked.

"Yeah," Lewis said. "Some paramedics. I recognised Mark, he's been the on call medic for years."

Max mulled over the fact he hadn't noticed anyone around her. He also mulled over the excitement little Lando Norris was trying to squash.

"I know where the medic tent is." He almost leapt up from his perch.

Lewis gave Max a knowing smirk as they disappeared into the crowd.

——$——

Sadie had no idea they had seen her. She was hoping that none of the drivers would remember her. She still hadn't seen their interviews from Melbourne and was clueless about the actions the FIA had taken to hand out penalties directly after the race.

"Hungry?" Mark, a middle-aged paramedic with greying blonde hair and smile lines besides his eyes, asked.

"I am starving, please tell me there is somewhere I can get a decent sanga."

Mark frowned. "Sanga?"

"Sandwich," Sadie corrected. She was almost bouncing as she spotted the food trucks.

"You Australian's are weird," Mark commented but he couldn't hide his smile.

"And you English are uncultured," she returned.

She liked Mark, they'd met yesterday during practices and clicked. He was her supervisor during the free practice sessions and qualifying but she'd stuck by his side off track too. He didn't mind, he knew she was there, on the other side of the world, alone, to work for a sport she loved.

He'd told her at the volunteer's group dinner last night that she was living the dream he had wanted to at 20. He'd had a couple wines and would not shut up about how much his wife would love to meet her.

"Mark, what do you want?" she called over her shoulder as the reached the sandwich truck. When he didn't reply, she glanced behind her.

He was 100 metres back, talking to none other than Sir Lewis Hamilton. Sadie turned back around, remembering their interaction in Melbourne.

Another body stepped up beside her, swathed in bright orange.

Correction: Papaya.

Sadie didn't turn, assuming it was a McLaren employee looking fro some early lunch.

"It's a surprise to see you here." Lando offered the icebreaker.

She turned at his voice and fought to keep her composure. His brown curls swished as he turned his head towards her.

"I didn't think you'd remember me," she said truthfully. Sadie focused her eyes on the bridge of his nose as she spoke, she didn't want to meet those ever-changing eyes. She'd already noted that they matched the day's grey sky.

"Most of us did." The driver shrugged. "Carmen, George's partner, wants to meet you. Lewis is trying to get you Mercedes paddock passes."

Sadie groaned at that, stepping closer to the food truck as the line moved forwards. "I'm not stepping near any of your garages unless I'm doing my job. Too many cameras, too many people."

Lando laughed. "Understandable, but Lewis is determined."

Sadie paused for a moment as the line moved again. "How about, I will come and meet George and Carmen after the race? I'll meet Carmen while Lewis and George do their interviews and debriefs?"

The same brown curls swayed as Lando nodded. "I think they'll agree to that. All the cameras will be focused on the interviews and top three."

Sadie made an 'exactly' gesture and stepped up to the food truck with a goodbye wave.

By the time she had ordered her sandwich and Mark's signature wrap, the drivers had finished speaking with the paramedic.

He joined her while they waited.

"You never told me it was you who scolded Max in Melbourne," Mark noted.

Sadie muttered a curse. "I was hoping that everyone had forgotten about that. I lost my temper and I'm not proud of it."

"Lewis said that you stood up for yourself."

"I scolded him like a school teacher."

"You did call him a child."

"Angry, remember?"

"Sandwich and wrap for Sadie!" the food vendor shouted.

She stepped up, collected their food and handed her wrap to Mark.

"I didn't tell anyone about it because don't like media attention," she told him. "I hate how how the media follow the drivers. They have to fight for a private life, and I hate that. Max was angry, I was angry, and that interaction was something between the drivers and I. It had nothing to do with the fan's consumption of the race."

Mark hummed his agreement around his wrap.

"The media circus doesn't know what happened, and they don't need to. His reaction was fair, and they don't need to be involved."

Sadie watched something pass over Mark's face but she couldn't place what it was. She devoured her sandwich instead.

----$----

Please let me know about how you feel about the direction this thing is going!!

#f1 #formula 1 #formula one #f1 x oc #f1 fic #f1 imagine #f1 fanfic #lando norris #max verstappen #lewis hamilton

[atonalginger]

WIP Wednesday

Thanks for the tag @fangbangerghoul! I don't have much but I've got a chunk from a short fic I'm writing with Lila, Sam, and Goose! They were too much fun to not go back and see what they're up to!

---

It had been Goose’s idea to rebuild the Bitter Angel. The War Bard was a powerful ship but it was near impossible to sneak up on anyone with its pastel blue paint job and 40m frame. She’d served well in the battle for the Key and Toilman but they weren’t fighting in the war anymore. They were pirates and needed something zippier and subtler than the Bard.

It was Lila’s idea to use a busted up UC transport they’d stolen during the Toilamn conquest as the base for the new Bitter Angel. It already had some of the parts, including the armory, landing bay, and rear landing gears. The landing gears needed repairs but Jazz’s team could manage that.

Sam was the one who pitched the idea of custom habs for the new Bitter Angel. Nothing crazy, just more personalized spaces for longer jobs. Sam and Lila took a Hopetech captain’s quarters and gutted it, leaving only the water closet intact. They installed a large bed in the back of the hab with a sliding divider to close it off for added privacy. A pair of corner couches and a L-shaped desk formed a more physical barrier in the hab to separate the bed from the living space. Goose swapped the Nova all-in-one of the old Bitter Angel for his own room. He picked a Hopetech captain’s quarters as the base, though like his parents he had it gutted save for the water closet. The back half of his hab looked like a computer core with a wall of servers and monitors and a L-shaped desk to separate the back from his sleeping area. He installed a Murphy bed along the inner wall of the hab with a large monitor mounted on bottom frame to be watched from his couch when the bed was up.

“That’s quite the view,” Lila said from the pilot seat. She was leaned forward to look around the blind spots of the chunky bridge frame, “I don’t think I could design a more aggressive docking situation if I tried.”

“That was the point,” Sam was leaning on the seat, “no time for finesse when you’re raiding someone.”

“Yes but from here it looks like the bridge would slam into the mark,” Lila looked back at Sam and Goose, “not to mention you can’t see shit from here. Hopetech really seems to hate pilots being able to see anything.”

“It’s not that bad,” Goose said with a laugh, “plus she’s squirrelly so if you can’t see just tap the stick.”

“Could be worse, could be trapped in a Stroud cockpit, “Sam poked her shoulder, “all that room and one narrow line of windows to see.

“I suppose,” Lila swatted Sam’s hand away as he continued poking her, “You two can have fun flying her, sitting here is tying my stomach in knots.”

“Really?” Goose said in astonishment.

“Yes this cockpit is claustrophobic,” Lila stood up and made her way back through the narrow fuselage, “I might be ancient but I’ve never fully shook the ol’ Terra Firma Syndrome. Why else do you think I like big ships?”

“But you’d said space travel didn’t bother you anymore?” Goose asked.

“Correct,” she leaned against the clean white padding of the fuselage, “but being in a tiny space inches from the void with nothing but a cluster of dinky windows to shield me is too much.” She turned and left the two men in the small bridge, hopping down to the lower level, an echoing thump as she landed on the closed floor hatch to the workshop at the bottom of the ship.

Sam itched his chin, digging at the growing beard. He still wasn’t sure if he was going to keep it, it’s been years since he’d gone more than a few days shaving. Lila liked him either way, though he noticed she was fussing from the scratchy stubble. He’d probably end up shaving it again, if only to escape the itchiness.

He’d only started growing it out because of Goose. The now 18 year old young man wanted to grow out his facial hair but was getting discouraged so Sam agreed to grow his out in solidarity. So far Goose had a decent disconnected goatee going; the hair on his upper lip, chin, and lower lip had grown in thick. He wanted a full beard but the hair got patchier up his jawline and he started shaving it to not get teased by folks around the Key.

Sam watched Goose check over the systems, recalibrating them just like they did with the old Angel. His hair looked feral with the two years worth of grow-out curling every which way. Lila had convinced him shortly after the fight for the Key, when he was still recovering from his injuries, to let her trim all the fried ends from his hair. He hadn’t bleached or dyed his ginger hair since, his curl pattern free to take over. Both Sam and Lila had encouraged Goose to style it in some way, to keep it out of his face, even just run a comb through it to tidy it up but Goose seemed to like it messy and unkempt so there wasn’t much they could do.

At least he bathes and wears deodorant, Sam thought as he lowered himself into the pilot seat. He had a leg up on most his pirate peers with that. Sam flipped on the ship intercom, “if you’ve got any business with the Key say something now, otherwise we’re outta here.”

Lila’s voice bounced up through hatch and down the fuselage, “Let’s bust this joint!”

#starfield #sam coe #starfield fanfiction #atonalginger writes #wip wednesday #starborn!Sam #Sam Coe x oc #pirate!Sam #the family that plungers together stays together

[lunagb]

A Plague of Sleet and Rot (ASoIaF x The Walking Dead fanfic)

BOOK 2 - A Road of Snow and Grime

CHAPTER 1: The Long Road

Masterlist

Summary: A month has passed since Jon Snow awakened on a highway outside of Atlanta and joined Rick Grimes and his fellow survivors. His memories of his death have returned and our alien world is beginning to make a bit of sense. Ever since the loss of the CDC, surviving in the apocalypse has been a daily struggle. The group is on thin ice. Supplies are dwindling. Hope is fading. The dead are walking. And their only chance for life may be a run-down farm, an old man and his daughters.

Relationships: Daryl Dixon x Carol, Rick Grimes x Lori Grimes, Carl Grimes & Sophia, and basically a friendship tag with Jon Snow & Everyone else except Shane.

Chapter Summary: Jon and the group journey down a highway in search of shelter and supplies. Along the way they encounter death, decay and walking corpses while all the while, an ever-increasing horde chomps at their heels.

Time Frame: Farm Arc - TV Variant Adjacent

Featured Characters: Jon Snow, Ghost, Mormont's Raven, Rick Grimes, Carl Grimes, Lori Grimes, Daryl Dixon, Carol, Sophia, Dale, Glenn Rhee, Andrea, T-Dog, Edwin Jenner, Shane Walsh

Warnings: gore, vivid descriptions of dead bodies, child mutilation

[Art above is a piece by Art.of.Azrael. You can support them here: https://linktr.ee/Art.of.Azrael ]

Any notes are appreciated!

“Corn! Corn! Corn!” The pest, Mormont’s raven, complained from its perch atop the RV’s overhead cabinets.

“No! There’s no corn!” Jon shouted.

The damnable raven bobbed up and down, eyed Jon with its scarred eye and muttered nonsense words.

Jon sighed and turned his attention back to the matter at hand. “Sorry. Where were we?”

“Trust,” Jenner said. The doctor sat across from Jon in the cramped booth of the RV, sullen and sweaty under the glare of Georgia’s summer sun. The past three weeks had done nothing to help the man’s already sour disposition. Lines marked a once smooth face. Grime darkened once cream-blonde hair. A dirty, matted beard hugged his face from mouth to neck. He regarded Jon with accusing, sunken, weathered eyes.

“Yes, trust.” Jon paused to put together the proper words in his mind. “It’s not that we don’t trust them. It’s just that the timing isn’t right. We’re too vulnerable. When we’re in a better position, that’s when we tell them.”

“Keeping the truth from them only makes them more vulnerable. They need to know now.”

“I agree.” Jon made sure to soften his words. “They do need to know, eventually. But right now, such a truth will only serve to dash their hopes. And hope is all they have. Without it, all of this falls apart.”

“No. The truth will make them stronger,” Jenner said.

“How can you of all people believe such a thing? Look what happened to your fellow doctors when they were confronted with the truth.”

Jenner shook his head. “These people are different.”

“Diff-rent!” The pest cawed from its cabinet perch.

“Men have their limits, Jenner. Even the strongest of them.”

“Not just men, remember? We don’t refer to collectives as men in this world, we say people. Keep it gender neutral.”

Jon’s cheeks burned. “Oh, yes, right. I forgot. Sorry.” Jon cursed himself without words. Jenner’s lessons had helped him a great deal in understanding this strange world. But there was a lot to learn and not enough room in Jon’s head to remember it all.

Jenner smiled a gentle smile. “Try again.”

“People have their limits.”

“Good. And yes, they do but I feel like you’re underestimating theirs’, Jon. You and Rick.”

Before Jon could give his rebuttal, the RV’s door flew open. Glenn poked his head through the doorway, struggling for a breath, drenched in sweat. Travel on the highway had sunken his cheeks and granted him a peppering of black stubble. “Guys, Daryl’s back.” The words tumbled out of him then as quick as lightning, he hurried away.

Jon rose from the padded seat of the booth. “Jamie Lannister killed the last dragon king.”

“Huh? Excuse me?”

“Our arrangement. A lesson of your world for a lesson of mine. Jamie Lannister or Kingslayer was a member of King Aerys II Targaryen’s Kingsguard and son of Tywin Lannister, Warden of the West. He slew the man he was sworn to protect with a gilded sword when all was lost for the King’s cause at the climax of Robert’s Rebellion.”

Jenner whipped out a notepad and a stub of a pencil and began scribbling down the words. Curiosity blazed in his eyes. “And what year was that?”

Jon had to think back to Maester Lunwin’s lessons. “283 AC.”

As Jenner scribbled down the date, the pencil used up the last of its lead. “Damn. That was our last one.”

“Have Glenn add pencils to the scavenging list.” Jon turned for the door. “As for our discussion. We will continue it later.”

“La-ter!” The raven swooped onto Jon’s shoulder.

Jenner rose too. “We will.”

Jon exited the RV and the midday sun greeted him; a blinding glare reflected off the highway’s black asphalt. He squinted through the glare and grit his teeth through the heat. Georgia seemed to be getting hotter each day. The summer of this land was relentless. It baked everything, all the time. Even at night while the sun slept, a muggy heat persisted. And still, Jon wore his cloak and mail. A folly, he knew. But they afforded him a strange sense of safety and in times such as these, safety was as luxurious as silk.

Carl and Sophia nearly tripped him as they raced past the RV towards the camp’s exterior, a palisade of broken cars. Oblivious to Jon or anything, they ran off giggling amongst themselves; a rare treat. Laughter had become a rare sight among the children since the CDC. Carl had taken to brooding and complaining. The foolish lad insisted he went on every scavenging trip, no matter how many times he was forbade. Even going as far as wearing his father’s hat with the golden star as if it made him appear more capable. When he was forbade, as he always was, he would spend his time wallowing and raging as far away from everyone as he was allowed. During his sulks, he only ever permitted Sophia for company. Sophia wasn’t much better. The girl refused to speak to anyone that wasn’t Carol or Carl. And insisted on carrying a stuffed pink bear that Daryl had found in a sewer drain everywhere she went. When the girl did talk, it was hardly ever more than a whisper. For the life of him, Jon couldn’t recall the last time he’d actually seen the girl laugh let alone smile, even when with Carl. Oftentimes, when the group made camp along the highway, they would sneak off into the woods. No matter how many times they were scolded, they continued to do it, putting their lives at risk.

Jon took note of everyone and what they were doing. Watching was important. It let Jon know how stable their little community was. Instability would be the death of them and addressing it as soon as it showed its ugly head would keep them alive.

Jenner had taught Jon how the titles of Westeros had no meaning in this world. But regardless, Jon found it useful to think of everyone as having a title.

Across from the RV, the group’s stewards, Lori, Carol and T-Dog worked around a pitiful, little fire. Several crates of supplies surrounded them. Carol, their seamstress, sewed patches onto damaged clothes. She had a heaping pile of work; most clothes were damaged nowadays. T-Dog, their cook, picked through their meagre food rations to organise meals. He had half a crate to work with and not a very large one either. They chatted with smiles and laughter despite the circumstances. Lori, their First Steward, lost herself in her counts. She went over everything with a piece of paper in hand. Counting all their supplies and comparing them to the tally Glenn had left her.

When Lori noticed him watching, she flagged him down with a wave. “Jon! I can’t find any pencils, have you seen any? I need one for the count.”

“We’re out it seems,” Jon said.

“Out!” Echoed the raven.

Lori sighed and kneaded the bridge of her nose. Jon studied her face. Dark bags loitered under her eyes. Travel had tangled her hair into brown, greasy, dangling ropes. Weathered lines marked her face. By all accounts, quite normal. Out on the road, they’d lost the privilege of a consistent wash. Fussing over one’s appearance had become a habit soon forgotten. Mirrors were a scourge best avoided. Jon’s own hair had become a tangled mess and his beard had returned as an itchy shag.

“That’s my bad,” Jenner said. “I used up the last stump.”

“What for?” Lori snapped.

“I have my own tallies to keep, you know,” Jenner lied. “You know, the medicine? The thing that keeps you all healthy?” A half lie.

If it were any other lie, Jon would have corrected it. But the lie was for his sake, he knew. Even after everything, the group still believed Jon to be somewhat mad. It wouldn’t serve to have them believe the only doctor had gone mad with him.

“You should have asked,” Lori scolded.

“Pencils will be added to the scavenging list.” Jon moved between Lori and Jenner. “For now, try making charcoal from the fire.”

Lori wrinkled her nose. “How?”

“I’ll show you once we’re done convening with Daryl,” Jon said.

Carol lifted her head from her work with a gleam in her weathered eyes. Her once short hair had grown into the awkward phase between short and long. Her already thin frame had thinned her to near mere skin and bones. “Daryl’s back?” Carol ran her hands over her stained blouse, flattening the many wrinkles.

“He is,” Jon said. “Feel free to join us.”

“Jon!” T-Dog called out. “Let ‘em know lunch’ll be ready soon.” T-Dog had gained the hearty facial hair of a man. A great curly black beard strapped his jaw, neck and upper lip. It stood in great contrast to his hairless head. The muscles that had once made him as stocky as a bull had shrunk, leaving him lean yet still broad of shoulder.

“I’ll let them know,” Jon said as Carol joined his side.

Dale, who had been working at the engine of the RV, called out. “Let me give you a hand setting the table, T-Dog!” He put down his spanner, wiped the grease from his hands on a rag and hurried over to the fire. His gut, once round and plentiful had all but receded. He'd almost look young if it weren’t for the bushy, wild silver beard and thick silver eyebrows to match. Together, Dale and T-Dog carried over a collection of food cans, a pot of rice and an assortment of potato chips to a long plastic table that Glenn had discovered in the basement of a church.

If Dale hadn’t joined them on that scavenging trip, they’d have never looked at the table twice. But Dale had insisted they bring it back with them so the group could share their meals together. Strapping the damn thing to the back of the jeep had taken a combined effort of the whole scavenging party. And even with the effort of four strong men, Dale, and Andrea, it had been a tedious process. Everyone had thought them mad when they returned with it, themselves included. Although, Jon had to concede that the table had value after all. Bringing everyone together for meals, rather than eating alone, breathed an otherwise absent sense of normalcy into their bleak circumstance. It made them more than a group of survivors. It made them a community. Jon only wished the blasted table wasn’t so prone to collapsing on itself.

Jon followed Dale to the table. “Dale, how goes the RV’s engine?” For a lack of horses or ships, Jon thought of Dale as their Master of Engines.

Dale laughed. “Oh, the old girl’s hanging in there. The new parts we found last scavenge will keep her running just fine, don’t you worry.”

Jenner regarded Dale with a plain look. “And the others?”

“Well… the jeep’s on its last legs. I can keep her going for a little while longer but unless we find some fresh cylinders that fit her engine, she’ll break down sooner rather than later. The range rover’s good as ever. As for Daryl’s bike, I’ll need to look it over once he brings it here.”

“What about gas?”

“Enough for the next stretch of travel, even if the hoard has gotten closer than we thought, but we’ll need to siphon more once we make camp again.” The light faded from Dale’s face.

The mere mention of the hoard caused an unsettling silence to linger over the group. It had followed them from the city. First, as no more than twenty or so walkers but with each day that passed, it only grew larger. They’d done their best to shake it off their trail but no matter how far they drove or how many twists and turns they took along the highway routes when Daryl drove back to check on it, it was always still there, stalking them. Daryl’s last report had counted the hoard as numbering 200 in strength. Jon fretted to think what their numbers looked like now.

The damnable raven broke the silence with two screeching caws. “Hoard! Hoard!” Which earned the bird a unified look of contempt from all. Mormont’s raven hadn’t received the warmest of welcomes when it followed Jon back to their camp. Tensions had already been high and the raven’s incessant cawing had only made things worse. Daryl liked the raven least of all. He’d threatened to skin the bird more times than Jon could remember. Not that it ever fazed the creature. Every time it cackled a caw of, “Skin, skin, skin!”

Jon gave Dale’s shoulder a squeeze and spoke with the voice of Lord Snow, Lord Commander of The Night's Watch. For their sakes. “I doubt the hoard is any less than a week away. We’ll have plenty of time to scavenge again before it makes it anywhere near us.”

A smile reappeared on Dale’s lips. “That’s right. That’s what Rick tells us time and time again, ain’t it?”

“Y-Yeah. It is,” Carol said with a thin smile.

“As long as we keep ahead of it we ain’t got nothin’ to fear,” T-Dog said, grinning.

“That’s the truth,” Lori declared. “And once we find someplace proper to settle down we’ll hunker down and let it pass right over us, just like we do with the smaller herds. Then we’ll be free of the dead.”

Jenner said nothing but the look he gave Jon made his position clear. It wasn’t the time or place to resume their discussion, however, so Jon turned his attention to the only other person who said nothing. On top of the RV, Shane sat in a plastic chair with a rifle in his lap, overlooking the highway. Ever since the CDC, he’d nary said a word to anyone, except to volunteer for day watch. His once orderly hair had grown into an unkempt, curly mess. A once stocky face was now weathered by stern lines and sunken cheeks. At all times, his eyes remained fixed on the boundless highway. Beyond the limits of their modest camps.

“Shane, have you seen Ghost return?” Jon asked.

“Nope."

“Let me know when he returns, won’t you?”

“Yup.”

“Yup!” the raven echoed.

Any disdain the group held for the raven, went double for Shane. Although, it remained unspoken. Shane had hardly spoken a word to the group and the group hardly ever spoke a word to him. Jon figured it better than outright hostility. It had taken quite an effort, but Jon had managed to put Shane’s actions at the quarry camp aside. The past was dust after all, as Maester Aemon had often said. If their group were to survive in the present they needed as many capable hands as possible.

“Ghost!” The raven cawed, interrupting Jon’s thought. “Ghost!”

Ghost had been out hunting for a few days now, as long as Daryl had been gone. Jon had found it best to let Ghost hunt only when Daryl left. All Daryl did when he wasn’t scouting or scavenging was hunt. Jon had once made the mistake of letting Ghost hunt at the same time as Daryl. The direwolf had stolen every single one of Daryl’s kills, which Daryl made sure to let Jon know about, loudly. Game was scarce around the highway. More often than not, Ghost would return from hunts with his jaws coated in rot rather than the blood of game. Jenner had often assured Jon that Ghost couldn’t become infected at all, let alone from eating the dead. Yet, the sight of Ghost's jaws matted with rot always left Jon feeling uneasy. But there was naught he could do about it.

“T-Dog, how goes our food supplies?” Jon asked.

T-Dog dodged his eyes and answered with little more than a mutter. “We’ve got four days left, and that’s if we half the rations.”

Jon glanced at Carol and her twig arms. “We’ll keep the travel light. I’ll talk to Glenn about organising a scavenge as soon as we make camp again.”

“This will have to be our last lunch for while, I think,” Lori said, clutching her tally paper. “When Rick gets back, I’m going to recommend we step back to one meal a day.”

A silent wave of despair washed over the faces of the group, except Shane who didn’t seem like he’d even heard. Jon kept his own face sturdy. Hunger no longer frightened him as it once did when he was a green boy. All he could do was have faith that their group had the strength to persevere. Even when the hardest of times reared its misshapen head.

“I’ll pass on your message when I see him,” Jon assured Lori. The assurance softened her weathered gaze somewhat, but it did not rid it of its despair.

Together, Jon, Jenner and Carol left the huddle of vehicles and crude shelters of the interior of the camp for the palisade of abandoned cars that formed the exterior. Abandoned cars littered the highway wherever the group went. Most had been left in the middle of the road, almost absentmindedly. Others they found crashed into the ditches and barriers that shouldered the highway. The, at first, seemingly useless inconveniences had in time proven to be a vital resource. The cars often had supplies left abandoned inside them. They ranged from the mundane such as briefcases full of papers and pens, to vital items like medicine and food. But even more importantly, the abandoned cars had parts that could be repurposed to suit the group’s vehicles. Jenner had spent the better part of a week recently trying to teach Jon how cars worked. Despite the man's best efforts, Jon couldn’t comprehend the machinery. At least he didn’t believe them to be magic anymore, Jon supposed.

Rick, Glenn and Andrea worked together to roll a car out of the way to allow Daryl to reenter the camp on his motorcycle. A two-wheeled vehicle that one straddled like a horse and had an engine that roared louder than any car. Daryl had discovered it in a ditch a few days after the CDC. He had worked day and night with Dale over the course of their first week on the road to get it up and running. But that was before the hoard, back when they could afford to be idle like that.

Sullen and silent, Daryl dismounted his motorcycle and walked it through the opening in the palisade of cars. His hair, longer and greasier, hung over his eyes. The rugged features of his face were dark, like a storm, as they often were nowadays. Although, he did brighten up a bit somewhat as he noticed Carl and Sophia watching him. Carl marvelled at the motorcycle as he often did. While Sophia, who had been staring at him, dodged his eyes the moment his met hers. Daryl opened a satchel slung around his shoulder and pulled out two brightly coloured plastic packets with pictures of queer creatures that Jon couldn’t possibly imagine to be real.

“Here,” Daryl gave Carl and Sophia a packet each. “Found ‘em in a van.”

“Whoa! Cool! These are fifth gen. They only came out recently,” Carl exclaimed as he marvelled at the packet.

“What do you say, Carl?” Rick said with the sternness of a father. The beginnings of a salt and pepper beard were growing on his face to match his salt and pepper hair. Sunken cheeks paired with sunken eyes. And dark bags beneath said eyes paired with a dark bruise across his temple that he’d earned during a scavenge. A mountain of a walker had come bursting out of a room as Rick passed by. The door slammed him across the side of the head hard and threw him to the floor like a sack of flour. A daring throw of a knife from Andrea fell the walker, sparing Rick from a bite. A matter of seconds had made the difference between life and death. Jon could still picture it clear as day; the rotting teeth inches from Rick’s arm.

“Thank you, Daryl,” Carl said, staring at the packet.

“Sir,” Rick corrected.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Sir!” The raven cried.

Carl giggled. “Sir!” He echoed back.

The raven flapped its wide, black wings. “Sir! Sir! Sir!”

“You too, Sophia,” Carol said. More of a suggestion than a command.

Sophia glanced at her mother, Daryl, then clutched her pink bear to her chest. “Thank you, sir…” She whispered. In the next heartbeat, she darted away and ran back towards camp with Carl in tow.

“Sir!” The raven cried.

Daryl scowled at Jon. “That little bastard’s still followin’ you around, huh?”

In another life, that word would have soured Jon's mood. He chose to unhear it. “He is a persistent creature.”

Carol greeted Daryl with a meek smile. “You didn’t run into any trouble did you?” She asked.

“Naw, it was fine.” Daryl and Carol had formed a strange friendship of recent, Jon had noticed. The pair seemed about as unlikely friends as Robert Baratheon and Rhaegar Targaryen. But yet, friends they had become, of a sort.

“And the hoard?” Andrea interjected. “How many now?” Andrea was only four years Jon’s senior, but one would be hard-pressed to tell nowadays. Travel had made her the very image of Lady Stark, only with golden hair. Her face - hard, weathered and plastered with a permanent scowl - granted her the disposition of a warrior. As a woman, she may lack grace, but as a fighter and ranger, she outclassed nearly all of them. Jon could best her in blades, but little else.

The storm returned to Daryl’s face. “It’s doubled again.”

“Four hundred…” Andrea whispered, breathless.

“It doesn’t matter as long as we keep ahead of it, right Rick?” Carol asked.

Rick glanced at her and frowned. “How far out do you reckon it is, Daryl?”

Daryl clicked his tongue. “It’s slowed some. Maybe, a week and half, maybe two.”

“And it’s still following us?”

“Yup. It’s passed over the crossroads and headed our way.”

“That means we can’t go back, right?” Andrea asked. “We’re stuck on this branch of the highway until the next crossroads.”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Glenn said quietly. He’d become something of a First Ranger. Always the one to organise scavengings and put together the teams. Dale had helped him study the maps but Glenn had surpassed his teacher as the authority on all things maps.

“We can work around that,” Rick said. “The dead walk. We drive. So long as we’ve got our wheels, there ain’t nothin’ to be afraid of.”

“Daryl,” Jenner interjected. “You should go tell the others what you saw. They’ll want to know.” Jenner shared a look with Rick and Glenn that the two dodged.

Daryl gave Jenner a queer look. “Uh, sure doc.” He rolled his motorcycle off into the camp. Carol followed after him.

“I’ll go too,” Andrea said. Once Daryl left earshot she added, “to make sure he doesn’t terrify anyone.”

“Right,” Glenn said, staring at Jenner.

“Good idea, Andrea. Make sure they stay calm,” Rick said, also keeping his eyes on Jenner.

Andrea nodded and took off after Daryl. As she headed off, Rick, Glenn, Jon and Jenner shared tense gazes. The tension only broke once Andrea left earshot.

“Rick-” Jenner began.

“No,” Rick snapped. “Dammit, how many times do I gotta tell you two no?”

“Come on, man. It’s almost been a month. They deserve to know,” Glenn said.

“We’ve discussed this,” Jon soothed. “The knowledge that we’re all infected will only dash their hopes.”

“I didn’t tell you so you could all keep it a secret,” Jenner snapped. “I told you because-”

“I heard you the first five times,” Rick said.

“You clearly didn’t because here we are. It’s just practical sense. We need all the information possible to survive in this world. Keeping something like this from them only serves to keep them ignorant.”

“And hopeful,” Jon said.

“No, it ain't practical,” Rick said. He sighed and softened his voice. “Right now, they believe that something separates them from the dead. That, us and them are opposing forces. If they knew that the virus lies dormant inside all of us and that only death separates us from them, they’ll break. The only thing keepin’ us united right now is the hope for a better future free of walkers. Once we’ve got some stability off of the highway, then and only then can we take that hope away from them.”

“And when will that be, Rick?” Glenn asked. “We’ve been out here for three weeks now. Last week was meant to be the last week, as was the week before. We’ve passed by a bunch of towns we could have settled down in but you said no to all of them. When is it gonna be good enough?”

“Those towns were overrun,” Rick said. “You saw that, as well as I did.”

“Every town’s gonna be overrun, man. You heard Jenner, the first wave hit everywhere at once. 35% of the population gone.” Glenn snapped his fingers. “Just like that. We aren’t gonna come across a town that wasn’t affected.”

Rick ran his hand through his greasy, salt-and-pepper hair. “Look… I know I promised you that the end of this was near. And I’m sorry I went back on that. But this time I reckon it’s close. We’re out in farmin’ country now. You know the map better than anyone, Glenn. Tell me I’m wrong.”

“We will be passing by some farms soon,” Glenn relented.

“And we’ll check ‘em out when we do. I’m confident we’ll find a place we can settle down in.”

“And how long will that take?” Jenner asked, scowling.

“Not long, I promise. No longer than another week at most.”

“Once we have a place to call our own, that’s when we tell them,” Jon said. “It’ll cushion the blow.”

Jenner shook his head. “You’re underestimating these people. They’re by far some of the strongest men and women I’ve ever met. Hell, even the kids have got more guts than some of the people I worked with.”

“That is where you misunderstand me.” Jon gripped Jenner’s shoulder firmly. “I don’t doubt their strength. Not even a little. But we all know how fear affects the mind. Most likely our group could handle the truth; some even better than you and I. But there is the distinct possibility that they don’t take it well and that risk, however small it may be, isn’t worth taking right now. Not while we’re so vulnerable.”

“Risk!” The raven cawed. “Risk!”

Jenner knocked Jon’s hand aside and his scowl flared.

Glenn stroked his chin. “That… makes sense. I hate to admit it, but it does. But you better commit this time, Rick. I swear.”

“I will. I promise, this time we’ll find a place,” Rick said.

Jenner looked aghast. “You can’t be serious, Glenn.”

“Sorry, doc,” Glenn said with the meekness of a boy.

“It ain’t a tie no more, Jenner. You’re outvoted. We wait,” Rick said.

“Let us put this constant bickering behind us, shall we? So that we may focus on more pressing issues.” Jon again tried to reach out for Jenner’s shoulder but Jenner knocked his hand away.

As wrathful a blizzard, Jenner marched back to camp but, after a few paces, suddenly turned around. “You know, the government hid all kinds of shit from you people before the world fell! Terrible, awful things! It was wrong then and it's wrong now!” Jenner snapped on his heels and marched back towards camp.

“Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!” The raven cawed.

“Should we stop him?” Glenn asked.

“No, he won’t tell,” Jon said.

“You sure?” Rick asked.

“I am.”

Suddenly, the underbrush beyond the highway rustled. Rick and Glenn drew knives from their belts. Jon drew Longclaw. Each of them had a holster with a gun on their belt but they’d run out of ammo weeks ago. The three of them, without a word, formed a small V-formation with Jon at the front and Rick and Glenn on his flanks. Jon’s breath caught in his chest as he waited for the emergence of a rotting, shambling corpse.

But it was only Ghost. He padded out of the woods, nonchalant as a wolf of his size ought to be. They all breathed a sigh of relief and put away their blades. Jon offered his hand to Ghost. Ghost accepted, pushing the top of his head into Jon’s palm.

“Good hunting, boy?” Jon asked. He found his answer in the fur of Ghost’s jaws. It was brown; matted by rot.

Jon stomached the unease with a sort of sullen grace and turned back to Rick. “There’s something else we must discuss.”

“Sure, hit me.”

“With regards to our food. We’re running dangerously low. T-Dog and Lori both agree that we need to cut rations if we are to go more than couple more days with food. Lori has even suggested we cut back to one meal a day.”

Rick blinked at Jon, unfazed. “Then that’s what we’ll do.”

“I also promised them we’d keep this travel short and so that we might scavenge soon.”

Rick nodded. “Glenn, how far out are the farms?”

“Not far, a day at most.”

Rick nodded again. “We’ll take a day to pack, and a day to travel. Glenn, put together a team for scavenging when we arrive at the farms, a big one. Jon, get some rest, it’s past time. I don’t want you dozin’ off during night watch.”

“As you command.” Jon caught himself at the last moment. He didn’t bow his head or utter the courtesy, remembering what Jenner had taught him. There were no Lords or Kings in America.

***

They left their camp at first light in a single file of four vehicles. Daryl rode out ahead on his motorcycle, alone. It had been Jon who suggested making Daryl their scout. “The road will undoubtedly be full of blockages. Abandoned cars, walker herds and who knows what else,” he had told them. Jon knew what else. He didn’t dare say it, even to Rick; the distinct possibility that other people may want what little they have. Men are cruel in the best of times, let alone times like these.

While Daryl scouted ahead, Shane’s jeep led the way carrying only Shane, Ghost and the plastic long table. Jon would have preferred Ghost to travel with him but the direwolf was far too massive to fit anywhere else. Ghost could run fast, faster than any horse but the unnatural pace of an engine outmatched even him. Jon could have rode with him, there was room enough but all men must sleep and he was oh so tired.

Per Rick's command, Jon lay in the back of the RV, on a bed with a mattress of stone and sheets as thin as paper. He gazed out the back window at the tail of their column of cars. T-Dog drove a car known as a range rover. It carried all their supplies; food, water, medicine, clothes, camping gear; all scavenged. The meagre size of the supplies put the range rover's spacious interior to waste. Andrea sat beside T-Dog with an ammoless rifle in her lap, watching the woods with suspicion.

Everyone else road with Jon in the RV, in the middle of the column, in silence. Travel was often accompanied by silence. It ought to make for easy sleeping and yet, Jon lay awake, staring at the woods through the back of the RV. Dark, deep and green, the woods were a leafy abyss that followed them everywhere. They absorbed all sound and sight; equal parts shield and cell. Walkers often came stumbling out of the woods. Jon found himself wondering how the poor souls ended up in the woods in the first place. Were they murdered like the corpse he’d found the raven feasting on? Mayhaps. Were they exploring or hunting when the first wave swept across the lands of Earth? Mayhaps. Mayhaps, they’d lost their lives valiantly, defending the weak and innocent.

The rising sun twinkled off the green abyss oh so beautifully.

A voice spoke. A hand gripped his shoulder. Jon awoke staring at the RV’s waxy, peeling ceiling but he could not remember falling asleep. “Jon.” The hand shook him. Rick loomed over him. “Get up.”

The weight of a mind bogged down by sleep weighed on Jon as he rose from the RV’s bed. “Have we arrived?”

“No.”

“No!” The raven shot over Rick’s shoulder with a flurry of fluttering black feathers and landed on Jon’s knee. A film of wet rot covered its beak. “No!”

“There’s a bunch of cars piled up on the road. We’re gonna clear ‘em out of the way. And there’s a graveyard.”

“Out this far?”

Rick nodded. “Go with Daryl and scout it out. I wanna know how many cars we need to clear and how long we’ll be stuck here. Take Ghost,” Rick said.

“As you command.”

When Jon left the RV any lingering grogginess sobered at once. The stench of death attacked him. It assaulted his nose and throat in a desperate charge, making him gag for the first time in weeks. A ring of cars sat in the middle of the highway, drenched in blood and rot. Rotting corpses piled up against the exterior of the ring. A mound towered, forming a rotting ramp up against the palisade of cars. Inside the ring, a crust of blood and rot coated all. Fresh bodies lay strewn about and half devoured. Scattered weapons sat out of reach of their rotting owners. A huddle of collapsed and bloodied tents as well as several spilled crates rested in the centre. It all festered beneath the scorching summer sun, high above in the cloudless sky. Hoards of fat, black flies swarmed the corpses with a sickening chorus of buzzing wings that rang in Jon’s ears.

The group went about their duties. Rick hurried to help T-Dog and Glenn roll the cars least enveloped by corpses and open a lane of the highway. Jenner, Andrea and Dale sorted through the interior of the massacred camp like a band of crows. They worked together to collect any food, water, medicine, weapons or ammo left behind. Shane sat alone in a plastic chair on top of the RV, watching over the rear with an ammoless scoped rifle. No one opened any of the cars. Not yet anyway. Walkers liked to linger inside locked cars and ever since one tried to bite Andrea all those weeks ago, scavenging cars was done in teams with blades in hand.

Everything scavenged was brought to Lori, Carol and the children by the RV. They sorted them into piles and packed them into crates. Carol sorted the valuables into piles. Lori scribbled everything down onto an inventory with a piece of charcoal. Sophia scrubbed away rot from valuables on the pile. Carl packed anything clean into crates. Judging by the scowl on Carl's face, the argument that always broke out had broken out. The one about the dangers of scavenging and Carl’s age. The lad didn’t know when to give up. Stubbornness was as much a part of children as leaves were a part of trees, Jon supposed.

Jon would have be helping move cars too but per Rick’s command, he went to join Daryl. He found Daryl beyond the palisade and corpses in a car graveyard. A stretch of scattered, abandoned cars that ran the length of the highway. An eerie sight that Jon thought he’d seen the last of. Outside of Atlanta, car graveyards had been an almost daily obstacle. The long and arduous process of clearing them had already added extra days to their journey. Days they could scarcely afford to lose. But it had been close to a week and a half since they’d come across one, let alone one this massive. It stretched on and on, down a straight and around a distant bend.

Jon found Ghost by Daryl’s feet and greeted him with a pat. Ghost wagged his tail and pressed his head into the pat. “I’m to join you,” Jon said to Daryl.

“Yup. Let’s go.” Daryl started off without sharing as much of a fleeting glance Jon’s way.

“Yup!” The raven took flight and flew ahead.

Jon, Ghost and Daryl made their way through the graveyard side by side. They passed by flipped cars, crumpled cars and tangles of twisted steel. Scorched chassis, like the blackened skeletons of great beasts, shivered Jon's spine. Shards of glass covered the road. Jon worried for Ghost’s paws. But the direwolf avoided the hazards with swift and silent, surefooted strides. Rot smeared everything and its stench lingered everywhere, but there wasn’t a walker in sight. Even so, Jon kept his hand on Longclaw’s hilt and Daryl held his crossbow level with his eye, cocked and ready to fire. After a long, silent walk, they reached the bend in the highway. A semitrailer truck had flipped, blocking off seven lanes. It was there, Jon decided to break their silence.

“What do you think this was?”

“Don’t know,” Daryl more grunted than spoke.

“More victims of the first wave, perhaps? Or maybe just a panic?”

Daryl answered with silence.

“And that camp. It looked like some kind of final stand.”

Daryl scanned the scattered cars with his crossbow’s sight.

“Was it recent, do you think? The walker attack?”

Ghost stopped. His fur stood on ends and he barred his fangs. At once, Jon and Daryl stopped.

After a pause, Daryl whispered. “Something’s out there.”

Jon strained his ears and only heard more silence. He held his breath and strained his ears. A faint gurgling wafted through the air. Jon gestured to the turned-over semitrailer truck with his head. Daryl nodded and they climbed on top. Ghost waited on the ground, baring his fangs in the direction of the faint sound. On the truck’s side, they found the raven perched on a wing mirror. With its good eye, it stared out around the bend, at a distant hoard of walkers. Dense and packed tight, the hoard shuffled in their direction. With all the speed rotted legs allowed.

Daryl squinted at the hoard and teetered a finger back and forth in a silent count. “Thirty, give or take.”

“Manageable, then.”

Daryl nodded. “Yup.”

“How far out?”

Daryl glanced over his shoulder, then back at the hoard. “An hour.”

“Not enough time to clear all this.”

“Yup.” Daryl leapt off of the truck and started back.

Jon held out his arm to the raven. “Time to go.” He patted his forearm

With a flutter, the raven perched, muttering nonsense under its breath all the while. It often liked to mutter when the dead are nearby, almost like a sixth sense, Jon had noticed. Although, it also muttered when it was hungry, so Jon had learned to ignore the pest. Yet, he found himself listening anyway.

“Arm…” The raven muttered. “Arm…” It scratched its scarred eye with its wing.

***

Smoke billowed high into the air, snapping and twisting like a dancing black ribbon. The others had already begun to toss bodies into the great fire by the time Jon, Daryl, Ghost and the raven returned. Rick and Glenn took what once had been a young girl – no older than Arya – by its hands and feet from the great mound of corpses. As they lifted it, its arm snapped with a soft crunch and fell apart at the elbow with a gush of black sludge. What had once been blood splattered on Rick’s shoes and stained his stained jeans. Staining them a further shade of grime-brown. Rick neither flinched nor wretched. Instead, he stared at the corpse blankly and helped Glenn toss it into the fire. The flames ravaged the corpse like a pack of hungry feral dogs. Its dress, dirtied and rotting, burst into flames and disintegrated into flakes of ash that floated like falling feathers. Embers twinkled in the ashes, like red and orange stars. As the body shrunk and burned, the flames swelled and whipped. Everyone watched. Some from afar. Some up close. Soon, Rick and Glenn’s turn would end and another pair would take over until the job was done, or until it was time to leave.

Rick turned from the flames and met Daryl’s eyes with that same blank look. “How far?”

“A mile or so,” Daryl said.

Rick scorned the graveyard with a scowl.

“There’s another hoard,” Jon announced.

All eyes snapped to him at once. Except Shane’s. His remained glued to the road at the rear.

“Hoard!” The raven announced.

“Coming this way?” Andrea asked. She remained seated, as did everyone.

“Yes. Daryl counted thirty or so.”

Daryl nodded.

“How far out?” Rick asked.

“Hour,” Daryl said.

Rick nodded. “We hunker down then. Y’all know what to do. Be quick about it.”

Everyone stood as one and went about their duties without complaint. Glenn and Andrea beat at the fire and smothered it with dirt. Carol and T-Dog packed away the crates of supplies into the range rover. Lori supervised, taking count of all. Dale stepped inside the RV to collect t-shirts and blankets for the windows. Jenner followed him for a bucket. Shane turned his chair around atop the RV and watched the graveyard. Carl and Sophia should have helped Dale but instead, Carl ran up to his father, determined as a mule.

“Dad! Me and Sophia want to join Jon in the rear this time.”

“Carl…” Rick sighed.

“Please! We’ll keep real quiet and real low!” Carl promised, shouting. A boyish confidence gleamed in his eyes. “It ain’t fair Jon always has to stay there on his own! Right, Sophia?” Carl looked to Sophia. Sophia looked at the ground.

“Have you asked Carol?”

“Yeah! She said to ask you!” Carl said.

“And that’s the truth, Sophia?”

Sophia recoiled as Rick’s eyes went to her but she nodded all the same.

Rick sighed. “The RV’s safer. You-”

“No it ain’t,” Carl interrupted. “As long as there ain’t any gaps in the shirts or blankets, every car’s as safe as each other.”

“He’s right,” Daryl said.

Rick raised an eyebrow. Daryl avoided his eyes. “Well… he is…” Daryl muttered and glanced at Sophia.

Carl beamed at Daryl like he owed him his life. Sophia glanced at Daryl. A wisp of a smile flashed across Daryl’s lips. Rick kneaded the bridge of his nose.

“Fine. But I’ll be lookin’ at your windows when you finish and if I see even a single gap, you’re back in the RV,” Rick said.

“Deal!” Carl ran off with Sophia in tow.

Rick watched him with a face of fret and worry.

As light as a feather, Jon touched his shoulder. “If there were any real danger, we’d hide in the woods when we encounter herds, or confront them with blades. I’ve been safe in the range rover every time. Every time.”

“Safe! Safe!” The raven cackled. Jon swatted at him and the pest fluttered from his shoulder, still screeching. “Safe! Safe!”

Rick shook his head. “When we encourage him like that, it only makes him bolder.” He looked at Daryl. Daryl looked away.

“What are you guys doing?” Jenner interrupted. He approached from the RV, carrying a bucket. “Why haven’t you got the corpses?”

“Right. Sorry.” Rick looked at Jon and Daryl then gestured to the mound of corpses with a flick of his head. “Come on.”

“Yup.” Daryl approached the pile.

He grabbed a corpse by its ankles and dragged it from the mound. Jon and Rick did the same. They lay their corpses out beside each other in a row. Rick and Daryl drew their knives. Jon drew his dagger. They knelt. Ghost sat beside Jon on his haunches, silent but comforting. Mutilating the dead never got any easier. But it was as vital as stealing from their corpses. As one, they plunged their blades into the dead and opened their bellies into long slits. Black blood wept from the slits like tar seeping from a bog. Jenner knelt and placed the large bucket at the heads of the dead then joined Jon’s side. The four of them spent the next several minutes scooping rotting guts into the bucket in silence. Once the bucket had been filled, they left the dead where they were and started lathering the cars in rot. The bucket held enough to cover the jeep and half the RV before it required refilling from new corpses. By the time it came to lather the range rover, nary a word had been spoken. No one spewed. They were long past that.

Carl broke their silence. “Look, no gaps!” He declared, gesturing to the range rover.

Rick inspected every inch the range rover’s windows. Inside, shirts and blankets had been secured to the windows with a strange tool known as duct tape. It held the shirts and blankets to the inside of the windows, windscreen and back window. They covered them in their entirety and forbade an outside gaze to peer inside the vehicle. While Rick inspected, Dale showed Jon an empty cardboard roll.

“That’s the last of it.” Fear thinned Dale’s voice.

“We’ll find more. Take it to Lori. Let her know,” Jon said.

Dale gave a small nod and headed off for the RV. Jon looked over his shoulder at the distant graveyard. Where the herd was; hidden from view. He prayed they reached these farms before they encountered another.

Rick returned to Carl with the unreadable face of a father.

“Good, huh?” Carl asked.

“Yes,” Rick muttered. “Great job, son.”

Carl grinned at his father then Sophia. She gave him a tiny, thin smile.

“Carl.” Rick crouched before his son and grabbed both his shoulders. “You listen to everything Jon says. You don’t argue. You don’t talk back. Got it?”

“Got it.”

“You too, Sophia.”

Sophia’s smile vanished and her eyes snapped to her shoes. She hugged her bear and nodded. Rick squeezed Carl’s shoulders, looked him over and stood. A wary scowl darkened his dirty, weathered face.

“I’ll keep them safe. I swear it. On my honour,” Jon said.

“Safe!” The raven cackled as it circled above.

“Are you done?” Jenner asked, standing beside the bucket of rot. “We don’t have all day.”

Rick nodded. “Yes. Yes, okay.”

“Yes!” Carl cheered. He flung his arms around Rick’s waist. “Thanks, dad!”

A smile fended of Rick’s darkness and he returned his son’s hug. The hug lingered until Carl wriggled out of it, blushing as pink as a morning sky.

The children stood back with Ghost as Jon and the others lathered the range rover with rot. From rim to roof, they turned the once blue vehicle brown and black. They took extra care when lathering around the engine bonnet. Rot had a nasty habit of clogging engines.

Once the range rover was sufficiently lathered, Rick, Daryl and Jenner left with Ghost in tow. The direwolf was far too large for the range rover. When it came time to let herds pass, Ghost stayed in the jeep with Shane. Shane had no fondness for the direwolf but there was no arguing with Ghost. Trying to move him once he had gotten nice and comfortable was a sure way to lose a hand. Or an arm.

“Carl, Sophia. Come here,” Jon said once the others had left.

Carl was before him at once while Sophia took her time approaching. Jon put on the face of Lord Snow, Lord Commander of the Night’s Watch and directed it at Carl for the most part.

“This is not a game. Understand? You will keep your heads down and your mouths shut. Silent and still.”

Carl gave him the look of a boy trying his very hardest to be a man. “We will. We’re not scared.”

“You should be. The dead are scary.”

“Not to us. We’re strong.” Carl’s voice dropped low, as low as a boy’s voice could go.

“Strong people fear death, lad. Only boys laugh in its face.”

Carl scowled.

“If you want to be brave. You’ll sit there quaking in your crusty boots until I tell you its safe. Am I understood?”

Carl glanced at the RV. “Yes…”

“You too, Sophia.”

Sophia glared at him with sharp eyes. Jon could only blink at her, as the look to him aback. She looked as fierce as some starved dog at its wits end. The look only lasted a moment then in the next, as her eyes locked with his, she was a meek little girl again, clutching her pink bear.

“Yes,” Sophia whispered.

Jon cleared his throat. “Good… Now, get inside and practice being quiet.”

Carl wrinkled his nose but did as he was bid. He tugged on the car door’s handle and hopped inside. Sophia followed him and the two of them sat in the row of seats behind the driver’s seat. The range rover had an unusual layout compared to most vehicles, Jon had noted. It housed two rows of seats rather than one, and that second row could collapse to increase the size of the trunk. Truly, the ingenuity of this land never ceased to amaze him. Even if it only lived on as relics of a better time.

The raven landed on the roof of the range rover. It pecked at a chunk of rotten flesh and swallowed it whole. “Good,” it muttered. “Good.”

***

The stench of rot clawed at Jon’s nose and loitered in the back of his throat as he sat inside the range rover. A month ago he would have gagged merely laying eyes upon a sight such as a car lathered in rotting guts. And if he had been forced to sit inside he would have been counting down the seconds until he could leave. But those days had passed. The seconds slipped away from him as he sat in the darkness and musty air, waiting for Shane’s call. The shirts and blankets which covered the windows forbade light’s entrance. Shadows loomed over them, like great sentries on a tapestry of filthy cloth. Silence garbed their troupe of rot-covered cars; their shield and their torturer. Without sight nor sound, time seemed little more than a fable. A sensation Jon had grown accustomed to but never comfortable with. It felt queer to not experience it in solitude.

Solitude had been his decision when Glenn first suggested the idea of hiding from herds in such a manner. The RV’s windows – high above the ground – gave the most protection. All one had to do to stay out of sight was lay on its carpeted floor. It only made sense to ensure as many people as possible could wait out herds in its protection. But they couldn’t all fit. Jon had volunteered for the range rover at once. He had armour to keep him safe if anything were to go awry. Shane had volunteered for the jeep. Why exactly, Jon couldn’t say.

But now, Jon sat between two children whose number of name days combined was less than his own. They were still at the very least. Carl was a statue, back straight, head high. His hand rested on his knife's hilt. Sophia trembled, back hunched, knees tucked to her chest. Her arms crossed over her bear, hugging it close. Jon pitied the girl. The shadow of a father hangs heavy on the strongest of shoulders, let alone a child's. Given time, it will make her strong. The raven sat in Jon’s lap, as it always did. Jon stroked its long, black feathers. Nothing else kept the pest from muttering when the dead marched on by.

“Walkers!” Shane’s voice split the silence, carrying high into the air like rolling thunder.

“Down, now,” Jon whispered.

He slid off his seat and sat on the soft, carpeted floor of the range rover. Stiff as a plank of wood, Carl did the same. Sophia scrambled for the floor. On the floor, beneath the windows, their silhouettes were consumed by the dark.

“Feel your fear,” Jon whispered. “But keep it within. Silent and still.”

Silence answered him; the correct response. And silence followed. For a time. Until it began. The faint gurgling and hissing of the dead wafted through over the troupe. The gurgling and hissing grew louder and clearer until the first thump beat like a great, metal drum. Thump, thump, thump. The uneven, soft rhythm of mindless corpses walking themselves right into the cars. But then, a new, unfamiliar sound cut through it all. Tap. Tap Tap. Three beats, sharp and even. Distant and faint. But as the gurgles and hisses drew nearer and the hoard thumped against the RV, it happened again. Tap. Tap. Tap. The same even, sharp three beats, again. Louder and clearer. Jon touched Longclaw’s pommel, stupidly bringing his hand away from the raven.

“Safe,” it muttered.

Jon cursed himself without words and stroked the pest’s feathers, praying the dead hadn’t heard. The first thump came, right against the range rover’s hood. A walker hissed a gurgled complaint. Shadows danced upon the shirts and blankets; the uneven teetering of the deads’ march. Jon did not have to see, to feel Sophia’s trembling. He knew better than to offer a touch as comfort. A touch come Jon’s way though. Carl gripped his arm with strength beyond a boy of eight namedays. His grip trembled as it tightened.

Tap. Tap. Tap. Three sharp knocks rapped against the windows. A shadow slunk along the tapestry of shirts and blankets, slower than the others. It neither teetered nor wobbled, rather it moved as if it slid across ice. Tap. Tap. Tap. The knocks came harder this time; more incessant. It rocked the range rover; gentle like a cradle. The sickening sound of peeling tape dropped a pit in Jon’s stomach. A shirt dropped a mere inch. A slither of light slipped inside the range rover. At the gap, a peering, rotting eye appeared at the window. Tap. Tap. Tap. In a flash, Carl whipped out his knife. Hot wrath burned across his face beneath the slither of light as he kept his gaze locked with the eye. Sophia whimpered and backed up as far as she could with a soft thump against the opposite side door. Every shadow froze as one. The gurgling and hissing gave way to a brief silence.

The eye disappeared and a piercing howl of a cry erupted from outside. The hoard raged and every shadow descend on them. Sophia wailed. The dead wailed back. The car door flew open. Jon grabbed Carl and yanked him back. Rotting hands of blackened fingers and long, yellow nails descended on them. Carl screamed a wailing sob of a scream and stabbed the air with his blade. The mindless creatures fought amongst one another to crawl inside. Jon kicked at the dead with all his might. His heel lay a corpse limp in the doorway. For a brief moment, it clogged the advance. Jon’s mind raced for an escape, for a solution, for a trick. He found it over his shoulder. Behind him, the other door had but a few shadows at its windows. They were scraping uselessly at the door, complaining with hisses and wails. Mere whispers compared to the roaring cacophony before Jon.

“Sophia! To me!” Jon grabbed for the girl.

Sophia screamed as if the dead were upon her already. She flailed, kicked Jon’s hand aside then drove her heel into his face. A rotten hand took hold of Jon’s ankle. He cursed, and caved the walker’s skull with a kick. And in that brief moment, Sophia flung the door open. Screaming and crying, she dove between a waiting walker’s legs and scampered for the woods.

“Sophia!” Jon shouted. Sophia's screams peaked and she ran faster.

Dragging Carl, Jon hurried out of the range rover after her. Two walkers met him. A white blur fell them with a flying lunge. Ghost crushed one’s skull with his paw as he tore the other’s head from its shoulders with his jaws.

“Carl?!” Rick bellowed.

“Sophia?!” Carol screamed.

The others were out on the highway in the thick of the hoard. Back to back, they formed a tight circle formation. They stabbed at the dead over and over and over again, felling walker after walker. Jon couldn’t spy a way past the hoard to join their formation.

“To the woods, now!” Jon shouted at Carl.

Carl nodded and sprinted for the woods. Rick, Lori and Carol all made a move to break their formation.

“Stay where you are! Maintain formation!” Jon drew Longclaw and fell a walker descending on him. “I’ll go after them!”

Jon didn’t stop to wait for a reply. He bolted for the woods, sprinting with all his strength. Ghost stayed behind and fought with the others. In an instant, the woods swallowed up the commotion of their battle, veiling Jon in silence. It didn’t take long to catch up to Carl but Sophia was far off in the distance. Weaving and ducking, she sprinted through the thickening tangle of trees and brush.

The raven flew overhead. “Safe! Safe!” It cackled.

Jon vowed to skin the creature.

"Skin, skin, skin!"

“Sophia, stop!” Jon shouted.

“Sophia!” Carl echoed.

Sophia ran harder but Jon was gaining on her. Roots snagged his feet and low-hanging branches whacked him in the face. He kicked the roots and slashed the branches with Longclaw. Sophia seemed within reach. But as Jon made a grab for her she disappeared with a scream and dropped down out of view. Jon skidded to a halt as the slope of a steep valley presented itself amongst the brush. Sophia tumbled down the slope and crashed into a stagnant pool with a splash. In a flash, she was standing. Sobbing, she struggled to wade through the water on the weak legs of a child. Carl leapt over the edge, splashed down and chased after her with as much the same difficulty. Bubbles rose to the water’s surface. They burst with sprays of mud and black sludge. The bubbles frothed the surface as if the pool was at a boil.

“Out of the water, now!” Jon bellowed and scrambled down the slope.

Three walkers shot up from beneath the water, slick with mud. Their skin hung from their flesh like scraps of sodden cloth. As they wailed a gurgling wail, mud flowed from their mouths. They descended on the children. Two of them headed for Carl while the other perused Sophia, separating the children. Carl and Sophia drew their blades. Sophia held her knife out in front of her with both hands, shaking like a leaf. She faced her pursuer for but a moment only to then wail and turn, struggling through the mud towards the shore. Carl held out his knife low below his hip, twisted so his shoulder faced the dead and shouted a warring scream. The dead wailed back. Jon splashed down, drawing the attention of one walker away from Carl

The mud beneath the water may have been enough to hinder the weak legs of children and the dead, but not Jon. He raced through the pool, surefooted as a soldier marching the King’s Road. His blood boiled hot. A high slash from his valyrian steel rid the once-man of its head, heralded by a spray of black blood from its neck. Jon rushed to aid Carl, the closer of the two. The remaining corpses launched their attacks. One slashed at Carl, trying to grab his arm. While the other's fingers brushed the collar of Sophia's shirt.

Carl drove his knife into the walker’s palm, blocking the attack. He screamed and charged it, ramming his shoulder into its chest. The walker stumbled. It didn’t fall. Carl did. He fell face-first into the water and the walker descended on him. It opened its mouth, ready to bite the nape of Carl’s neck. Jon seized the walker by the shoulders and flung it off onto its back. As it hit the water with a muddy splash, Jon drove Longclaw’s point between its eyes. Its death blood blackened the water.

Carl rose from the water, coughing and spluttering. “Sophia!” He choked.

Splash!

The walker chasing Sophia threw itself at her, tackled her and knocked the knife from her hand. Sophia screamed, wailed and flailed as they both came crashing down. Jon charged across the water as Sophia wrestled the corpse. She took a hold of the walker’s face and pushed it away with all her might. But the walker kept on coming, gnashing its rotten jaws inches from her face. Jon grabbed the walker’s shoulders. Sophia’s hand slipped. The walker lunged and it’s slick skin slipped between Jon’s fingers. Sophia screamed and crossed her arms over her face. The walker sunk its teeth into her forearm. Jon tore it away, taking a chunk of flesh with it. Sophia’s life blood gushed and sprayed as she screamed a wailing, choked scream. Rot festered in the bite.

“No!” Carl screamed. He scrambled through the water, thrashing against the mud’s grip.

Jon cut off the walker’s head before the foolish boy got himself bitten too then wasted no time. He seized Sophia, flung her over his shoulder, raced her to the shore and threw her down into the muddy silt. Jon held out Longclaw with steady hands. Sophia looked up at him, silent and still, her face a mask of ice and stone.

“Hold out your arm, now!”

Sophia did so at once.

“Arm!” The raven cried.

Sophia shut her eyes and clenched her jaw. Jon heaved Longclaw above his head.

“What are you doing?!” Carl cried.

Jon cleaved Longclaw down onto Sophia’s elbow. The blade ate through flesh and bone in one clean cut. Sophia’s life blood sprayed from the stump. She let out a blood-curdling scream and writhed among the muddy silt, wailing long guttural sobs. Carl raced to her side and dropped to his knees, bawling. Jon’s mind raced. He hadn’t thought this far. Jenner hadn’t told him what to do past this. The bleeding, Jon realised. He needed to stop the bleeding. He thought back to lessons from Lunwin, from Aemon. The lessons brought him the answer. A tourniquet. Jon dropped Longclaw and ripped his belt from his jeans. Longclaw’s and Needle’s scabbards fell to the mud.

“Move, lad!” Jon shoved Carl aside and fastened the belt around Sophia’s upper arm until her flesh bulged around it. The spray of blood petered out into a gentle gush. Sophia’s eyes rolled back into her head and she went limp. Her chest rose and fell; staggered and rapid.

Carl tugged at Jon’s cloak as if trying to pull him to his feet. “We gotta get her back! We gotta save her!” he cried.

“I know!” Jon snapped. He flung the lad off of him and hoisted Sophia over his shoulder. She weighed as little as a newborn babe.

“I-I’ll go ahead!” Carl shouted. “For help.”

“No! You’ll stay by my side. Where I can see you.”

Jon bolted past the lad and across the muddy pool. Black blood swirled around his shins and mud grabbed at his boots, trying to suck him down but Jon was stronger. He charged across the pool and struggled to scramble up the valley’s slope one-handed. A short climb was made long and tedious. So tedious that Carl managed to catch up. Surefooted as a mountain goat, Carl raced up the slope ahead of him and waited at the top.

“Hurry!”

“Hur-ry!” The raven echoed.

Jon let his frustration erupt as a beastly shout as he dragged himself up the slope. The scars of his right hand ached as horribly as the day it’d been burned all those years ago. Once at the top, Jon lowered his head and broke out into a sprint. Carl chased at his heels, his face beet-red as he huffed, puffed and choked on sobs. Jon felt like sobbing too. But he didn’t. Strength could save Sophia. Tears would only blind him.

As they burst from the woods, back onto the highway, Andrea fell the last walker by thrusting her knife into its eye.

“Jenner!” Jon bellowed.

All eyes snapped to him. Carol screamed. The rest erupted into a chorus of shouts. They sprang into action at once. Jenner barked orders, pointing this way and that. T-Dog and Glenn rushed to the range rover and retrieved a plastic tarp. Dale got the medical kit from the RV. Andrea hauled over a jug of water. Rick held Carl back, hugging him to his chest. Lori knelt beside him, stroking his hair as the lad broke under the weight of his grief. Daryl restrained Carol who fought feverishly to free herself. She reached for her daughter, clawing at the air. Shane stood idle, watching from afar.

As soon as T-Dog and Glenn lay down the trap, Jon lay Sophia on it. Jenner knelt by the severed arm.

“A tourniquet. Good thinking. Andrea, water! Dale, the kit!”

Andrea dropped the jug at Jenner’s side.

“Jon, clean the wound!” Jenner barked at he snatched the kit from Dale.

Jon twisted off the cap and poured water all over the wound, washing away mud, silt and life blood. Water pooled in the tarp, red and stagnant. Besides Jon, Jenner raged. He flung the kit aside, sending it skittering across the asphalt.

“No bandages! Give me shirts! Now! Clean ones, dammit! Jon, lift her arm!”

Jon lifted her arm up straight. T-Dog tossed a pair of t-shirts at Jenner which were only partially stained. Jenner wrapped the stump up in a shirt. Using both hands, he held it in place.

“Jon, hold it in place.”

Jon took over for Jenner’s hands and held the shirt around the stump.

“Has she hurt her head or neck?” Jenner asked.

“No. Just the bite on the arm,” Jon blurted.

“She was bit?!” T-Dog yelled.

Carol wailed and kicked to get free of Daryl. Daryl buried his face into her neck, hiding his face as he restrained her tighter. His arms bulged and trembled.

“Yes! Why else do you think I cut off her bloody arm?!”

“Doesn’t matter. Glenn, lift her legs!”

Glenn scrambled over, dropped to his knees and lifted Sophia’s legs into the air.

“No, not that high. Twelve inches. Lower. Yes, that’s good. Keep them there.”

Blood began to soak through the shirt. Jenner swatted at Jon’s hands and wrapped the other shirt on top then Jon held the new layer over the old. Jenner sat back on his haunches and ran his hands through his hair, eyes darting.

“Fuck…” he muttered. “Now what?”

“What do you mean, now what?!” Jon shouted.

“I’m not a doctor, Jon! I’m a virologist!” Jenner rapped his knuckles against his head. “Come on come on come on come on. Think, dammit.” His eyes widened. “The arm! Where’s the rest of the arm?!”

“In the woods and bitten.”

“Shit. Okayokay. Uh… a plastic bag! Get me a plastic bag!”

Andrea sprinted to the range rover and came back with a plastic bag. Jenner snatched it from her and placed it over the stump bound in shirts.

“Now, ice! Anything cold!”

“Ice?” Jon wasn’t sure if he’d heard correctly.

“The hell we ‘posed to get ice from?!” Daryl shouted.

Jenner groaned and held his head in his hands. “God… Help me move her then. She at least needs some place comfortable.”

“I’ve got her feet, ready when you are,” Glenn said.

Jenner nodded and took Sophia under her arms. “Jon keep that arm elevated.”

“Will do.”

“Alright. On three. One. Two. Three.” Jenner and Glenn lifted Sophia together. Jon stood with them, keeping her stump elevated.

They carried her to the RV as if she were made of glass. Carol and Carl fought to follow, but Rick and Daryl kept them bound.

“Gods have mercy, let Carol go!” Jon shouted as they approached the RV.

Daryl looked to Rick. Rick nodded and he let go. Carol scrambled out of Daryl’s arms and followed after them inside the RV.

“Will she survive? Is she infected? Please, god, don’t tell me she’s infected!” Carol cried.

Jenner said nothing until Sophia was laying on the RV’s mattress. When he did answer, his voice was low and grim. “Time will tell. She’s strong though. I have faith. Jon, let her hold the arm.”

Jon nodded and relinquished the arm to Carol. Although Carol trembled and sobbed, once she took hold of her daughter's arm, her hands became as steady as a blacksmith. Jenner put two pillows beneath Sophia’s feet and ushered Glenn and Jon out of the tiny bedroom. He afforded Carol some privacy by closing the door behind them.

“How long after the bite did you sever the arm?” Jenner whispered.

“Immediately. As you said to.”

“Right away? You didn’t hesitate or move her first?”

Jon bit his lip. “Well… she got bit in a pool of dirty water. I carried her to shore first. You said not to sever the limb where infected blood could get into it. But it only took a second.”

Jenner clicked his tongue and glanced at the closed door.

“Do-Does she have a chance? Any at all?” Glenn asked. His olive skin had turned a shade of ghost white.

“Normally… yeah. In a hospital with doctors and antibiotics… Out here though? She might wake up before she passes. At least she’ll be able to say goodbye.”

Tears brimmed in Glenn’s eyes. Jon fought off his own. “I should have never let them in the blasted car…”

“Wh-What do we do when she dies?” Glenn asked, lips trembling. “What do we tell them?”

“The truth,” Jenner grumbled. He shouldered past Jon and marched outside.

The raven fluttered in as the doctor left. It perched on the cabinets and bobbed up and down. “Truth, truth, truth.”

Jon’s vow to skin the pest still tasted fresh on his tongue. But he hadn’t the strength for it. His arms felt as if they weighed twice as much. As did his legs. Every one his joints ached and a rhythmic throbbing pounded away in his head. The throbs came in triplets. Throb. Throb. Throb. Each one more painful than the last. Jon staggered for the RV’s exit. The stale air shortened his breath. As he came upon the exit a searing wrath surged through him, setting his flesh and bone ablaze. Outside the RV, Ghost poised to leap. His fangs bared in a silent snarl. His fur puffed and stood on ends. His red eyes bore into something out of view. Jon stepped out the RV and followed his eyes. A fist greeted him.

***

Jon awoke face down on the asphalt. Blood flooded his throat. Shouting barraged his ears. A great pain stabbed at his shattered nose. With a groan, he rolled over to see Ghost on top of Daryl, gnashing his jaws inches from his face. Daryl squirmed under the direwolf but Ghost had his front paws on Daryl’s arms, pinning him down.

“You killed her!” he screamed. “You killed her, you bastard!” He locked eyes with Jon, boring a deathly gaze into him. Tears stained his rugged, weathered cheeks.

The others were shouting, trying to scare Ghost off of Daryl. But when any got close, Ghost snapped his jaws at them, sending them scuttling back. All was unfocused, blurred by a murky mind. However, Dale’s voice cut through it all, clear as a summer sky.

“You alright, son?” Dale grabbed his arm.

Jon accepted the help and leaned into his grip to stand. He tried to speak but a flow of blood clogged his throat and he only sputtered blood instead. Once on his feet, his vision cleared. Distraught panic had set in among the group. Jon could hardly blame them. Only Shane seemed oddly clam. He stood behind Rick, watching all transpire with a face of stone. The raven circled overhead screeching, “Bast-ard, bast-ard, bast-ard, bast-ard, bast-ard!”

Jon swallowed blood and shouted with the voice of a Lord Commander. “Ghost! Enough!”

Ghost snapped his jaws one last time, inches from Daryl’s face before backing off and skulking to Jon’s side. Daryl scrambled to stand. His eyes were wide, manic pools of violence. He drew a knife. Rick kicked the back of his knee. Daryl buckled. Shane ran forward and leapt onto his back, slamming Daryl back to the asphalt. He dug his knee between Daryl’s shoulder blades and pinned his arms with either hand.

“Stay down,” Shane hissed.

Daryl thrashed. “Fuck your slut mom, pig!”

Shane dug his knee further between Daryl’s shoulder blades. Daryl cried out and ceased his thrashing. Tears welled in his eyes and all the hate drained from him like a flagon sprung a leak. “He killed her, he killed her, he killed her,” he groaned. The knife rolled out of his grasp.

“No,” Shane looked over his shoulder at Rick. “He did.”

“The hell you say?” Rick’s face became a storm.

“You heard me! Y’all know it’s true!”

“The hell we do!” Andrea shouted.

“He’s the one who put the kids in the rear! That was his call. Look where it got ‘em!”

“Shut the hell up, man!” T-Dog stepped forward, fists balled.

Rick stopped him with a touch to the chest. “No… He’s right.”

“Fuck no, he ain’t!” Andrea said.

Rick shook his head. “I should’ve known better. I take full-”

“It wasn’t your fault!” Carl screamed.

“Shut it, Carl!” Shane snapped.

Carl raged. He ran past his dad and drove the heel of his boot into Shane’s face with a wet crunch. Shane fell off of Daryl with a pained shout, cradling a smashed nose. Rick snatched Carl’s arm and dragged him, throwing him off his feet in the process.

Carl fell to the asphalt. He sat by his father’s feet, glaring at Shane. Lori crouched beside him and tried to wrap her arms around him but Carl wriggled free. His fists balled. His arms trembled. He breathed loud, frantic breaths that flared his nostrils. “It wasn’t my dad’s fault! Or Jon’s! Or mine’s! Or anyone’s! It was the walkers!” Carl snarled that last word. “They opened the door! They scared Sophia! They bit her!”

Silence lingered, festering in the air.

“Bit!” The raven cawed.

Daryl struggled to his knees with a bowed head. “I-I’m sorry, Jon. I don’t know what…”

Jon swallowed blood. “You’re forgiven.” He wiped the blood from his gushing nose, freed himself of Dale’s support and stepped forward. “Talk of blame is a folly best left for times of peace.”

“Folly,” Shane chuckled. He spat blood onto the asphalt. “Shut the hell up, kid.”

Lori stepped forward in front of Carl. “Go back to your little plastic chair, Shane.”

Shane’s face of stone shattered into a meek little scowl and he shambled off.

“Best we organise ourselves,” Jon continued. “Focus on solving this crisis rather than on where it originated.”

The group shared a round of nods before looking to Rick as one. Rick put on the face of a lord as he addressed them.

“Jenner?” he asked. “What do we need to save her?”

Jenner sighed. “A hospital.”

Rick nodded. “Glenn, does the town we’re headin’ to have a hospital?”

“Uh, kinda. It has a clinic and a vet.”

“Will that do, Jenner?”

“I mean… they might have antibiotics and painkillers if it hasn’t been picked clean already. But that won’t be enou-”

“Great,” Rick interjected. “Glenn, how far of a walk to the town from here?”

“I don’t know… it’s like twelve miles and that’s if we go straight. That way,” Glenn pointed to the woods, from the direction Jon had come from.

“Half a day.” Daryl mumbled, staring at the asphalt.

“We’ll need a team, who do you think, Glenn?” Rick asked.

“Let’s keep it small. We gotta move fast. You, me, Daryl and Jon. Together, Daryl’s sense of direction and Ghost’s senses will be better than any map. And Ghost only goes where Jon goes. Maybe leave the raven though, if you can.”

“If I would, I could,” Jon said.

“Could would! Would could!” The raven cawed.

“Jenner too,” Rick said.

“Why me?”

“You know what we’re lookin’ for, and you’ve done all you can for her here.”

Glenn nodded. “Makes sense. Jenner too, then.”

Jenner sighed and looked to Lori. “Taking care of her is simple. Change her bag every few hours. Change the shirts in the morning. Wash the wound between shirt changes. Keep her legs elevated and her arm. Can you manage that?”

Lori nodded. “We can.”

“Andrea, you’re in charge while we’re gone,” Rick said.

“I’ll keep ‘em safe. You just hurry along now,” Andrea said.

***

Longclaw lay in a bed of mud and silt beside its scabbard and Needle and Sophia’s rotting, severed hand. Jon sheathed the valyrian blade and attached it and Needle back to a new belt. After ensuring the latches were secure, Jon scooped up a handful of mud and covered the hand. Rot had already corrupted the severed limb. The skin had blackened and shrivelled. The fingers had curled into hooks. Covering it was a mercy. Jon saw no point in returning it to Carol. It bore no resemblance to human flesh, let alone Sophia. It more resembled rotting fruit than anything. It’d only serve as a reminder that hope is as slippery as ice; hard to grasp, harder to hold.

Jon smoothed mud and silt over the shrunken black thing and rose to his feet. Atop the slope of the valley, Ghost sat by Rick’s side, watching Jon with those piercing red eyes. A great sadness snuck up on Jon, forming a pit in his stomach. The cut on his nose gifted to him by Daryl itched.

“Got your sword?” Rick asked.

Jon nodded and patted the scabbard.

“Alright, well come on. Get up here. Let’s get a move on.”

“Right. As you command.”

Rick gave him a queer look, which Jon chose to ignore. Jon waded through the murky, stagnant pool. Black blood still floated on the surface, swirling around his legs as he waded through it. Amongst the mud and rot, Jon spied something bobbing on the surface. Something fuzzy. Hair, he realised. A walker. He froze, drew Longclaw and thrust the tip of the blade into the hair. But no black blood flowed into the water and there was no squelch of a blade piercing flesh. Jon lifted Longclaw to find Sophia’s bear skewered on the blade. No longer pink. Only black and brown and now with a hole through its chest. Jon sighed, freed the toy from his blade and tucked it under his belt. He wiped the grime off of Longclaw, sheathed it and started the climb up the slope.

With two hands instead of one, the climb was swift and smooth. Yet, the burn scars on his right hand still throbbed all the same. They hadn’t throbbed in years. Each throb flooded Jon with a scorching heat that clenched his jaw. I should have been able to save her. Sophia is but a girl and I am a man grown; a man of the Night’s Watch no less. When he clambered over the slope’s edge, he found Ghost baring his fangs. Jon looked behind him but saw nothing.

“What’s wrong, boy?” Jon asked, standing.

“Wrong?” The raven asked, perched high in a nearby tree.

Ghost put away his fangs and wagged his tail. Jon shook his head and ignored the queerness.

“That Sophia’s?” Rick asked, pointing to the bear.

“It is.”

“Good. Don’t lose it. She’ll need somethin’ to make her feel safe. More now than ever.”

Jon nodded. “I’ll keep it safe, I promise.”

Jon, Ghost and Rick joined the others waiting a little further ahead.

“Find it okay?” Glenn asked.

“Yeah, my gun too.”

“Good, that sword’s too valuable to lose out here.”

“Agreed.”

“Sword!” The raven cawed, flying overhead.

Jon expected Daryl to insult the pest, but the rugged man only stared out into the woods, away from everyone else.

“Come on, let’s get a move on,” Jenner grumbled.

“Glenn? Which way?” Rick asked.

Glenn unfolded a map and frowned. “North… I always used the highway to orient where we were. But now…” Glenn looked around at the green abyss that surrounded them. “Without a compass, I have no idea.”

“Ghost,” Jon said. The direwolf pricked up his ears and met his eyes. “Find, North.”

Ghost raised his snout to the air and closed his eyes. They opened, pools of blood amidst a shaggy coat of snow. He padded off into the woods a few paces then turned to look back at them.

Glenn stared at Jon, mouth agape. “No way you trained him to do that.”

Jon grinned. “Direwolves feel nature as if it is a part of them.”

Jenner’s eyes blazed with the same curiosity he had when Jon had spoken of the Kingslayer. It seemed the doctor had found his question to bring to their next lesson. Jon knew what question he would ask. Thinking of it robbed Jon of his grin.

“Let us dawdle no longer,” he said and followed after Ghost.

Ghost led them through thick brambled bushes, mazes of thin tree trunks and delicate little meadows hidden among the green abyss. As they went further, the forest closed around them. The tree trunks thickened and stood closer. The canopies blocked more and more sunlight until there was nary but a few stubborn rays to light their way. Mossy stones resolved to trip them with each step and twisted roots aided the effort. Silence lingered everywhere. Birds didn’t chirp. Insects didn’t buzz. No Frogs yelped. No underfoot creatures scuttled. Only the boots of their little troupe crunched against sticks and leaves.

It was in the deepest and darkest part of the woods yet, that they came across the stream. A thin, pale line glistened beneath spotted rays of sunlight. So shallow that Jon’s boots seemed to glide atop the surface and so thin that two steps were all it took to cross. Rocks huddled beneath the pale water, slippery but not hazardous if one were to pay them respect. Jenner, the last to cross, slipped on his second step. He stumbled forward and Rick caught his arm, stopping his fall.

Jenner muttered an awkward thanks and hurried away from the stream. They left it behind as they’d left behind everything in the forest. Little more than fleeting memories. Until a splash brought their attention back to it. They raced back to the stream, tripping on the thick underbrush with blades drawn. Ghost raced ahead, fangs bared. But as they erupted from the brush they all froze. Carl was on his rear in the water. A ray of sun gleamed off of the golden star of his hat.

“Carl?” Rick asked, keeping his voice low. “What are you doing here? Does your mother know?”

“Let me come with you.” Carl shot to his feet. His face hardened.

“Absolutely not.”

“Why?”

“You know why. I ain’t havin’ this talk again, here of all places. God… one of you’s gonna have to take him back.”

“I ain’t goin’ back! I’ll just sneak off again. I know the way.”

Rick stared at his son in a state between utter bewilderment and a flying rage. But before he could say a word, Carl shouted again.

“She’s my friend! I wanna help her.”

Rick’s face softened. He knelt before his son, in the water and took his hand into his. “I know, son. I ain’t ever gonna tell you you’re wrong to feel that way. But you’ll be better off protectin’ her at her side.”

Carl wrinkled his nose. “Andrea and T-Dog can do that. I’m gonna find the medicine that’ll make her better.”

“Carl…”

“I ain’t a kid anymore. I’m big. I can handle myself. I can kill walkers the same as any of you.”

“No, Carl. You can’t. One day you’ll be able to, if you must. But you ain’t got the skills yet, son.”

“Do to. I’ve killed five so far.” At once, Carl’s eyes widened as he realised his mistake.

Rick’s face darkened with a fierceness to tame a storm. “You what?”

“I-I-I,” Carl’s words tumbled from him. “When I snuck off with Sophia, we figured it out. We’re too small to kill ‘em like you do so we gotta run our shoulder into their chests to make ‘em fall. Then we stab them through the eye.”

Carl mummered a stab. Rick snatched his wrist.

“You listen to me and you listen good,” Rick whispered in a low, deep voice. “You never risk your life for no good reason. Never. This ain’t a game. Killin’ the dead ain’t a sport. It’s life and death. It’s-”

“I know-”

“Don’t you interrupt me.”

“It ain’t a game to me!” Carl’s arms trembled and his nostril flared. “We should be killin’ them! All of them! Every single one we see! They took everything from us!” Carl’s breathing became rapid. “Y-You all act like it ain’t gone! Like we can get it back! We can’t! It’s gone, forever and it’s all their fault!”

The bushes exploded with an eruption of rustling leaves and snapping twigs. A great stag, as tall as Jon and as long as Ghost emerged from the brush with a tall crown of antlers. Everyone froze as it stared at them. Silence lingered. Ghost bared his fangs at the stag. The proud creature stood its ground. It lifted its snout, making its antlers appear larger than life. A gurgling hiss wafted after the stag from the bushes. A walker stumbled from the brush, reaching and clawing at the air for the stag. Its eyes found their group and it changed course for them. Ghost moved right in front of Jon and lowered his head, ready to lunge. The stag lowered its antlers at the walker and scraped the ground. And as all eyes were on it, they weren’t where they ought to be.

“I’ll show you I can do it!” Carl broke free of Rick’s grip and charged at the walker.

“Carl, no!” Rick shouted.

Rick snatched at him. Carl dodged and Rick grabbed air. Carl bolted past the rest of them, weaving through grabbing hands as he drew a knife from his belt. He aimed his shoulder at the walker’s chest and bellowed a boy’s war cry. Thunder cracked. The walker’s stomach exploded. Then Carl’s. The boy gasped, clutched at his ruined belly and fell onto his back. His mouth gaped open and closed as his life blood pooled beneath him amongst the dirt and leaves.

#fanfic #fanfiction #archive of our own #ao3 #ao3fic #ffn.net #asoiaf fanfic #jon snow #rick grimes #the walking dead #game of thrones fanfiction #game of thrones #got #asoiaf #a song of ice and fire #jon snow fanfiction #rick grimes fanfiction #daryl dixon #daryl dixon fanfiction #Daryl Dixon x Carol #horror #zombie #zombie apocalypse

[phoenixyfriend]

soulmate au: 2 or 27 for rexwalker? (or rexanidala)

soulmate au prompts

2. the one where you have your soulmate’s name written on your body.

27. the one where you can transfer any injuries/pain your soulmate has onto yourself.

Once again featuring Marginally Less Terrible Jango, Hopeless Romantic Anakin, and Significantly More Awkward Rex.

Word Count: 5.9k

-----

Anakin doesn’t have a soulmate until he’s ten years old.

He’s already been at the Temple for half a year by then, and heard enough about how not having a soul mark is a good thing, for a Jedi. It means fewer temptations away from the duties they’ve all agreed to take on. There are people with names on their bodies, including Obi-Wan, who has two, but everyone agrees that while friendship with one’s soulmate is fine, especially if that soulmate is a fellow Jedi, it cannot be allowed to become too deep.

“I don’t understand,” Anakin admits to Obi-Wan, one night when he finds Obi-Wan looking at the name that wraps around his upper thigh, the one in the unfamiliar alphabet and cultured, perfect strokes. It’s a few months after he arrives, long enough to think they won’t kick him out just for asking questions, but not quite long enough to know what’s normal yet. His own soul mark is several months away, not that he knows it. “Soulmates were one of the few things a mas--an owner couldn’t take away from a slave. They could get rid of the mark, but we still knew. They were important, something the universe gave us that we could keep, even if it was only in our memories. Why do Jedi try to make it not count?”

Obi-Wan gets a look on his face, the one he gets whenever Anakin has a question that’s more complicated and philosophical than what Obi-Wan was ready for, the questions about why that he has to think about because it’s all normal for Obi-Wan, who grew up here, in ways that it isn’t (and will never be) for Anakin with his Tatoo heart and slaveborn mind.

“It’s not about the depth of the relationship in and of itself,” Obi-Wan finally says. “It’s about how you go about it, how you let it affect you, and if you let it get in the way of your duties as a Jedi, or put yourself at risk of a fall. It’s... it’s not banned, exactly, to love someone the way one would expect to love a soulmate, but it’s discouraged for our own safety and health. Losing someone you love hurts everyone, but for a Force-user to lose someone they consider so dear to their heart, there’s always a risk of losing one’s stability and going Dark.”

Anakin doesn’t entirely understand, but he pretends he does.

Obi-Wan scratches at the stubble he’s trying to turn into a beard, and says, “Okay, let me finish getting dressed, and then I’m going to tell you a few stories. You said you like learning through stories, right?”

Anakin nods.

“Okay, so... Bandomeer, I think. Melida/Daan and Mandalore, definitely. And we can round it out with what happened a few days ago,” Obi-Wan mutters. “I--most of those are planets.”

“I’ve heard of Mandalore,” Anakin volunteers.

“Yes, most have,” Obi-Wan indulges him, but he looks a little nervous. “Anakin, I... these stories all have to do with some very painful times in my life, times when I almost left, or did leave, the Jedi Order. I think--”

“You left the Jedi?”

“For a year, when I was a little older than you, but I came back,” Obi-Wan says. “I’m... can you put on some tea? It’ll make this conversation easier.”

“Is it about your soulmates?” Anakin asks, clinging to the doorframe just before he exits.

“...one of them,” Obi-Wan says, passing a hand over the mark on his thigh. “It’s... she’s why Mandalore is on this list, but that story won’t make as much sense unless I tell you about Bandomeer and Melida/Daan first.”

“Because you left?”

“Because I already knew what leaving could cost me,” Obi-Wan corrects, gentle but oddly stern. “Go put on the tea, Anakin. I’ll only be a few minutes.”

-----

Three months after Anakin hears about the times Obi-Wan was forced to leave, did leave, almost left, and threatened to leave (for Anakin’s sake!), the name of his soulmate comes in.

“That’s not a name,” Anakin says.

“Anakin--”

“That’s not a name,” Anakin says, more upset than he’d like to admit. The soul mark sits neatly on one side of his lower abdomen, warm and precisely lettered and absolutely terrifying.

CT-7567, in a dark, desaturated blue.

“I don’t think your soulmate is a droid,” Obi-Wan tries to joke. It falls flat.

“They’re a born slave,” Anakin says, and watches Obi-Wan stiffen. “Droids don’t get soulmates. Slaves do, but sometimes ma--owners don’t let slaves have names. They just give ‘em a number and that’s it. Supposed to make us more pliant and keeps us from having thoughts of individuality.”

“Them, Anakin, not us. You’re free.”

Anakin looks up at him, lip wobbling, and he knows a Jedi shouldn’t cry, not when he’s already ten, but he wants to any way. “My soulmate isn’t.”

“O-oh, okay, we’re crying now,” Obi-Wan mutters, clearly overwhelmed, and pulls Anakin to his chest. “It’ll be alright, dear one. Your mark means you will meet one day, and when you do, you can free them. Alright?”

“Okay.”

-----

“Skywalker? Sounds like a slave name.”

It’s a refrain that CT-7567 hears almost every time one of the adults sees his mark. They mention Tatooine sometimes. One of the bounty hunters that covers their weapons training gets angry if people point out the slave thing, and CT-7567 isn’t the only person to get a slave for a soulmate. She doesn’t explain it often, but there’s an incident when Rex is three that gives him a little more information.

“That one’ll be angry,“ the bounty hunter mutters, her lip curling when she hears the cadets gossiping about their marks again, sees CT-7567 pulling up his shirt to show off his own. She’s always like that, about the clones who have slave soulmates. CC-1010, who knows everything about everyone, says that she used to be a slave before she killed her way out. She’s definitely scary enough. “Name like that... Tatooine, human, might be a slave or might be freeborn from a line of slaves. Either way, that one’s going to be angry about it.”

“How do you mean, sir?”

Her eyes flick to his, and then back to the slugthrower she’s cleaning. “Tatooine slave culture knows things. Your mark on this “Anakin” is going to be your number until you get a name, and they’re not going to make the mistake of thinking their soulmate is a droid. They’ll know you were born to a purpose.”

It takes another year for CT-7567 to learn that she means ‘you were born a slave.’

(It takes two more for him to pick a name.)

-----

Anakin is not the only one in the Temple to have this kind of soul mark popping up. He is not even the first. The Council is investigating it, apparently, but they don’t have much to go off of. It didn’t start until a year or two before Anakin came to Coruscant, but enough Jedi are affected by the CC and CT soul marks for it to be concerning. Anakin gets called in to provide some information on what he knows about slave-designations in these circumstances, which isn’t much, and is barely more than what they already know, but they assure him it’s helpful. Something about corroborating the information a raised slave is taught culturally with the information a Shadow can collect from a community that doesn’t trust them. Obi-Wan explains that it’s about how Anakin knows information that was collected and taught, instead of information that has to be gathered, bit by bit, and analyzed.

It’s a long way of saying that Anakin knows things that other people don’t, because he wasn’t raised in the safety of the Temple.

Anakin doesn’t know many of the others, but he does know one even before his soul mark comes in, because their Masters are friends. They talk about it, and three years after they first connect over this, something happens.

“It changed! Anakin, Ani, it changed!”

Anakin drops the datapad he’s been doing history homework on, and looks up as Aayla, already in the suite, grabs his shoulders and shakes him a little.

“Aayla?” Obi-Wan calls, coming out of the kitchen with a rag in one hand and a wet plate in the other. “What in the--what are you shouting about?”

Knight Vos follows Aayla in--it’s a bit early to call him a Master, given that Aayla’s still not knighted, but it’s getting close--and leans against the door, arms crossed. “Kid was right. The mark changes when the soulmate picks a name.”

Aayla pulls down the shoulder of one sleeve, and Anakin sees that the designation number has changed. It’s not a regimented CC-5052 anymore, but a short, sweet Bly, with a flourish at the end that probably means this person is always going to be excited to sign their name.

“We already knew that,” Obi-Wan says. “When people transition, their name changes on their soulmate as well. This is the same thing.”

“We didn’t know that it applied to born slaves the same way,” Knight Vos says. “All we had was anecdotal evidence from the kid. Trustworthy, yes, but no data to back it up. And now we know.”

“I wonder how it’s meant to be pronounced,” Aayla says, and obligingly lets Anakin poke at the name that swirls on her shoulder in a vivid yellow against the blue. It’s pretty, he thinks. The handwriting and the color and what it means that the soulmates they’ve all gotten are finding ways to be people.

“How long until mine changes?” Anakin asks, even though he knows that nobody here has that answer. “Do you think all of them are going to find names? Or...”

“If they don’t by the time we find them,” Aayla assures him, wrapping an arm around his shoulders, “they will once they’re free.”

(In one life, the Jedi would have held their tongues and ducked their heads, hidden in denial and ‘we are their only option’ and ‘the Senate will use them regardless; we are a kinder fate than men like Tarkin’ and would never use the words ‘slave army’ to describe their men.)

(In this life, they are primed, from the moment a little freed boy explains exactly what a soul mark like this means to people like his, to see their army and say ‘we will free you.’)

-----

Rex

Anakin has his eyes fixed on the name from the moment his mark burns and twists and changes. He’s sixteen by then, and on a mission with Obi-Wan that prevents him from running to break into Knight Aayla’s room and show off to her the way she had to him. He’s not even on planet, but at least it’s not the middle of a fight. That could have been bad.

“Hey, Obi-Wan?”

“Hm?”

“I got a name.”

“For the assassin?” Obi-Wan asks, raising his head hopefully. “Did you get through to the guild?”

“...no, I meant, uh, my soulmate.” Anakin lifts his shirt, waits on that unfortunate dash of disappointment, and then Obi-Wan’s face lights up and the man practically scrambles over to get a better look. Anakin tries not to let himself read too much into it. It’s... nice, he thinks. That Obi-Wan is excited for him.

“I feel like half these individuals are picking names of exactly three letters,” Obi-Wan says, but he’s smiling as he almost touches the mark. He doesn’t, in the end, but Anakin wants to laugh at it anyway. “Rex, then. I look forward to meeting your young man.”

Anakin feels his face flare. “We don’t know that it’s a boy. I mean, there might be places where that’s a girl’s name. Or a species that doesn’t have our genders. Or--”

“I have a feeling,” Obi-Wan says, and laughs when Anakin pouts at him. “Oh, I wouldn’t bet my saber on it, but a few credits, at least. Nothing solid, but I was prone to visions as a youngling. Qui-Gon was never very good at dealing with the peculiarities of such a connection to the Unifying Force. He tried, admittedly, but he was very much a man of the present.”

Anakin spends the rest of the mission silently cheering on his soulmate for picking a name.

For taking that step to saying “I’m a person.”

-----

Someone tries to assassinate Senator Amidala. Anakin and Obi-Wan are assigned to protect her. There’s an incident with a robot, and Obi-Wan is... pulled aside.

(Anakin finds himself thinking, more than once, that he could have fallen in love with this woman if he wasn’t so attached to the idea inked into his skin.)

(Senator Amidala doesn’t have a soulmate. She’s free to choose, she claims. He doesn’t envy her, but he does respect this.)

(Anakin likes the security of the universe telling him that there’s someone he’s meant for.)

Obi-Wan disappears to investigate something, and returns just before Anakin and Padme are set to leave. He looks... grim.

“The assassination is more complicated than we thought,” Obi-Wan says. “As in, the main assassin was expecting this to fail, so we’d come find him after he killed the subcontractor.”

“So...”

“He wants to talk to us,” Obi-Wan says. “But, specifically, to the two of you.”

-----

“So, you’re Anakin Skywalker.”

Jango Fett is a shorter man than Anakin, shorter even than Obi-Wan, but he’s not small. The armor bulks him out further. There’s faint scars on his face, here and there, and he seems more amused than anything when Anakin slips in front of Padme to actually be the bodyguard he’s supposed to play.

“What’s it to you?” Anakin challenges, and pretends he doesn’t see the way Obi-Wan pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.

Fett smirks. “One of my boys has your name on him.”

Anakin stops breathing for a moment.

“One of your boys?” Padme prompts, and Anakin tries to remember his job.

Fett’s smirk falls away and he palms his face. “Three million of them, and counting. I’ve had people cross-referencing soul marks as they pop up, in case anyone’s connected to someone... important. Special attention on the confirmed Jedi.”

“Three mill--you’re behind the ident number marks,” Anakin realizes. “The slave-born.”

Obi-Wan’s face looks carved from stone, and Anakin realizes that the mood he’s been in since he called Anakin and Padme was because he’d figured it out before he called.

“Yeah, Umiett said you’d be the one to make that connection,” Fett mutters. He shakes his head. “Listen, I’ve got three million clones that are more sentient than anyone told me they’d be, and I’ve spent the last few years trying to decide how to get myself out of this contract without abandoning them in the process. Tyranus gave me the job to assassinate Amidala, but I’d already had her shortlisted as one of the Republic members most like to help me get these boys citizenship and legal rights. Once I heard Skywalker and Kenobi were involved, turning this into a discreet way to get your attention seemed like the obvious solution.”

“You tried to kill me... to get my attention... so I’d help you.”

“I didn’t try to kill you. I subcontracted to a former acquaintance that I knew wasn’t good enough to get past two Jedi.”

“Right,” Padme says, seeming unimpressed. Anakin agrees. “Okay, three million sentients, all your children--”

“Clones.”

“--yes, something that’s very illegal in the Republic at that scale,” she says. “Unless--”

“Kamino’s in the Rishi maze. Dwarf galaxy, not actually part of the Republic. Isolated.”

“Okay, that’s... going to make this more difficult,” Padme says. “Where does your citizenship lie? Are you still Mandalorian? I’m not as familiar with your role in recent politics as I could be. I know there’s something about all violent dissenters being sent to Concordia, but you--”

“If I thought that hut’uunla Duchess would listen to me, I’d have already reached out,” Fett dismisses. “That’s part of why I focused on Kenobi and Skywalker when doing the research. Skywalker’s got the background to argue slavery, and Kenobi’s got connections in Mandalorian politics.”

“And I’m to be your voice in the Senate.”

“Not mine. The clones’.”

Anakin looks to Obi-Wan for guidance, because this man was involved with the attempted assassination, but...

“Who is Tyranus?” Obi-Wan asks.

“Oh, you’re going to enjoy this. The man calling himself Darth Tyranus is Count Dooku of Serreno.”

Anakin hasn’t heard Obi-Wan swear that colorfully since the last time he got stabbed.

-----

Things... progress. Quietly. Fett mentions there being a Sith in the Senate, something he picked up from a particularly ugly visit from the Count to Kamino, the kind of visit that involved veiled conversations intended as mocking, bragging monologues.

“He really is a villain,” Obi-Wan mutters, as if Anakin hasn’t seen him monologue to captured criminals on occasion, or get so caught up in The Banter that he lets something slip that he shouldn’t have.

Anakin and Padme go to Naboo to ‘keep her safe,’ and Obi-Wan hares off on a falsified investigation, keeping the Council updated the entire time. Anakin doesn’t like splitting up, not when so much is happening, but they have no idea who the Sith in the senate might be, if they even exist. Anakin doesn’t even have time to say goodbye to the Chancellor.

All this contributes, for Anakin is already stressed, and excited, anticipatory and afraid, and then the nightmares come. Padme’s more aware of his fears than she might have been, as much as they talk about slaves and freedom and how she makes things happen with words and legislation. Anakin’s a little in love with the idea of this woman, though he won’t act on anything until he meets his soulmate and figures out what they’re meant to be for each other, but... friends, at least. Padme is going to be a friend, possibly for life, and Anakin’s going to love her no matter what.

She coaxes out the truth, and then tells him, ‘well, your mother would know more about this than you, since you left at nine; it would be entirely reasonable to ask her for advice,’ and then smiles like they’re sharing a secret crush instead of plotting the violation of his orders.

They save Shmi.

(Barely.)

Padme doesn’t get the advice she was using an excuse from Shmi, but from a long, tired conversation with Beru Whitesun. As it turns out, when a family’s been freeing slaves for generations, they know what they’re talking about. Even Anakin remembers the Whitesun reputation. Padme’s notes are copious.

Anakin cares for his mother, and talks to his stepbrother, and gets an idea of who these people in his life are. He can’t imagine they’ll make contact often, but he’s glad to meet them. Cliegg--his stepfather, and isn’t that a thought--isn’t a particularly soft man, or a smooth one, but his gruffness has a different energy on Tatooine than it would on Coruscant. Anakin approves.

Obi-Wan calls. Padme explains. Anakin is shamed by his Master and then has to defend that particular title when Owen and Beru stare at him and the comm in matching horror.

“Master-Apprentice,” Anakin says, just a little panicked. “Not Master-Slave. He’s my teacher, practically family, not... you don’t need to worry. I promise.”

“I’ve seen them interact,” Padme says, and then shoots a small, smug smile at Beru. “Obi-Wan’s somewhere between father and brother to Anakin. It’s very sweet, when they’re together, and very entertaining.”

Beru, who’s had three days to get used to Padme, smiles and nods. “Alright then. I’ll take your words for it.”

Obi-Wan sputters a bit at the claim, in the background, and Anakin is... just a little upset by that.

“I think your mother would want to speak with him,” Cliegg claims, and Anakin hesitates, because this is a mission call, for all that gossip is happening, and he really shouldn’t break more rules after the big one he’s clearly, blatantly completely ignored to come to Tatooine in the first place. Cliegg holds out a hand, eyes on Obi-Wan. “As would I.”

“Well,” Obi-Wan says. “I suppose I do have a moment.”

-----

Anakin and Padme arrive on Kamino.

“Your mother,” Obi-Wan says, in lieu of a greeting, “is oddly terrifying, did you know?”

“She’s... still recovering,” Anakin says, brow furrowing. “She can’t leave the bed for anything other than the ‘fresher for weeks, probably. And she’s nice, how is any of that terrifying?”

“It’s her energy,” Obi-Wan notes. “Quietly intimidating, I’d say. Very odd, really.”

“What did you even talk about?” Anakin asks, and then blushes as Padme giggles at him, like she knows things that he doesn’t. She probably does. She’s older than him. Still.

“Ah, that,” Obi-Wan says, looking away for a moment and--blushing? Obi-Wan’s blushing? “She rather aggressively informed me of what is considered normal on Tatooine for a relationship that is, as Padme put it, ill-defined but close and familial.”

“Master, you--what?”

Obi-Wan rolls his eyes and steps forward, pulling Anakin into a hug. Oh. “I’ve been informed that the manner in which I show affection to you is rather understated and ambiguous, by Tatoo standards, and that leaving things unsaid isn’t enough.”

“...Obi-Wan?”

“I consider you my brother,” Obi-Wan says, into this hug that is stiff and uncomfortable, but sincere and full of effort. “And I do love you very much, dear one, even if I’m rather unpracticed in showing it in ways that would... translate, shall we say.”

“Oh,” Anakin says, because he can’t think of anything else. He hugs back.

There’s a moment there, where Obi-Wan relaxes and Anakin shifts, and everything feels just a tiny bit more right, and then someone coughs.

“If you two are done?” Fett drawls, and Anakin mourns as Obi-Wan huffs and pulls away, hands back to being tucked into his sleeves in front of him.

“Quite,” Obi-Wan says back, with the strained smirk of someone who’s been dealing with the same frustrating sentient for a solid week without the option of just bashing their face in.

Fett rolls his eyes, and gestures for them to follow him. “I’ve got a bunch of the Alphas and CCs waiting on you, along with anyone we know for sure has a Jedi soulmate. Kenobi’s already spoken with them all, got confirmation that we probably haven’t missed any connections.”

“I know the list of everyone who reported a CC or CT soul mark to the Council,” Obi-Wan huffs. “I have it memorized.”

“Because of Anakin?” Padme asks.

“His mark came in when he was ten,” Obi-Wan says. “I was his legal guardian until very recently. Given the circumstances, it was reasonable that most of the information on the ident-code marking situation be shared with me in the same way that his school reports and medical records were. He was a minor until a year ago, Senator, and as you so rightly pointed out, my role in his life is certainly that of the family member who raised him for the past decade.

“Master,” Anakin hisses, well aware of his blush. “You’re embarrassing me.”

Obi-Wan looks at him, amused. “I’m told that’s rather the point, dear one.”

Padme looks away, clearly fighting back a grin, and Fett’s expression is mocking, at best.

They enter the section of the facility where other people are a moment later, and Anakin is... not quite as ready for the sea of identical faces as he thought he’d be. One small boy in different tunics from the rest runs up to Fett with a call of ‘Buir!’ and falls into step with them, grabbing Fett’s hand and peering curiously at the rest of them.

“This is Boba,” Fett tells them. “He’s the only unaltered one.”

“The one you claimed at birth,” Padme clarifies.

“Decanting!” Boba pipes up, and then smiles winningly at Padme. “I wasn’t born. I was decanted. He claimed me at decanting.”

Fett looks like he wants to run a hand down his face. “Yes, Boba’s the clone that was provided to me as part of the payment I demanded when I first signed on to the project. He’s the only one I technically have legal claim to.”

“All the others are Kaminoan property until claimed by the Senate or Jedi,” Obi-Wan adds, and Fett nods in his direction. “Preferably the Jedi, of course.”

“The Nulls are with Kal Skirata,” Boba pipes up. “He adopted all of them and Kaminiise didn’t care that much because they thought the Nulls were all failed experiments anyway.”

Fett grimaces at the look that gets him from Padme. “They’re not mine. None of them would have wanted to be, anyway, but it stands that I haven’t spoken with them in years.”

“They’re precedent,” Padme corrects. “One I should have been made of aware of if you want this to work. Can you put me in contact with this Skirata individual? What’s his, and their, citizenship status?”

Anakin steps back to Obi-Wan as Padme drills Fett for information, and keeps his eyes wandering for threats--unlikely, if Fett is genuine, and Obi-Wan says he is--and trying to figure out the best way to keep track of which clone is which. They do feel different in the Force, but Anakin’s not as used to using that sense for identification as most Jedi. He sees a few scars and tattoos, but he thinks he’s going to have to--

Oh.

“Anakin? Why did you stop?”

Anakin ignores his master, because one of the clones, one he can’t even see, is glowing so strong and right and calling to him...

“Anakin, please answer me.”

“I can feel him,” Anakin breathes out. “My soulmate. I think I can feel him, in the Force.”

“Ah,” Obi-Wan says, relaxing. “Yes, that tends to happen, when we look. Fett assured us that he’d be at the meeting, dear. Just a few more hallways to go.”

Those hallways pass in a blur, because he’s there his soulmate is there and--

A room, full of clones that look older than Anakin, for all that they can’t be, and more clones that don’t.

There’s a clone in full kit, helmet included, but Anakin knows, just knows, that this one is his.

“Troopers!” Fett barks. “Kenobi’s brought some friends in. Senator Amidala’s going to be working on the citizenship bill with us. The other Jedi is Anakin Skywalker. You can guess why he’s--”

The fully-armored soldier takes a half-step forward.

Fett sighs. “By the ka’ra, Rex, you’re going to embarrass yourself and me. Take your bucket off, kid, let him see you.”

“Some tact, Fett,” Obi-Wan snaps, and for all that it’s quiet and intended to be subtle, the clones absolutely hear him.

They also seem amused. Apparently Obi-Wan’s been hanging about for long enough that he and Fett have a dynamic, one the clones have gotten used to and find hilarious.

Anakin only sort of notices this, because the clone in armor, still unpainted, pulls off his helmet and for all that it’s the exact same face as Anakin’s seen a thousand times over in the last fifteen minutes, there’s something uniquely beautiful that has nothing to do with the blonde hair or the nervous smile.

“You’re Rex?” Anakin asks, even though he’s sure, he’s absolutely convinced, that this young man is his soulmate.

“Yes,” the young clone says. He looks about Anakin’s age, and Fett’s told them time and again that the clones are basically the age they look, for the most part. Anakin’s going to take it slow anyway.

“Obi-Wan already said it, but, um, I’m Anakin,” he says, and tries to find something to do with his hands that isn’t just taking his soulmate and hugging him ‘til all the suns set. He looks down, and settles for mimicking Obi-Wan and just tucking them into his sleeves. He looks up at Rex, and tries to smile, but he’s so nervous about all of this that it probably doesn’t look like much. He thinks he hears someone snickering.

“Oh good,” someone mumbles. “They’re both hopeless.”

Anakin snaps his head around and glowers at the little group the comment came from, but he has no idea which one said it. All four look amused, and have varying degrees of shit-eating grin in place.

“If you didn’t outrank him, Rex would totally be shooting you right now,” little Boba says. “I think he’d deserve to do that.”

Anakin doesn’t have to strain at all to hear Fett’s groan.

“Alright,” one of the older clones says, and everyone stands a little straighter. An authority among the clones? Official, or more of an informal primus inter pares situation? “Rex’ika and his Jedi can go get to know one another, and none of us are going to make fun of them for it, because I know damn well how many of you have been mooning over the idea of your soulmates despite knowing literally nothing about them.”

“So’ve you, Alpha!”

“You want a boot up your ass, Wolffe? Because if you keep talking, that’s what you’re getting.”

“Boys,” Fett says, and they settle down. “Now, the Senator has some questions for you, and you’re going to comply when she asks, because it’s going to keep your little brothers alive. You understand?”

One clone raises a hand, and Fett sighs.

“Yes, and little sisters, Valierra,” he adds. He mutters something under his breath that sounds like “kriffing Basic.”

(Anakin later learns that Mando’a is not a gendered language, and Fett’s frustration is entirely about the fact that ‘brothers’ isn’t gender neutral. Anakin tries to ask why he doesn’t just say ‘sibling’ or use the Mando’a word, and there’s apparently a whole thing with some instructors wanting to encourage the clones to learn to be Mandalorian, and others wanting to cut them off from anything to do with the planet.)

(Anakin... tries to understand. He’s still confused about why ‘siblings’ isn’t on the table.)

“Go on, Anakin,” Obi-Wan says, looking somewhere between amused and exasperated. “We can catch you up later.”

“I got enough from Beru,” Padme assures him. “You can pop in to help us fine-tune later.”

Anakin nods, just a short jerk of his head, and then looks to Rex. The man is glaring at a little at a little group of other clones, but when Anakin reaches out and takes his hand--takes his hand--Rex turns and stares at him with wide eyes and a flush that Anakin’s sure he’s mirroring.

“We should talk,“ he blurts out, and he can feel Obi-Wan’s despair at how completely inept Anakin is at this whole ‘personal interactions’ thing, but that’s fine, because Obi-Wan’s a bit of a slut, and Anakin doesn’t flirt with everyone he meets, and he’s been waiting for his soulmate like a sensible person.

(“Or a romantic,” Vos had pointed out, once. “Most people date at least a little if they don’t meet their soulmate by, like, fifteen. I mean, culturally I understand why you want to wait until you meet your soulmate, but it’s not really a matter of sensibility, just personal preference. Obi-Wan’s not less sensible for sleeping around.”)

(Anakin does not like this argument, and so he ignores it.)

(Well, no, he agrees that people should be allowed to flirt if they want, but he doesn’t like the implication he’s gotten from a few other padawans about how he’s ‘awkward’ for not knowing how to talk to people that he wants to impress somehow.)

(So, he’s going to claim it’s sensibility.)

“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!”

“Kriff off, Ponds!” Rex barks out, immediately pinging on the exact clone that said the words, and Anakin bites a lip to keep from laughing at them both.

“Out,” Fett orders. “We’ve got shit to do, stop being a distraction.”

“Being a distraction, my dear, is a skill that Anakin’s put far too much effort into developing just to drop it on your command,” Obi-Wan says, light and airy and not at all like he just dragged Anakin and Fett for no Force-damned reason.

“Come on,” Rex mutters, tugging Anakin to the door with a blush that only grows as the other clones catcall them on the way out of the room. Anakin hears at least one particularly dirty comment get cut off by a smacking noise and a reprimand from a clone he thinks is probably Alpha.

The second they’re out of sight, Rex slows down, and glances back at Anakin.

Anakin tries to smile in encouragement. He’s not sure it works, really, but Rex smiles back, so it can’t be that bad.

“Here, Alpha told me to use the mini conference room,” Rex tells him, when the get to a nondescript door with a number on it. “It’s not completely secure, but we can lock the door so it’s mostly private.”

“Can I kiss you?” Anakin asks, and then has to fight to not clap a hand over his mouth.

He was going to go slow. He was a moron who’d promised himself to go slow. Rex is mostly an adult but there are ways in which he isn’t, and Anakin might not be fully an adult either, but that’s not really an excuse, and--

“Yes, please,” Rex says, and oh Anakin really likes the shy grin on him. It’s pretty.

(This man, he thinks, could easily bench press Anakin a few times over, but he’s blushing like a storybook maiden, and he’s doing it for Anakin.)

Anakin moves slowly, because this isn’t something he has much practice with either, but he takes Rex’s face in his hands and leans in, pressing their lips together with only the slightest tilt of his head, just barely less than chaste, and a firework goes off inside his ribcage.

His soulmate! He’s kissing his soulmate!

There’s a ‘stop projecting’ nudge from Obi-Wan in the Force. Anakin tosses up a shield and focuses back on the kissing. He pulls away, and the goes to just... peck a bit. Just small, chaste, tiny kisses because he doesn’t want to stop. Because for all that they just met a few minutes ago, this feels right.

Warm hands, larger than his own and steady in a way he thinks he really likes, settle on his hips.

“We--mm--really should talk,” Rex manages, and Anakin... well, Anakin stops kissing him.

Rex apparently likes it as much as Anakin does, because he lifts up onto his toes to kiss Anakin again before fully breaking off. He grins, clearly sheepish, and shrugs. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Anakin says, and then Rex pulls him down to press their foreheads together, radiating warmth and hope and affection that Anakin hasn’t earned yet, but is definitely going to.

“This is a Keldabe kiss,” Rex says, and his nose brushes against Anakin’s as he shifts. His hands are still on Anakin’s waist, and Anakin decides to wrap his arms around Rex’s shoulders. It’s nice. “I like, um, I like the other kind of kissing too, but this means a lot to me, and it’s one of those Mandalorian things they actually let us pick up.”

“Fine by me,” Anakin says, and he, hells, he hasn’t even asked for proof of the soul marks, but he doesn’t need to, really, with the Force as insistent as it is. “So. Talk?”

“Yeah. Let’s talk.”

#Rexwalker #Anakin Skywalker #Captain Rex #Obi Wan Kenobi #Jango Fett #Padme Amidala #Aayla Secura #Hopeless Romantic Anakin Skywalker #Phoenix Answers Memes #soulmate au #Phoenix Posts

[spencersawkward]

if you feel comfortable with it, I’d love a prof Spence where reader is a student and goes to office hours to initiate ~smutty goodness~ but Spencer is reluctant at first bc his job but they flirt more and eventually sleep together

me n my professor kink when i saw this: 😏 anyway yes i am quite comfortable writing about this lol. i took some ✨creative liberties✨ with your request so i'm sorry if it isn't exactly what you wanted! 

summary: reader is a student in Dr. Reid’s class, but she’s been something of a poor student-- office hours are the only solution.

relationship: Fem!Reader/Professor!Spencer

content warnings: unprotected penetrative sex, fingering, rough sex, super brief hair-pulling, creampie, dirty talk, spanking, age gap, degradation-- he gets pretty dominant oops.

word count: 4.5k

masterlist

popping in a piece of gum, I make my way to the back of the hall. there are a few people here already, but it's a little early. I'm never early. in fact, I'm usually late; my other class is on the other side of campus, and getting here involves a lot of embarrassing speed-walking.

but here I am, five minutes ahead of schedule and actually in a decent seat. as I flip open my textbook and pull my laptop out of my bag to prepare to take notes, my gaze slides down to the corner of the room, where Dr. Reid is standing up with a pile of papers. he walks over to the girl in the front row, handing her the stack and gesturing for her to pass it along.

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. he's a total luddite. the first day, Dr. Reid spent about ten minutes rambling about the importance of reading from a physical book rather than online sources-- which, although I definitely agree with, means a lot more lugging around folders and organizing all the readings he gives out. if he wasn't so hot, I would have switched into another course.

and I know it's wrong to be daydreaming about my professor slamming me into a wall while he discusses the intricacies of quantum theory. the complete cliché of it is embarrassing. but still, I just can't stop thinking about him: how his fingers would feel around my throat, the smooth wooden surface of his desk against my cheek as he bends me over and pulls my panties to the side--

"glad to see you've decided to join us, today, Ms. Y/L/N." Dr. Reid's voice startles me out of my thoughts. he's standing towards the front of the room while students file in. his hands are resting in his pockets with his eyebrows pleasantly raised.

"glad to see you've noticed." I retort, too irritated with his comment to care about being polite.

a couple people look at me. even though I'm generally not on time, he tends to just glance my way when I walk in and leaves it at that. I know he doesn't like it, although I personally don't care. I hate this course.

he seems visibly surprised by my response but doesn't reply, gaze lingering on mine before he turns to speak to a student trying to get his attention. I bite back a smile. fucking asshole.

as usual, Dr. Reid writes in his thin, messy lettering on the board while wandering around the front of the room. he's quite fidgety, even though his voice doesn't betray any sort of nervousness. it's like he's naturally overactive.

every word out of his mouth is enunciated, sometimes spoken faster when he gets particularly impassioned by the subject. he's interesting to look at, too. messy curls and a nice suit, stubble that straddles the line between refinement and ruggedness.

I type quickly, but it isn't fast enough and the strange illustrations he does on the board only complicate things. I try to write them down in my notebook, but my handwriting is jagged; sometimes it's hard to read. when a student raises her hand for a clarification, I take the opportunity to catch up.

my head jerks up as soon as I'm finished and he's looking at me while he speaks. even from so many feet away, the intensity strikes me. he's gesticulating and crossing the room. I hold eye contact.

I wonder if he dates often; a couple of the girls in my row always stare at him throughout the lectures. he seems to be completely unaware of the effect he has on people. sometimes I'll see him in the hallway and he has his nose buried in a book, or a to-go cup of coffee, or both. either way, there seems to be no more room in that head of his for romance.

which, naturally, makes me curious about how he looks when he's on the edge of orgasm. if that composure is replaced with a contorted pleasure. I want to break him.

it's like he can read my thoughts, because Dr. Reid averts his gaze. my stomach twists with a strange anticipation. he avoids looking my way for the rest of the time.

towards the end of class, I start to pack my things to go. I have three papers to write, and my utter lack of interest in this is making me eager to leave. I shove my textbook into my bag the second my professor starts to make closing remarks.

"don't forget that we have a midterm in two weeks!" he says in a slightly louder voice as people start to move around. "if you have any questions, my office hours are posted on the bulletin board outside."

at this, my eyebrows rise. I forgot about the midterm. I have a study calendar set up for all my subjects, but I've purposefully been putting this one off. I'm not super into math. and it doesn't help that most of my time is spent not listening. when I am, it doesn't make sense.

as I stand up and gather my stuff, I hear someone clearing their throat a couple feet away. my head turns to see Dr. Reid leaning against his desk.

"Ms. Y/L/N, can I see you for a second?"

my heart stutters in my chest. is this about my attitude? he's never asked to see me outside of lessons before.

I frown, making my way to him with a deliberate pace. the tension in the room builds as I watch the last of his students shuffle out of the room. my head turns from the door to him; my breath catches a little in my throat at the set of his jaw. part of me hopes I get yelled at.

"I'm concerned about your participation in this class." he says. his voice isn't cruel, but it is brutally honest— which is worse. participation? I feel my fist clench at my side. my professors don't usually say anything if you aren't doing things up to their expectations; if you aren't, then they give you a bad grade. simple as that.

"is this about me being late?" I ask. he lets out a sigh before answering. he sounds disappointed.

"you're constantly tardy, and when you hand in your homework, you barely seem to have put in the effort. it's messy."

"messy?" I start to get annoyed. I'm only doing this so that I can get my degree. it's a fucking requirement. even though I'm not the biggest fan of mathematics, I still do my best and hand in my assignments on time. plus, the latest I arrive is five minutes-- it's not like I'm stumbling in halfway through the lesson.

"you've never come to office hours to ask for help or explained your lateness, which I, as your professor, would have appreciated." he scolds. honestly, I don't know what to say. my eyes narrow.

"I have my studio class on the other side of campus." I explain. "I should have emailed about that and I'm sorry, but I'm also not being lax about my work."

he goes around to the other side of his desk and glances up at me while he organizes some loose documents to pack away. he looks way too good when he's exasperated: his hands tighten around the papers, his eyebrows come together in this cute way. his tie is a little crooked, too.

"are you struggling with the content?"

"sometimes, yeah. but I can handle reaching out for help if I need it." I reply. he's pissing me off with these questions. I can see from the expression on his face that he's surprised by my reaction.

"really?" he slides some books into his messenger bag. that was definitely sarcastic; I know it was. "because it doesn't really seem like you have."

"I like to find help on my own." I shoulder my bag and cross my arms over my chest. there's no way he's gonna talk to me like that and expect me to not respond in kind.

"I'm reserving a slot on Wednesday evening for you," he looks up and holds my gaze. hazel irises that dare me to challenge him further. "I want you in office hours so that we can figure out how you're gonna catch up before the midterm."

"fine." I turn on my heel and leave. I know I'm not supposed to talk to my professor like that, or even to behave with such apprehension. but something about him makes me angry in the kind of way that settles in my stomach. I hate that he's right. I'm not going to do well on that damn test if I don't get some help.

but that doesn't mean I can't have some fun with it.

when I rush into his office on Wednesday evening, the sun is just starting to set through his window. there's a pinkish glow that smooths over Dr. Reid's desk as he glances up at me. I had to run to get here.

"you're late." he nods to the clock on the wall. I roll my eyes.

"only one minute, though. I had another class."

he sighs and folds his hands on his desk. "how are you doing today, Ms. Y/L/N?" a strangely polite question for the look on his face. he's frustrated with me.

"I'm quite well, Dr. Reid." I smile brightly, slightly excited by the anger on his face, and sit at the chair in front of his desk.

"I didn't know you were interested in art." he says simply. I'm confused for a moment before I remember that I told him that the course before his is a studio lesson.

"I didn't know you cared."

"do you make a habit of that?" he quirks an eyebrow.

"of what?" my expression is saccharine.

"being rude to people who control your grades."

"unless you're considering being unethical in your practices and allowing your personal opinion of me to influence my grade, then no." I counter. he's silent for a moment, taking in my words like they've left a mark on him.

"well, you'd most likely fail if I asked you to leave my office hours right now. whose fault would that be?" he fidgets with his hands and leans forward just a bit, his voice dropping to a lower tone. I bite back a smile.

"you wouldn't."

"and why is that?" he baits.

"because you're not a shitty professor, Dr. Reid," I lean back in my chair and cross my legs. "as angry as you are, you wouldn't be able to live with yourself if you kicked me— a struggling student— out of here for giving you a little attitude."

"a little attitude?" he scoffs. "you've spent the whole semester completely ambivalent."

"not completely." I shrug.

"Y/N, you draw all over your tests and leave at least one problem half-finished every time. you obviously aren't learning." he chuckles mirthlessly. I concede this point; I like to doodle when I'm bored. and there's absolutely nothing more boring to me than numbers.

"okay," I sit up and rest my elbows on the edge of his desk, staring at him. "then teach me."

Dr. Reid holds my gaze for a long moment. we're suspended, it seems, as his lips part and he finds himself speechless. the way I said the words obviously has another layer to it-- he just has to decide whether or not to take the bait.

"what are you struggling with?" he clears his throat and sits up a bit straighter in his seat. that answers my question, I guess. I poke my tongue between my teeth gently, but then pull out my notebook and flip it to a page with some problems outlined on it.

"these." I toss the thing onto his side and he begins to run through the assignment. I watch him pick up a pen and start to explain the steps, slipping into his usual educational tone. his shoulders relax a little as he writes.

I can't see right from the angle I'm at, so I stand and come around onto his side. I hear him pause his speaking for a moment at my proximity, but he doesn't move away.

"does that make sense?" he asks me once he's finished running through the first problem. he basically did all the work. the professor's head turns to gauge my reaction to the explanation, but his eye line is right at the hem of my skirt-- which is already pretty short. for all his attempts to be subtle, he gulps and looks up at me.

"mostly." I brush a piece of hair behind my ear and pretend to scratch at a spot on my upper thigh, dragging the edge of my skirt with it until he can see the smooth skin beneath, practically begging for his touch. "can I ask you a question?"

"sure." he keeps his eyes almost too focused on mine. I try to hide the smile tugging at my lips. now or never, I guess.

"what's your policy on professor/student relationships?"

"my-- my what?" this time, he's audibly scattered when he turns to me. his eyes are wide, dark. even he can't hide his feelings.

"you know," I run my fingertips over the tweed shoulder of his jacket. I can sense the tension beneath his clothes. "like, your policy on fucking a student."

"I--" his cheeks turn pink. he's flustered, albeit not rejecting my touch. "I've never had to think about it before."

"hmm," I look off to the side as if considering this point. his chair is fully turned to face me now, and I'm standing in front of him, almost completely his for the taking. all he has to do is close the gap. "well, what are you thinking about it right now?"

"it's wrong." he stumbles over the words.

"why?"

"well, I mean, you're a student--"

"for a semester that's almost over." I cut him off. he opens and closes his mouth. I take a deep breath, toying with the hem of my skirt. "I know you've been looking at me during class."

"w-what?"

"you're pretty good at hiding it, but you call on me a lot and you get all messed up when I hold eye contact too long during lectures." I say.

he looks down and back up apologetically. he's just sitting there, lap wide open. so I do what any sane girl in my position would do: I climb into it, straddling him and resting my arms around his neck. he sucks in a breath.

"you pretend I'm such a pain," I lean down by his ear, my core drawing over his pants. he tenses as I speak. "but you like that I'm your little problem."

"Y/N..." he trails off, but his hips are bucking up into mine.

"see?" I look between our bodies at his movements, then at him. I smirk as I look into those lust-darkened eyes. after a moment of him not speaking, I straighten. "look, I'll leave you alone if it really bothers you--"

as I start to get off his lap, he grabs me and pulls me back down. the force hits my center at just the right angle and I let out a slight mewl. he hears the sound and before I can register the pleasure, he grabs my face and yanks me closer to kiss him.

god, he feels so good. I rock my hips against his while our lips pass over each other hungrily. so much tension built up over the past few months, so many thoughts I've had of him, now coming to fruition. it's amazing.

"not so 'wrong' now, is it?" I chuckle against his mouth.

"shut up." he orders. one moment of broken contact to slide my top over my head and throw it on the floor.

I sigh as he starts to kiss across my jaw and down my throat. "I like when you talk like that, Dr. Reid."

one hand grips my hips tighter and he releases a groan against my skin.

"is that why you're such a fucking brat in my class?" he bites my collarbone and I moan. "because you want me to put you in your place?"

"mhmm." I hum. his fingertips move under my skirt, sliding up my thighs and toying with the waistband of my panties. he teases me by grazing my slit over the fabric, inhaling sharply at the wet patch.

"sitting in the back of my room, fucking dripping..." he mumbles to himself as he starts to rub me.

"touch me." I breathe out, trying to gain the friction that I need.

"not if you're gonna be a brat." he removes his hand and I let out a frustrated noise as I try to find the pressure I need elsewhere by grinding down on him. he grunts at the way I pant into his mouth, trying to kiss him with every chance I get. his lips are so smooth and sweet against mine. there's something affectionate about it even in its ferocity.

"I'll be good." I practically beg.

"that's what I thought." he slides his tongue over his bottom lip as he watches me whimper on top of him.

"come on, Spencer..." I use the name for the first time and he grabs my face in his hand, squeezing my cheeks.

"not my name, sweetheart." he stares into my eyes expectantly and I smirk.

"you're fucked up, doctor."

"so are you."

after he says that, he lifts me off his lap and stands up, pushing between my shoulder blades until my face is pressed onto the desk. I let out a needy whine, wiggle my ass back in hopes of finding his crotch, but he's not willing to give me that, yet.

instead, he gently touches my skirt, flipping it up so that he can see my ass. immediately, he starts to knead it. my palms are pressed flat against the desk with anticipation, silently thankful that my panties are still on. I think I'd be dripping down my thighs if they weren't.

"are you gonna be more respectful?" his voice is low, one hand tracing over my back. I shake.

"mhmm."

"I won't spank you if you don't use your words, sweetheart."

"yes." I choke out, no longer wanting to give any sort of resistance. I had no idea there was this side of him, and I love it.

he loves it too, apparently, because his hand comes down sharply on my ass. I yelp at the contact and he runs his fingers over the point of impact, rubbing the flesh gently.

"too hard, baby?" he checks.

"harder." I beg. I can't see his face, but I can sense his smile as if it's my own. his palm hits me again, and I gasp.

"you like being punished?"

"yes." strangled and desperate.

he slips his finger beneath the fabric of my panties, collecting my essence and letting out a quiet moan when he feels me. I push my hips against his fingers, partly expecting him to remove all the pressure, but he doesn't bother waiting.

he slips his index inside and I gasp. starts to push in and out, his silence proving his arousal. I can practically feel his eyes on me. the pace increases a bit and he slides in his middle finger. I buck against the desk.

"oh fuck!" I cry out as he starts to go faster. he curls them against my walls and I arch my back.

"two fingers and you're already breaking?" Spencer chuckles as he moves inside me. he keeps one hand on my ass while he does it, starting to finger me at a ridiculous speed while I pant and moan and cry.

"I--" I gulp down air. "I need you in it."

he bends down by my ear, never breaking his rhythm. my legs are shaking from the force. "you need my cock?"

"yes," I feel myself closing in around him. "god, yes."

"you're lucky I wanna fuck you so bad." he mutters. I grin as I hear the clink of his belt coming undone, the sliding through the belt loops, the sound of him stripping down to nothing. I can feel my excitement on the inside of my thighs, spread around by his reckless fingers as he removes my panties and skirt.

he grinds himself against my pussy, coating himself in me, while he releases low, longing moans. I suck in a breath when the head pushes in, every inch pushing me open a little more. I don't have the ability to form words, so I bite my lip and grip onto the edge of the desk until my knuckles turn white.

his breath stops for a moment before he groans.

"so ready for me."

he's not even all the way in, and he has to pause to let me adjust. when he taps the inside of my thigh for me to part them more, I do it quickly and beg him to fill me up. I can barely take the pressure between my hips, but it burns in an inviting way.

"keep going." I direct him. he runs his hands over the curve of my waist and starts to thrust into me at a rate that leaves me panting. it's not too fast or slow, just impatient and needy. every sound that spills from his lips turns me on more.

"where'd the attitude go, huh?" he digs his hips into mine. his cock hits my cervix and I squeak against the wood, but he holds my back down. I don't even try to argue with him, too overcome with the pleasure that's coursing through my limbs. he starts to build up his speed. "don't have much to say when you're getting fucked?"

"Dr. Reid--" I moan.

he plows into me so hard, the desk shifts on the floor and he grabs my ass with both hands.

"take it, baby. fucking take it."

I get up on my elbows to look behind me, just to glimpse how he looks as he gets closer. his curls have fallen more in his face, and his shirt is gone. I want to touch him desperately, to feel the lovely skin of his torso and arms and everything else, but he keeps me down for the most part. all I get is the sight of his mouth open and his hips moving quickly against mine.

"look at me, there you go." he grabs my face and holds me there, our eyes locked. mine are welling at the sheer overwhelming pleasure inside, but his are dark and intense. they search mine for something I can only hope to offer.

"that feels so good, Dr. Reid." I pant. he bites his lip as he watches my mouth hanging open in lecherous shock.

"I bet it does," he explores my body. "coming in here, hoping I fuck you like you deserve. you're lucky I'm going easy on you."

"thank you." I whine.

"you might need some extra lessons, yeah?" he grunts out, moving into me with a bruising force.

"yes, please." I whisper. my voice is practically gone at this point, my mind entirely focused on the knot building in my stomach.

"what was that, baby?" he pulls my hair gently.

"yes— fuck— yes, please, Dr. Reid."

"what a beautiful girl." he smirks. I whimper when he runs his fingernails down my ribcage. I can feel it coming from the way he starts to move tumultuously, every thrust pushing harder and seeking more release. it's fervent, how he takes me and grips my hips like the force itself will push him over the edge.

"I'm so close..." I breathe out as I try for as much friction as I can.

"show me," he drops down so his stomach is flush to my back. "show me how you cum, Y/N."

the way he says my name-- husky and warm and full of lust-- causes me to snap. I cry out as he reaches around to clamp a hand around my mouth, climaxing and pulsing around his dick as I drop down against the surface again. I want him to finish inside, so I do my best to keep him here. and his thrusts are getting more staccato as he chases the sensation my walls create.

"can I fill you, angel?" he asks. he's breathing right by my ear, and the feeling is sending shivers down my spine. I love how his weight feels.

"yes." I moan and he slides his fingers into my mouth. I suck on them while he orgasms, jerking into my pussy and letting out unholy sounds of ecstasy. he says unintelligible things in the throes of his orgasm. pounds into me until I'm sure I won't be able to walk tomorrow.

"jesus christ, Y/N." he slows to a stop. when he pulls his cock out of me, the absence makes me whine. I miss his body already.

"oh my god." I clench my hands into fists as I try to catch my breath. I'm still bent over the desk as though I've been completely sapped of all my energy. I suppose I have. he doesn't touch me for a moment in the spirit of letting me recover from the small shudders still running over my skin.

"that was great." he says after we've both had time to fill our lungs. I push myself onto my elbows again.

"correct." I grin and straighten up more until I'm standing. he stares at me, at the cum now dripping down my legs, entranced.

"let me get you something to clean up." he snaps out of it a little. I can't stop looking at him, either, in love with the way he moves and the way he breathes after exerting himself on my body.

"come here." I bite my lip. for some reason, despite what we just did, this is scarier than everything else. he steps closer and I reach up, kiss him softly. part of me worries that he'll pull away and be terrified. maybe that he'll tell me that I've read too much into this.

he's much gentler than before. our first kiss was full of need and primal desire, but this is more affectionate. I remove myself from his embrace.

"okay, you can go now." I giggle. his fingertips linger on my waist and he smiles. I push his shoulder. "I literally have your cum all over me-- go."

"fine." he starts to put his clothes on.

"does this mean I get an A?" I joke. Spencer shakes his head.

"nice try. when we're done cleaning you up, we're gonna sit down and figure this out."

I let out a whine, and he kisses my cheek before looking me in the eyes. "it'll be fun. I promise."

"math is not fun."

"I can't believe I like a girl who doesn't enjoy such a beautiful subject." he rolls his eyes and I giggle. he's perfect.

#spencer reid #spencer reid one shot #dr. reid #criminal minds #spencer reid smut #spencer reid x reader #professor reid

[theymetinargentina]

All the Stars | H.S. Imagine

Comments and requests are always welcomed:)

Masterlist

Summary: domestic Harry, husband!Harry, all that jazz

Warnings: Smut

Word count: 1.8k

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Moonlight continued to cascade on his back. He had a concentrated look on his face as he tried to get the thing i begged for to work. “I can’t get this fuckin’ thing to work.” he scroffed.

“Harry you have to twist it,” I said while looking over the manual.

“I only do this for you my darlin’,” he peered back at me and gave me the cheekiest grin.

“I know you’re only saying that to get in my pants,” I rolled my eyes

“Absolutely not,” he sounded genuinely hurt, “Plus I wouldn’t even need to do that.” he grinned.

“Is that so?” I raised my eyebrow and chuckled.

“You’d come crawling on your knees for my baby.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, hurry and finish I want to see.” I stood up and walked to where Harry continued to work at the telescope.

He stepped back, “It looks like it should work,” yet he sounded unsure.

“Alright I trust you, now shoo.”

“Hey! I built the bloody thing, I would also like to see ‘all the stars’,” he teased with a grin. I merely scoffed at him and peered through the lens, letting out a small gasp.

“It looks beautiful Harry,” I exclaimed.

I moved to allow him a glimpse of the night sky.

“Fuckin’ hell, you can see everything,” he squited and hunched over the telescope while I hugged him from behind.

“We should get inside and get the table set for dinner.” I say into his back.

A few friends were coming over to celebrate a recent promotion I had gotten at work. Harry was estatic and insisted we have a celebration. Which meant we now had to finish cooking and get ready for guests. Something Harry wasn’t particularly fond of when having guest over.

“Just a minute, I wanna stay outside with you for a bit.” He hums. It was dark and there was a slight nip to the air but our warmth combined was enough for us.

He turned around and returned the hug. His warmth enveloping me whole. My check to his chest, I could hear and feel his heart beating. Even after all this years, through every argument, I can’t believe the amount of love I have for this man. Everything he does amazes me, the kindness and gentleness he has never stops surprising me. I truly don’t think he understands how big of a gift he is the world. How in awe we- his family, friends and even fans- constantly are of him. I don’t think he realizes how many people he has, and continues, to save. The fact that he does it all without asking anything in return for himself, somehow makes him so much admirable. ———————————————————— “I’ll take the plate, don’t worry about it,” I say as I grab his plate and take it to the sink. Not before he sneaks a slap to my ass.

When I turn to look at him, he has the cheekiest grin ever and giggles like a teenage boy.

I can’t help the smile that makes it’s way onto my face.

“I couldn’t help myself,” he grins, “especially not when you’re wearing a skirt that short.”

“Don’t slut shame me, you asshole,” I snap back playfully

“Baby I want you to dress slutty in front of me,” he hugs me from behind and slowly push’s his groin into my backside, “it makes my dick rock hard.”

I mhmm in acknowledgment. I decide to tease him back and slowly start to move my hips.

He groans and starts placing sloppy kisses along my neck, “babyyyy, if you keep doing that I’m gonna take you right here.”

“Do it,” I moan when he starts trailing his hand down my stomach.

Just when he’s about to reach the button of my jeans the door bell rings.

“Fuck,” he all but growls.

I laugh, “relax baby we’ll have time later.” I wink as I go to answer the door

“You absolute tease,” I hear him say.

—————————————-

We’re all three drinks in and it’s clear everyone’s starting to feel it. Harry is telling the story of the renovation we recently had done in the guest room, to which Jeff and Glenne listen to intently.

“Seriously, I’ll give you both the number to the company that did our flooring,” I say to them.

They turn their heads and smile at me, “That would be wonderful, thank you,” glenne says with a grateful smile.

Despite our time together, being around Harry’s friends never fails to make me nervous. I think a part of me is worried if they don’t like me, what Harry would do. Surely he’d pick his best friend and manager over a girl, right? My thoughts are interrupted when my close friend Mae asks Harry a question.

“Renovations in a new house, but no ring?” She has a playful tone and everyone laughs but Harry and I both look at each other slightly panicked.

It’s not that we didn’t want people to know that we had gotten married. But the constant questions and pestering became a drag to deal with. Which is why we choose to instead elope with only our familys knowledge. It was beyond lovely being able to experience the first few months of our marriage without the constant unwanted attention from everyone.

It was a secret between the two of us, something that made our love all the more special.

Harry takes a deep breath and looks over the Mae, “it’ll happen soon, don’t worry,” he grins.

“I’ve told you a thousand times Mae, we’ll go to a courthouse and that’s it,” I smile, knowing this is where we constantly lost everyone in our marriage plans.

Harry and I didn’t want the big wedding everyone dreams of. We were content with signing a paper and vowing to love each other.

“I love you both, but you kill me everytime you remind me,” Mae exclaims with a small smile.

Everyone begins chatting about weddings, in what I assume to be an attempt to change our minds.

After a few more drinks and a long discussion about what our next gathering will be focused on, our guests excuse themselves and leave one by one. ————————————— Up stairs, Harry and I began to get ready for bed. He managed to tuck himself into bed already while I wiped all my makeup off.

“I don’t know if I should keep letting my bread grow?” He wondered out loud.

“Yes!” I agreed a little too loudly, Harry’s facial hair was the source of most of our disagreements. While he preferred to stick to shaven or minimal stubble, I preferred his full grown beard.

He knowingly smirked, “I’ll keep it if it means I get to spend all day with my head between your thighs.”

“You won’t hear me complainin’ “ I mumbled.

“I’m sorry, what was that? I couldn’t hear you?” He jokingly leaned foward in an attempt to look at me.

I turned off the light and walked toward our bed. Before sit at the end of it.

While crawling, “ I said I won’t complain about you spending all day between my thighs.”

He grinned again, “is that so?”

“Yup.”

I reached my hand under the covers and began to palm him over his sweatpants. He started placing kisses along my neck and jawline. When I gave a rather hard squeeze he groaned and looked at me, “I’m gonna cum in my pants.”

“And we couldn’t possibly have that hmm?”

“Absolutely not, I want to cum in your tight cunt.”

I moaned at his words and pulled him to get out from under the covers. He pushed me onto my back and began grinding his hips on mine. I reached for the bottom of his shirt and lifted it off him. While he broke away I began to strip off my bottoms and top.

He let out a growl when he saw I wasn’t wearing a bra and immediately began sucking on the area around my nipples.

“Harry..” I moaned

“Tell me baby” he replied, “tell me what you want daddy to do?”

“I want daddy to fuck me.” I boldly said

It’s light a switch flipped in Harry and he practically tore off my lace thong.

I  pulled his underwear off and his erection sprung up immediately.

I almost drooled at the sight of his red tip dripping pre cum. I laid back down while slowly pumping him.

He threw his head back and gave the most angelic moan I have ever heard. The sight of Harry completely subbmissive to my hand was quite possibly the biggest turn on.

He wasted in no time and lined himself up, kissing me roughly and slowly easing in.

“Oh fuck...” I threw my head back in pleasure.

No matter how many times we had sex, Harry’s size never failed to surprise me.

“Shit baby you’re so tight,” he bit his lip and began thrusting roughly.

Our pants and skin slapping was the only noise  in the room. A noise that had become a regular occurrence.

“Harder Harry.....fuck..”

“Yeah baby? You like rough? Like it when daddy fucks you with his cock?” He smirked and picked up his pace. He trailed his hand up from my thighs and wrapped them around my throat lightly.

“Mmmm....” was all I managed to get out.

He pressed his body on top of mine and bottomed out making me moan out loudly. I raked my nails down his back, knowing the marks would be there tomorrow.

He placed a kiss below my ear sending a wave of pleasure throughout me.

“Wanna get on top and ride my cock darlin’ ?” He whispered.

I nodded feverishly and pushed him to lay on his back.

I straddled him and grabbed his length lining him up, slowly sinking down. We both dropped our heads and moaned at the feeling of him being balls deep in me.

“Fuck, baby you’re cunt feels so good.”

“Mmm you like it?” I asked

“I fuckin love it.” I began moving my hips back and forth and then bouncing up and down; trying to find a rhythm that would push us over the edge.

My thighs began to burn so I placed my chest on Harry’s and he took that as his signal to do his part. He began thrusting up into me at a merciless pace. ‘Oh fuck’ was the only words I could seemingly get out, while Harry resorted to merely grunting.

I could feel him twitching inside me and knew he was close.

I began kissing all along his jaw and whispered in his ear, “cum in me, Harry, cum in your cunt.” This was all he needed as he bottomed out and groaned loudly.

I felt his thick ropes of cum coat inside of me. This pushed me over the edge, making me twitch on top of Harry and cry out.

I felt him soften but neither of us made any move. Our breaths were slowly going back to normal.

Finally I slowly eased off of him, whimpering at the feeling of being empty.

“Fuck, y/n, what the hell was that?” He chuckled.

“It was thank you, for everything.” I smiled.

“I love you.” “I love you.”

#harry styles #harry styles vogue #harry styles gucci #harry styles imagine #harry styles x y/n #harry styles smut #hshqnews #imagine #smut #one direction #golden #adore you #watermelon sugar #hs pics #hsedit #hs1 #fine line #louis tomilson #niall horan #liam payne #zayan Malik #gucci #harry styles blurb #harry styles blog #harry styles video #harry styles x reader #blurb

[honourablejester]

Zealot Barbarian Concept: Warrior Preacher

Okay, so, barbarians are my favourite of the martial classes, mostly because two things: toughness and rage. Thematically, I adore that well of savage fury that all barbarians have. And the two subclasses that immediately catch my eye with barbarians, possibly to no one’s surprise, are Ancestral and Zealot. Because ghosts and gods. I’ve talked before about how cool I find Ancestral Barbarians, the idea of the noble bloodstained scion literally haunted by their vile, heckling ancestors. Here, though, I wanted to talk about Zealots.

There’s one line in the description for the Zealot’s ‘Warrior of the Gods’ feature: ‘Your soul is marked for endless battle.’ It’s the explanation for why zealots are so easy to raise from the dead, why they’re so hard to put down in the first place. Some god, some deity of war, has marked them out to just keep fighting, even beyond death. When they die, they just get back up again, and keep fighting.

Thematically that’s just gorgeous. Because there’s so much … Is this a blessing? A constant Valhalla to soothe the rage in their soul? Or a curse? A divine mission that not even in death are you allowed to lay down? That’s toothy. Savage and tearing and raw. I love it.

‘Your soul is marked for endless battle’. Did you agree to that? Did you have a choice? Do you embrace it joyfully, in the surety of a warrior’s heaven? Or do you shoulder it as a mission and a sacrifice, to bear the horrors of war so that other people don’t have to?

I like the former. One of the reasons I love the idea of Warhammer 40K orcs is this idea, that all of chaos can throw the worst horrors in the universe at them and they just scream in giddy delight at the chance to make battle with awesome horrors. The Nac Mac Feegle in Discworld, where the deepest hell would be their idea of heaven, because look at all the targets. Endless, joyful war, and nothing you can do to them can dent their raw enjoyment. It makes for a deliciously fun and durable character.

But. But I also like the other angle. And it also kind of bumps into another character archetype I like, from a slightly different genre: the western’s warrior preacher.

The thing is, preachers in westerns often have a bit of a dark past. They’re ex-charlatans, or current charlatans, or fire-and-brimstone rabble-rousers, or philosophical warriors struggling with the duality of the gun and the cross. Josiah Sanchez in Magnificent Seven. And I love that too. Combine that with a war god. With a call to the fight that not even death will let you escape.

So. A character to play into the religious angle of the zealot barbarian. The Acolyte background, for a god of justice and protection of the innocent (I like Torm for this). A wandering preacher. Maybe a bit of the charlatan, in that maybe they weren’t originally the most devout, maybe they were mostly paying lip-service, until they have their Road to Damascus moment, a lightning strike of pure rage at injustice, and abruptly their deity starts paying rather more personal attention to them …

Character Sheet: Elias Walker

Name: Elias Walker

Race: Half-Elf

Age: 67

Background: Itinerant Preacher (Acolyte)

Class/Level: Barbarian 3 (Zealot)

Deity: Torm, the Loyal Fury

Statistics: Strength 16, Dexterity 14, Constitution 14, Intelligence 8, Wisdom 12, Charisma 12

Skills & Languages:

Skills: Athletics, Insight, Perception, Persuasion, Religion, Survival

Languages: Common, Elvish, Orcish, Undercommon, Celestial

Ideal: “Better one sacrifice for the protection of many, than allowing the death of all.”

Bond: “My soul was given unto the fires of war, so that better ones need not be.”

Flaw: “I’ve never believed in anything before, and the size of this calling, the depth of this rage, terrifies me a lot.”

Allies/Connections: The priesthood of Torm. Rosa & Luther, the married couple who nursed him back to health after that first death in their and his god’s service.

Traits, Feats and Background/Class Features: Darkvision (60ft), Fey Ancestry, Skill Versatility, Shelter of the Faithful, Rage, Unarmoured Defense, Danger Sense, Reckless Attack, Divine Fury, Warrior of the Gods

Equipment: Common clothes, vestments, halberd, 2 handaxes, 4 javelins, amulet of Torm’s holy symbol, prayer book, belt pouch, explorer’s pack

Description: A slim, almost cadaverous half-elf, with dark skin and golden eyes, bald except for greying stubble across his shaven scalp. His face seems fixed in a wry, gentle expression, but its harsh lines and the premature greying of his hair bely that somewhat. He wears dark grey vestments hung with an amulet of the Hand Resolute, and leans heavily on the halberd he seems to primarily use as a walking stick.

History: A shiftless, lackadaisical wanderer for almost all his life, with few contacts or connections anywhere, Elias eventually fell into the life of an itinerant preacher of Torm. Mostly, it must be said, for the sense of camaraderie and belonging it granted, not necessarily out of any true devotion. He was a lacklustre preacher at best, bordering on paying lip-service.

But then. In a little village on the far edge of civilisation, Elias happened to be present when a bandit warlord came to town, seeking wealth, slaughter and slaves. By luck or chance, in all his shiftless life, Elias had never seen butchery on that level before. Children slaughtered. People dragged screaming from their homes. He’d never seen the like. And it enraged him. It broke something in him, snapped some tether. His mind went blank, a perfect fugue state, and he did his savage damnedest to slaughter every bandit in range in defense of the town.

He didn't survive the effort. One skinny preacher against a bandit warband? Of course he didn’t survive. Elias Walker died that day. But in the embrace of death, the god he had always only ever paid lip service to finally came to him. Drawn by that shocking well of fury at injustice. Torm appeared, and asked him if that fury, that sacrifice in defense of the innocent, was a thing he offered willingly. If it could be something he offered up again, again and again, as many times as might be necessary. Even beyond death. And for some reason, though the thought of it terrified him … Elias said yes. Because some part of him was proud of what he’d done. And another … glad that it had been him, the useless layabout, who’d fought and died, and not someone better, some innocent who didn’t deserve that fate.

For Torm, that was good enough.

Elias woke up in a refugee camp, having been dragged from the burnt remnants of the village by the few survivors he’d died to save, when they realised that by some miracle he still seemed to be breathing. Two of them in particular, a married couple, had taken it upon themselves to nurse him back to health, out of gratitude for what he’d tried to do. They’d lost almost everything they had, neighbours and homes and friends, but they’d tried to help him anyway. Brought back into the world, given a mission so much bigger and more terrifying than anything he would have allowed before, Elias clung to that, and to them, for the courage to move forward.

#d&d #character concepts #barbarians #deities #westerns #rage

[avidreader6]

When Tony gets out of the shower, he dries himself quickly and walks into the bedroom. He swallows hard seeing what Steve has left for him. He’s still a little self-conscious about the scars on his chest. Steve has spent hours kissing them and telling Tony how beautiful he finds them, but they still bother Tony sometimes. But he can do this. The silk slides over his skin and he tries not to moan. He runs a hand through his hair and takes a look in the mirror. “Breathe, Stark. Steve is going to take care of you. He always does. We can trust him and we know that.” One more breath and Tony walks out the door. Blindfolds have been a limit for Tony for a while now, but he trusts Steve and Steve’s promised to keep the lights on and to stay close. Tony knows that all he has to do is utter the word, “newton,” and the blindfold will come off.

When Tony agrees, Steve is ecstatic. He loves the way Tony submits for him. It’s absolutely gorgeous the way Tony puts that trust in him. 

 He brings up the blindfold, expecting Tony to say no, but he has everything already planned on the slight chance he gets a yes.

they stay on their floor. Steve wants them somewhere comfortable and where Tony feels safe. The playroom is also a safe place, but it also comes with other expectations for different kinds of play and Steve wants the night to be about them and Tony's trust with the blindfold.

Steve gathers a few toys he knows Tony loves as well as his collar. Steve loves the collar just as much as Tony does. A soft mahogany leather, burnished to a bright shine with a metal shield as the only sign of who Tony belongs to. 

For everyday, Tony wears Steve's dog tags on a slim chain under his shirt. For the most part, Tony forgets about them, but when he's feeling stressed or annoyed, he can press his hand to them and think of Steve and take a moment to really breathe.

On the night when it's going to happen, Steve and Tony have both decided to keep any surprises or changes to a minimum. 

Jarvis lets Tony know when it's time and when he gets upstairs, Steve is waiting for him dressed in jeans and a t-shirt that is still tight, but looser than his other shirts. 

"Hey, sweetheart. Thank you for coming up when I asked." He holds his hand out to Tony and waits. Tony doesn't have to take it, but when he does, Steve smiles and reels him in. 

Tony loves what they have. He never doubts that Steve is in charge, and he likes it that way. He likes having these times where all he has to focus on are Steve's orders and pleasing him.

In Steve's arms, he burrows close and breathes in that scent that is so uniquely Steve. Tony doesn't even know how to begin to describe it, but he settles when he's close enough to smell it. "I'm nervous." 

Steve rubs Tony's back and kisses the top of his head. "I am too, sweetheart. We're going to take things slow tonight. And real easy. Gonna start simple too." 

The Brooklyn is seeping into Steve's voice and Tony feels his body heat. "Simple? I can do simple." 

 "You really can't, but I'm glad you think so." Getting his fingers under Tony's chin, Steve tips his face up and presses a gentle kiss to his lips. "I want you to go and shower for me. Nice and thorough. And since I'm feelin' a little possessive, use my things. Want you smellin' like me. I'm going to set out what I want you to wear and then you will come and find me in the living room. Got it?" 

Tony can feel himself sinking into that calm settled place of submission and he swallows. "Yes, sir."

Tony takes his time showering, letting the hot water soothe sore and tight muscles. He does as he's told and uses Steve's shampoo and conditioner and body wash. It feels nice and he can imagine Steve under the water with him, hands roving over wet skin, whispering all sorts of praise and sweet words. 

In the bedroom, Steve sets out a pair of blue silk sleep pants and nothing else. He knows Tony will come out and see them on the bed and smile. He changes himself into his own silk pants and holds Tony's collar in his hand, thumb moving over the leather. 

Everything else is waiting in the living room and Steve takes a moment to take a deep breath in and let it out. "It's going to be a good night. We're ready for this."

When Tony gets out of the shower, he dries himself quickly and walks into the bedroom. He swallows hard seeing what Steve has left for him. 

He’s still a little self-conscious about the scars on his chest. Steve has spent hours kissing them and telling Tony how beautiful he finds them, but they still bother Tony sometimes. But he can do this. 

The silk slides over his skin and he tries not to moan. He runs a hand through his hair and takes a look in the mirror. “Breathe, Stark. Steve is going to take care of you. He always does. We can trust him and we know that.” 

One more breath and Tony walks out the door.

Steve had been in the kitchen preparing a platter of food to feed Tony when he hears the water stop.

He bounces a little on the balls of his feet and moves back into the living room to wait for Tony. 

“Jarvis, play some music. Something soft and instrumental.” Chopin comes over the speakers and Steve feels his shoulders relax. “Perfect.” 

He sees Tony peek around the corner and grins. “Come on in, sweetheart. Let me see you.” 

Tony steps into the room, arms crossed over his stomach. Steve frowns. He doesn’t want Tony feeling self-conscious and insecure. 

Closing the distance between them, he gathers Tony close. “Tony. Sweetheart. I’m going to ask you a question and there is no wrong answer. Do you want a shirt?” 

Tony’s eyes shut and presses his face into Steve’s chest. “No.” He groans and drops his arms. “Not yet. Can I wear one of yours later?” 

Steve’s fingers trace designs over Tony’s back. “I think that can be arranged. Thank you for answering honestly. I’m proud of you. Ready to begin?” 

“Yes. Yes, sir.”

“Collar first.” Steve lets his voice drop low and rumbling. “Kneel for me, Tony.” 

Tony slides his knees and looks up at Steve. “I’m ready, sir.” He can see his collar in Steve’s hand and he wants to feel it’s the weight on his neck. Feel the way he’s Steve’s when he wears it. 

Steve buckles the collar around Tony’s neck and circles his shield inlaid into the leather. “Who do you belong to?” 

“You, sir. I’m yours. Completely.” 

“Good, Tony. Safeword?” 

“Newton, sir.” 

“Good boy.” Steve pulls the blindfold from his pocket. “We’re going to try a blindfold tonight. And I picked this special just for you. Can you guess why?” 

Tony looks at the strip of cloth and blushes. “Because it has your shield on it?” 

“Very good, baby.”

Kneeling in front of Tony, Steve locks eyes with Tony. “My beautiful baby. You’re doing so well. It’s going to be an easy night. Gonna feed you some treats. Let you suck my cock.” He leans in and takes Tony’s mouth in a fierce kiss. “And if you’re real good, I’ll fuck you.” 

Tony moans into the kiss, hands coming up to grab at Steve. “Please, sir. I want it. I want it all.” 

Steve’s hand slides down Tony’s body to wrap around his cock, hard in his pants. “I know you do. Hard already for me. Just from my words.” He stands and pulls Tony with him. “I’m going to check in a lot, baby. I know this is new for us both and I want this to be good for us both.” 

Tony shivers as Steve moves behind him. “Thank you, sir. I appreciate that. I’m nervous. I like seeing you.” 

“I know you do.” He kisses Tony’s cheek and brings the blindfold up. “You’re gonna get to look all you want after. Promise.”

The blindfold comes over Tony’s eyes and he feels himself tense. 

Steve pauses and kisses his neck. “Breathe with me. In for five. And then out.” Tony’s breathing settles and Steve ties the blindfold. “Good, baby. So good for me. I won’t be far from you. You’ll always be able to reach out and touch.” 

Tony lifts his hand and finds Steve’s cheek. “Little bit of stubble there, sir.” He smiles. “I like it.” 

“I’m glad.” Steve moves in and takes Tony’s mouth. He licks at the seam of Tony’s mouth and when Tony opens, he sweeps inside and lets Tony experience the kiss with all his other senses.

Steve studies Tony, taking in every little detail. Miles of skin for him to touch and enjoy, the collar with its shield, marking Tony as completely and totally his. “Beautiful, sweetheart. You’re all mine, aren’t you.”

Tony gasps and a little whine escapes his lips. “Yours. All yours, sir.”

“Good boy.” Steve’s hand slides from Tony’s shoulder to his hand. “We’re going to the couch. You’re going to kneel for me and I’ve got some tasty treats for you.” 

“Not hungry.” Tony shifts from foot to foot wanting to get to the good stuff.

“Mhmm.” Steve grins and steps into Tony’s space. “And if I were to ask Jarvis if you’ve eaten today?”

Tony’s head drops. “Mean.”

Lifting Tony’s chin, Steve pecks Tony on the lips. “I know. I’m so mean. But you’re going to eat for me aren’t you, baby. Take each little morsel from my fingers.”

“Oh.” The word falls from Tony’s mouth and he fidgets more. “I...I want that. I’ll be good, sir.”

Walking Tony to the couch and the pillow he’s set on the floor, Steve lifts his hand to his lips. “I know you will be. Kneel, Tony.”

There’s a hand on his elbow guiding him down and Tony lets himself sink onto the pillow Steve has left for him. Once he’s comfortable, he bows his head and waits.

A little light seeps through the fabric of the blindfold but other than that, Tony can see nothing. He’s reliant on his hearing and other senses to know where Steve is.

A hand sinks into his hair and he moans, pressing into the touch. “Steve. Sir.” 

“I know, baby. You’re gorgeous. I wanna draw you like this one day. Let you float while I get every last line of you on paper.”

Tony can imagine it. They’d be in Steve’s studio that day. Tony there for Steve to pose as he wants and needs. “I’d...I’d like that.”

Steve’s hand pets his hair and Tony squirms a little. “Another time, sweetheart. Promise.”

The rustling near him lets Tony know Steve is sitting up. He can hear a tray moving on the coffee table and his mouth waters at the thought of food. “Sweet or savory?”

“Savory please, sir.”

There’s a pause as Steve selects something and when Steve’s hand is close, Tony can smell cheese. “Open.”

Tony opens his mouth a small cube of cheese is placed on his tongue.

“Good boy. Go ahead and eat.”

Steve pops a cube of cheese into his own mouth and chews, watching Tony. It still amazes him how still Tony will become when he’s under.

“I think something sweet now.” He takes a blueberry from the bowl and holds it to Tony’s lips. “Careful with this. It’s small and I don’t want you to choke.”

Tony takes the blueberry gently and pops it in his teeth. He moans as the tart juice hits his tongue and shuffles on his pillow. “Blueberries!”

Steve swoops in and kisses him, enjoying the taste of blueberry. “Had to have your favorites didn’t I?” 

Tony giggles. “You did. What’s next?”

“Eager.” Steve dips a slice of apple in some honey. “I like it. Next one is a little messy.”

When the apple touches Tony’s lips, he feels something drip down his chin. The texture tells him it’s honey and he can’t help but grin. “Honey. I like it. Gonna clean me up, sir? Hopefully with your tongue?”

“Thinking about it.” Steve dips his fingers in the honey and brings them to Tony’s lips, watching as it drops onto his chest. “No biting. Just tongue.”

Tony opens his mouth and his hips buck as he realizes it’s Steve’s fingers. He sucks on the digits, tongue moving over them and collecting every stray bit of honey. He wants more. He wants his sir’s cock. Wants to feel the weight of it on his tongue and have Steve’s hand in his hair setting the pace.

He sucks harder on Steve’s fingers, hoping he’ll get the message.

Instead, Steve collects the stray bits of honey and lets Tony enjoy his fingers a little longer. The moment Steve’s foot comes between his legs and brushes his cock, though, Tony almost bites down. He manages not to and groans around Steve’s fingers as his foot continues tormenting him through silk.

Tony scrapes his teeth over Steve’s fingers before going over the spot with his tongue. Steve chuckles and backs off Tony’s cock.

“That your way of trying to get me to move on?”

“Maybe.” Tony licks his lips and reaches out for Steve. He finds his leg and slips his hand under the cuff of his pants. “You know how much I like having something in my mouth.” His hand trails up Steve’s calf. “Especially when it’s big. And thick.”

Leaning back on the couch, Steve strokes himself through his pants. “You have been awfully well behaved.”

Tony nods quickly and rests his head on Steve’s knee. “I have, sir.”

Steve snorts at the pout on Tony’s face. “You want my cock, baby? Want it in your mouth. Down your throat?”

“Yes, sir! Please, sir.”

“Stand, Tony.” Tony stands and lists to the side since one leg fell asleep. Steve stands and holds him steady. “Wake it up, sweetheart. Do we need to walk w little? Work Out the pins and needles?”

What Tony wants is to swallow Steve’s cock, but his leg is headed toward the painful kind of asleep so he nods. “I’d like that, sir.”

“Good boy, Tony. Lean on me and we’ll try and keep it quick.”

As they walk, Steve does most of the talking. He informs Tony of any obstacles and tells him how proud he is of Tony. How amazed he is at Tony’s trust and obedience. 

“You’re wonderful, sweetheart. I know you were nervous about using a blindfold, but you’ve done so well. I love having your trust in this.”

“I trust you, Steve. So much. I know you won’t let anything happen.” They’ve just about made it back to the couch and Tony squeezes Steve’s hand. “Leg’s awake too. How do you want me, sir?”

Steve rolls his shoulders back and gets a handful of Tony’s ass. “Naked first.” He lets Tony strip and begins touching Tony all over. “Good, baby. So gorgeous. All hard and eager for me.”

“Yes, Steve.” Tony’s whole body feels taut and ready for whatever order comes out of Steve’s mouth next.

“You’ve been so good tonight. You’re going to get on the couch. On your knees and you’re going to suck me while I get you nice and open for me. And then...” Steve lets his words trail off.

“And then?”

Steve takes Tony’s mouth, hand reaching between them to wrap around his cock. “And then I’m going to fuck you. Let you think of nothing but my cock holding you open, deep inside.” He strokes Tony’s cock slowly. “Moving in and out of you until we’re both unable to take it anymore.”

“Fuck.” Tony's hips move with Steve’s strokes. “Please, sir. Please. I want it. Want your cock. Want you fucking me.”

“Soon. First, that gorgeous mouth.”

Helping Tony onto the couch, Steve is thankful for how big and plush it is. He strips off his own pants and looks at Tony on his knees just waiting.

“Ready for me, baby?”

Tony tilts his head and pouts because he thinks it’s pretty obvious. “Trick question?”

Steve laughs. “No. Real one.”

“I’m ready. Get over here.”

“Careful. I can get you over my lap for a spanking real quick.” Steve takes a seat next to Tony and pinches a nipple between his finger. “Who’s in charge, sweetheart?”

Tony gasps, but Steve doesn’t let go. “You are! You’re in charge, sir.”

“That’s right.” Steve lets go and takes the abused bud in his mouth, sucking and licking until Tony is panting. He moves to the other and reaches behind to smack Tony’s ass. “I want you taking all of me, got it? We both know you’ve got nothing on tomorrow, and I want to hear you a little hoarse.”

Tony yelps st the sting from Steve’s smack. “Yes, sir. Hand in my hair?”

“Want me holding you down? Force you to take it a little?”

A flush spreads over Tony’s body. “Yes, sir.”

“I think I can manage that.”

Tony waits for Steve to get a hand in his hair, but first, he hears the pop of a cap and knows Steve’s fetched the lube. He’s eager and anxious to begin. He loves the combination of Steve’s fingers in his ass while his cock is in Tony’s mouth, but he’s curious what it’ll be like while he’s blindfolded.

When those fingers finally sink into his hair, Tony moans at the little pinpricks of pain that come from Steve pulling.

“On my cock, baby.”

Tony moves with Steve, trusting that Steve won’t just let go or mess with him. He feels the tip of Steve’s cock against his lips and his mouth opens to let him in.

The hand in his hair disappears and Tony whines around the head.

Steve laughs from above him. “Use that tongue, sweetheart. You know what I like. I wanna get a finger in you, first.”

Glad the blindfold hides the fact that he’s rolling his eyes, Tony sucks on the tip and lets himself play a little. He uses his tongue to tease along the underside of the length in his mouth and moans when Steve’s finger breaches him.

“That’s it, sweetheart. You always open for me so well. Played with yourself in the shower a little didn’t you?”

Tony focuses on Steve’s cock, pretending not to hear the question.

He hears Steve laugh and then there’s the sting of Steve’s hand coming down on his skin again. “I asked you a question, Tony.”

Pulling up, Tony takes a breath. “A little. Wanted it to be easy for you”

Steve pushes in with two fingers and Tony presses back into them. “Steve!”

Steve’s hand is on the back of his head and Tony opens his mouth and lets Steve guide him back onto his cock. “Suck, Tony.”

Tony sinks into the act of sucking Steve. It becomes a circle of endless pleasure as Steve continues to finger him, his other hand holding Tony’s head in place as he fucks up into his mouth

 He can hear Steve praising him and he moans around Steve’s length. Just as he hoped, Steve’s hips jerk and Tony swallows around him.

When Steve’s adds a third finger, it’s Tony’s hips jerking and Steve grins. “So close, baby. Just a little more. You’re always so right and I love it.”

He begins massaging Tony’s prostate, not letting up until Tony begins fucking himself on his fingers.

“Gorgeous.” He pulls Tony off his cock and gasps at just how red and swollen his lips are. “You beautiful man. Sucking my cock like a fucking champ. Feel my fingers in you?” He thrusts them in hard. “Holding you open for me. Keeping you ready for my cock.”

“Ye-yes. Sir. Please. Oh god. Your fingers. Please sir. I wanna come. Wanna come on your cock.”

“I know you do, baby.”

Steve manhandles Tony onto his lap. “Sit up for me.” Tony does and Steve angles his cock for Tony to sink down on. “Sit on my cock now.”

Slowly, Tony feels Steve enter him. “Fuck. Feels so good, sir. Fill me so good.”

Steve strokes Tony’s chest and thighs and kisses his neck. “Made for me, Tony. My Tony. My baby.”

Feeling impatient, Steve holds Tony’s hips and he pulls him down until he’s fully sheathed inside him.

Tony leans back into Steve’s chest and breathes hard. “Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Sir. Fuck. Your cock. Fuck me, sir.”

Steve pulls Tony’s earlobe between his teeth. “Oh, don’t worry. I plan to. You’re mine aren’t you, Tony?”

“Yes. Yours.” Steve snaps his hips up and Tony keens and writhes against him.

The pace Steve sets is hard and fast and all Tony can do is take it. He feels himself on the edge but he needs just a little more. He starts to reach for his cock and Steve grabs his wrist. “You know better, Tony.”

“Sorry, sir. Sorry.” He tries to meet Steve’s thrusts and he turns his face into Steve’s neck. “Please, sir. Please let me touch. Wanna come. Please.”

“Beg a little more, baby. Love when you beg me.”

“Please, sir. I need to come. Pl-”

Steve holds Tony in place and grinds up into him. “You need to come, huh?” He traces the length of Tony’s cock with a finger. “Who said you get to decide what you need? I think I get to do that, don’t you?”

“Yes. You’re in charge.” Tony tries to move against Steve but he’s held fast. “Please, sir. Please. Please. Please. I’m yours. All yours. Wanna feel you come.” 

Kissing along Tony’s jaw, Steve lifts him and lets him drop back onto his cock. “That’s right, baby. You’re mine. All mine. My baby. My sweetheart. My Tony.”

“Yours.” Tony knows there are going to bruises along his hips and he can’t wait. “Yours. Your Tony.”

“Good, baby.” Steve gets a hand on Tony’s cock and strokes him loosely in time with his thrusts. “Clench around me.” Tony does as he’s told and Steve tightens his grip a little.

“Please, Steve. Please, sir. Want to come.”

“Soon, baby. Soon. I’m so close. Want you to come with me.”

Tony lets himself be moved as Steve wants and tries to thrust into his fist. “Wanna come with you.”

Stroking Tony faster, Steve can feel he’s near the edge. “Turn your head, baby.” Tony does and Steve kisses him hard, not caring the angle is awkward. “Gonna come, Tony. Come with me.”

It only takes a few thrusts before Steve is spilling into Tony and Tony is coming over his fist.

Opening his eyes, Steve grins. “Amazing. You’re amazing. So good, Tony. My Tony.”

“Oh god, sir. So good,” Tony pants.

“Yeah, it was.” He still inside Tony and it feels good. Steve knows Tony will get sensitive soon, so he’s gonna take what he can. “You’re so amazing, Tony.”

Tony squirms and Steve eases him off his lap. He doesn’t go far, just curls into Steve’s side. “We’re doing this again, yes?”

“I’d like that.” He starts to reach for the blindfold and Tony turns away. “Sweetheart?”

“Just a little longer?” He rests his head on Steve’s chest and lets himself float. “Want you to fuck me against the wall next time.”

Steve’s fingers move over Tony’s back and sides in soothing circles. “I think that can be arranged. You’ve got a bit of a strength kink I don’t mind indulging.”

“Good.” Tony kisses Steve’s chest and sighs. “I’m ready now.”

“Jarvis, lights at 15%.” When the lights dim, Steve starts sliding the blindfold off. “Close your eyes, baby. Don’t wanna blind you.”

Opening his eyes, Tony looks up at Steve’s face and smiles. “Hi.”

“Hi, yourself.” Steve kisses Tony’s forehand and the tip of his nose and then his mouth. “You were amazing, tonight. I know blindfolds are hard for you and I’m so proud and impressed with you.”

Moving back into Steve’s lap, Tony spreads out over him. “I trust you, Steve. With everything. You show me over and over how you take care of me and I was happy to do this with you.”

“Good. I’m glad. Gonna let me take you to bed for cuddles, now?”

Tony smiles against Steve’s skin. “Yes, please.” 

#marvel #stony #stevetony #dom steve #sub tony #blindfolds #things i'd forgot i wrote #still don't know why i didn't post this #n*fw #my writing

[impala-dreamer]

Yes, Professor

~ When Mr. Collins asks you to hang back after lecture one day, you know you're in big trouble...~

Misha x Reader

1,730 Words

Warnings: Teacher/Student Play, Masturbation, Oral, Intercourse. Smluff.

A/N: This was a commissioned piece for @letsdisneythings​. Hope you all enjoy!

My Masterlist ~ Become A Patreon ~ Find My Original Works on Amazon

“Ms. Y/L/N, hang back please.”

You dropped your bag as he spoke, startled by the deep voice booming from the front of the classroom.

The gallery was already empty as it had taken a few minutes for you to collect your things. Pencils rolled far when you weren’t paying attention and as always in his lectures, your mind was stuck in places other than writing implement locations.

Your hands were shaking as you zipped your bag and slung it over your shoulder. You had done OK on the last paper, not great, but why was he singling you out? Had you done something to catch his eye? Were you flunking out? The questions churned in your stomach as you descended the short but steep carpeted stairs to the front of the room, leaving a sea of empty desks behind.

He didn’t look up as you approached his desk, eyes down and racing over his notebook. A silver pen was balanced between his fingers, dancing as the long digits moved slowly back and forth. The glinting metal caught your eye and you watched it magically wave through space.  

You cleared your throat.

He didn’t look up.

It was getting late.

“Mr. Collins?”

He licked his lips slowly and finally lifted his chin. “Thank you for staying,” he said with a gentle smile that did nothing to calm your nerves. If anything, it made them worse. His lips were huge and pink, outlined by a heavy scruff over his lip and around; his blue eyes shone like sapphires in the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Even his stupid bowtie was sexy in some strange way, and you held your breath, waiting for him to explain your staying late.  

Slowly, he sat back in his seat, pushing away from the desk a bit as he set his pen down in the crease of his notebook. His eyes narrowed as they took you in, staring at you just as he had his notes.

“How do you think you’re doing in my class, Ms. Y/L/N?” he asked out of nowhere, once again jarring you back to reality.

“Uh…” You stumbled to answer, wanting to impress him, to sound smart, but tripping over your own tongue. “Good?”

Mr. Collins nodded patiently, his lips pushing out into a pout.

“You don’t seem to agree,” you cringed, watching his shoulders tense as he looked you over.

“Honestly?” He sighed and sat forward, folding his hands on the desk. “Good isn’t the word I’d use.”

“Great?” you suggested with a little laugh.

He shook his head. “You’re failing, Ms. Y/L/N,” he said firmly. “You’ve been missing assignments and you were late for more than one lecture. I really don’t feel as if you want to be in this class.”

None of it came as a shock to you; you’d been playing it rather loose with your academics this semester, but failing? There was no way you could fail his class and keep your scholarship. Regret and fear churned in your stomach.

“Please, Mr. Collins,” you said quickly, trying not to sound too pathetic, but still garner some mercy. “Things have been a little crazy at work and my roommate moved out, is there anything I can do to make up some points? I cannot fail this course.”

His jaw twitched as he thought over your plea and after a beat, pink lips curled into a slick smile. “We might be able to work something out. Some...extra credit.”

Your hope soared. “Yes, Professor. Thank you. Anything. I’ll do anything.”

“Anything is a dangerous promise, Ms. Y/L/N.” There was a hint of a smirk on his lips and a dash of danger in his eyes.

“I don’t mind dangerous,” you shot back, matching his suggestive tone and running your hand down the strap of your bag slowly.

He turned his face towards the door, then his eyes back up at you. “I bet you don’t.” He waited, unblinking, watching the color rush to your face, the black of your eyes grow.

“Never have, really,” you told him, letting your bag slide off your side and onto the floor. “Danger makes things...exciting, don’t you agree?” Biting your lip, you ran your index fingers across your neckline and downwards, tracing the line of your breasts over your tank top.

“I do.” He sat back again, turning his entire body to you, giving you his undivided attention. “The door is unlocked...there are security cameras...my next class is in twenty minutes.” He paused to watch as your fingers plucked at the hem of your shirt. “Just how excited does that make you?”

The button on your jeans popped easily and you slipped a hand inside them, rubbing it gently across your panties. “Very.”

His eyes were wide as you continued rubbing, shivering as you pulled your panties aside to slide a finger into your wetness.

“It would appear so,” he observed, biting his lip as your face twisted with lust. “Very much.”

You nodded absently and tossed your head back as your body started to tense. “V-very.”

“Ten points towards your final if you can cum in the next thirty seconds.”

Your eyes popped open at his offer, staring down at him as if he were insane. There was no way you could… you could…

He licked his lips slowly, drawing your eyes down to his beautiful mouth. Your hand kept pumping as his tongue swirled around the tips of his teeth, and without realizing it, you reached that sweet spot, your legs lifting up onto your toes, your bottom lip tugged tight between your teeth.

You held your breath.

He whispered your name.

Your cunt clenched down around your fingers and the damn broke.

It was quick and sweet; a little surge of pleasure that flowed through every vein, lifting your mood and clouding your brain. Your clit was throbbing hard as you pulled your hand from your jeans and sucked two fingers between your lips, cleaning them off.

“That was lovely,” Mr. Collins praised. He picked up his pen and jotted something down quickly, paying no attention as you rushed around the side of his desk to his side. “Still need to make up at least thirty points to pass…”

You dropped to your knees and placed your hands on his thighs, spinning his chair towards you. “Perhaps, I can find a few more points...here?” His pants were tight and his zipper gave a little trouble, but you managed.

“I think you might,” he agreed, lifting his hips as you tugged his slacks down. “But, let’s see how you perform first before we promise anything.”

“Oral exams are my specialty,” you smirked, running your palms firmly up his inner thighs.

His cock twitched and your mouth watered. He was big; thick and long laying on his left leg.

He sank back in the chair, stretching out, the tails of his pale pink shirt bright against his hips and ass. “You may begin.”

The taste of him was sublime. Salty and tangy, but fresh. You swallowed around his dick again and again, taking him deeper than you’d ever taken anyone else. The floor crushed into your knees and your jaw began to ache, but you persisted, unwilling to give up the grade or his delicious cock.

The noises he made were incredible. Tiny moans that lingered in the back of his throat, growing louder the harder you sucked. When you cradled his balls, he whimpered as his stomach tensed and you smiled around him, loving the complete abandon of this powerful professor.

His fingers dug into the leather of chair’s arms and he hissed as your teeth scraped at his sensitive flesh.

“That’s…enough, Ms. Y/L/N…”

He sat up as you did, letting his cock drop from your lips with a wet pop. You looked up innocently, wiping a line of drool from your chin, wondering what you’d done wrong.

“Was that...OK?” You batted your lashes and he laughed.

“Oh, that was more than OK,” he said, standing up before you and reaching for your hand. “I just don’t want to ruin that pretty face.”

You stood, hand in his, and he spun you around, pushing you face-down onto the desk. Your breasts smashed against his notebook, palms flat, ass high as he yanked your jeans down.

“I’d rather paint this sweet, young pussy.”

You gasped as his hand slid between your legs, caressing you, clit to ass. He rubbed until your shoulders relaxed, watching as your eyes fell closed as desire flooded your system.

“There’s a good girl,” he teased, moving to stand behind you. “I think this might put you over the failing mark…”

Rough fingers gripped your hips, pulling you back as his cock nudged at your cunt.

“Yes, Mr. Collins, please…”

He rocked forward, warming his erection against your pussy. “Please, what, my dear?”

Your clit throbbed as his head crashed against it. “Please fuck me, Mr. Collins. Please!”

He hummed happily as he pushed inside. “Very well.”

It was strange, the echo of your voices in the big room. The empty gallery gave witness as he fucked you hard and fast against his desk; papers scattering, pencils rolling.

He collapsed over you when it was done, pressing his firm chest into your back and kissing your neck again and again. His breath was hot and staggered as he suckled on your ear.

“I think you pass,” he said with a laugh, finally lifting up.

Pushing up on your arms, your lower back screamed as you shot back. “Oh, ya think?”

“Hey, don’t get snippy with me, Missy.”

You spun and glared. “You got your professor fantasy, Misha...now let’s go before someone actually comes in here.”

He laughed fully, head knocking backward as you pulled your jeans up. “No one’s coming in,” he assured you, moving forward to wrap you in his arms. “They’re not filming in here until Thursday.”

“Baby?” you cooed, sliding your hands upwards to cup his stubbled cheeks. “It is Thursday.”

His smile faded quickly and his eyes flashed, wide and worried. “Shit. Let’s get out of here.”

A quick kiss and then he was gone, backing up to pull up his slacks and grab his stuff.

You sighed happily as he scurried, shaking your head at the goof. “Yes, Professor…”

2020 FOREVER TAGS:

@67-chevy-baby @akshi8278 @akhuna01 @amanda-teaches @because-imma-lady-assface @blondemarvelchick @blushingjared @broiderie @burningcoffeetimetravel @classic-rock-angel @cosicas-cuquis @covered-byroses @crashdevlin @deansgirl215 @deans-baby-momma @deangirl7695 @deanwanddamons @deanwinchesterswitch @defenderrosetyler  @dolphincliffs @dontshootmespence @edge-oftonight @emoryhemsworth @fandom-princess-forevermore @feelmyroarrrr @flamencodiva @focusonspn @herbologystudent252 @heycasbutt @hornyandsmol @ilovefanfic86 @i-love-superhero @i-love-superhero @imjustadrummer @impala-1979 @joseyrw @justagirlinafandomworld @justcallmeasmodeus @katymacsupernatural @laxe-from-outer-space @leatherandfrackles @lessons-of-red @letsby @letsdisneythings @lonewolf471 @maddiepants @mariekoukie6661 @meganwinchester1999 @missjenniferb @mrswhozeewhatsis @mummybear​  @onethirstyunicorn​ @our-jensen-ackles-love​ @screechingartisancashbailiff​ @spn-dean-and-sam-winchester​ @starboycas​ @stephaniecanfield96us​ @stoneyggirl​ @squirrelnotsam​ @thebookisbtr @thehardcoveraddict​ @thevelvetseries​ @veevm @winchestersister55 @wendibird​ @winecatsandpizza​ @winterpoohbear​

#spn fanfic #misha collins x reader #misha x reader #role play #commissioned

[bellezaycafe]

sunsets and self doubt (and words left unspoken) - 2.

Main AO3 tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, 2024 Formula 1 Season

Sadie's Faceclaim: Maia Mitchell (but you can visualise her howver you want :) )

warnings: swearing, hints of romance (ugh).

comments: this is a bit of a filler chapter to characterise some things. enjoy :)

Max Verstappen was passing the Mercedes hospitality and chatting to GP, his race engineer, when someone caught his eye. Dark brown hair, round face, sharp nose and an aura that compared to no others.

“Wait- hang on. Lewis! Lewis!” The older man, who had been leaving his hospitality, looked over and his gaze followed Max’s pointed finger. “Mate, is that who I think it is?”

“Yeah man, I think so.” Lewis’ smile only grew as he agreed.

“Who are you pointing to?” GP asked.

Max hoped that there were no cameras around as he said, “the volunteer from Australia. The good one.”

He didn’t know how else to explain his respect for her in English; to him, she was good.

“It’ll be good to finally learn her name,” Lewis mused, scratching at his neat stubble.

“None of you know her name?” the engineer asked.

“No,” Lewis said. “I never had the chance to find her after the interviews.”

“I saw her the next day, I apologised for my behaviour to her,” Max commented. “But I forgot to ask her for her name.”

GP shook his head. “Alright well, I’ll see you in the garage. Don’t be long.”

Max nodded respectfully while Lewis said, “thank you.”

Then they both charged through the crowd towards the last place they saw the woman.

“Bets on her name?” Lewis asked, zipping his Mercedes suit around his hips.

“I don’t know. Something very Australian?”

“I feel like she’s a Layla or a Nira.”

"I think it's Sadie," came Lando's voice as he squished himself between the champions. "I asked Dave, one of the McLaren staff."

But when they reached the spot she had been, she'd vanished.

Max frowned and tried to use his height to see her but it was hopeless. Lewis pulled his phone out of nowhere and dialled a number. Lando just sat on the edge of a nearby pot plant and, as if by magic, Oscar appeared beside him in a matching McLaren t-shirt.

"Heya," Lewis said into his phone. "I'm gonna need a paddock pass for our garage."

A pause.

"No, ass. I haven't found someone for the weekend and I don't intend to. It's for the girl from Melbourne, the volunteer George told you about... Yes, I know Carmen wants to meet her, that's why I'm asking you for a paddock pass."

Lando laughed from his seat, something boisterous and loud that had surrounding staff glancing over. Oscar was smiling like he was the reason for Lando’s outburst. Max was glad to hear the McLaren driver’s laugh again, it had been too long since they had hung out.

"No, I don't know her last name. I haven't even confirmed her first name... I can't ask her, she's not in front of me... I don't know where she is, we saw her from a distance... Max, Lando and Oscar... Alright, fine. We'll find her."

Lewis hung up and sighed with a glance to the sky.

"They won't give you a pass?" Max guessed.

"They need her name first."

"Did you see who she was with?" Lando asked.

"Yeah," Lewis said. "Some paramedics. I recognised Mark, he's been the on-call medic for years."

Max mulled over the fact he hadn't noticed anyone around her. He also mulled over the excitement little Lando Norris was trying to squash.

"I know where the medic tent is." He almost leapt up from his perch.

Oscar gave Max a knowing smirk as they disappeared into the crowd.

——$——

Sadie had no idea the drivers had seen her. She was hoping that none of the drivers would remember her. She still hadn't seen their interviews from Melbourne and was clueless about the actions the FIA had taken to hand out penalties efficiently.

"Hungry?" Mark, a middle-aged paramedic with greying blonde hair and smile lines besides his eyes, asked.

"I am starving, please tell me there is somewhere I can get a decent sanga."

Mark frowned. "Sanga?"

"Sandwich," Sadie corrected. She was almost bouncing as she spotted the food trucks.

"You Australians are weird," Mark quipped but he couldn't hide his smile.

"And you English are uncultured," she returned.

She liked Mark, they'd met yesterday during practices and clicked. He was her supervisor during the free practice sessions and qualifying but she'd stuck by his side off track too. He didn't mind, he knew she was there, on the other side of the world, alone.

He'd told her at the volunteer's group dinner last night that she was living the dream he had wanted to at 20. He'd had a couple wines and would not shut up about how much his wife would love to meet her.

"Mark, what do you want?" she called over her shoulder as the reached the sandwich truck. When he didn't reply, she glanced behind her.

He was 100 metres back, talking to none other than Sir Lewis Hamilton. Sadie turned back around, remembering her interaction with the drivers in Melbourne.

Another body stepped up beside her, swathed in bright orange.

Correction: Papaya.

Sadie didn't turn, assuming it was a McLaren employee looking for some early lunch.

"It's a surprise to see you here." Lando Norris offered the icebreaker.

She turned at his voice and fought to keep her composure. His brown curls swished as he turned his head towards her. Oscar’s equally brown eyes warmed as he smiled and waved slightly from the otherside of Lando. 

"I didn't think you'd remember me," she said truthfully. Sadie focused her eyes on the bridge of the older driver’s nose as she spoke, she didn't want to meet those ever-changing eyes. She'd already noted that they matched the day's grey sky.

"Most of us did." The driver shrugged. "Carmen, George's partner, wants to meet you. Lewis is trying to get you Mercedes paddock passes."

Sadie groaned at that, stepping closer to the food truck as the line moved forwards. "I'm not stepping near any of your garages unless I'm doing my job. Too many cameras, too many people."

Norris laughed. "Understandable, but Lewis is determined."

Sadie paused for a moment as the line moved again. "How about, I will come and meet Russell and Carmen after the race? I'll meet Carmen while Hamilton and Russell do their interviews and debriefs?"

The same brown curls swayed as Norris nodded. Piastri muttered, "I think they'll agree to that. All the cameras will be focused on the interviews and top three."

Sadie made an 'exactly' gesture and stepped up to the food truck with a goodbye wave.

By the time she had ordered her sandwich and Mark's signature wrap, the drivers had finished speaking with the paramedic.

He joined her while they waited.

"You never told me it was you who scolded Max in Melbourne," Mark noted.

Sadie muttered a curse. "I was hoping that everyone had forgotten about that. I lost my temper and I'm not proud of it."

"Lewis said that you stood up for yourself. Max doesn’t hold a grudge."

"I scolded him like a school teacher."

"You did call him a child."

"Angry, remember?"

"Sandwich and wrap for Sadie!" the food vendor shouted.

She stepped up, collected their food and handed her wrap to Mark.

"I didn't tell anyone about it because I don't like media attention," she told him, but she could feel her sweaty palms. "I hate how the media follows the drivers. They have to fight for a private life, and I hate that. Verstappen was angry, I was angry, and that interaction was something between the drivers and I. It had nothing to do with the fan's consumption of the race."

Mark hummed his agreement around his wrap. He hadn’t noted her shifting feet. 

"The media circus doesn't know what happened, and they don't need to. His reaction was fair, and they don't need to be involved."

Sadie watched something pass over Mark's face but she couldn't place what it was. She devoured her sandwich instead.

Let me know what you think!

credits to saradika-graphics for the banner :)

Masterlist | Series Masterlist | AO3 link

Taglist: @snubug @cmleitora @izzy-marvel @aquangxl @morenofilm @viennakarma @simpingcorner @randomgirlnumber-13 @leilanixx @spookystitchery @itsjustkhaos

#f1 #formula 1 #f1 fic #formula one #lando norris #max verstappen #lewis hamilton #f1 x oc #f1 fanfic #f1 imagine #sunsets and self doubt #oscar piastri

[melodious-madrigals]

“person A grows a beard; how does person B react?”  -wondertrev edition 

***

It's almost midnight, but Diana is just getting home. She's been on a business trip for the better part of a week, and is endlessly relieved to be back. She opens the door, already feeling the tension drain from her shoulders at the prospect of seeing Steve, and makes her way to their bedroom, where she suspects Steve will still be up, reading. 

She enters, drops her bags, and when she finally focuses on him, blinks in dismay. 

"What is that?"

Steve looks up from his novel. "Hello to you too."

Diana just stares at him in abject horror.

"Your face," she manages, inelegantly.  

"Oh," says Steve, reaching up and running a hand over the several day old stubble now adorning his chin. "Something new I'm trying."

"No." It falls out softly, reflexively, without her brain's permission, and immediately her hand comes up to cover her mouth. "Sorry," she says, at his amused look. "It's your body."

"How do you really feel?" Steve asks, mirth in his eyes. The war inside her is evident: she clearly hates the beard, and is also not willing to insert herself into his bodily autonomy, something she feels strongly about on every level. He chokes down a laugh at the expression on her face, tries not to betray how funny he finds the whole situation. 

"That it's your body, but I'm the one who has to look at it," she says finally, her bluntness winning. Steve's pretty sure it's a subtle mark of trust that she's willing to say it aloud. 

He's not offended in the slightest, and doesn't pretend to be. "Noted," he says, "So far it's working for me, but I'm still experimenting." 

"Hmm," Diana says, doing her best not to be too disapproving. She drops the subject, but takes another moment to glare at the beard before proceeding on to more normal conversation. 

*

"It's itchy," complains Diana the next day, as it scratches against her cheek in an unfamiliar way. 

"You're telling me," says Steve. "The first few days were hell." It was only after everything grew in that the itching stopped. 

Diana, trying hard not to be petulant in her dislike for Steve's beard, once again moves on, silencing her misgivings and resigning herself to the ticklish sensation of the scruff scraping across her face and neck when they kiss. She'll get used to it. 

Probably. 

*

Perhaps her vendetta against the beard would not be nearly so pronounced if there weren't so many people remarking on how much they like it. 

"Oh, Steve, you look so handsome," coos their eighty-something year old neighbor, Mme. Giraudet, when they run into each other in the hallway, and Diana bites her tongue as Steve grins and thanks her. 

"Your new beard suits you," comments Diana's colleague, Inès, when Steve stops by the Louvre for lunch one afternoon. The interns, meanwhile, titter amongst themselves, and Diana's sure they're also talking about the beard too, given that they gossip about everything else.

"Love the beard," says Arthur at the next Justice League meeting, and Diana huffs as they talk about the best trimming techniques and Arthur asks if Steve plans to grow it any longer. (The answer is no, thankfully.) 

"Maybe I should grow one too," says Barry thoughtfully, and Diana rolls her eyes, because Steve has officially crossed the line into bad influence. 

"I know an excellent styling product should you wish to give it a little panache," says Alfred, and under her breath Diana mumbles, "Don't encourage him." 

*

"You are lucky my skin heals so quickly," Diana grouses one evening, as she examines the inside of her thigh, where there's a light trail of irritated skin, already starting to fade. 

"Perk #327 of dating a literal goddess," Steve quips jovially. They both know her skin will be completely unmarred in the next quarter of an hour, as if there had never been even the slightest bit of beard burn. 

Diana shoots him a dirty look, vaguely annoyed at his flippancy and simultaneously charmed by his infectiously good mood. 

"Shall I take a look for you?" he asks, far too innocently. 

She can't help it; it makes her laugh. 

"Maybe I can kiss it better," he continues, as though that isn't exactly what precipitated this situation in the first place.

But honestly, the red is entirely faded now, and his smile makes her feel warm, as does the way his pupils are suddenly blown wide. She just might let him. 

*

It's been a couple of months since Steve grew the beard, and Diana has resigned herself to its permanence. He likes it, and there's no getting around that. 

So when Diana comes home one afternoon, she's treated to a proper shock, one that makes her freeze upon entering the room. Steve's focused on the computer, typing out an email, and she stands there staring at him an obscenely long time, because his beard is just...gone. 

"Your beard," she manages finally, slightly strangled. 

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I shaved it," says Steve absently, casual as anything—like he didn't care about it, like it wasn't secretly the bane of her existence—still focused on whatever he's writing. 

"You shaved it," she repeats faintly. 

"Eh, it stopped being exciting," he admits, then looks up at her. "Besides, you hated it. It was a little funny at first, but ultimately not worth it."

"Right," she echoes, "I hated it." 

He grins at her, soft and sweet, and closes the computer in front of him. 

"Seriously, I wasn't trying to torture you or anything. You know that, right?" 

Finally, something else that she can latch onto. She laughs at its absurdity. "Of course I do," she says. "A beard is hardly a torture device, no matter what I wanted you to think." 

She leans in to kiss him, and touches his face lightly as an anchor, taking a moment to feel the now-smooth skin of his jaw. He laughs, taking it as another retroactive indictment of his beard, when in fact it's anything but. 

She finds herself conflicted; she spent so much time thinking she hated his beard, and now that it's gone...she misses it. Objectively, it did look good on him—didn't soften his jaw too much or make him look scruffy in an unappealing way—and as much as she complained about the beard burn, it wasn't actually as annoying as she'd made it seem. In fact, it became a rough sensation she finds she may have liked, not that she'd admit it. And she liked how much he liked it, the way he smiled every time he decided that nah, I'm still keeping it for today, that she'd have to try to convince him to get rid of it tomorrow, instead. He clearly enjoyed having the beard. 

Which leaves her in a quandary: she can be silent, or she can set aside her pride and do an about-face on her opinion of the beard. 

"Steve," she says hesitantly. 

"Yes, Angel?" 

"I just...I do not want you to go without a beard because of me." There. Perhaps there's a middle path. 

"It really doesn't make that much difference to me; I'm happy to be clean shaven if it matters to you." (Or maybe there isn’t a middle way. Drat.)

"It doesn't, really," she admits, almost too softly to be heard. 

"What was that?" asks Steve, the sneaking start of a smile edging along the corners of his lips. Shit, he knows. She rarely gets anything by him, and today is no different; he knows her too well. 

"I did not really mind the beard, after all." 

Steve opens his mouth to say something, but Diana gets there first. 

"Not a single word," Diana warns, face hot.

"No, ma'am, not a one," agrees Steve, but his smirk—wide and mischievous and knowing—says it all. 

Oh, she's in for it. One way or another, that damn beard is going to be the death of her. 

***

#wrote this awhile ago and wasn't gonna post it but in a 'why not' sort of mood tonight so #wondertrev #diana prince #steve trevor #wonder woman #diana x steve #steve x diana #wondertrev fanfiction #lenci writes #lenci's tumblr ficlets #am i going to regret posting past midnight? almost certainly #does my post-midnight brain care? not at all

[keanuvibe]

can i get a john wick x reader please ? slight eating disorder (not encouraging). the reader has issues with food and eating regularly. john notices and helps her schedule couple eating times so he knows that she is nourishing herself. just soft and fluffy please. extra words of encouragement from my mans jardani

A/N: this request hit close to home bc i struggled with an eating disorder for years between my late teens to young adulthood. If you ever need to talk nonnie, (not assuming anything, but--) my inbox or dm’s are always open <3 that goes for everybody, btw)

Warnings: eating disorder tw, fluff

The plate of fresh pasta seemed to mock you as it sat perfectly placed onto the plate, made to look like art with the sauce and garnish placement. Normally, you would’ve dived in by now; but when you looked at the dish, it just made you queasy instead. Furrowing your brow, you pushed the plate away from you and stood from the kitchen chair, rushing to the bathroom.

This was the first occurrence of John witnessing you flat out refuse to eat. Of course there were earlier occasions where things seemed off. It started as a simple unfinished plate, then followed by smaller portions, and the occasional strict ‘fasting period’ where you’d go nearly a full two days without food. A part of him didn’t want to believe it, and that’s why he hadn’t immediately addressed the issue.

But this is one thing that can’t be ignored. Not when it came to you.

He sat you down a few days after the pasta incident; taking so much time only to allow himself to think and approach the situation with a light heart. He felt some anger, yes, anger over the fact you cared so little about yourself. That your brain had told you, you didn’t deserve nutrition; or-- god forbid-- that you weren’t ‘pretty enough’. But you didn’t need a stern talking to, you needed love.

“Darling, have you been eating?” His voice is so soft spoken, it catches you off guard. You raise your brows from faux confusion, trying your best to play it off.

“O-Of course, why would you-” You began to go off, but John setting a hand onto your thigh in reassurance cut you off, and the rest of your sentence was replaced by a sad sigh. 

“What’s going on?” John pushed, but gently. A lump formed in your throat, but you swallowed in an attempt to push it away. Your bottom lip betrayed you, however, beginning to quiver as tears threatened to spill.

“I-I don’t know.” Your voice cracked as you spoke, “I-I’ve just been feeling insecure lately and-”

“Hey,” John cut you off, his hand grasping your chin so softly, “You’re gorgeous, and always have been. Your body is perfect. I love the stretch marks, the scars, moles, freckles... the soft squish of your stomach and thighs.” The man had managed to pull you into his chest during his speech as you silently cried. Sometimes the little voice in your head took control, but John was always there to remind you what’s real.

You two sat there in silence as he whispered sweet nothings, rubbing your back. Knowing your partner loved you and wanted to work out this issue felt like enough motivation to get healthy again; Even if it was going to be hard work. 

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” The man spoke up again after a few moments of silence, “Planned dinners, from now on. When I eat, you eat. Even if it’s one bite, I’ll be happy.”

“Okay,” You agreed softly, looking up to greet his eye line. He looked tired, like this issue had been gnawing at him too, not just you. His brown eyes looked your face over, gently raising a hand to remove a strand of hair from your sight. You nuzzled your face into his palm, causing the man to perk up at the intimacy.

“We’re in this together, darling. A team.” He added, taking advantage of his hand cupping your face, and pulling you in for a kiss. Your lips met in a gentle manor, however, the mans stubble still tickled your delicate skin. 

“I love you, John.” You sighed into the kiss, sniffling slightly and pulling back to see his expression. His eyes softened at the declaration, brows pushing together in endearment.

“I love you too.” His deep voice responded, filling your belly with a loving warmth. You were in this together, and that’s all the reassurance you needed.

#john wick x reader #john wick x you #john wick fanfic #john wick fanfiction #eating disorder tw #requests

[sleepy-exe]

Shapeshifter AU - 7

Iwaizumi x f!reader

<< Part 6 | Part 8 >>

Summary: Y/n goes to the park with Iwaizumi and finds a shapeshifter friend. Mizuki wants to know about this guy Y/n has been spending time with.

Word count: 1.8k

Warnings: none

Genre: sfw (18+ regardless), shapeshifter au, strangers to lovers

Part 7: We Could Be Friends

Y/n and Iwaizumi made plans to go to one of the forest parks nearly a week ago. But due to busy schedules, they didn't have any free days line up until now. This was the first time in awhile Y/n had been to a park in the forest in a long time. Which meant she wasn’t exactly the best guide. Luckily the park had marked paths through the area versus her usual running wild anywhere between the trees. Seeing sunshine through the trees may have been even prettier than the moonlight at night, tucked behind the treetops.

Used to the quietness of nocturnal animals and lack of any people, this area felt like another world even though they weren’t too far off from one of her frequented nighttime spots. Walking alongside Iwaizumi, she found herself almost constantly catching the sounds and movements of birds and small critters that she wouldn’t normally get to experience. She tried not to get distracted too much anytime Iwaizumi started talking. But with the new sounds and different scents through the trees, she couldn’t help but get distracted some.

“I thought you said you’ve been out here before,” Iwaizumi questioned, breaking her trance of the world around her.

“Huh? Oh.” She realized she had really slowed down her pace but quickly sped up again. “Yeah, but it's been a minute. It’s so.. alive here.”

“Alive? Isn’t fall kind of the opposite,” he said, crossing his arms. “And I mean, it's nice out here, but the way you keep looking around.. It’s like you’ve never seen such a place before.”

She laughed nervously. “Well, the last time I was out here I didn’t notice so many animals.”

He looked around, trying to spot something in the trees or fallen leaves, but other than a squirrel and a couple of birds he couldn’t find anything that could possibly be so interesting. But he decided not to argue. “Right,” fingers tapping his left bicep.

Soon they came across a stream off to the side of the designated path; likely the same stream that ran through where she sat with Sakusa a couple of weeks ago. Y/n took it upon herself to lead them off the path towards it. As she sat down in the leaves, Iwaizumi stood next to her, eyes narrowing. “Aren’t we supposed to stay on the paths?”

She looked up to him and smirked before bringing her attention to the water. “So? What, we might get yelled at? It’ll be fine.”

He watched her for a moment, then sat beside her. “I really don’t want to get kicked out of a park.”

She snickered. “Do you think this is any worse than showin’ up after dark? It’s fine! Just sit here and listen.”

He followed her command. “..The birds?”

“Hmm. Yes, but not just those. You can hear the water move, the breeze shuffling leaves, and there’s either squirrels or chipmunks running around the trees and ground.. Just sit here and relax, listening and being in nature.” She looked around to where she heard each sound as she spoke.

But he can’t hear every sound that she can. “Yeah, I guess I can do that..”

She took the chance to stubbly take in the new sights and sounds, getting better attuned with her lively-to-her surroundings. They stayed like that for a few minutes, before she looked over to him and realized he had been staring at her. Her eyes widened for a split second. “Come on.” She shoved his shoulder with a playfully grin before standing and dusting off her pants. “We’re like what, half around this trail?” She grabbed his arm and dragged him back towards the path with her.

They walked along the path for a while. Watching squirrels run about and climb trees, listening to everything Y/n had pointed out.

Her phone started buzzing repeatedly, so she slipped it out of her pocket to check what’s going on.

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “r u out on that date yet?”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “u said that’s today right?”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “when am i going to meet him”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “not a date. i told you that”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “i barely know anything about him n dont even know what he looks like >:(“

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “come onnnnn i wanna see this guy that managed to get ur attention”

She chuckled. “It’s Mizuki.”

“How’s she?”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “as if you and sakusa didnt get my attention”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “what’s wrong with me having a new friend?”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “yeah but sakusa was all but forced into our friendship and i forced my way into your heart so whooo forced this lil friendship-thing? Who do i have to thank for helping socialize our Y/n”

She gave an exasperated sigh. “Apparently dying to meet you.”

He raised his eyebrows and slid his hands in his pockets. “You talk about me to your friends?”

“Mmm.. Well, it's hard to keep things from her. It seems like she always finds a way.” She crinkled her nose as they passed a plant that had a strong odor to her, though Iwaizumi didn't seem phased. “That and she saw me texting ya the other day and had to ask questions.” She shook her head. “The ever curious, Mizu’.”

He laughed. “She sounds.. interesting to have around.”

She giggled. “She’s high energy, but she means well. She’s just curious.”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “wow”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “i am capable of making friends on my own you know”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3���: “uh huh and i’ll get to see him when?”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “why are you hiding him ;P is he that hot that you want to hide him away lol”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “love u”

“Maybe you should introduce us.” He bumped into her, grinning.

“If I do that she might drag you on last minute adventures. Which could range from running around downtown or staying in. But mostly out.” She gave a half shrug.

“That almost sounds like a complaint,” he said.

She waved a hand defensively. “Don’t get me wrong, I love the city and coming out here, but I prefer staying in more than she does.”

“Maybe we should have stayed in then.” He looked her over, noticing she was no longer looking around constantly. “Though you seem.. Not so overwhelmed now.”

She blushed in embarrassment. “Ah- Hmm, I’d say more like.. Deeply enjoying.. This place.”

He looked unimpressed by her poor explanation. “Uh huh.”

She cleared her throat and their conversation paused as they made their way to the end of the path. Enjoying the sights and sounds around them in the process.

“But really, I do love her and love having her around.” She giggled quietly to herself. “There’s not a dull moment with her. I may have to raise her spirits from time to time, but she can do the same for me.”

He smiled softly. “Sounds like you’re good friends.”

She hummed an agreement. “Maybe I will introduce you sometime.”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “love you”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “You became friends in college, right?” He tilted his head towards her.

She shook her head. “Yeah. We were both business majors and had a couple of classes together.. my second year, I think. And well, she has a way of befriending anyone. So next thing ya know, we were friends.”

Approaching the parking lot, they stopped to chat. Not having plans for if their little outing stopped here or not.

“Do you ever do anything other than go for walks or to bars in your free time?”

“I go out to eat,” she said matter-of-factly, then looked around the lot in front of them until she spotted her car. She found Iwaizumi’s green Tacoma several cars down from hers in the process.

He nodded slowly. “Okay.. but if those three things suddenly didn’t exist what would you do?”

She shrugs nonchalantly. “Guess I’d die.” She smirked.

He rolled his eyes and pointed to his truck. “So you don’t want to go to grab a bite then?”

“You have found my one true weakness,” she says dramatically with a hand on her chest and a sarcastic grin.

He shook his head. “Come on, follow me. There’s a little cafe not far from here, if that’s your thing. I can give you the address.”

She happily agrees at the promise of food and they head for her Civic. She drops into the driver’s seat and leaves the door wide open while Iwaizumi gives her the address. Once she has the GPS ready to go, he walks around the car to head for his truck. Kicking one leg outside the car, she texts Mizuki, deciding to entertain her with a selfie of the two from the beginning of their walk.

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “here”

>> To ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “Attachment.jpg”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “ooohh!! owo”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “he is HOT! no wonder you’re keeping him around”

>> From ‘My Best Bitch <3’: “you met at that bar?? damn maybe i should have joined you lmao”

Hopefully that’ll keep her happy for a bit.

“Hmm?” Blur of orange to her right catching her interest. A gorgeous red fox had appeared while she was preoccupied, walking around the open driver’s door. Her eyes widened at the sight. Foxes typically stayed away from her, but she was almost only ever out here as a wolf, so that’s only to be expected. The fox sat on the pavement, giving her a cheerful tail wag. She cooed, “Hey there lil’ fella.”

Immediately the fox’s ears pulled back, and she swears its face scrunched. Not a minute later the fox swiftly hopped into her car and onto her lap, completely catching her off guard.

“Ho?” She squinted. How strange. She would have never imagined such behavior from a wild fox; though there is a shifter that looks oddly similar that probably would crawl in her lap if given the opportunity. He does have the same set of face markings..

The realization of the situation hit her. “Oh! No no, hey! I’m not alone here!” She quietly scolded the shifter in her lap, looking over to where Iwaizumi had parked but she couldn’t spot his truck passed the other cars from here. “Ah shit, do you need a ride home?” She asked the fox shifter just before he hopped into the backseat.

“Okay, uh, hold on.” She quickly dialed Iwaizumi, “Hey, uh, sorry, um.. No, no.. A friend just got a hold of me and needs me to take them home.. Ah, no! He’s fine, just- ..Actually, can we just change locations? ..Yeah, no, he's remotely close to where you live, kinda, so if you want to go anywhere around there, I can meet you when I’m done or something.. Yeah, yeah! I think I know that place..” She peered into the backseat at the fox. Cupping the microphone and sighing, she whispers to the fox, “You’re lucky I love you.”

Back to the phone, “Okay! I’ll see you there! Sorry, again!” Hanging up, she started the car. “Stay down until we hit the highway. Don’t shift yet either.”

Part 8 >>

#shapeshifter!haikyuu #shapeshifter au #iwaizumi haijime x reader #iwaizumi x you #iwaizumi x reader #iwaizumi hajime #iwaizumi fanfic #iwaizumi x y/n #iwaizumi scenarios #haikyuu fanfic #strangers to friends #strangers to lovers

[gyllenhaalics]

Perks of Being Good - Ch 1

(FINALLY, I DELAYED THIS POST TO ADD A SMALL PART AT THE END)

(This chapter happened prior to the Prologue. It is mostly Jake & reader’s first time, with a little hinting at Chris & reader)

Prologue | Chapter 1

Pairing: Mob boss!Jake x associate!reader, hitman!C.Evans x reader Summary: Your father died taking a bullet for one of Jake’s men. So naturally, you take your father’s place as an associate. And Jake honors your father’s last wish by protecting you. He might have gone a little too far with his protection.

Universal warnings:  Innocent/corruption kink, power exchange, daddy kink, p0rn with plot (that you can ignore), AU-typical violence.

Chapter warnings: oral (female receiving), edging, rough sex, degrading

Tags: @gyll-yee-haw​, @realovesthings​, @gyllenwh0re​, @angelic-holland​, @pining-and-tired​ (please let me know if you don’t want to be in the tag list)

Disclaimer: I do not own anyone whose name appears in this story. 

Word count: 2.2k

Thinking back about it, it was a dumb idea to blindly follow two strange, visibly armed men to their car. Your body was still in such a state of shock at that point, and you were trying to digest the information they had told you. They let you sit in the back seat while Chris was the driver, and Jake, whom Chris referred to as boss, was in the passenger seat.

"I didn't know my father was part of the mob."

You hesitated at the words. The air around these men overwhelmed you so much you thought like you were going to break. Even with a distance between you and them, you couldn't help but feel like a lost lamb in the wolf den. That was a tacky analogy, but the way their eyes crawling all over you through the rearview mirror gave you an odd feeling in your stomach.

"He wasn't. He was an associate, a considerably valuable one."

Jake turned around to you as he responded, and the strange sensation inside you started bubbling again. You instinctively pulled the coat he had put on you, clutching it at your chest. You could have sworn that the corner of his mouth curved up as if he was pleased with your reaction. Evans watched you through the mirror and chuckled in amusement.

"Relax, love. We won't lay a single finger on you. Unless you want us to, that is. I know I'd be happy to oblige."

Inexperienced as you might be, you weren't a child anymore. Of course, you understood Chris's suggestive language. You mustered the remain of your mental strength to shut your legs as tight as you could, something you regretted telling Jake years later because he teased you relentlessly for it. Princess, he mocked, remember how you wanted to open your legs for me so badly you had to fight yourself to stop?

...

Everything was going well for you after that. Jake put you in the care of Maggie. She gave you a place to stay. She allowed you to work for her as a lawyer and an errand girl. It was like your father was still alive, learning to be a lawyer from him, running errands when he needed it. There was only one problem.

The strange feeling deep inside you was getting unbearable. You often found yourself tensing at the presence of the men that saved your life, especially the boss. With Chris, it wasn't so bad. Still the same overwhelming atmosphere, but his eyes were gentler. Plus, his playful mannerisms somewhat helped you relax. Jake, on the other hand, was a whole different story. He was never shy away from practically peeling your clothes with his eyes.

To make things worse, you weren't repulsed by it. There was even a part of you basking in the attention. You often daydreamed, but it hardly ever went beyond kisses and caresses. There might be more primal things, though you locked them all away.

...

One day, Jake just decided to show up at Maggie's place and told you he wanted to talk. He seemed so restless. But you failed to see why he would need to take you back to his house, merely for that.

"Just some paperwork. I'll bring her back as soon as we're done."

"Jake, if it's just paperwork, have her do it here."

Maggie was smiling, but her tone sounded like a warning. Jake had lines he would never cross, his sister being one of them. He looked at you behind the stacks of paper. Her words hit him, and Jake took a step back.

"I know this is very sudden. If you're too busy, I'll find someone else."

"Right, honey. You don't have to go if you don't want to."

That was your chance to back out. You would be stupid not to take it, which was why you were standing in the middle of his living room. Okay, that was the second dumbest choice, right after following strangers to their car.

"You had a chance to say no back then, yet you agreed to come with me. I'll tell you exactly what Maggie told you. If you don't want this, you can still go now."

Jake placed his hand on the door handle, keeping it opened. He could tell you understood the meaning of his words, seeing how your shoulders were so tensed, and your hands were clutching one another.

"Don't we have paperwork to do, sir."

You jumped when the door got slammed shut. He took two long strides and soon towered in front of you. His fingers caressed your cheeks, feeling the rising heat on your skin before lifting your chin, forcing you to look at him.

"Do you understand what's going to happen next?"

You tried to answer him, but the only thing escaping your mouth was a soft whimper. His eyes tensed at the sound. You felt his fingers turning into a tight grip at your jaw. His voice grew deeper, almost like growling.

"Let me put it into words for you. You're going to take your clothes off, spread your legs for me, and take my cock like the good girl you are. You want that, don't you."

"Y- Yes."

"Answer me properly!"

"Yes, sir."

"You're going to let me fuck your little cunt however I want."

"Yes, sir."

"And let me fill you up with my come."

"Yes, sir."

You almost cried out at your third answer. His words turned into vivid images in your head, even though you had never had this kind of experience before. You absent-mindedly rubbed your thighs together, feeling your panties dampening.

"Don't worry, princess. Let go of everything and leave yourself to me. I'll take good care of you."

With his free hand, Jake ripped your blouse opened with an excessive force, and your bra was next. He took in the sight of your exposed skin for a moment. His hand let go of your face, and he wrapped his arms around your waist, bringing you closer to him. He started leaving a trail of kisses and nibbles from your neck, down to your soft breasts. His lips wrapped around each of your nipples and sucked on them, creating the most obscene sounds you'd ever heard.

While you were still hazy from his touch, he tore off your skirt and panties with one swift movement. His hand found its way between your legs, fingers stroking your slit, occasionally pushing the tip of his index inside your tight, wet hole.

"So wet already, princess? So eager to take my cock, huh? Too bad, you'll need to learn to beg for it first."

He pulled a fist full of your hair, firmly, but not so hard that it would hurt, and dragged you to the leather sofa. He propped you up on one side, letting you lean back on the armrest. Now that you didn't have to support yourself on your trembling feet, you did as he told and spread your thighs, giving him a better look at your dripping pussy.

"You've learned well, princess. I think you deserve a reward."

You were delirious. Jake alternated between rubbing your clit in short, rough strokes, and smacking it to disrupt your flow of pleasure. You whimpered uncontrollably when his fingers grind against your swollen spot. And every time he struck you, you cried out and arched your back. You closed your legs on accident while you were twisting and shaking, trying to find release.

"Keep your legs opened, or we're gonna do this all day."

He hit your mound harshly several times, hands pinning your thighs to your chest.

Your eyes rolled back into your head as you feel him lapping up your pussy, dragging his tongue across your lips and tugging on your clit with his teeth. Every time he gave you a long upward lick, his stubble left red marks on your inner thighs and scratched on your entrance deliciously.

Right when you were about to reach your orgasm, the pleasure was gone completely. Jake was observing you the whole time. He didn't miss a single sound coming out of your mouth, nor did he miss the way your muscles were clenching under his tongue.

"You still have a lot to learn, princess."

You heard the clicking noise of his belt, and right after that, his rockhard cock rested on your swollen clit. He started to brush his tip up and down your entrance, making sure to knead your clit with the head once in a while.

"First of all, a good girl isn't allowed to come without my permission."

He tapped the tip on your clit, earning a soft moan from you. You wanted to move so badly, just to get a little more friction.

"Second of all, a good girl should be fucking grateful for my cock, and subsequently, my come inside her."

As he said that, he dipped the head inside your entrance. You felt your walls contracting greedily, trying to suck him in.

"Last but not least, as I've said before. And I don't want to keep repeating myself. If you want something, you gotta beg for it."

Your mouth kept opening and closing like a dying fish struggling for air. Your pussy was throbbing so much, and you couldn't think of anything but getting fucked into pieces by his hot and heavy cock.

"Please, sir- can't- I can't take it anymore! Please make me come! Please fuck my pussy with your cock."

Just when you thought you were going to break, Jake grabbed your hip and slammed into you with full force, sending an electric shock through your body. He didn't move right away, instead, he stilled himself inside you.

"How pathetic. I've just entered, and you came immediately. Can't even control yourself, princess?"

Your orgasm was so violent your entire body was trembling non-stop. You were reduced a blabbing mess, and couldn't even hold back your tears. Not until you heard a low, raspy moan on top of your head that you realized he had started to move.

"Fuck. You feel so good around my cock, so fucking tight."

You were so exhausted from your climax that you could barely move. Fortunately for you, he seemed done torturing you. No more abrupt movement, no more deriving you of your release. He thrust into you with a certain rhythm, seemingly focused on looking for something.

A jolt of pleasure pulled you out of your hazy dream. You whimpered sweetly as he pounded into a specific spot. You could feel another wave of orgasm rising inside your stomach.

"If you keep- that- I'll break..."

"Tell me to stop and I'll stop."

You opened your mouth but couldn't get any words out. You threw your head back as he fucked into you at a brutal speed. You nailed dug into his forearms for support. You were almost euphoric. At that moment, you were ready to let go of everything and give him full control over you, ready to let him break you apart and put you back together, so long as you can get the satisfaction you crave.

"That's it, baby girl. Come again around daddy's cock."

You cried out as you let your body get swept over by the second wave of climax. Jake bent down to capture your lips, drinking in your moans and screams.

Jake pulled his cock out right before he came. His thumb dug into your entrance, pushing the lips apart. Your gaping pussy hadn't recovered, still contracting around nothing.

"Fuck, your ruined little pussy still wants to milk my cock so badly, pathetic little thing."

He pressed his cock against your pussy and jerked it a few times. His finger kept your entrance opened, letting streams of thick, white come spilled into your little hole. You came twice, but it felt empty somehow.

"What? Not even a thank you?"

"Thank you, daddy."

"For?"

"For fucking my pussy with your cock."

"Good girl. Next time you want daddy to fill you up nice and deep, you'd better beg properly. You got that, princess?"

Another male voice cut you off as you were about to reply to Jake.

"Aww, I thought she did a fantastic job. You're being too hard on her, boss."

"Back already, Evans?

"So this is the reason why you suddenly sent me on a God-forsaken mission."

Your eyes widened at the sight of Chris sitting across the room, sprawling on the armchair, with a large bulge visible on his pants.

Jake pulled you onto his laps, your back against his chest, your legs at the sides of his, giving Chris the full view of your juice and Jake's come still dripping. The other man exhaled sharply.

"Fuck, her pussy is wrecked."

"I'm afraid her tight little cunt can't take anymore. But I was saving this for you."

Jake said as he shoved two fingers in your mouth. It caught you off guard, and you gagged on his digits, making a small gurgling noise.

"This hole can't do anything but whine, can't even say a proper thank you. Thought you might want to teach this little fuck toy how to put her mouth into good use."

Your throat constricted as Chris stood up from his seat. The degrading name Jake called you shattered whatever inhibition you had left in you. You made an effort to utter a slurring Please and stuck out your tongue, display yourself to the man in front of you.

"What can I say? I'm happy to oblige."

#jake gyllenhaal #jake gyllenhaal x reader #jake gyllenhaal smut #chris evans #chris evans x reader #chris evans smut #smutty smut #mob!AU #fic: perks of being good #fics #nat writes

[snowflake-of-destruction]

Imagine Roxas’s reaction to Axel growing a beard

Now stubble was a tactile revelation to Roxas who never was able to grow facial hair the usual way, no matter how old he got. He either was clean shaven, or, if he desired a beard or a mustache enough and truly saw himself that way, he would wake up with it fully formed and be able to dismiss it just as easily, which he invariably always did within a few hours. 

Axel's sandpaper skin when he allowed a five o'clock shadow to form was irresistible. Roxas wouldn't be able to keep hands or lips off of him, or to refrain from silly sweet gestures like nuzzling his face against Axel's like he was possessed by the spirit of an affectionate cat, and the first warning lobbied about stubble burn just brought to light that Roxas not only didn't mind but enjoyed the idea of being marked even when it was by beard rash. The limits of the latter were soon tested, and opinion amended that it was not the same as love bites at at all. Subsequently, they worked together on a map of where stubble burn was and wasn't acceptable, a true couple's bonding activity, but Axel's stubble remained an object of fascination every time he put off shaving, which he did more often after being rewarded by Roxas's reaction.

This proved to be a dangerous gateway to attempted beard growing. It was an ugly process, full of random patches of wiry hair that refused to connect, stubble turned to sharper barbs as it lengthened, and trapped grease. The whole affair grew dark. 

Fighting broke out. Threats were lobbied. The beard was shaved, but resentment brewed after. Stubble was ruined as Roxas could only picture the disaster that followed before, one he never wanted to revisit. Previous positive reinforcement was replaced with conscious negative whenever Axel seemed like he was going to skip shaving. 

Unfortunately, even knowing Roxas's opinion, the urge to grow facial hair cropped up again after laying dormant for a few years. This time it was supposed to be different, and Axel used dubious means to convince Roxas to promise to let him have time enough to pass the awkward stage.

New horrors emerged. The beard became a fixation and beloved friend to care for. Axel doted on it almost as much as Turkey. Beard oil. Special clippers. Deep conditioning. Lengthy and obsessive daily maintenance in front of the mirror. 

And yet, somehow, despite the meticulous care, there was still food caught in it and, at no stage did it flatter Axel’s face in Roxas’s opinion.

Roxas abolished the beard once more, and Axel gave in, but it returned every now and again when resolve was wore down. Roxas was grateful when he gained allies in the fight.

"Gooe-ssss," Dulce hissed, slapping her father's face gently. 

"Da go sss," Salena chimed in, smacking her own forehead.

Axel bounced a baby on each knee and exaggerated his expression into cartoonish terror turned even more laughable when he couldn't keep the grin off his face. "There's a ghost, girls? Where?"

"Goose!" Dulce corrected, raising her tiny hands in exclamation.

"A goose?" Axel made his surprise theatric, while legitimately trying to figure out what his daughters were talking about. "A ghost of a goose? Is that what you see, sweet girls?" He turned his head and yelled into the kitchen. "Roxas! Get in here! The twins learned some new words!"

Salena took charge, grabbing a handful of Axel's beard, and, inevitably, a healthy chunk of pinched skin as well, in her pudgy baby fist. "Dada go ss! go ss da!"

Roxas ran in from the other room, dish towel in his hands and sleeved rolled up, but stopped short of the couch, struck breathless with love as he still sometimes found himself even now when he saw Axel, dumb beard and all, looking enchanted with their daughters.

"Go ss da!" Dulce slapped Axel's cheek harder, looking delighted. She then turned her small body toward her other father, reached out her hand to beckon and declared. "Yum!"

"Yum!" Salena agreed, flailing her entire body so Axel had to hold her more tightly so she wouldn't pitch herself to the floor. "Da go ss yum mm!"

"Now, yum, I know," Axel chuckled. "They must be hungry. Do you want to open up a few jars of delicious mashed peas? You can take Salena, and I'll keep Dulce, and we can get these howling monkeys fed!" He asked Roxas, bouncing the so-called howling monkeys again as he did so they would laugh.

"Sounds like a plan," Roxas confirmed and walked over to take Salena, who yelled a final "Go! Sss!" even while reaching for him.

"We'll feed the ghost too," Axel promised, standing to his feet now that he had only one child to rearrange hold on. 

"I think they are saying, gross," Roxas suggested. He touched his forehead to Salena's and she grabbed his much larger face with her small hands. "Is Daddy gross?"

"Goose!" Dulce interrupted while Salena just waved her hands while still gripping Roxas's cheeks so he'd nod in her place. "Da go ss!"

"Daddy has a gross, gross beard! Silly, Daddy!" Roxas was malicious in his glee as both twins continued to chant "Go" and snake hiss. 

"There's no accounting for taste, but I know when I'm outvoted," Axel sulked, playing hurt but not sticking to it consistently, still blown away by his smart girls adding to their vocabulary. Soon, there would be full sentences and then full conversations. They'd be walking, then running, then going off planet, and the ends of the universe would be the limit. Though that line of thought could grow dangerous, so Axel kept himself to thinking only as far ahead as being able to teach them jokes and play tag as he walked ahead to the kitchen.

As soon as Axel was a few steps away, Roxas whispered to Salena. "Good girl. You remembered our lesson." 

"Go ss da yum," Salena babbled back.

"Yes, for telling Daddy he's gross, you and your sister are going to get blueberries." It had taken a lot of training. When Axel was out of the house, Roxas would say "gross" and pat his face, then give the girls pureed fruit. Once they learned the association, he rewarded them for copying him. Now it had paid off. 

Smart girls. Smart Pop. Axel would be clean shaven by dinner.

#akuroku #akuroku family #snippets #future fic #axel x roxas #Anonymous