#deep woods cove

[themidnightcrimson]

the scarlet siren ࿏ wm

summary: in which you take a trip out to sea that you will regret.

words: 6.0k

warnings: siren!wanda, dubcon/noncon, fingering (r receiving), oral (r receiving), size kink, biting, a lot of blood, violence, fear, suspense, drowning, deep water, mentions of death, i wrote this in an irish accent for some reason, did you know i have thalassophobia?

this is a dark!fic for 18+ only. minors dni. read with discretion.

masterlist.

Fishing was competitive these days. It was a bad winter and an even worse famine, and with beef and poultry no longer in the shops, the villagers were forced to turn to the shore to fish.

Your little village was nestled on a plateau of land that stuck out into the cold sea. The shore was lined with big, black rocks that had tumbled down from the looming hills over time and landed at the water’s edge with only a thin strip of grainy brown sand between them and the water. Travelling down to the shore over all those rocks was already hard enough, but it was even harder when you had to carry your boat on your back.

People had tried to carve trails through all the rock to make the beaches more accessible, but with all the storms that the area faced, the rocks just got tussled back around and demolished any trails attempted.

In fact, it had just stormed the night before. It pissed rain and spit wind so hard that people woke up to holes in their roofs. Naturally, the beach was all torn up from it, but it would always clean itself up and go back to the way it was at some point before another storm came along. And while most people were at their cottages fixing the storm’s damage, you saw this early dawn as a prime opportunity to fish.

Fish had also been scarce recently because of all the people turning to the water for food sources, but you knew that the previous night’s storm had tussled the waters, which meant the fish were probably scurrying all around. The sun hadn’t even risen yet as you dragged your wooden boat down the rocks in the dim dawn hue, the wood scraping loudly against the rock’s hard and bumpy surface.

Managing to get down the rocks without twisting your ankle, you finally plopped down into the pebbly sand with a huff of breath, pushing your boat off your back. This was only half of your journey, though, because you weren’t even going to fish here on the beach like most people did.

Adjusting the leather strap around your neck that was holding your oars to your back, you dragged your boat through the damp sand to the rickety wooden dock that stood beside the lighthouse. The lighthouse was even more rickety, since no one bothered to upkeep it since this beach was the worst beach for ships to come in at. They almost always hit the rocks because of how deep the water dropped off from the shore and how thin the strip of sand was.

You pulled your boat to the very end of the dock and then threw the oars down in it, and then your bag of fishing gear, along with your pole. Taking a deep breath, you prepared yourself as you began pushing the single person-sized boat into the water. When it finally was fully in the water, you quickly jumped into it, causing a splash and a stressful cracking sound as you struggled for a moment to catch your balance. Finally, you sat down in the boat and let it settle before getting your oars and rowing yourself towards your destination.

There was a little cove area almost like an island to the east of the plateau of land. It was your favorite spot to fish because hardly anyone knew about it. It was barely visible from the shore even during a normal day, but it was completely out of sight on this extremely foggy, dark morning. The fog became more and more dense the further you rowed out into the water, until finally you were completely blinded.

“Fucking hell,” you murmured, reaching into your bag for your compass. The fog had completely surrounded you now to the point where you couldn’t even see the front bow of your boat. It was getting colder further into sea, too. Though the air above was tolerable, you couldn’t imagine how cold the water below felt.

The salty, wet air clogged your nose as you finally felt the cold round of metal in your hand, bringing your compass out of your bag. Sniffling from the cold air, you tried to adjust and read your compass when you suddenly heard something behind you—a voice.

Gasping, you whipped around to look behind you but only saw the thick white of fog. The voice had been shrill and steady, calling out some sort of smooth singsong noise that echoed over the water.

And then you heard it again, clear as day, right in front of you.

Snapping back around, you still could see nothing but the fog, yet the voice was still echoing all around you. It was a single note drawn out, not quite a shout or a scream, just an eerie note drawn out through the fog. Chills overcame you, but not from the cold.

Setting your compass down on the boat’s bottom, you grabbed your oars and began to quickly row towards the east. The fog seemed to be squeezing in on you now, some of it even spilling over the edge of the boat like thick smoke. Your heart was pounding—you couldn’t see where you were going, and you could still hear the voice in the back of your head. You wanted to get to the cove fast.

Suddenly, the wooden oar in your left hand stopped against something. You paused and looked over—you weren’t even able to see the paddle of the oar, only the handle you held. You tried to move the oar, but it wouldn’t budge. What could it be stuck on? Even though you couldn’t see, you knew you weren’t at the cove by now, and you were still heading east so you hadn’t drifted back to the plateau. These waters were so deep, there certainly was nothing your oar could be stuck in.

It was when something tugged your oar right out of your hand that you shrieked and jumped so hard that the boat rocked, icy water splashing onto your legs. With your left oar gone, you quickly used your right oar to haphazardly row forward, having to switch it over to the left side to keep going straight, more of the cold water splattering over you. Though you were crippled now with only one oar, you were so afraid that you rowed even faster than you normally would with two oars.

Though your arms ached, you kept rowing as fast as you could until finally the fog started to thin out. You were starting to break out of whatever thick cloud of sea fog you had been stuck in. It felt like you could breathe again when finally you pushed forward completely out of the fog, letting your tired arms go limp as you looked behind you at the cloud of fog. You searched for the silhouette of another boat but saw nothing. What the hell had grabbed your oar?

Turning back around and taking a deep breath, you swiped your forehead with the back of your wrist—now your body was so hot it was steaming in the cold air. Looking ahead, you could finally see the cove just a little ways away.

Glancing to either side of you, you saw nothing but black water. These waters were always dark, mostly because of the black rock and black mud, but it was completely opaque now. All you could see was reflections of the dim grey sky above you and your own face distorted in the lapping water. You wondered what was below it—something that now had your oar, certainly. Shaking your head to rid yourself of the paranoid thoughts, you rowed on to the cove.

The cove was a U-shaped island that looked like a fragmented piece of the plateau your village was on—all black, rocky shores with limited sand, a cluster of dark, woody trees behind it that shielded it from the nothingness of the sea. The shape of the U was wide enough that the cove water leading up to the center of land was deep enough for fish to live. It was the perfect fishing spot, especially the further one went into the cove so that the island’s rocks and trees surrounded them.

Finally, you got to your favorite spot tucked further into the U shape where you were surrounded by the island, and you rowed your boat carefully until it was finally still. You glanced around the island—it was a little spooky in the foggy, dark morning. The trees were blackened, fog stuck all in them. The big rocks were an even darker black from the wet morning, and where there was usually a strip of sand, there was only a bunch of pebbles and rocks that must have been pushed onto shore from the storm. Sometimes, you would sit on the sand and enjoy the quiet alone, but you couldn’t imagine sitting on all those rocky pebbles.

You set up your fishing pole and cast it into the black water, setting the pole against the side of the boat while you opened your fishnet and made it ready for fish. You had even brought a little breakfast along—a pathetic piece of bread with a slice of cheese. Holding the end of your pole between your feet, you relaxed against the boat and ate your bread and cheese.

It took a minute before you got your first bite, bringing up a thick, silvery fish out of the water and tossing it into your net before recasting your pole. You were able to get three fish before suddenly they just stopped biting.

“For fucks’ sake,” you cursed like a sailor, bringing up your pole out of the water to see that something had taken the worm off the hook, even though you didn’t feel a fish bite. “Greedy fuckers. I’m tryin’ to eat, too.” You took another worm from your bowl of bait and stuck it onto the hook.

And then you heard it again.

It was the same shrill voice, but this time, it sounded like an eerie, angelic song. You froze. The voice lilted, echoing through the trees of the cove. This time, it wasn’t just a single note—it was words you could barely make out, but they were there.

Voda glubokaya i golubaya..

Your breath hitched in your throat. You lifted your head, eyes wide, and slowly looked around, seeing nothing but the black faces of the rocks and trees looking back at you.

Ya smotryu na tebya svoimi krasivymi glazami.

The voice was beautiful, etching out every syllable of the foreign language like poetry. It echoed over the waters in a whisper, filling your ears like honey. You held your breath. You wanted to ask who was there, who was singing, but there was a buzzing sensation through your body like fear, but something different. It was like the voice was reaching through your ears and into your brain, its angelic fingers scratching and poking and twisting your brain around until you were in a dumb daze.

It was when you noticed something in the corner of your eye that your fear came through more prominently. The water, black and opaque, to the side of your boat was rippling with motion. It wasn’t the bubbles of a fish. It wasn’t movement from your still boat. The water rippled from one end of your boat to the other, pausing between ripples like something was swimming right there. But you couldn’t see anything.

Your lungs ached as your breathing picked up, yet you stayed completely still. You watched the water ripple around the bow of your boat, and down the other side. It was circling you, and it was entirely too large to be a fish.

Podoydi blizhe, i ya ispolnyu tvoye zhelaniye.

The voice came again, filtering through the cove’s forest, over the rocks, right into your ears. You don’t know why, but you found yourself slowly leaning over the boat’s edge, peering into the black water that rippled as something swam below it. Your vision became hazy. Your skin felt numb all over. Your heart pounded dangerously fast.

Podoydi blizhe i ya tebya potseluyu.

You barely processed the sound of something brushing the side of your boat before you felt the hard vibration of something hitting the underside of your boat, something big enough to rock it.

“Woah!” you cried out, grabbing the sides of the rocking boat. You tried to get to your feet, but something hit the underside of your boat again, and it tipped over.

You had never felt such cold. The splash of your body hitting the water, and then the water flooding your ears, deafened you like the sound of glass shattering from inside your head. It struck your entire body like lighting—pure, icy shock and arctic pain. It almost felt like your bones cracked upon impact like a frozen branch falling off a cliff.

You couldn’t move as your body sank under the freezing black water. You opened your eyes, felt the cold freeze over your eyeballs. You saw nothing at first and wondered if you were dead, or even worse, struck blind from the freezing water. When you could finally see dim light filtering through the water, as much light as the cloudy early morning could give, you realized you weren’t blind. But the water was so cold, too cold to move. You tried to move your arms and legs, but you felt stiffened, shot with pain.

As you stared into the sea of black and tried to clench your frozen muscles, you saw a shadow forming in the water beyond. You could do nothing but watch with fear as the shadow formed into an unrecognizable silhouette.

Quickly, you glanced up and could see the shadow of your boat flipped upside down on the water’s surface above you. You didn’t realize how deep down you were. Even if your body was working again, it would take a minute for you to reach your boat.

You looked back in front of you. The shadow was closer now. You attempted to flail your arms and were able to move them a little. You screamed through your closed mouth, your lungs burning for air.

The shadow came into the glare of light in the water, and your scream intensified.

It was a woman, or something like it. A woman’s head, and neck, and chest, and torso, and waist, but right where her hips stopped, something else started. Where her thighs would have been separated and covered with skin, they were welded together and covered with scales. It was some sort of a fish tail attached to where the lower half of her body should’ve been. Instead of skin and legs, she was dark red and black scales on a long tail with a finned end that gently undulated in the water to keep her floating. Her tail almost sparkled in the light. It was so dark, but you could see hints of a deep ruby color between the dark scales. Her chest was bare along with the rest of her upper body. Her hair, a dark brown with reddish tint, bowed above her head in the shape of an obsidian flame. Her arms floated beside her elegantly, and you noticed her fingertips were black.

Then there were her eyes. A deep red like the color of her tail. Too much white between the bottom curve of her pupils and her lower lashes. Darkened around the lids with some sort of black paint. Even in the darkness of the water, the red of her irises caught you. Even in the fear, there was beauty. She was haunting, and her eyes stared you down like you were her food.

A mermaid, you thought. You’d only ever heard of them when the sailors of your town made it back from faraway fishing trips. Everyone had chocked the stories up to oceanic hallucination, but now here you were, face to face with one.

And then she smiled. And her teeth were ivory white, and in the middle of where there were some human teeth, there was rows of sharp fangs like blades. Her smile was uncanny, unsettling, evil.

And then you realized she wasn’t a mermaid.

Another choked, muffled scream bellowed out from your burning chest when she darted forward. You could feel the vibrations in the water when she swished her tail in a boast of strength, her hair darting behind her as she surged forward through the water with ease. Her eyes seemed to darken.

Screaming as much as you could underwater, you suddenly found that your muscles had defrosted with your fear. You swam upwards, kicking and thrashing as much as you could, your body fatigued from the cold and the lack of oxygen. Your muscles burned and quivered as you overworked them, your lungs aching, your throat burning, vision growing dark until finally you burst above the surface, gulping down a large breath of air and several more after that.

You didn’t have much time to breathe because you became aware that the siren was still below you. Looking around, you saw that your boat had floated too far away, and the nearest place you could go was the shoreline several yards away.

Before you could make a break for the shore, you noticed how quiet everything was. The siren could have easily grabbed you by now. You tried to look into the water that splashed up on your chin, but it was still black. A soft mist came down from the bleary sky, further wetting your head.

What if she was right below your feet where they kicked obscurely in the water? What if she grabbed you and dragged you down? Just the mere thought made you start to slowly float your way towards the shore. Maybe the siren was just like a shark, and it was only sudden movement that made her attack.

You kept slowly swimming backwards, craning your head all around to get a comprehensive view of the water’s surface around you. There was nothing. No swishing of water at your feet. No ripples on the surface except the ones you caused. Not even any bubbles.

Was she gone? Had she decided you weren’t worth the trouble? Or were you just hallucinating? Maybe this was the oceanic hallucinations everyone said sailors had. Maybe all that fog had made you paranoid.

Your body was rocking with how icy the water was, though you just felt numb now. You looked behind you at the island, wondering if you could seek shelter in the trees until someone came looking for you, or maybe you could make some sort of flotation device out of something. That was silly. Your best bet would be to go back to your boat and hand-paddle your way back home.

As you turned your head back around towards the direction of your boat, you gasped and froze.

There the siren was. Only the upper half of her head was above the water. You saw her hair, much more reddish now in the light, slick to her head. Her forehead, speckled with droplets of water. Her red eyes that seemed to reflect a glare of red on the surface of the water in front of her. Beyond that, only the bridge of her nose, the end of it under the surface. She was completely still, as if she was standing on flat ground. She was only maybe two feet away from you.

“P-p-p-p,” you tried to speak, but your body was convulsing from the cold, your lips numb and blue. “Please,” you whispered in a croak. It was getting hard to breathe as the harsh cold invaded your blood. You were begging for your life because, in the haze of your hypothermia, you recognized those eyes.

You’d heard stories from the village sailors about a particular siren. You’d seen her image sketched in books. Always those red eyes, that red tail. This wasn’t a mermaid, and she wasn’t just a siren. She was the deadliest ocean creature that all the myths and legends described. She’d instilled fear in children of your parent’s and even your grandparent’s generations just through stories of her malice. She commanded every corner of the seas, and sailors who were superstitious enough always kept an eye out for her during their voyages, lest she take them down.

She wasn’t a mermaid. She wasn’t just a siren.

She was the Scarlet Siren.

Somehow, she knew you recognized her. Maybe it was the look on your face, or the way you froze. She stretched her lips open in a charming yet malicious smile. And then slowly, inch by inch, she slipped under the water.

Letting out a choked scream, you quickly turned back towards the shore and started to swim. Your heart felt like it was going to rip right out of your chest if the Scarlet Siren didn’t do it first.

When you were halfway towards the shore, thrashing the water and letting out choked breaths, you suddenly felt hands grab your ankles and yank you beneath the surface.

You thrashed under the water, your long hair coming undone and floating around your face as you watched the Scarlet Siren come closer to you. You kicked at her so hard that your shoes came off your feet, your foot hitting her tail and feeling the fishy scales there.

The Siren’s hands were climbing up your body, grabbing at your coat and pulling it off as you spiraled in the water, trying to get out of her hold. Finally, you were able to kick her tail hard enough that the force sent you popping above the surface like a fish. You were able to take one gasp of air before she pulled you right back down again.

This time, the Siren growled and nosedived towards your waist, her teeth clamping down on the fabric of your shirt. You squealed as she ripped your shirt off with her teeth, the fabric so easily tearing. The blades of her teeth had caught the skin of your belly, four long scratches bleeding through your pale skin, the blood clouding in the water. The Siren paused at the sight of your blood diffusing in the water, distracted enough for you to kick her in the face so hard that she turned downwards in the water.

You took your chance to swim, popping up through the surface and pushing yourself harder than ever. The shore was right in front of you. Your body ached and the skin of your stomach stung, but you kept going until finally your fingers touched black rock.

Coughing up water, you lifted your body onto the pebbly surface, the blood from the scratches finally able to drip down your skin, the red following the lines of water on your waist. You flopped onto your back and pulled yourself more onto the shore.

You knew it wasn’t over. The Siren’s head popped out of the water, and her hands grabbed your ankles again. You cried out and tried to kick, but she held your legs down as she lifted herself completely out of the water.

You watched the Scarlet Siren crawl over you, her strong arms planting down in the rocks on either side of your head, entrapping you. The shockingly heavy weight of her tail crushed your legs down on the rock, the smell of ocean filling your nostrils. It felt like the end of your life. You thought to yourself, as the Siren laid herself over you, that this was what rabbits felt like with dogs. This is what lambs felt like with lions. Birds with cats. Fish with fishermen. Sailors with sirens.

“Now, what’s a pretty girl like yourself doing all alone out on these waters, hmm?” Her voice was shockingly heavenly, smooth like butter and sweet like a bird’s song. It caught you off guard and somehow made you more afraid. There was also some sort of foreign accent laced in her words, somewhat Slavic. How could a monster like herself look so beautiful and sound so sweet?

You could only make incoherent noises as you watched the Siren’s tail start to morph. It ripped itself apart, and the scales sunk inwards, and the flesh shaped itself into the shape of a human woman’s legs, and pale skin etched itself over them. She was now the sight of a fully human woman, naked and lain over you, except for her razor teeth and red demonic eyes and murderous intent.

“Do you know who I am?” she asked more seriously, her eyes flickering over you. Her underwater tactics left you in only a brassiere and fisherman pants.

You were shaking from the cold, but her body felt surprisingly warm on yours. Fear had overcome you, leaving you dumb and pathetic.

“Please d-don’t kill me,” you cried, tears rushing down your cheeks.

“You didn’t answer me, detka,” she continued calmly, bringing a hand to your chin and holding it. Her skin felt inhumanly smooth. “Do you know who I am?”

Breathing heavily, you squeezed your eyes shut. “The S-Scarlet Siren.”

The Siren puckered her lips. “What a demeaning term. My scales are more maroon, don’t you think? My name is Wanda.” She paused, pressing the pad of her thumb into the dimple on your chin. “What’s your name, pretty girl?”

You didn’t answer. She trailed her hand down your stomach, smearing the blood there before she grabbed hold of your pants. Sitting back on her knees, she started to yank them down. Instinctively, you fought her, trying to kick her away.

“Stop!” you screamed loud enough that a few birds from the forest cawed and fluttered. The Siren pursed her lips and used her strength to pull your pants off, but you flopped onto your stomach like a fish and started frantically crawling away.

“Stop it, human,” she growled, grabbing the back of your thighs and dragging you back down the rocks. Using the opportunity, she ripped the last of your clothing off, your brassiere, and threw it to the side. Grabbing you by your wet hair, she turned you back onto your back and lowered down. You were face-to-face with her now, about to try and push her off until she opened her mouth.

Voda glubokaya i golubaya.

YA smotryu na tebya svoimi krasivymi glazami.

Podoydi blizhe, i ya ispolnyu tvoye zhelaniye.

Podoydi blizhe i ya tebya potseluyu.

It was the song you’d heard earlier, before your boat tipped. But as she sang it this time, that buzzing feeling within you grew stronger. Her honey-like voice lilted in your ears as she sang, and you found yourself leaning upwards. Her red eyes, glowing now, watched you tremble as you weakly lifted yourself, your own eyes growing wide as she entranced you. You were very easy for her.

Smiling through her song, she snaked her arm under your waist and easily lifted you up, pressing your bare body to hers. You were so cold against her, so feeble and weak. Your eyes trained on her lips, your irises glowing red from her magic flowing within you. She could feel your mind breaking down, letting her in, growing weaker and weaker. Finally, you closed your eyes and leaned up to kiss her. The Siren held your head with her large hand and kissed you softly, her lips smooth and slippery.

Her song was how she got her victims, but her kiss was how she trapped them. You were under her will now.

Breaking the kiss slowly, the Siren laid you gently back down on the rock. “It’s much easier when you’re calmer, detka. Now, tell me your name.”

“Y/n,” you whispered inaudibly, but the Siren’s ears were trained enough to hear you.

“Y/n,” she repeated in her lilting voice, smiling with her sharp teeth. “You’re the prettiest one I’ve ever caught, y/n.”

Her eyes raked down your limp body that she held in her arm, her free hand pressing against the bloody scratches on your tummy. She gathered some of your blood on her blackened finger and lifted it up to her mouth, sucking your blood off her long finger. Her eyes rolled to the back of her head like a reptile.

Though you felt paralyzed, there was still some consciousness left in your head. You were starting to realize that there was a reason sailors didn’t let their women on their boats, and that the reason was hovering over you.

“You’re right, beautiful girl,” she purred, “But don’t even think about those other human women. You’re the best one of them all.” Her voice had an edge of malice, and it was sickening to hear it through the sweet, complimentary tone.

Her red eyes flickered back to the scratches on your tummy, and she leaned down, letting her long, snaky tongue slither out of her mouth and onto the scratches, licking up your blood. Her breath fanned over the expanse of your stomach, covered in goosebumps. Her hands gripped either side of your ribcage as she grazed her mouth over your stomach, landing on a spot off to the side before digging her teeth into your flesh.

“Ah!” you screamed out, feeling all the blades of her teeth stab into you. She let go, revealing a bloody bite mark on your torso.

“So sweet and fresh,” she growled.

A particular wave of water came up aggressively onto the shore, rolling over her ankles and causing scales to appear before the water receded and human skin covered it again.

The Siren moved to your chest, her large hand grabbing one of your tits and squeezing while she rolled her long, thin tongue over your nipple, her siren eyes flashing up at you. You squirmed, whimpering from the pain but also from another uncontrollable emotion. You were entranced by her, under her will, and had no control over any feeling she gave you emotionally or physically.

Moving her mouth to your other breast, she sunk her teeth into the mound of flesh, causing you to cry out again. You attempted to lift your arms to fight back, but she quickly snatched them and pinned them to the sharp rocks.

Voda glubokaya i golubaya.

YA smotryu na tebya svoimi krasivymi glazami.

Podoydi blizhe, i ya ispolnyu tvoye zhelaniye.

Podoydi blizhe i ya tebya potseluyu.

She sang again, her voice filling you as she gave you more bites between each lyric, blood now dripping down your sides. You were dizzy, from the blood or the trance or the entire situation, and helpless. Your blood was smeared across the entire lower half of her face, dripping from her chin, staining her razor teeth as she grinned. It was so strange, seeing a monstrous look on such a seductive, beautiful woman.

When the Siren glided her tongue down the center of your stomach, you felt a twitch within you. When her hands gripped your hips and scratched downward, coming to grab your tender thighs and spread them open, you obliged. You felt hotter now, as if steam would start rising out of your body into the cold air. There were already billows of fog coming out of your lips with each breath.

“Such a delicate angel,” the Siren purred at you as she lowered her body down. As she settled her elbows over your thighs, her legs tucked back into the water. The waves gushed over her bottom and onto her lower back, and when it receded, she had a tail again, halfway resting in the water, the crimson fin on the very end flipping up in the water instinctively.

You were naked, bleeding on the rocks, being overtaken by a Siren, the Scarlet Siren no less, but you felt overcome with a pleasurable sensation. It was a mix between drunken and sexual as the Siren licked her tongue over your thighs.

When she had you to a point of gyrating your hips for her, she finally put her mouth over your core, sucking on your sensitive nub immediately. You cried out, grabbing onto rocks as she suckled on you, causing arousal to already slowly gush out of you.

Her tongue was long and thin and bumpy, so when she lapped it over your slit and then pushed it deep inside you, you nearly went blind. She snaked her tongue in and out of her, her hands grabbing your thighs harshly as she forced your legs open wider, moaning onto your clit. She seemed hungry, ravenous, as she devoured you, and you felt the terrifying hardness of the very edge of her teeth almost hitting your sensitive skin every once in a while. You could tell that she had done this before, and you wondered what number you were going to be in the list of women she had killed.

“Ah!” you cried out, feeling yourself coming close already. The feeling was something entirely different, and before you knew it, you were clenching around her tongue and crying out, your body arching off the rocks.

“So delicious,” the Siren hissed when she retracted her tongue, staying where she was between your legs while you panted and squirmed. “And so tight.”

Without warning, she placed four fingers in a row at your entrance. You swallowed hard, your consciousness breaking through a little to fight back by thrashing around. You tried to close your legs, but she was amazingly strong.

The Scarlet Siren opened her mouth to sing her song, and you relaxed involuntarily. You could only scream when she forced four of her fingers into you. The pain was dizzying, along with all the blood you’d lost, and you were halfway unconscious as she stretched your cunt out around her fingers, forcing you to take all four of her unnaturally long digits. Your walls resisted, but she kept thrusting, lapping up any arousal and blood along the way. She bit into your thigh, rubbed her face in the wound and curled her fingers inside you, watching you tremble and squirm dumbly.

You finally started to come to when the pain went away, pleasure taking over. The stretch felt otherworldly, her tongue flicking your clit and lapping at it, fingers pumping deep and hard into you so that it was all you could feel. Besides the gentle waves of the water near you, all you could hear was the squelching noises that she committed on you. She devoured you and fucked you eagerly, hungrily, like an animal, becoming more and more carnal the more she had of you.

When your second climax crashed over you and you convulsed uncontrollably, whimpering and screaming and thrashing, the Siren chuckled victoriously between your thighs.

When the climax left you, your body dropped limp on the rocks. Your vision went blurry, and all you could see was red eyes hovering over you staring at you, and the dark crimson of blood on her face.

“You did so good, detka,” she lilted, caressing your cheek with her soft hand. “I think I’ll keep you.”

Fortunately for you, you could feel nothing but bliss. It was the Siren’s entrancement on you that made you feel heavenly as she took hold of one of your ankles and dragged you into the water like a dead fish, swimming away into the black and taking you with her.

Your abandoned boat still floated upside down a ways off from the shore. The cloud of fog was still on the sea’s surface, crowding into the cove. The water washed away your blood from the rocks.

#wanda maximoff x reader #wanda maximoff #scarlet witch x reader #scarlet witch #siren #siren!wanda #elizabeth olsen #lizzie olsen #lesbian #marvel #lgbt #wanda maximoff x f!reader

[redlittlefoxari]

Master List

Astarion Epilogue: An Adventure in Making a Life (Pregnancy Fic) NSFW 18+, SMUT, Fluff, Angst, Blood, Violence, Pregnant Tav

Chapter One: A Night of Passion

Chapter Two: In sickness and in health

Chapter Three: All the Stars in the Sky

Chapter Four: Words from a Wizzard

Chapter Five: Together Again

Chapter six: On The Road With Secrets

Chapter Seven: Let The Water Wash You Clean

Chapter Eight: In too Deep in Waterdeep

Chapter Nine: Secrets Don’t Make Friends

Chapter Ten: Little White Dress

Chapter Eleven: Caught in the Sun

Chapter Twelve: Waterdeep's Most Wanted

Chapter Thirteen: Fight or Flight

Chapter Fourteen: Somethings Missing

Chapter Fifteen: Second Thoughts

Chapter Sixteen: Blood in the Woods

Chapter Seventeen: To the Grove Again

Chapter Eighteen: So Close

Chapter Nineteen: Feral

Chapter Twenty: Fight for Life

Chapter Twenty-One: It's a Nice Day for a Wedding

Chapter Twenty-Two: Light to Dark

Chapter Twenty-Three: Into The Drak

Chapter Twenty-Four: Family Reunion

Chapter Twenty-Five: Jelouse

Chapter Twenty-Six: Changes

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Bed Rest

Chapter Twenty-Eight: Apple Knocking

Chapter Twenty-Nine: Once Upon a Dream

Chapter Thirty: When The Dawn Breaks

Chapter Thirty-One: The Vampire of Serpents Cove

Chapter Thirty-Two: Comfortable

Chapter Thirty- Three: A Mother's Love

Chapter Thirty- Four: Don't Drop the Baby

Chapter Thirty- Five: Out of the Nest

Chapter Thirty- Six: Stolen Sun

Chapter Thirty- Seven: Cry About It

Chapter Thirty- Eight: A Father's nightmare and a Father's Rage

Chapter Thirty- Nine: Down in the Dark

Chapter Forty: Beaten, Bloody, and Beautiful

Chapter Forty-One: Home

Chapter Forty- Two: Asteria

#astarion #astarion dad #astarion fluff #astarion smut #astarion x female reader #astarion x female tav #astarion x reader #astarion x tav #astarion x you #bg3 #pregnant tav #pregnant #pregnancy #vampire #baldur’s gate astarion #bg3 astarion #baldurs gate #baldurs gate 3 #astarion my beloved #bg3 spoilers #astarion ancunin #astarion bg3 #astarion romance #astarion fanfic #fanfic #baldurs gate astarion #baldur’s gate fanfiction #blood #fluff #angst with a happy ending

[lady-ashfade]

A Sign

Yan!Rhaenrya Targaryen x WhiteHind!Child!Reader. (Hinted Yan!Criston Cole)

The reader has antlers in this! Idk if females don’t have them, they do in this.

Warnings: Yandere tendencies, possession, obsession, over protective.

Her chest fell as she glanced over the woods from above, the camp ground filled with her people had put a weight on her chest. This time she was far away and no one could tell her she wasn’t worthy of the throne with just a look. Everyone looked at her now just as someone to be thrown aside for her new male brother, Aegon. Rhaenrya could leave without another word and maybe things could be better.

Cristin stood at her side with admiration in his eyes at her beauty even with blood coving her skin and clothes. She was perfect, she was smart and caring but ruthlessly and strong willed. She had raised him from the bottom and gave him a title and somewhere he could belong, he was grateful to no ends.

Sounds of soft footsteps and branches breaking broke the silence and caught the attention of the princess and the knight. Heads turning quickly a around to face what they had heard, criston ready to draw his sword to protect. But their eyes saw no threat at the sight in front of them but a wonder to see. Maybe they both had gone mad to cause them seeing what the did.

A small girl with long hair dropping off her shoulders and down to her back, a dirty dress that was once white turned brown with spots. The sun behind her made it clear as day to see the antlers on her head, beautiful patterns with waves and twisted. Her doe eyes that looked soft and curious as she stared at the pair, they had the same expression filled with wonder and confusion.

Rhaenrya new this was a sign. She could recall the men saying there was a stag in the woods and they called it a blessing from the gods. Slowly the princess hopped off her horse to walked towards the girl she had seen, criston waiting so someone could keep a eye on her. Inching closer it surprises them that she had not run away but slowly walked closer. “Can you speak?” The princess asked in a soft voice.

The small eyes blinked and her head nodded to the question. The princess stopped a few inches away and waited for the girl’s permission to come closer. Bending down she looked at the child and smiled sweetly, slowly extended her hand out and reached for the girl. “My name is Rhaenrya, what’s yours little one?”

The girl was you, a girl only knowing the woods and nature as your home. You never seen a human up close before, the animals had always welcomed you. The harmful creatures thought of you as a friend. “Y/n.” Your small voice answered her and stepped closer. Rhaenrya felt herself fall in a deep hole of love and obsession, the urge to protect you and place you above everything.

“Would you like to come with me, y/n? My kingdom does need something like you.” You blinked up at her and felt the wind blow and the ringing in your ears stop. Just this morning you had been miles away but something was calling you. She was must be your purpose in this life.

Eyes wondered and watched as Rhaenrya walked through the camp drenched in blood and covered in dirt. The cold expression on her face sent shivers down the spines of everyone who looked. Her father, the king, had stoped what he was doing as well as the queen. The princess only looked at them and then stopped herself and looked back at the horse of her protector. Her gaze made everyone follow and the people gasped in shocked.

You stepping down from the horse with the help of Cristin and looking like a blessing from the gods themselves. Everyone stood up and watched you walked through them. You felt nervous at all the eyes on you and whispering, but Rhaenryas eyes were reassuring and calling you to her which kept you grounded as you walked. Taking her hand in yours she walked into the tent to get cleaned up and to spend time with you.

The first thing she did was get you food and clean you up first, she would be so gentle with you. “Do you know how special you are little one?” She asked as the rage whipped the dirt off your cheek. You only shook your head. “I will show you in time, you are mine by the gods laws. They sent you to me in the darkest hour.” She leaned down to kiss your head and then continued to wash you up.

“No one will ever keep us apart”

#rhaenrya targaryen #Criston Cole #Criston Cole x reader #yandere criston cole #yandere rhaenrya targaryen #yandere rhaenyra targaryen x reader #princess rhaenys targaryen #rhaenrya targaryen x reader #yandere house targaryen #yandere house of the dragon #house of the dragon #house of the dragon x reader #yandere house of the dragon x reader

[zealousllamawolf]

Lost in the Woods (Alastor x Reader) Part 1

!!Minors Please DNI!!

Parings- Alastor x Reader

Summary- Alastor finds a way to help you when you're in a desperately trying to subdue your need to kill.

Word Count- 2.5K

Warnings- talks of murder

Tags- blood obsession, light sexual tension, angst

~Alastor’s POV~

  Out of the demons in hell you had to be the one to capture his every waking thought and dream at least when he did sleep which was not frequent. Alastor’s been watching you for the past couple weeks since you arrived. There were moments you slipped away from helping the rest of the residents where you would break down privately in an empty room or hallway, but already overstepping by sending his shadow to follow you he got the sense you wouldn’t like it if he came to check up on you in the middle of a private conflict, but that didn’t stop him from feeling like he should be doing more for you.

  Alastor’s grin strained, thinking back to when you walked into the hotel shaking with a knife gripped in your hand. Completely soaked in blood from head to toe, blouse ripped from the neck down falling over your chest revealing a plump breast peeking out from your bralette. Your hair was caked with congealed blood and the rest around your face, neck and arms drying as it dripped down in streaks.

  He watched as you fall to your knees in the middle of the lobby as he stood by Husk next to the bar. The knife clattered to the floor making you flinch, forcing you to look down at your bloodied hands tears falling- no pouring out of your eyes. His eyes skimmed the rest of your body as your chest heaved with sobs quietly coming out of your cracked and ripped lips.

  Alastor refrain from thinking how beautiful you look in that moment, agony and trauma shadowing your features, before he walked over to you taking off his pin stripped coat and wrapped it around your shoulders, kneeling he snugly wrapped it around your chest coving up for decency, not because he wanted to be the only one to see what lines just under your blood-soaked clothes.

  That’s when you looked at him, staring deep into Alastor’s eyes. What he saw made his breath catch. Your eyes were filled with a frantic look of desire and terror. The look in your eyes caused him to see himself in the mirror looking back with the same look after he had returned home shaking from his first kill.

“Help me,’’ barely audible you whispered though trembling lips. You looked back down at your hands releasing his eyes from your intoxicating stare.

~~~

  Alastor travels in the shadows through the hotel hallways until he reaches the lobby where you stand by Angel hovering over his phone at the bar, talking about whatever was on the screen. Taking you in he notices your twist on the staff uniform. Swallowing he looks down at your black jeans hugging your bottom snugly, through half-lidded eyes he drags his gaze up your body, trailing along your red semitransparent flowy top, just sheer enough to see a lacy, black, skintight tank top you wore underneath.

 He shifts into the shadows and pops up right behind you, leaning forward to look at the cursed technology over both Angel’s and your shoulder, leaning closer to you he breathes in your scent, his grin softening.

 Like raspberry and vanilla, just like mama’s breakfast, he thought. Before he could get carried away with your smell he reads the text in the search engine, ‘Where to hike in hell?’

 “Are you sure this is the type of place you want to go sweets?” Angel asks wearily, scrolling though the photos.

  Alastor notices your jaw tense and back stiffen. “Yes, I need somewhere I can let off steam with no distractions and I usually retreat around nature dead or not.” Your face scrunches around the word dead, making Alastor wondering why you avoided the topic of death around everyone at the hotel.

  You haven’t opened about your bloody start living at the hotel despite Charlies probing questions. Alastor knew this since he didn’t miss a single group session regardless of if you saw him or not. He had hoped during the times he was not present physically maybe you would open up and let him see the real you under the cracked mask you wore in front of the crew, just like his smile although his was permanent.

  “I may have a solution for you (y/n).” Alastor makes himself know making both Angel and you jump. “We surely can’t allow one of our hotel staff get lost and killed in that wretched part of hell.’’ His grin slowly turning malicious. “You only go there dear, if you want to sell your soul to weak desperate demons.” Alastor leans closer to your face saying, ‘’it’s a kill or be killed type of place,’ he draws out the word ‘kill’ watching for your reaction which pleased him to see a twinkle in your eye just when he wanted you to.

  So, she fancies killing, the hungriness in your eyes told Alastor all he needs to confirm his suspicions making him grin coyly down at you. He watches as your face flushes red making your already adorable face more appealing. You bring your hand up to your throat and rub it around the base of your neck nervously.

  “What’s your solution?” You ask puzzled, but the hopeful prize of being able to smell and roam free in the woods again making your whole-body hum.

  “Come along precious one.” Alastor takes your hand, surprising even himself as he intertwines your hand in his pulling you close, he wraps an arm around your lower back curling his hand around your waist pulling you taunt against his body. Your gasp did not miss his ears when the world around both of you dissolved into blackness before fading away leaving you standing alone deep in the middle of a flush mossy dense wooded area next to a large pond with a dock going out into the open water.

 Alastor lurks watching you from the shadows of the large cypress trees, branches draped with long grey-green droopy moss. He watches you as a large wide grin takes your frowns place, lighting up your eyes as you take in the beauty of the bayou, you look up at the sky he sees your chest hitch up. He follows in your pursuit as he looks up at the night sky, stars scatter every inch, the moon slowly rising slightly hidden behind the treetops.

  It never ceases to amaze me, Alastor thought letting his guard down, his grin becoming a content, thin smile. When he finally tears his gaze off one of the biggest wonders of the world and back to where you stood, you were not there. Instead, you were laying on your back in the middle of a soft moss patch, pressing your face into the ground. You looked enthralled at the scent, making Alastor’s ear twitch forward picking up your long sniffs, intriguing him. Since you didn’t notice his lack of presence lost in your own piece of bliss.

  Shifting into the shadow he fades in at your side, standing over you he says, “You look like you are enjoying yourself.” Startled you whip open your eyes to find Alastor looking down at you softly. “I must say, I am quite envious.” Alastor’s grin stretches reveling his sharp teeth. “Don’t worry dear, I am happy to give you a moment of peace,” cooing when your eyelids close halfway, relaxing further into the ground. Alastor stays silent for the time being waiting for you to speak, enjoying your small smile as you take long deep breaths.

  “Oh, how I missed this. It’s like being wrapped up with nature itself,’ you say breathlessly.  

 Alastor chuckles “My, you say that with such conviction darling.” He charmingly.

“Oh, come lay down,” you say patting the ground, hearing you say that so casually made Alastor’s face grow hot, his static becoming louder. “It’s weird when you stand over me like that” you chuckle lightly, “I want you to enjoy this will me.”

 Alastor didn’t trust himself to speak so he lays down on the moss next to you. Looking up at the sky, sliding his hand over to grasp yours intertwining your fingers together he feels your body shudder.

  “Are you cold (y/n)?” Alastor asks teasingly knowing you only shuddered at his touch, the cool air had nothing to do with it.

You laugh and say “Oh not at all,” shocked he that you would bashfully lie, but instead you surprised him even more when you said, “When I was alive I would spend days out in the wood in just my bra and panties,” he looks over at you, seeing your eyes glaze over at the memories, you continued, “Those days involved me frantically trying to convince myself not to hit the local bar and stalk a random man who showed signs of being abusive towards his partner.” Shake your head clearing your mind from your daze. “I am so-“

  Alastor cuts you off by running a clawed finger back and forth on your wrist reassuring you. “Don’t, your laying next to a serial killing demon, whatever you say will not change my view of you” he chuckles, “Pfft, light stalking is a breeze compared to what I have done.”

“That’s not all that I did” you say slowly, he could see you deciding whether you would continue before you chuckle lowly, “No, I would seduce them, ha, of course they would cheat on their one and only.” You laugh dryly, Alastor seeing you gulp as tears formed in your eyes. You push on, “It would be so easy, so easy to lead them to the back of my truck. All of them were so eager to take my body. I would be so aroused as I kiss them but not from them.” Alastor sucks in a breath, captivated hoping you would say want he wanted to hear next, he started to feel the growing tension in his gut. “I wanted to bathe in their blood Alastor, needed to feel their blood pour over my body as I jammed my hunting knife into their jugular.” You use your hand to demonstrate, clutching your first with force before releasing the tension, making his cock twitch against his pants “Feeling their blood pour over my chest, my body slick with their blood.” You run your hands up your body before gripping your throat closing your eyes at the thought before opening them again looking towards Alastor.

  It took everything in him not to pounce on you right then and there, hearing you reminiscing made his cock throb with aching. He rolls on to his side dragging his claws up your arm, making your legs instinctively rub together, noting that he knew you were aroused by your story.

“Tell me, it that what you did before coming into the hotel?” he lowers his voice thick with lust.

“Yes” you gasp. “I relished in killing demons post dying. I knew I was in Hell, so I fulfilled all my darkest desire for weeks.” You copy Alastor and roll on to your side facing him, edging close enough for your breath to be felt on his lips. “I was overstimulated when walking in the hotel knowing if I continued, I would turn into something I know I am not. I needed help so I came here,” you sigh and close your eyes as Alastor cups your cheek running his thumb across your cheekbone.

 “I for one am thrilled to have another killer in the hotel.” Alastor says making you giggle and open your eyes, your laugh sounds like music to his ears, he started to wonder what other sounds you would make at his behest.

“I haven’t even told you my worse quality yet,’ you say meekly, causing him to slip out of his fantasy.

“I am sure it nothing worse than eating the flesh of the ones you killed, I have that covered dear.” Alastor smirks at you, knowing you couldn’t top it.

  “Well, it’s sort of similar and its only enhance since dying” Alastor furrows his eyebrows before realizing want your trying before you speak. “It’s blood,” your words rushing out, “I love to drink it. Just the smell of it makes my mouth wat-.“ Your voice tailing off as Alastor removes his hand from your cheek he brings his clawed thumb up to his lips purposefully cutting into his flesh. A line of blood bead to the surface.

‘’May I kiss you?” Alastor’s voice dripping with need and anticipation.

  “Y-yes,” you pant desperately, moth slightly open.

Next thing Alastor knows he is pulling you on to his lap making you staddle him, he reaches up and grabs both of your cheeks pulling you down to meet his ripped lip. Once your mouth touched his, he felt your tongue instantly swipe across his lower lip lapping as much blood as you could making his hip rut against your core. You moan at the hard sensation you were feeling though your clothed cunt, with desperation you grind up and down his length making him go crazy from the friction.

Alastor’s hands slowly slide around to the back of your neck pulling you as close as possible tasting his blood in your mouth as he explores with a feverish tongue. The sounds as you get lost in his touch make Alastor want more than has every wanted with another soul.

  He couldn’t stop himself as he suddenly flips you on to your back, straddling your hips without breaking from the kiss. He feels your body tremble as he slides a hand down your body until he reached your clothed cunt slowly cupping your mound fully with his long-clawed fingers. Before both of you could get further lost in the heat of the moment, he hears someone call in the distance towards his room.

“Alastor, we need your help. Nifty got stuff in Husk’s ice machine… Again,” Charlie calls from the edge of the bayou. Alastor pulls back with a groan and settles down on his knees which makes him rest his groin between your legs. He peers down at you and curses Charlie.

Your hair was a tangled mess, your face flustered, chest heaving, with his diluted blood around your open lips. Unable to convince himself not to, he pushes his hips forward against your center, sees your eyes go wide with need and a gasp escape your lips.

“Okay, I’ll meet you downstairs” Alastor calls back to Charlie.

 He leans down and touches his lips softly to your lips, whispering. “You my dear, stay right here till I get back.” He grips your hips and grinds your core against his own letting out a groan before disappearing completely in the shadows.

~~~

Continue reading to Part 2

A/N Oh to be laying under the stars in Alastor's bayou. Hope you enjoyed the story, let me know if you are interested in a smut part 2

#angst #hazbin alastor #hazbin hotel radio demon #alastors bayou #alastor x y/n #alastor x reader #alastor fluff #sensitive alastor

[pilfappreciator]

Did another oopsie and accidentally deleted another ask (*bangs head on table*) BUT HOPEFULLY THE LOVELY ANON WHO SENT IT SEES THIS!!

DADZONE & Child! Reader: John Dory

Includes: GN! Reader, Child! Reader, Adopted! Reader, accidental DILF John Dory, slight angst

TW: mention of spiders and body horror near the end (nothing too graphic but just in case)

🥽 This man doesn't trust himself enough not to fuck up another meaningful relationship ://

🥽 Personally, how I see it, becoming a father is probably the last thing on JD's to-do list. I mean he's definitely got the skills (being the oldest of five and having to raise his brothers means he's picked up a few things), and I like to think that it's something he longs for deep down, but considering how BADLY he fumbled with his brothers the last time they were all in the same room...

🥽 So yeah. In theory would be SO down to start a family of his own, but in practice?? He is EXTREMELY hesitant

🥽 THAT BEING SAID!! Chances are he probably found you as an egg

🥽 He was out one day, hiking out in the forest or exploring coastal coves or rock climbing, when all of a sudden he just… stumbles across an egg. Just sitting there in a patch of moss or nestled into a log

🥽 Ends up taking the egg with him back to Ronda, but not before an actual HOUR of confused staring? Distressed pacing back and forth?? Panicked rambling all the while???

🥽 (the fact that Ronda tried to eat the egg upon his return doesn't help at all)

🥽 John Dory spends the next month or so visiting nearby troll villages and asking anyone who crosses his path "Hey man did you drop this? 😬"

🥽 In the end he decides to take you in himself. Partly because he's gotten tired of all the looks other trolls keep giving him for trying to force an egg into their hands, and also because he… may have grown attached to said egg in the past few weeks. I mean by the end of day 3 he'd already given you a name so you know he's screwed ahsjkakaa

🥽 He tells himself he's taking you in because it's what any good citizen would do (He is a lair. He is 100% doing it for himself)

🥽 The day you hatch is LITERALLY one of the best days of his life? Like he's just making himself some dinner and suddenly he hears crackling coming from his hair?? And then there's babbling???

🥽 This man is going about his day with you nestled in his hair (basically the troll equivalent to carrying a baby on your hip lol). He's choppin trees, foraging for food, and driving his armadillo van all while he's got an actual egg sitting on his head. Absolutely talks to you the whole time, too. He has no idea if you can actually hear him but like.. this man spent the last 20 years all alone in the woods, okay, his ass is lonely :((

🥽 Yknow that thing parents do where they hold up headphones to a woman's womb and play Mozart or whatever to make the baby "smarter" or some shit?? Yeah that's JD. He's doing the same thing to his egg

🥽 no Mozart tho ONLY BROZONE 😤😤 HIS BABY HAS GOTTA HAVE GOOD TASTE AND NOTHING LESS

🥽 If he's really feeling himself then he'll sing the songs himself. And then proceed to give unprompted lore behind the lyrics and the songs "true meaning" (songs include Brozone classics such as Baby Boy Got My Heart In A Headlock Boy and Baby Baby Love You Like A Pizza But Hate You Like There's Pineapple On It Babe)

🥽 "holy crap YOU'RE SO SMALL—"

🥽 UGLY CRYING HOLDING YOU IN THE CROOK OF HIS ARM CARESSING YOUR SOFT LITTLE FACE WITH HIS FINGER

🥽 Will die if you reach for him with your tiny baby hands or just smile up at him

🥽 He's still gonna carry you around in his hair while he goes about his day and stuff ngl. Like for him, it's a signature of your guys' bond and you bet your ass he's gonna be milking it for as long as he can (definitely dreads the day you become too big/old for it)

🥽 Most definitely tries to teach you survival skills as soon as possible. He's teaching you how to fish, he's demonstrating how to start a fire with the bare essentials, he's letting you DRIVE RONDA—

🥽 "It's an important skill to have, champ, trust me!"

"...but I'm only five."

"Never too early for a learner's permit!"

🥽 Defnitely tries to reel in that controlling/perfectionist mindset of his, at least for your sake. The last thing he wants is a repeat of what went down with his brothers. As a result he's probably more lenient when you get into trouble or do something wrong

🥽 Fr tho like... you'll accidentally(?) cause an explosion and his ass will be standing, hands on his hips like "I'm not mad, just disappointed 🤨"

🥽 You thought you were getting spoon fed Brozone content as an egg?? Well congrats on being born cuz now you're getting served Brozone content for BREAKFAST 👏 DINNER 👏 AND 👏 LUNCH

🥽 JDs most definitely the type of guy to break into song whenever he's doing the most mundane of tasks (laundry, cooking, cleaning, etc), and yes he fully expects you to join in and know all the lyrics helloooo?? You've basically been raised on Brozone songs at this point like cmon, don't leave him hanging!

🥽 FR THO!! If you grow up to be a Brozone stan, he's never gonna be more proud of himself <33

🥽 This man definitely has a physical collection of every song/album/cover his band has ever done (I'm mean this is the same guy who kept his brothers underwear in a frame for 20 years so ://). He treats every CD, record, cassette tape, etc. like the priceless artifacts they are and YES, HES GONNA PASS THEM ONTO YOU LIKE THEYR FAMILIY HEIRLOOMS DID YOU EXPECT ANY LESS

🥽 If you grow up to lean more towards a different genre of music or Brozone just doesn't end up being your cup of tea... JDs gonna be a lil devastating ngl

🥽 Pls assure him that he has not failed as a father

🥽 Jokes aside tho! I feel like despite his wounded ego, JD will at least TRY to see your point of view. I mean he's definitely gonna be a bit of a grandpa about it—

*while the two of you are listening to your favorite song*

"I mean, I GUESS it's okay... not nearly as lyrically genius as Brozone's hit single: Baby Girl Ur Sweet Like A Milkshake Girl But I'm Lactose Intolerant Baby 🙄"

"Dad. Please shut up."

—but rest assured that he WILL support you and your music taste <33

🥽 You want merch of your favorite band/artist? No worries he's (stealing it right off the shelf) got money to pay for it! Is there a new album about to drop? He's (breaking into a store in the middle of night like a rabid racoon) patiently waiting in line just to buy it for you! You wanna go to a concert? He's using Ronda to (break speed limits, run people over, disobey every known traffic rule) get good parking at the venue!!

🥽 SPEAKING OF CONCERTS!! I feel like he'd be able to offer solid advice on the do's and don'ts of attending a concert. Like... my guy was in a popular band back in the day and he knows first hand how outta hand concerts can get. He has SEEN some shit ajskskaka

🥽 JD definitely has a photo album full of pictures from back in the day. Some of them are snapshots of him and the rest of Brozone, but a majority of the pictures are just of him and his family— away from the stage and cameras. Just him and his brothers and grandma Rosiepuff too...

🥽 He remembers the exact moment every picture was taken, and he'll tell you every bit of context. Birthday, pranks gone wrong, holidays, first day of school— there's a snapshot for just about every milestone. All you have to do is ask and JD is more than happy to relay every childhood anecdote he can remember

🥽 It gets to the point where you eventually know just about everything about your uncles... WHO YOU HAVE NEVER EVEN MET YET AKSKSKAKAK

🥽 It's definitely something that freaks them out once you finally DO meet them

🥽 Like you'll have a conversation with Clay and they'll be like "yeah I'm not a big fan of spiders haha" and you just go "Oh that makes sense considering you used to have vivid nightmares about them crawling under your skin and tickling you to death" and Clay's just like "how the fuck did you know that????"

🥽 "Dude stop telling your kid everything about us"

"I haven't seen you guys in 20 years! I just wanted them to feel close to their uncles ;(("

"THEY DONT NEED TO KNOW ABOUT HOW I USED TO PICK MY NOSE WHEN I WAS SEVEN"

🥽 John Dory, Older Brother Who Overshares About His Younger Siblings my beloved <33

Ermmm yeahhhh this was originally gonna be one big post including ALL the brothers... but then I started writing for JD and got carries away... so yeah this ask is gonna have to be a multi-parter AJSJSJAKKA SORRY ANON I COULDN'T HELP MYSELF 🤥

NEXT PARTS ARE IN THE WORKS!!

Bruce | Clay | Floyd | Branch

#I am also an older sibling who overshares about my younger siblings! #im very embarrassing to be around i can assure you <33 #out of all the Brozone members John Dory is the most likely to adopt a random child off the side of the road #AND I WILL STAND BY THAT TILL THE GRAVE #hes giving me “finds a puppy/kitten in a cardboard box in an alley and immediately takes it home” energy #the mans already got an armadillo bus thing. why not a kid too? #WAHH WAIT WAIT #Reader finds JD in a cardboard box and ADOPTS HIM AS THEIR FATHER FIGURE??? #AJSJAKAKAKA #*pockets idea for later use* #trolls #trolls band together #brozone #trolls john dory #bruce trolls #trolls clay #trolls x reader #x reader #brozone x reader #ask

[xxsp3llb0undxx]

The Cove

Seth Clearwater x GN Siren!Reader {1.6k+}

Requested - @siriusblacksgf

Summary: Seth defies his Alpha's orders and decides to take a trip to the side of the forest he has never visited, only to be met with a place he never knew existed.

WARNINGS: TWILIGHT AU // MYTHICAL CREATURES // NOT PROOF READ.

Deep, down inside Forks Washington was a forest few had ever seen, there lived two clans apart of the supernatural world. The shifters and Vampires had lived opposite each other for quite sometime now, only a river stream separating them. They knew the other existed but what they didn't know, was somewhere deeper and darker into the forest was a cove, it was magical yet some would also describe it as melancholic, like the air was poisoned with the utmost poignancy. Within that cove, was icy water that looked like it went down into the deepest, darkest abyss. One fateful soul was crazy enough to be enticed by the lack of knowledge he had of this part of Forks, so on a fateful Tuesday night, Seth had strayed away from his pack; Sam howled out to the young wolf hoping he would respond and make his way back to the rest of the shifters but his call was never answered.

Seth Clearwater, the youngest of Harry Clearwater's two children, had come up with the bright idea of walking along the treaty line to the edge of the forest, he was always warned by Paul and Sam to never ever cross pass this specific area - there's something out there that hunts our kind - was something Sam kept telling the young boy, trying to get it into his head but of course - Seth needed to see for himself. Every step he took, dead branches from the once lively trees had crunched under his shoes The young boy was scared, of course he was but he kept reminding himself that he was one of few that possessed the gift of shapeshifting into a big ass wolf. The further he ventured, the more the temperature started to drop but that wasn't the issue, the fog had appeared out of nowhere; a thick layer had covered the ground beneath his feet, absorbing everything in its wake - including Seth's legs.

The rustling of leaves and broken twigs crunching had stirred the creature awake, they had been laying on a ledge beside the water. Their fin now swishing from side to side in the pool below, the mist rising above now sitting just atop the water, batting droplets around the small cove. The creature had pushed themself back into the inlet, their body now covered by the murky air around. The trees whispered all around, gossiping to their fellows about the unwanted guest in their midst. The creature was on high alert, they knew of the other supernatural beings that resided within the gloomy town; they had even befriend some of those that lived within her area of the forest - they were mostly just imps that had inhabited the trees high above and one of the last Kelpie's that were still around, they protected Forks forest and the people who lived peacefully in the small rainy state.

The smell of oak wood and wet logs had filled the air around the cove, he was near. Out of instinct, the fish like creature had honed in on their powers and started singing - it was hauntingly beautiful. Seth had heard the quiet melody not too far from his spot near a creek. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end, the wolf within him on high alert but all his wolfy instincts went out the window when the singing started to get louder - his whole body feeling like it was no longer in his control, his feet having a mind of their own as they took slow steps towards a cave like system in the distance. Seth had followed the creek all the way to the secluded cove, the atmosphere growing more eerie with every step he took. As the singing grew louder, the sky had darkened - trees thrashed around with the heavy winds, a storm was incoming but that wasn't what was unusual, the wailing in the distance was the issue; the sound itself was distorted; like something out of an old horror movie. The wailing had come to a stop when Seth had come face to face with a black horse like creature stood outside the opening of the cove, it's mane was soaked with water; small pieces of moss and tree bark were littered across it's body in a form of camouflage, it was nothing Seth had ever seen.

The black horse had let out a low whine, a signal to whoever was near to let them know the trespasser was found. Ripples in the creek below had formed, something was in the water and Seth was sure he was about to meet his end. Everything in the forest had stilled, the once full of life woods had died down and become silent - enough to hear a pin drop. The young shapeshifter still had his eyes trained on the horse in front of him, it's eyes narrowed at the young boy's figure - a snarl evident on it's face. Before either supernatural could do anything, a body had surfaced from under the murky water. A black fin with yellow and purple flecks had swept under the poor boys feet causing him to fall to the ground. Seth was now eye level with the water creature, they were ethereal to say the least. Their hair was long and wet, skin pale with a blue tint but what caught Seth's eye was their hands - the creature had webbed finger with long pointy nails as black as onyx. "Holy shit.. it's a mermaid. Oh my god it's a freaking mermaid." The young wolf stared at the water person in awe, his eyes blown with wonderment. The creature hissed at him, small razor like teeth gleaming under the moonlight. "I. Am. Not. A. Mermaid." Their voice was velvety, almost intoxicating.

Seth had flinched at the creatures words, he never meant to insult them, he was merely just curious as to how these beings lived in the same forest as him. Seth had squeaked out a tiny "sorry", fearful if he spoke any louder he would offend them even more. The creature glided through the water, closing the distance between the pair. Their long pale arms now crossed and lay upon the edge of the creek, their chin laying gently on the supple flesh. "I'm sorry... I just hate how everyone sees me as a mermaid and not what I really am. I'm Y/n and I'm a siren." Y/n's voice was more cautious now, scared they would make the boy run off. "Why are you here? This is not a place for those outside of the supernatural realm to be, you should go home it's not safe." Seth cocked his head to the side, completely forgetting he wasn't in his wolf form. The boy stood up and took a few deep breaths, focusing on the beating of his heart and then he just shifted. A sandy coloured wolf now stood on all fours in front of the siren, it was now their turn to stare in awe - their eyes wide as a smile grew on their face. "You're a shapeshifter... of course you are, I've seen many just like you." The siren lifted their hand in an attempt to touch the soft fur of the wolf but the shifter had backed away every so slightly.

The siren didn't mind the young wolf's hesitation, they understood how terrifying it was for them to meet another supernatural for the first time. But the black horse, who Seth found out was a Kelpie and was named Oslo, had other feelings about the boy. He didn't particularly like him, not because he was a shifter - no, it was because he had caught the siren's attention. Oslo hated not having Y/n's attention all to himself, he loathed anyone that even looked the siren's way. So, the wise Kelpie had gotten up close to Seth; their snouts barely touching, and then Oslo had attacked him; it had all happened in seconds. The siren had screamed in horror, tears brimming the edges of their eyes as they stared at her new found mystical friend and her protector trying to sink their teeth into one another. The siren had shouted for Oslo to stop but he had ignored all of their protests, and instead decided to use the trick up his sleeve. Now, you may be think - what could Oslo do that would surprise Seth? Well, Kelpie's are known to be water creatures who can shapeshift into any form they desire but they also possess the ability to manipulate water.

So, Oslo being extremely cunning, he had shifted into a water spirit. Y/n knew that trying to manipulate the elements would ultimately turn into something very, very bad. The siren had devised a plan to help Seth to the best of their abilities, so they screamed as loud as they could. Siren's are known to have powerful voices, they could seduce anyone they wanted but what no one knew was Siren's could harm Kelpie's by just using their voice. The scream that erupted out of the siren had caused Oslo to shift back into his natural form, his body now crumpled to the ground withering in pain. "You do not hurt him, we are the protectors of everything supernatural. Your jealousy does not give you the right to hurt one of our own." Malice had dripped from every word spoken, it sent a shiver down Seth's spine without a warning. The siren turned to the shifter, an apologetic smile on their face "I'm sorry on his behalf." They said, pointing to the Kelpie still curled up on the floor "It's best if you go home, your pack must be worried about you." Seth could only nod his head - he didn't want to go just yet, there was still so much to see and learn about this part of the forest but most importantly, he wanted to know Y/n better.

If only the young wolf could actually verbalise his thoughts.

#twilight #twilight saga #twilight fanfiction #twilight x reader #edward cullen #jasper hale #alice cullen #esme cullen #carlisle cullen #emmett cullen #rosalie hale #quileute #uley pack #sam uley #jared cameron #jacob black #seth clearwater #leah clearwater #paul lahote #embry call #quil ateara

[monstersandmaw]

Laces for a Lady - 18th century, poly, shifters x human romance - Chapter Six (sfw)

Disclaimer which I’m including in all my works after plagiarism and theft has taken place: I do not give my consent for my works to be used, copied, published, or posted anywhere. They are copyrighted and belong to me. 

Thanks for answering the poll about length of chapters - much appreciated!

Really hope you enjoy this one. It's a bit of a quieter tone, but things get a touch more 'intimate' next time... It's my favourite scene so far anyway. *shrug*. I've fettled with this chapter so much now that I can't see the wood for the trees, so here it is anyway.

Content: a chance encounter with Edmund leads to some clarification, and an invitation is delivered to Heath Top House that sends a chill of dread through Winnie but opens up an opportunity for Nel... Wordcount: 2995

Catch up here: Part One (sfw), Part Two (sfw), Part Three (sfw), Part Four (sfw), Part Five (sfw)

By the time she reached the front door of the manor house, Nel could hardly see for the tears that made her vision swim and shift, but she made it upstairs to her room before bursting into a shuddering flood of emotion that threatened to drown her completely.

She ached more than ever for the easy, familiar companionship of her best friend, but she missed something else besides Will’s steady presence; something that had been teased before her that very night, but which she would probably never know in earnest: the true affection of a lover’s touch.

Plus, she’d made a complete fool of herself in nearly kissing Locryn Trevethan like that — Lammas Dance liberties be damned — and guilt and shame at what Edmund Nancarrow must think of her now flooded through her like one of the breakers which had nearly drowned her on the beach. With a shuddering huff of despair, she sank onto her bed and wept bleakly until her head ached and her throat was raw.

Outside her window, the music and dancing continued late into the night, and the laughter got more raucous and rowdy as the night wore on. She hoped Locryn and Ned were among those laughing, and Winnie too. Perhaps Locryn would dance with the young woman with whom she’d seen Edmund talking and laughing earlier. She had had the same large, brown eyes and pale skin as Edmund, and Nel wondered if she too was one of the numerous Nancarrows whom Aggie had mentioned living in the area; perhaps a cousin or a younger sister.

At some point hours later, when the music had faded and folks seemed to have drifted home in dribs and drabs, her bedroom door opened and she heard Winnie’s soft voice whisper her name. She feigned sleep from the depths of her chilly bed, her dress abandoned on the floorboards nearby, and the sliver of light on the ceiling retreated, plunging the room into midnight shadow once again.

That night she dreamed once more of thundering surf and dark kelp, and of the silvery flash of something swimming between the seaweed that wasn’t the eel’s tail she’d seen in her dreams before. She got the odd impression that she was being searched for as she lurked down among the shadows at the bottom of a deep, submerged cove, and in the dream she tried to conceal herself further in the fronds of kelp that brushed against her sides like a lover’s hands.

For three days after the dance, Nel could barely muster the energy to leave her bed, let alone go out of the house.

She pretended to have caught a chill, sitting in the library by a small and rather unnecessary fire that Davis had insisted on lighting for her, and reading the novels that Winnie regularly sent for from a bookseller in Bath.

Eventually though, she got past her dark mood, and took Blackthorn out again on more wild gallops along the coastal path, sometimes almost as far to the west from Polgarrack as Lantic Bay.

“Will you come into town with me?” Winnie asked one morning as they sat finishing a late breakfast beside the fire.

Nel shot a glance at the raindrops tracking down the windows, and pulled a face. “Today?”

“Yes,” Winnie sighed. “I want to post a letter to James’ sister in London, and I’ve already put it off for two days.”

“Can’t you ask Liddy to post it for you when she goes in anyway this afternoon?”

“I suppose I could,” Winnie said. “But I had hoped to catch the second post. We’ll take the carriage, obviously.”

Poor driver and horses, Nel thought, but said nothing.

After picking at the remainder of her eggs, she went to change into her usual, sturdy redingote, and by the time Nel was done, Winnie was already waiting for her, and the small carriage was just drawing up outside with the driver huddled under a wide-brimmed hat and an enormous, oiled cloak. He looked more like a pilchard fisherman than a coachman.

They posted Winnie’s letter and decided to sit at a table in The Lantern with a warming drink to drive the chill from their fingers and toes. “Before we go back, and now that the rain has eased off a little, I want to look for some more ribbon,” Winnie said as she finished her small cup of spiced wine. “Do you mind?”

Nel shook her head. For all that she was confident in calling herself Winnie’s friend by that point, she was also still a paid companion, and she wasn’t paid to object to Winnie’s whims, so the two of them settled the bill for their drinks and scuttled out into the rain. It had backed off to a miserable, sheeting drizzle, but the narrow lanes of Polgarrack’s twisting streets sheltered them from the worst of it. They still bustled headlong into the shop in their eagerness to get out of the weather though, and almost ploughed straight into Edmund Nancarrow on his way out.

He barely stepped back in time as Winnie flew in out of the rain, and Nel made it across the threshold with hardly any more grace, but they both drew up short when they realised that they’d almost knocked the man flat. “Oh, I apologise!” Winnie gasped, clapping her hand to her chest. “Please, I’m so sorry.”

“No harm done, m’lady,” he said and then let his gaze slide to Nel. “Miss Bywater.”

“I apologise too. We should have been looking where we were going,” she mumbled. After making such a fool of herself in front of Edmund’s lover, she found she couldn’t meet his gaze, and to her shame, she allowed herself to slink away around the ribbon display without another word.

From the corner of her eye though, she could see the way he lingered in the doorway with his own parcel tucked under one arm. He must have been on an errand for Mr. Fordyce at that time of day, and seemed to be considering whether to confront her about her behaviour with Locryn. She tried to will him away with her thoughts, but she wasn’t hopeful. While Winnie was distracted in a discussion with Mrs. Gwinnel about the best width of a ribbon for a bonnet these days, Edmund made his decision.

He eased himself back around, limping more markedly in the damp weather as he approached, and he looked at her with his head slightly cocked to one side. “Miss Bywater, might I speak with you for a moment?” he enquired in a hushed voice that scarcely carried across the scant distance between them, let alone to the other occupants of the shop.

With a tight, private sigh for herself, she nodded and turned to look at him at last.

He didn’t seem angry or hurt, which she took as a good sign.

Edmund swallowed thickly and offered her a twitchy smile. “Locryn was worried he’d upset you…” he began without preamble. “At the dance.”

“Locryn was worried?” she said, a fraction louder than she’d intended and she immediately lowered her voice to a terse hiss. “I thought… I thought perhaps I might have — ” she bit her lip and blinked rapidly. “I didn’t want to make any trouble for you,” she whispered. “I just wanted — I just wanted to dance with someone for a bit, that’s all. And then when he was kind enough to offer, I… Look, I didn’t mean anything… afterwards…” She had though. She had very much wanted him to kiss her. Frankly, she wanted either of them to kiss her, and she hated herself for the selfishness of it. Let them be happy with each other, she growled at herself.

However, comprehension and a small degree of relief too washed across Edmund’s expression, and the tension melted from him with a little, low laugh.

He shook his head, his mousy hair falling into his dark brown eyes. “Miss Bywater, the last thing that either of us thought of you was that you wanted to make trouble between us. I should thank you though for your… uh… for your discretion regarding our… relationship in front of the Penrose family,” he added. “Not everyone would be as understanding as you after all.”

She shrugged. “My best friend is not so different from you,” she said carefully. “Your situation is not… unknown to me.”

His smile grew from shy to almost awestruck for a moment, and then he glanced over his shoulder out at the rain, and ducked his head in a farewell bob. “Well, that’s all I wanted to tell you,” he said. “That Locryn was worried he’d caused offence and had asked me to apologise if I saw you.” Given that Locryn Trevethan was a bit of a loner and hardly interacted with the folk of the village, it seemed natural that he would have asked Edmund to mass the message along on the off-chance of a meeting.

“Not at all. If anything, I’m the one who should be apologising to him. I shouldn’t have left like that. Will you tell him? Next time you see him.”

Edmund nodded.

Nel heard the soft clunk of heels on the wooden floor behind her, and turned to find Winnie looking from one to the other of them. A fierce blush swept up Edmund’s pale skin from his collarbones to his ears, and he bowed stiffly from the waist, fiddling with his dark, tricorn hat in his hands. “A good day to you both,” he blurted, and bolted out of the door into the soft rain, where he jammed the hat on his head and disappeared out of sight around a corner.

Winnie raised her eyebrows at Nel, and said, “I seem to remember you talking to him at the Lammas Dance, no?”

“I’m surprised you remember anything, given how much cider you’d had,” she quipped reflexively, her sharp tone uttered mostly in defence. Mercifully, Winnie took it with a laugh before Nel could regret the barbed comment towards the person who was her employer, no matter how similar their sense of humour.

“Not enough to have forgotten the tailor’s handsome, soft-spoken assistant,” Winnie said dryly. “Shall we go back, or do you have any business in the village?”

It did not escape Nel’s notice that after that encounter, Winnie took almost every opportunity she had to take Nel into Polgarrack with her.

Most of the time, they never saw Edmund Nancarrow up close, and on only one occasion did she see Locryn Trevethan. He was mooring his little fishing boat at the far end of the harbour wall, and Nel ducked away into the apothecary’s before he could look up. If Winnie was being insufferably insistent about Nel ‘conveniently’ running into Edmund again, she certainly didn’t need Winnie noticing something strange with the village’s semi-wildman, Locryn, as well.

One morning over breakfast, Lord Penrose waved a heavy-looking piece of card stock around like it was a little flag, and chortled merrily into his boiled egg. “Winnifred, my dear, we have been invited to the Merrywells’ Christmas ball in Plymouth.” Beside him, his wife beamed at her, but Winnifred looked suddenly a little ill.

“Nel, you’ll come with me, won’t you?” she said immediately, staring wide-eyed at her companion and reaching for her forearm with a thin, birdlike hand. Nel had never seen such open panic in her eyes, even during the lightning storm earlier that summer.

“Certainly, if it wouldn’t be considered presumptuous for me to attend as well…?”

“Of course it wouldn’t!” Winnifred’s father-in-law scoffed, oblivious to — or uncaring of — Winnie’s visible discomfort at the whole idea. “You both must go. Winnifred must have someone her own age attending with her, and the high society of all Wessex will be there! One or two officers of the Navy too, I’d wager,” he added with an over-the-top wink in Nel’s direction.

Nel caught Winnie’s eye again and they came to a silent understanding, even as Nel ignored Lord Penrose’s so casually adding five years to her own age. Winnie was legally secure in her fortunes, and had absolutely no intention of remarrying, but her parents-in-law were clearly only too happy to try and set her up again. Nel would keep her company all evening if necessary. Hell, she’d bark like a guard dog if Winnie asked it of her.

Almost imperceptibly, Nel nodded her head, and Winnie relaxed with a sigh.

“Of course, you’ll both need new dresses,” Mary Penrose cooed. “But we shall have to arrange for Mr. Fordyce to come to the house, since Mrs. Dewell relocated to London.” She added that last as if it were a personal slight to her that their former mantua maker had married and moved to the capital where, no doubt, she could charge better prices.

There were certainly no female mantua makers in the tiny village of Polgarrack, and it was a cost that Lord Penrose was apparently not prepared to pay this time to send for one from Plymouth or Truro, even for the Merrywell’s Christmas Ball. Since it was also too much of a strain on Winnifred to travel herself simply for a fitting, Mr. Fordyce’s skills would have to suffice this time, as they had for the last dress he’d made for Winnie’s birthday in August.

Nel wondered fleetingly if Mr. Fordyce’s presence would mean that Edmund would come too when the master tailor came to discuss colours and details, but she deliberately didn’t spend too long on the thought. The very idea of Edmund’s graceful, pale hands that near her body threatened to recall all those dreams of exposed throats and soft, gasping moans which had long since faded since the nights after his rescue from the waves. She still dreamed of the sea almost every night though, but in a more abstract way.

Two weeks later, as October announced itself in a series of squalling storms, Mr. Fordyce was shown into the drawing room where Winnie and Nel were taking tea while they waited for the tailor to arrive. As Nel looked up, she heard the soft clunk of a cane tip on the wooden floorboards of the hallway outside, and her eyes rose to meet Edmund’s as he entered the room behind his master. Her heart gave a small flutter when she saw him. The shoulders of his simple but perfectly-fitted, dark coat were dusted with water from the short distance between carriage and front door and he had his dark hat tucked under his right arm.

He smiled briefly and bowed in greeting to the two ladies as they rose, and while Winnie spoke with Mr. Fordyce first, Nel found herself moving tactfully away towards the bay window. Winnie hardly needed her opinion on dresses — in fact it was the other way around — so Nel simply waited out of the way.

Outside, rain still hurled itself at the windows in a series of splattering gusts, and the distant sea was a cold, iron grey, and frothed with great white caps. She stared at it until she heard footsteps approaching from behind with the off-beat addition of a cane, and Mr. Nancarrow halted at a polite distance and followed her gaze out to sea.

“The weather is brutal today,” Nel murmured, her breath fogging against the windowpane while runnels of water tracked their way down the glass outside. “It’s a wonder you and Mr. Fordyce ventured out in such conditions.”

Edmund smiled softly when she glanced sidelong at him, and she tried not to notice the way his smooth, clean-shaven cheek dimpled slightly. He had freckles, she realised for the first time. They were very faint — barely a whisper of gold on his pale skin — but they were there all the same, and now that she’d seen them she couldn’t stop noticing them, so she tore her eyes away and looked out at the blurred grounds as the rain continued to race in off the sea.

“Is…” She paused and phrased her question carefully in the hopes he would understand her true meaning, “Is anyone out at sea today, do you think?”

Immediately, his smile lost a bit of its lustre and he sighed and nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Though in truth, to those who have spent more time at sea than on land, she holds little danger.”

“How can you say that?” she asked as she turned sharply to face him, her eyes darting to the pink, new scar just visible on his forehead where his hairline began. “You yourself were nearly drowned not so long ago.”

“True,” he conceded, adjusting his grip on the cane and his weight onto his left leg a little more, with the flicker of a grimace just touching his eyes.

He was clearly in some degree of pain, and trying to keep it to himself. She wondered if the cold and damp made it worse, and hoped that the warmth of the room would ease it a little while he was there. She also wondered how he had come to be hurt in the first place, but wouldn’t presume to ask.

“But… I’m a creature as much of the land as I am the sea,” he went on in his delicately-articulated way. “There are those, like Locryn,” he said with gentle emphasis on his lover’s name, “Who are quite as happy at sea in this weather as they are on a sultry summer day.”

“I find that incredible,” she breathed. “But then again, I grew up in the countryside a good day’s ride from the coast.”

“This must seem a wild and savage place indeed to you then,” he said gently, and not without a little sadness as he gazed at her.

He was not much taller than her, but she still had to raise her chin a little to meet his eyes.

She shrugged. “It’s not without its beauty too, Mr. Nancarrow.”

__

Next time, Nel gets measured for her new dress...

Next chapter ->

I hope you’re still enjoying it, and I hope you’ll consider reblogging as well as leaving a like if you enjoyed it. Take care of yourselves, and I hope you have a lovely day/night wherever you are, and whenever you read this.

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#laces for a lady #18th century romance #18th century #poly shifter romance #shifter romance #polyamory #historical fantasy #selkie x human #selkie #selkie x bucca x human #bucca #cornish folklore #exophilia #monster boyfriends

[thatbiologist]

G’eth Character Name Bank

First Names

Masculine Names

Alfred, Andrew, Arlo, Arthur, Balthazar, Barry, Ben, Benedick, Bernard, Burchard, Cedric, Charibert, Crispin, Cyrill, Daegal, Derek, Digory, Drustan, Duncan, Edmund, Edwin, Elric, Evaine, Frederick, Geffery, George, Godfreed, Gregory, Guy, Harris, Harry, Horsa, Hugh, Humphrey, Iago, Jack, Jeremy, John, Kazamir, Kenric, Lawrence, Leoric, Lorik, Luke, Lynton, Lysander, Madoc, Magnus, Maukolum, Micheal, Miles, Milhouse, Mordred, Mosseus, Ori, Orvyn, Neville, Norbert, Nycolas, Paul, Percival, Randulf, Richard, Robert, Roderick, Stephen, Tennys, Theodoric, Thomas, Tristan, Tybalt, Victor, Vincent, Vortimer, Willcock, Willian, Wymond

Feminine Names

Adelin, Alice, Amelia, Beatrix, Beryl, Bogdana, Branwyne, Brigida, Catalina, Catherine, Claudia, Crystina, Deanna, Desdemona, Elaine, Elinora, Eliza, Enide, Eva, Ferelith, Fiora, Freya, Gertrude, Gregoria, Gueanor, Gwen, Gwendolyn, Hannah, Hegelina, Helen, Helga, Heloise, Henrietta, Igraine, Imogen, Jacquelyn, Jane, Jean, Jenny, Jill, Juliana, Juliet, Katie, Leela, Lettice, Lilibet, Lilith, Lucy, Luthera, Luz, Lyra, Malyna, Margherita, Marion, Meryl, Millie, Miranda, Molle, Morgana, Morgause, Nezetta, Nina, Novella, Olwen, Oriana, Oriolda, Osanna, Pamela, Petra, Philippa, Revna, Rohez, Rosalind, Rose, Sallie, Sarra, Serphina, Sif, Simona, Sophie, Thomasine, Tiffany, Ursula, Viola, Winifred, Yrsa, Ysabella, Yvaine, Zelda, Zillah

Gender-Neutral/Unisex Names

Adrian, Alex, Aiden, Arden, Ariel, Auden, Avery, Bailey, Blaire, Blake, Brett, Breslin, Caelan, Cadain, Cameron, Charlie, Dagon, Dana, Darby, Darra, Devon, Drew, Dylan, Evan, Felize, Fenix, Fernley, Finley, Glenn, Gavyn, Haskell, Hayden, Hunter, Jace, Jaime, Jesse, Jo, Kai, Kane, Karter, Kieran, Kylin, Landon, Leslie, Mallory, Marin, Meritt, Morgan, Nell, Noel, Oakley, Otzar, Paris, Peregrine, Quant, Quyn, Reagan, Remy, Robin, Rowan, Ryan, Sam, Samar, Sasha, Sloan, Stace, Tatum, Teegan, Terrin, Urbain, Vahn, Valo, Vick, Wallace, Waverly, Whitney, Yardley, Yarden, Zasha

Surnames

Surnames, Patrilineal - First Name (Patrilineal Surname)

Ace, Allaire, Appel, Arrow, Baker, Bamford, Barnard, Beckett, Berryann, Blakewood, Blanning, Bigge, Binns, Bisby, Brewer, Brickenden, Brooker, Browne, Buller, Carey, Carpenter, Carter, Cheeseman, Clarke, Cooper, Ead, Elwood, Emory, Farmer, Fish, Fisher, Fitzroy, Fletcher, Foreman, Foster, Fuller, Galahad, Gerard, Graves, Grover, Harlow, Hawkins, Hayward, Hill, Holley, Holt, Hunter, Jester, Kerr, Kirk, Leigh, MacGuffin, Maddock, Mason, Maynard, Mercer, Miller, Nash, Paige, Payne, Pernelle, Raleigh, Ryder, Scroggs, Seller, Shepard, Shore, Slater, Smith, Tanner, Taylor, Thatcher, Thorn, Tilly, Turner, Underwood, Vaughan, Walter, Webb, Wilde, Wood, Wren, Wyatt, Wynne

Surnames, Townships in G’eth - First Name of (Location)

Abelforth, Argent Keep, Barrow Springs, Barrowmere, Bedford, Brunhelm, Bumble, Casterfalls, Dunbridge, Falmore Forest, Folk’s Bounty, Frostmaid, Fulstad, Heller’s Crossing, Hertfordshire, Humberdale, Inkwater, Little Avery, Marrowton, Mistfall, Mistmire, Morcow, Necropolis-on-Sea, Otherway, Parsendale, Piddlehinton, Port Fairwind, Redcastle, Ransom, Rutherglen, Saint Crois, Tanner’s Folly, Tavern’s Point, Wilmington

Surnames, Geographical Locations in G’eth - First Name of the (Location)

Cove of Calamity, Deep Woods of Falmore, Eastern Isles, Eastern Mountains, Foothills, Frozen Peak, Lakes, Maegor Cobblestones, Northern Mountains, Southern Isle, Tangle, West Coast, Wild Wild Woods, Woods of Angarad

Surnames, Nickname - First Name the (Something) 

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#oxventure #DnD 5e #character creation #name bank #5e

[ashrillvenheim]

Awakening Past IS BACK!!

Chapter 16

Hope you like the come back chapter :3

pairing: Ashley Graham x Leon S Kennedy.

Content: (+18) romance, angst, gore, erotic/suggestive themes at some point, slow burn, violence, action, self-harm, death talk,

If you're a MINOR DON'T keep reading, thank you.

Archive of our own / WORK LIST / Awakening Past Masterlist

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The propellers whistled loudly. The vibration of the immense machine rumbled through the bodies within.

None spoke, none moved.

The night was deep and darkness seemed to creep over the bodies of those present.

Amber eyes gazed into the woods that passed at their feet. Dense and hidden. The mountains left nothing but the treetops visible and although most of those in that helicopter suspected nothing, she knew of the threats lurking in the undergrowth.

She brought her hand to her right shoulder, feeling a gentle tingle run across her scar and let out a long heavy sigh.

The buzzing was a vague sound in her memories, but over time the images became somewhat clearer, though not entirely.

What she did remember was the immense darkness she saw that day.

Her eyes were lost in the distance and her memories went back in time to that moment.

The day they left that place and she almost didn't make it.

She tightened her fingers on the end of the scar.

A man's prayers echoed in her ears even though no one was speaking, pleading with her not to fall asleep, not to close her eyes.

The first promises they made as she felt her body grow colder and colder.

A shock ran down her back making her stand subtly against the intrusive memories.

They happened so long ago... and she still felt so... lucid....

" Hey."

Her eyes widened at the sudden voice and she turned to the owner of it. Sapphire eyes met hers, looking deeply at her. It took her a few seconds to respond.

"Is something wrong?"  She said into the mike on her hooves.

Leon adjusted his.

"I could ask you the same thing."  His voice sounded serene, but he sensed a tinge of concern.

Ashley glanced fleetingly at the rest of the team for their reaction.

" Relax, it's just our line."

They both looked at each other and she took another few moments more before diverting her eyes back to the forest.

"I was... remembering the day they found us in that cove."  she looked down at her hands slowly.  "At how cold I felt and how little I got to hear you."

Leon lost himself in her words, seeing her in his arms again, pale and dying.

And that sweet smile she gave him when she told him she was glad to have met him.

When he held her unconscious not knowing if her heart had stopped or not.

He clasped his hands together. Not even in Raccoon City did he feel that terror. The fear of losing her, of her dying in his own arms.

The terror of having failed again.

" I understand."  He whispered into the mike to look at her again. "Are you okay?"

A faint smile tugged at her lips.

"Yes. They let me know why I'm here, even if they're scary. I was scared."

"Me too."

Those two words made her turn to him, pinning her eyes on his figure, now sitting with her elbows resting on her knees.

Those words he only said when he was with her. Her emotions were not something that surfaced in any other context. And this time she wanted to support him as he did her.

" This time it's different."  those blue eyes turned to her. " We are different. We are more prepared and have more knowledge."  She raised her wrist to show him her bracelet with the aquamarine stone. " We are together."

Leon smiled and raised his hand to show hers of metal and scarlet stone.

"We are a team."  He told her decisively.

"Hold on tight, we're going to start the descent."

The propellers whistled loudly and they approached a tiny clearing among the trees where they could make out, in the darkness, some tents and some figures with lanterns. 

High up in the mountains the first rays of dawn began to emerge.

They quickly descended with all their equipment and the helicopter left the same way. Leon and Ashley closed their eyes to protect themselves from the dust and turned toward the makeshift camp.

There were barely half a dozen people as it was such a small and secret mission for most of the agents.

Depending on what was discovered there it would become a priority item or not.

Ashley and Leon approached each other unconsciously and walked toward the central campaign. They raised their hands to push aside the curtains at the entrance and both found a familiar man standing in front of them.

“Chris?” they said in unison.

Redfiel laughed at the synchronicity and stood up from the table where he was displaying a geographical map.

“ That was faster than I thought, you scared your father.” joked the dark-haired man, rounding the table and shaking their hands.

“What are you doing here?” Leon asked, putting his backpack on the floor.

“ I am one of those sent by the BSAA to collaborate in this mission with you.”

Ashley arched her eyebrows.

“ One?”

“ Someone needs to keep an eye on him so he doesn't get into trouble.”

The three of them turned toward the other entrance of the tent, meeting a woman with short brunette hair who looked at them with her bright sky eyes.

“Jill, you too?” Leon was happy to see her and took a step to shake her hand and then turn to Ashley. “ Ash, this is Jill, Chris's partner.”

Ashley reached over to take his hand decisively and smiled.

“ Jill Valentine, nice to meet you.”

“ Ashley Graham, likewise.”

The brunette arched an eyebrow.

“Graham? Don't tell me that-”

“ She's the president's daughter, yes.” Chris nodded, returning to the table with the map.

Jill looked at her partner puzzled.

“ You didn't tell me that little detail.”

 Chris sighed.

“ I forgot.”

Valentine rested his hands on his hips in disbelief.

“You forgot to tell me that the daughter of the president of the United States was coming to this mission in Spain?”

Chris glanced at him with his brown eyes.

“ Yes.”

Jill froze and threw her head back with a sigh.

“ Really, sometimes I wonder how you survive on your own.”

“ I'm good at improvising.” Redfield mumbled. 

“Yes, and then I have to remind you what days you have medical checkups.”

A soft chuckle made him turn to the blonde beside him who pointed to Leon.

“ I think that's what they've learned from each other. “

Leon gave her an indignant look.

“ I remember things.”

Ashley smirked at him.

“ Tell that to Victor and the meatballs.”

“ I'm gonna-”

“Now that we're up to date, how about making a plan?” Chris announced. Jill dropped her arms and walked toward him.

“ How you like to be in charge, Captain” she teased, patting him on the shoulder.

“ You're going to have to fight with Leon, because he loves to order others around.” Ashley teased him teasingly.

The two men rolled their eyes with a grunt causing Jill and Ashley to laugh hopelessly.

The four of them circled the table and looked at the map of the area. Leon and Ashley were quick to identify the lake and its surroundings, though that map showed a larger area than the one they found in an old crate in the village.

“What options do we have?” Leon's voice was soft as they rested their palms on the table. Chris pointed to one end of the map.

“ That whole area is the village where you were. Now it's been buried underground by large landslides.”

“What about the river where I dragged Leon out?” Ashley asked and Redfiel slid his finger to the opposite side of the map.

“ It seems that some earthquakes have caused landslides and displacements, so there are new areas that have rendered many previous routes unusable.” He paused, pointing to a line running horizontally across the area. “ Everything around here is stone walls and mountains. If we make a detour, maybe we can find something on the other side of the castle ruins.”

“This is the map we've managed to make with drones from the air, but we don't know what's in areas covered by the forest.” Jill pointed out the parts with less detailed descriptions of the terrain. “ We'll have to survey them on foot, there are no passable roads.”

Leon and Ashley watched quietly, remembering hidden paths and caves that could serve as a guide, but seeing how much the terrain had changed they would probably have to rediscover the area completely.

“ There should be entrances to the castle mines.” Leon proposed pointing to an area on the paper. 

He saw Ashley's hand pass by him.

“These ones here will probably be collapsed, they are in the direction of the village, the landslide will have rendered them unusable.”

“ Hmm, you're right…” Leon whispered thoughtfully.

“ Maybe around the steep, rocky areas Chris said we can find something. Maybe new holes have opened up. “

“ Like the hole you went in.” Chris recalled and Ashley nodded.

“Yeah.”

“ The best option will be to take that detour then.” Jill confirmed and turned to the two newcomers. “You can go and change, Chris and I will take care of notifying the others.”

Leon and Ashley looked at each other and thanked Valentine for the gesture. They were directed to a smaller tent where they could set up their gear and left.

Jill watched the pair from a distance and looked at her partner.

“Will Ashley be okay? She's not trained like we are.”

Chris shrugged his shoulders with a sigh.

“ I don't know if she is or not, but she took Leon out when none of us could and it looks like Kennedy is calm, so he has to trust her. I believe in his judgment, her father wouldn't have let her come if she wasn't.”

Jill looked for a moment at the campaign where the two had disappeared.

“ Yes, you're right.” she paused in a more subdued tone. “ It's just that she looks so young... being here for her must be hard.”

Chris rested his broad hand on his partner's shoulder.

“ Those two went through hell here, but so did that little girl Claire found in Raccoon. She managed to get out of here with Leon and has returned of her own free will, I think we worry more than we should.”

“ Yeah, maybe you're right.” she whispered.

“ I'm always right.” Redfield laughed, patting her on the back. Jill rolled her eyes.

“ If you were, we wouldn't be here, with the ability you have to get into trouble....”

“ Well, Leon surpasses me by far.”

That statement was more alarm than relief to Jill.

“ Well, I hope your bad luck cancels each other out, because if it doesn't, we're in deep shit.”

*

They broke camp in the blink of an eye. Jill and Chris checked their weapons and turned to see Leon arrive. He was now kitted out for the mission, wearing his dark tactical pants over military boots, accompanied by an ash blue lycra T-shirt that had him rolled up to his elbows, showing off his strong arms with the bracelet on his wrist. He strapped the harness with the pistol and ammunition to his torso along with the knife at the side of his chest. He adjusted his fingerless gloves and checked his other weapon on his right thigh and the tools stored in a small pouch, secured to his other leg.

“ I still find it strange that you are here.” He smiled crossing his arms over his chest. Chris gave him a friendly pat on the shoulder.

“ Well, get used to it, pal, 'cause we're going to be here for a while.”

The three of them smiled and turned around when they heard the clink of a buckle. Leon couldn't help but feel his pulse quicken. He had seen her in casual, sporty clothes, but now... she was wearing a pair of mountain pants in different shades of moss green. The orange tank top fit her body like a glove, showing off her strong shoulders and part of the scar on her right side. She adjusted the climbing harness around her waist and thighs, from which hung a coiled rope and ice axe. She slung the bag over her shoulder with ease, even though it seemed to carry more stuff inside. She bent down to adjust her boots and finished pulling her hair back into a half ponytail.

“ I'm ready.” She reached the other three and Leon finally blinked.

Chris nodded and held out a harness with a gun. Ashley took a deep breath and took it to slip it over her shoulders and strap it across her chest. She pulled the gun out to check the magazine and unholster the chamber to put it back away, all with an all too natural ease.

“ I asked Dana to teach me" Leon recalled her words to him shortly after meeting again for the first time.

The handling seemed to surprise the other two from the BSAA, who looked at each other but said nothing.

“ Let's get moving.” Redfield announced as the sun was already peeking over the hills. Ashley pulled her backpack on tightly and brought her fingers to the bracelet on her wrist to pull it up to her bicep. She caught a glance at it and met Leon's eyes watching her. She gave him a broad smile and held out her fist for him to bump his knuckles with hers.

“Here we go.” said the agent, starting to walk with her at his side.

*

Everything had changed a lot.

They could barely make out what had once been busy roads among the brambles and undergrowth. They were moving slowly because of the steep, overgrown areas.

Chris had put Leon and Ashley in the lead, they being the ones best able to guide them, while he and Jill closed the peloton.

They jumped some rocks and Ashley sniffed the environment as the rest descended. There was no distinctive scent for now. She had nothing to track like when she came for Leon, who only had to follow the trail of his jacket. She may not have had any reference, but there were elements that both she and Leon managed to discern in nature. Shepherds' marks, unnaturally piled stones...but so far no subway entrances.

The hours were passing. Sweat trickled down their bodies like waterfalls and when the sun was high in the sky at noon, Chris ordered a break.

They stopped and drank water while they caught their breath. Leon saw Ashley sit down on an old log and followed her to join her.

“ What's on your mind?” he asked, holding out a canteen.

“ I'm just trying to remember where Krauser brought me.” she said looking at the map in her lap. Leon sat down next to her and slid his gaze over their options, though more attentive to her heartbeat.

She may have been physically more than ready, but he couldn't help but keep an eye on her at all times. She was strong and tough, but there were wounds that sometimes didn't quite close, or as William had told him at the time, there were wounds that one covered up before they could heal. 

And he wanted to make sure Ashley's mind was stable. Or at least that it wasn't blocking her at a critical moment.

Ashley felt a deep gaze bore into her and she let out a soft laugh.

“ If you look at me that much you're going to wear me out.”

Leon blinked and his ears reddened. He cleared his throat, sitting upright in his trunk and looking down at the ground.

“ I'm sorry. “ he whispered scratching the back of his neck.

Ashley turned to him.

“Are you worried about something?”

Those blue eyes glanced at her and then sighed heavily.

“ I'm just worried that all this will stir up...hard traumas for you.”

Ashley seemed surprised by his words, but was touched by the agent's concern.

“ I'm fine, really. I'm not going to tell you that I'm euphoric about being here, or that all this doesn't make me uncomfortable. “She gave him a sweet smile.” So far nothing out of the ordinary, it's just that this place gives me the creeps.

“It's a little creepy, yes.”

“No, no, literally chills.”

Leon arched his eyebrows.

“ Is that normal?”

“ It used to happen to me when I went on expeditions with Narsson. I have...my scar skin is more sensitive, so sometimes I get chills.” He saw the man's worried expression. “It's just tingling Leon, nothing serious, okay?”

It took him a few seconds to respond.

“Okay.”

He pushed his leg against hers and this time it was Ashley who spoke in a whisper.

“ I could ask you the same thing. We were both here at the end of the day.”

Leon made sure his harnesses were still securely fastened.

“ All right, I'm more trained than you, remember?”

“ Yes, and you're human like me, remember?”

He looked at her dumbfounded and let out a soft chuckle in surrender. It was no use for him to try to prove that everything was okay. Ashley even knew the way he breathed. She couldn't be fooled.

“ If something gets the better of me I'll let you know, I just want you to let me know too, okay?”

Ashley nodded and Leon patted her leg, picking up the map from her lap.

“ Okay, let's see what we have here.” He pointed to the far left. “That's where I came from.” He climbed up the path. “And this is where I found you, around this area. Do you remember how you were brought here?

Ashley reminisced.

“ I think by helicopter over the mountains surrounding the castle, from the northeast.”

Leon marked their current location.

“We're here. Making the detour I think we can make it by tomorrow. Everything has changed so much that we are going slower than planned.”

“ Sergio usually says a phrase to me in these cases: Dress me slowly, I'm in a hurry.”

Leon looked at her without understanding a word.

“ Should it ring a bell? I'm not an expert in languages, sweetheart.” he joked teasingly.

“It means that in cases of urgency you should always keep calm, never rush.”

“Mmn, and Sergio usually follows it?”

“ Sometimes he's a little too calm.”

They laughed hopelessly and put the map away before hearing Chris's voice to resume their journey. 

They started walking through the forest again as the sun's rays filtered through the branches. The rustling of the branches covered some whispers in the group.

“What is the president's daughter missing here?” a voice muttered to his companion.

“ What are you telling me, I heard that she's mad as a hatter.” muttered another.

“Yes, yes. I heard from some who were checking her quarantine that she lunged at the doctors like a rabid dog and they had to tie her up.”

“ They told me she was blown up by a grenade in the attack on her campus, she must have hit her head pretty hard to get back to where she was kidnapped.”

One chuckled.

“ I don't know if she's got a screw loose or two, but we'll agree she's got an impressive ass.” All three emitted sly chuckles. But not for everyone.

“Hey, you guys in the back, if there's something you think is so funny why don't you speed up and share it?”

The three of them tensed up violently, staring at the figure several meters away. Deep blue eyes were locked on them like knives.

“ It's nothing, sir.”

“ That's what I thought.” He grunted looking ahead and watching Ashley leap up onto the rock and survey his surroundings.

His eyes betrayed him and went down to those hopeless buttocks.

He slapped his brain.

"Focus, asshole."

This was going to be a long one...

*

The wind picked up shortly after, causing Leon to hear the hum of trees. He tried to sharpen his hearing to perceive something other than the leaves, when Ashley stopped abruptly raising her fist. Leon and Chris mimicked her and the latter stopped the group.

“ Leon.” A whisper, imperceptible to the rest, came from him. Without making a sound he walked until he reached her and passed the fallen log.

He was met with wide-eyed glares and a nervous face. Ashley lay crouched in front of something that was not good news.

Wolf tracks.

Leon had to take a closer look at them as his heart dropped to the floor, turning his eyes back to Ashley.

“ Tell me that's not what I think it is.”

Ashley stood up gently.

“ They smell, Leon, they're still around.”

The agent cursed under his breath. It was bad, very bad.

Colmillos.

“Are they close?” he asked alertly, drawing his gun.

Ashley sniffed deeply, now looking for a trace of those footprints.

Nothing.

“ They have to be far away, I can't sense anything.”

Leon heard Chris and there approaching.

“ This doesn't look good.” Kennedy said before Redfiel reached his side.

“ What's going on?” asked the dark-haired man.

Ashley also pulled out her gun.

“ We may have company.” she pointed to the tracks.

Chris looked at the trail and then looked at the two young ones.

“ Wolves?”

“ Infected by the parasite.” Ashley detailed, causing the captain to turn to her.

“Are you sure?”

“ The plagua has a distinctive scent, I'd love to be wrong.”

Jill looked at the trio.

“Scent?”

“ Ashley can track scents, that's how she found Leon in the mines.”

Valentine blinked in surprise, but didn't question it, after all, considering all the things they'd seen and experienced, Ashley having the scenting ability of a bloodhound didn't seem far-fetched.

“ Maybe it's an old trail and they are far away from here, for now let's follow the path to the cliffs.” Leon suggested, getting up. The other three nodded and returned with the group to set off with Chris announcing.

“ Keep an eye out for movement in the brush, there may be wolves in the area. Let's go.”

With adrenaline now starting to coursing through their veins, they set off on their way again.

Ashley sniffed every few moments, making sure there was no hint of the trail anywhere. Meanwhile, Leon, behind her, sharpened his ear to any strange movements. He knew if the Colmillos were approaching, Ashley would sense them much sooner, but he could be sure where they were coming from. His gloved hands held the gun firmly and unable to help himself his eyes slid to the woman in front of him. She was carrying her gun tightly and didn't seem to be shaking her pulse as she pointed it in some direction from time to time.

He felt satisfied with what he saw.

" Calm down Leon, she took on two armed men bigger than her with her bare hands and survived."

Armed, ready and in her full strength? Ashley's welfare would probably be the least of his problems.

They quickened their pace through the brambles as the temperature began to drop as the hours passed. Finally they reached the rockier ridges and lifted their gazes to the high stone walls.

“ This was definitely not here before.” sighed Leon throwing his head back to see the end of some peak.

“ We're farther than the mine we went to. All the ones in that area have been buried. “ Chris reported.”

“Maybe we'll get lucky over here.” Ashley tried to be positive as she started walking along the walls.

They walked cautiously, watching the edge of the forest, now somewhat more protected by the rocky walls on the other side. At least they knew that no one would come from that side.

Leon looked at the time and suddenly a pressure against his chest stopped him. He looked at Ashley's hand on his sternum and then at her, sensing the muscles in her neck too tense for his liking. 

“Ashley?”

“ I smell them.”

Leon tensed violently.

“Are they far away?”

She took a few seconds to answer, scanning the air several times.

“ Yes, but... still.” She turned to Chris. “Where exactly are we?”

Redfield pulled out his radar and gave her his location.

“ Southeast of the ridge, it'll take us three more hours to get around it.”

Ashley looked at her watch and then at the sun that was beginning to skim the higher mountains.

They only had an hour more of daylight at most.

Leon and she looked at each other. By the time the sun set they would be done for.

“ We could make camp and build fires to keep them at bay, they don't tolerate fire.” Ashley broke off as Leon continued talking. “ We'll hold out until dawn, we have some explosives, maybe we can get....”

Ashley looked at the rock walls sliding her fingers across the bare stone. Firm and splinter free. She lifted her amber eyes to the hollows and steep areas, where ledges and crevices appeared.

She took a few steps back looking over the top and heard Leon call out to her.

“ Hey Ash, we can make a barricade come to-”

“ We're going across.”

Glances turned to her in silence, only to see her drop her backpack.

“What?” Chris was confused.

Ashley opened her gear and started pulling out buckles and ropes.

“ I'm going to climb the wall and we're going to climb up.”

One of Chris' soldiers seemed to lose his patience.

“ Hey blondie, it's cool that you wanted to come and be a hero, but we're the experts here, let the captain and the rest of us do our job.”

The violent snap of the ropes echoed and she tied them to the harness.

“ Look, handsome, I'm fine with you disagreeing with me, but for your information, those wolves are two miles away from us at best. As soon as the sun goes down they're going to come after us, so you've got two options, stay here and watch those hellhounds come to dismember you or get up that wall before they come.”

“They are wolves Graham, not sharks." said another of the soldiers.

Ashley pulled out the magnesium to cover her hands and strapped it to her harness. She patted the excess off and took a few steps back.

“ If you're so sure about that I invite you to stay with them to confirm it.” He set the timer on his watch and looked ahead. “ Just watch out for the blades that come out when they open in half.”

She sprinted off with all her might, caught the angle and leapt to ascend three meters vertically before grabbing the ledge with a grunt.

Leon ran out of air as he saw her leap from one wall to another. On impulse he walked to stand below her, unable to stop watching her.

She was right. They didn't know when they would be and if they got cornered there they might not live to tell the tale.

But climbing that wall...it was insane.

He heard a gasp and saw her hanging by her fingers, all the muscles in her arms and back drawn up with definition.

He was speechless and almost out of breath.

He followed her from the ground, watching her ascend in defiance of gravity.

" I feel like when I climb it's me, my body and a stone wall."

The clinking of buckles echoed through him, watching her swing before leaping into another crevasse. A few splinters parted and Leon quickly stepped aside.

He never would have imagined he would get to see this.

He watched her climb up and up that wall that none of them would have thought to climb.

None of them except Ashley.

And they were depending on her.

Leon took several steps back to see the stretch he had left and when he saw that there was still some way to go he felt his concern grow more intense.

“She's mad as a hatter, we're going to do fir-”

“Shut the fuck up or the wolves will be the least of your problems.” Leon snarled like an angry tiger, causing the soldier to shut his mouth and swallow his saliva.

He kept his eye on her. Ashley came to a ledge that allowed her to stand up and nail a safety there.

She didn't have time to put many so she had to be cautious with where she put her hands and feet.

One mistake and she was finished.

She stuck to the wall and glanced down, catching a glimpse of Leon's figure watching the. He waved a hand to show him it was okay and continued up.

Her muscles burned, but it was at that point that she knew she was capable of being up there for a very long time. A shiver ran up and down her back and she turned her head toward the farthest mountains, where the sun was beginning to set.

She took a deep breath.

She had to hurry.

It seemed she just had to break her personal best.

"You can do it Ash. Trust yourself."

A few howls made her blood run cold.

 She looked at the horizon and stared at the mountains that no longer received sunlight.

Shit.

A gust shook her and the scent grew stronger.

They were awake.

She turned on the move. She wasn't on the move, but they probably would have come out of the hiding place where they shielded themselves from the light during the day by now.

" Come on, come on."

She had twenty minutes of light left.

Leon held the gun tightly and the hair on the back of his neck bristled when he heard the howls.

Everyone stood at attention. Kennedy looked up and saw Ashley's legs disappear over the top, making him unable to hold back a gasp of relief.

The worst forty minutes of his life.

“ Stay in position and wait for Kennedy's command, he'll tell us where they'll come from.”

Leon took a deep breath and turned to the horizon, where barely a third of the sun was yet to set.

“Watch out!”

The exclamation made him turn and see Ashley descending at full speed. She landed heavily and let go of her ropes. 

“Are you all right?” Leon approached with concern.

Her breathing was ragged and he could see blood on her face, coming from her hands.

“ Yes” she gasped and then turned to the others. “ Okay, I'm going to start pulling you up. I need someone who can then pull from the top.”

There was a second of silence until a hand went up in the air.

“I can go if you want.” his voice was much softer.

Ashley turned to the man " they're not sharks" and pulled another harness from the bag. The soldier was unable to look her in the eye and just strapped on the harness.

Howls echoed through the mountains.

“ We have to hurry.” Graham muttered, tying the man to the rope. She tied the other end and jumped up and down to pull the ropes taut and lift the man. He exclaimed before making it to the wall and climbing up at full speed. Ashley pulled him up almost lying flat in the air, using the pulleys she had placed around a rock at the top.

It took no time at all and when the soldier announced he was ready he put the last harness on another.

Their hearts beat wildly as they climbed in one by one. 

Cold sweat trickled down their backs.

The sun disappeared behind the slopes.

A shock ran down Ashley's back as she inhaled and all her instincts began to scream.

They were coming.

“ Leon, come on.” Ashley said as she received the empty harness from above.

Leon turned around perplexed.

“ I'm not going up until you go.” he frowned.

Ashley looked at him somberly.

“ Now is not the time to contradict me.” She held out the harness and Leon stared at her.

“ I'm here to ensure your safety.”

She wrinkled her brow.

“ And if you don't go up there is no safety to ensure.” She approached him with a hurried step and forced his legs into the holes. “ From up there you can warn us. You have a rifle, cover us.” she whispered.

“ Ashley, please, go fir-”

She pulled his belt so tightly that they were only inches apart.

“ Leon Kennedy, stop being stubborn for once in your life and listen to me.”

Even in that situation he couldn't help but scoff.

“ Do you know what you're asking me to do?”

Ashley tied the seeds of his waist tightly to the rope, clutching him to her.

“ To shut that pretty mouth of yours and get the fuck up.”

She pulled on the rope and Leon was left dangling to ascend at full speed. Ashley watched him from below and sniffed the air.

They were coming up at full speed.

“Come on, there's no time!” She took off her harness to put it on the remaining soldier. The "hey blondie" man hurried to put on the straps and climbed quickly.

Leon felt the chill run up and down him as he began to hear grunting.

“ Give me a rifle! “ he exclaimed to one of the soldiers. He ran to the edge and loaded the weapon with absurd speed. He used the infrared sight to see in the dark and his throat went dry.

Jesus Christ.

There were more than a dozen of them.

He rested one knee on the ground and the other he used to prop up his elbow. he took a deep breath and took aim.

Jill held the gun up as she thought she heard barking, feeling cold sweat slide down her back.

“ Come on Graham, get in.” Chris said, grabbing the harness they pulled.

“ Hold on, Ji-”

The first shot thundered.

On the scope one Of the figures fell and Leon took aim at the next, but the dogs began to zigzag.

" Fuck!"

Ashley tensed violently and looked up the slope they were coming down. She adjusted the harness to full speed gray and pulled hers on with a dry throat. A figure leaped through the trees with jaws gaping like a crocodile.

A bullet pierced his skull.

“ GET THE FUCK UP HERE!” Leon roared.

“ JILL!”

She turned to Chris after looking at that horrible animal for a second and without thinking she ran towards them. 

“JILL!” shouted Ashley.

She turned to Chris after looking at that horrible animal for a second and without thinking she ran towards them.

"PULL!" yelled Ashley.

They were lifted into the air and Jill jumped up to grab Chris and Graham's hand.

Five wolves appeared like jaguars and leapt against the wall, ready to take one of Jill's legs with them.

She took aim with one hand and the bullet entered the animal's mouth and exited through the back of its neck, watching as it collapsed in convulsions.

The rest followed, clawing and trying to climb up the stone wall. Chris clutched it tightly and they reached the edge of the top with gasps.

The soldiers came to help and knelt on the ground catching their breath for a second.

The roars and howls of the fangs echoed in the darkness like nightmarish monsters.

Then the shrieks began.

Ashley's eyes contracted and every muscle tensed like wires.

Those shrieks...she'd recognize them anywhere.

Her hands shook, clutching at the stone and she managed to barely stand upright to peer over the cliff.

The plaguas on their backs danced with hysterical movements, emitting high-pitched screeches that had been burned into his mind. Her heart was racing and she had stopped feeling the chill of the night.

Leon helped Chris take off the harness and pick up the ropes when he saw Ashley peek out. The screams of the parasites echoed in the darkness, but he still managed to make out her labored breathing.

He frowned, looking at Chris's belt, from which hung a pair of grenades and blinkers.

“ I'll take one of these.”

 Chris blinked and saw the man approach Ashley with one of the blinders in his hand.

She didn't move when she felt him next to her, but smelling his scent next to her was enough to ground her.

“ Go back to the fucking hell you came from.” He growled under his breath, removing the safety and dropping the projectile.

The man's broad hand covered Ashley's eyes for a second before the intense light shone into the darkness. For a few moments there were high-pitched screams and shrieks along with yelps and moans of pain.

Leon's fingers were warm on her face and helped keep her mind grounded.

Then there was silence.

Leon looked down, perceiving a pile of inert bodies, but through the trees he heard bitter snaps and grunts from those who had managed to escape.

He turned to Ashley, static beside him, his hand still covering her face. He gently moved his palm away from her eyes and the soft glow of the lanterns behind them drew her silhouette. Leon watched her silently, sensing her slightly calmer breathing, but still with his heart pounding. He parted his lips to call out to her when he saw her close her eyes and inhale deeply. Ashley raised her bloodied hands, opening and closing them a few times before his voice came back to her.

“ We made it in time.” she whispered in barely a whisper, but the man next to her clearly sensed it and laid a hand on her shoulder.

“ Thanks to you.”

Those intense amber eyes turned to him as if he had just said something unusual, as if he didn't believe it was really thanks to her.

But then she smiled.

She curved her lips shyly in a subtle gesture that reminded Leon of him, of the faint smiles he gave her when she was nervous or when she needed some support in the darkest of times.

This time the one smiling was her, encouraging him to keep going.

“ Looks like my hobby has come in handy.” she joked, turning to the group. -What do we do now?

Leon looked around.

“ I think we'd better spend the night in this elevated area, it's not a good idea to advance along these ledges in the dark.”

Ashley felt, agreeing with the agent's decision.

“ For the next time you want to break my belt, let's go somewhere more private, princess.”

Ashley's cheeks reddened violently and then she let out a tired chuckle. She knew that was Leon's way of coping with the tension. The flirting and bad jokes kept him grounded.

“ Are you flirting with me Mr. Kennedy?” she teased in a more relaxed whisper.

He noticed and his broad shoulders dropped hopelessly.

“ Take it as you wish, Miss Graham.”

“ Hey Ashley! Help us with your straps.” Chris's voice brought her out of her little cloud with Leon and after giving her one last smile .

*

As Leon had said, they decided to camp there. They set up small tents to keep out the cold and took turns sleeping and keeping watch. Jill and Chris took the first shift, sitting in front of the campfire.

The brunette looked at her companion for a few seconds and then sank her eyes into the hypnotizing flames.

“ Hey Chris, what happened to Leon and Ashley?”

The man gave her a glance.

“ Didn't you read the report?”

She sighed.

“ Of course I read it, I'm talking about the part they suffered.”

The captain took several seconds to answer.

“ Even I don't know exactly Jill, Leon... he hasn't told me much about it and most of it I don't know. I just know that they had the same shit that those wolves had in their bodies. Probably the smell and hearing ability they have came from that.”

“ Do you think their bodies mutated from the Plaga?”

“ I don't think so Jill, I know. I saw Ashley track Leon's scent over 3 miles into the mountain and carry him on her all the way back until we found them. You and I both know that doesn't come from training alone.”

Jill leaned back on her palms behind her looking up at the sky.

“ Yes.” she said simply and then let out a chuckle. “Honestly, the last thing I would have expected was to see the president's daughter climb a stone wall.”

Chris laughed, resting his arm on his knee.

“ Yeah, we'd better be careful, the last thing we need is to get in trouble with Mr. Graham.”

They both nodded with a soft laugh, letting the tension slowly dissipate.

*

He half-opened his blue eyes and focused on the hollow in front of him, where someone else was supposed to sleep.

But that person was not there.

He got up with a grunt, silence reigning in the camp. He stepped out of the tent and saw a figure sitting in front of the fire. he approached cautiously.

“Didn't I tell you to wake me when it was our turn?” His husky voice rattled the woman, who, though she had already smelled him approaching, was still altered by his deep voice.

“ Yes, I went ahead. I told Tom and Jerry I was relieving them.”

Leon glanced in the direction of the tent where the two soldiers who had taken Ashley's contrary just a couple of hours ago were resting.

“ You still could have woken me up.” He sat down next to her, pulling out his gun and making sure the chamber was moving correctly.

“ I felt bad for waking you up, you were calm.” she smiled, holding out a metal cup with a hot tea. Leon arched his eyebrows.

“ Where did you get these?”

“ They are mine.” she pointed to her backpack loaded with everything needed for climbing, survival and research. “ A mix I've been perfecting.”

Leon blew on the steaming drink and sipped gently.

It was... weird and he stared at the cup for a few seconds, trying to make out the flavors in his mouth.

“ You don't like it?”

Leon took another sip.

“ I don't dislike it, it's an... interesting mix.” he found himself drinking again, getting a taste for it as he continued to drink it.

Ashley smiled.

“ It's a blend of herbs with vitamins and minerals, for when we were outdoors or in the sun for a long time and keep up some energy.”

Leon stopped drinking some and rested his elbows on his crossed legs. They were silent for a few seconds, both of them staring into the flames, engrossed.

“ What do you think we'll find down there?” the man's whispery voice rocked Ashley. She took a sip from her bowl slowly.

“ I'm hoping for answers, at least to the questions we have now.”

“ We'll have to do a lot of digging.”

“ Good thing I have an ex-cop with me then.” She smiled playfully at him and raised her glass for Leon to clink with his.

“ I was just a rookie.” he laughed.

Ashley raised her index finger in attention.

“ I correct, detective rookie. Your specialty may be throwing punches, but you sure know how to use that little head of yours.”

Leon scoffed under his breath.

“ Wow, I'm glad to hear you see intelligence in me, you should tell Hunnigan, she always says I think with my muscles.”

They both let out soft chuckles and went back to staring into the flames.

“ For a moment I was back to running through the woods.” Ashley's voice deepened. “To when you had to hold my hand to keep me from falling and running faster.” she sighed heavily. “Like it was yesterday.”

Leon turned to her in concern.

“Did it block you?” he asked in an attempt to find out if she had suffered a shock.

“ No. I felt as if my body was screaming, as if my instincts were becoming more...visceral.”

“ Have you been afraid?”

“ Of course I was afraid, it's what made me want to climb that wall as soon as possible.”

And with that Leon seemed satisfied.

“ Good, that's good.”

Ashley turned to him.

“ Good?”

He nodded.

“ I'd rather have fear give you the reaction of wanting to find a way to survive than have it block you from moving.”

Ashley remembered. She went back to when her body stopped responding to her every time she saw some Ganado, as if her muscles froze.

This time she had felt fire coursing through her veins.

A broad hand closed around her thigh, lifting her eyes to stare at him.

“ You're doing well.”

She nodded with a shy smile and flushed cheeks.

“ Thank you.” she whispered back.

He gave her a pleasant squeeze and pulled his hand away.

Small steps, but sure. little by little.

*

The sky seemed to be on fire.

They jumped from one ridge to the other under the first rays of dawn. They climbed to the next peak and from there they could glimpse the highest towers of the castle ruins. A soldier or two could not help but comment on the immensity of the fortress.

Ashley peered over the edges to find the ideal place to descend. They stopped to look at the map and locate themselves once more. If Hunnigan was around this would be a lot easier, but for some reason the signal in that area was nil and they had no satellite access, so the old radios and talkies were the most reliable options.

“ Hey!" exclaimed someone suddenly calling the attention of the rest. “Come take a look at this!”

The group approached the soldier who was looking through binoculars in the distance. Jill picked up the gadget and looked in the direction the man pointed.

“ Another stone wall?” she looked confused at the find. 

“ May I?” Leon asked and Jill yielded the spot.

The agent adjusted his focus and analyzed that stone wall.

“ It's a mine wall.” The news pleased the rest of the team. “It has vertical cracks that are too straight and too square, plus something like... giant stone stairs.”

“ Maybe in that area we can find an entrance.” Chris suggested. “It's next to the castle, in the area least affected by the landslides.”

Everyone nodded and the captain turned to Ashley.

“ Find us a way down Graham.”

“ Roger that.”

Leon watched her march towards more distant cliffs and watched for her to call out to them. While Ashley looked for a good way down, the team plotted the route on the map to get to the site. When they descended into the forest they could easily become disoriented, so better to take advantage now that they were on high ground.

Kennedy raised his head.

“She's found a spot.” He got up to go in the direction Ashley had disappeared, leaving the soldiers confused as they hadn't heard anything on the radio. 

But they didn't question it. Not after Graham had saved their necks the night before.

The descent was much easier and it wasn't long before they reached the other side of the forest. Ashley finished packing everything up and slung her pack back over her shoulder. Even Chris was surprised at the stamina she was showing to have.

At one point Leon walked over to her and motioned for her to shake his hand. He looked at her palms that nine hours ago had been covered in blood and now adorned with reddened calluses.

Kennedy stood rapt for a few seconds and Ashley looked a little uneasy, but the man nodded and gave her hand a squeeze.

“They haven't infected.” He smiled at her and then walked on.

How... reassuring that simple gesture had been. Seeing her wounds almost closed and not seeming perturbed if not... happy.

She smiled inwardly and quickened her pace, making sure to pick up any strange smells.

*

“ From a distance it seemed smaller.” whistled one of the soldiers seeing the size of the mine wall.

“ Spread out and look for an entrance.” Chris ordered his team and Leon did the same with his.

Ashley sniffed around, looking for wetter soil or some indication that there was an open but shaded area. She tightened her grip on her weapon and walked cautiously.

She inhaled deeply and a strong smell of rusty iron came to her. She followed the trail around one side of the stone wall and joy filled her body.

“ Here's an entrance!” she exclaimed turning to the rest. They regrouped in front of the newly discovered entrance, which to their surprise was in better condition than they had imagined.

“ Well, let's settle down and prepare for the descent. Jill, Kennedy, Graham and I will go.  You two will guard the north perimeter, you guys the west and you guys.” he pointed to the last two. “the east. Rotate to keep an eye on the south, but those dogs came in from the east so keep an eye on anything else.” He paused to look at the clock.

9 am.

“Well, with the sunlight you don't have to worry about the parasites showing up, but there may be other dangers, don't let your guard down.”

“ Yes, sir!”

Said and done. It didn't take them long to organize the weaponry they would take to the mine. 

They equipped themselves with some extra protection and reloaded all the weapons before refilling the magazines and storing more ammunition.

Ashley secured her harness with the picked up Ice Axe and strapped one more ammo pouch to her thigh. Leon adjusted his gloves and looked at the chamber again, a simple habit he was already doing unconsciously.

“Everything ready?” Chris announced.

Jill nodded and next to her Leon and Ashley looked at each other.

“ Yes” replied the agent.

“ Well, you and Ashley will go first, you'll notice anything out of place first.”

They both nodded and took a deep breath. They went into the darkness of that grotto at the bottom of the earth, where perhaps they could find some answers that would shed light on their investigation.

*

He may have been the only one who heard the sound of the water slipping through the cracks in the walls. He followed the metal rails, illuminated by his and his companion's flashlight.

He heard everyone's breaths, controlled and tense.

Cold sweat trickled down his neck, dampening a few strands at the nape of his neck and clinging to his skin.

He exhaled with a pause, trying to slow his overflowing heart, or...was it Ashley's?

Her heart was thundering violently, almost to the point of seeming worrisome, but he heard her breathe in calmly, trying to calm herself even a little.

Chris was leaving marks on the walls for their way back.

All they needed was to get lost down there.

Ashley and Leon stopped at a junction and then took the path to the left. The rails were sunk into the ground and they disappeared. Their breaths and footsteps echoed, until Leon sensed that they did not reverberate in the same way in a specific area. He motioned for them to follow him and Ashley came up behind him with the gun at his side.

Then he caught a distinct scent

Rotten wood.

Leon took a step and something creaked under his weight.

His muscles suddenly tensed and he stretched an arm back, but the ground gave away beneath him. 

“ LEON!”

Ashley grabbed his arm, but he dragged her down with him. They both fell and she managed to sink the ice axe into the stone, dragging and squeezing until it sank into a crack and stopped them in their tracks. She gasped at Leon's weight on a single arm hanging from her.

“ Leon! Ashley! Are you all right?!”

They tried to catch their breath before answering and it was Leon who spoke first.

“ Yes!” he looked at Ashley and then shone a light at her feet. He was relieved to see that it was solid ground and not a death trap.

“You can let me go.” he said to his companion now calmer.

She hesitated for a second and let their interlocking hands slide gently. The man fell a meter lower and brushed the dirt off him.

“ Wait for me, I'm going to see if I can climb up.” grunted Ashley ascending the small tunnel diagonally. 

Leon stood there and waited until he saw a rope slide down and Chris and Jill climb down it and then Ashley returned. Graham mobilized the arm with which she had stopped Leon's fall in his tracks.

“ Are you all right?” he approached her with concern, but she smiled at him.

“ Yeah, just a sore feeling, it'll go away in a bit.”

Leon looked relieved and they all shone the light into the new cavern. This appeared to be a grotto rather than a mining tunnel, as if people had passed through here long ago.

Ashley approached the stone wall and chipped at it with the tip of her climbing pick. She watched the splinters fall and knelt down with the lantern on her neck.

Shells.

She unzipped her backpack and pulled out a couple of plastic jars into which she stuffed the splinters.

“What are you doing?” Jill asked next to her.

She closed the jars and put them away.

“ With this I'll be able to tell what period this layer belongs to with a carbon test.” she strapped her backpack back on. “ Let's move on.”

They walked through the grotto, the humidity becoming more intense and even suffocating. They descended further and further, and at one point they thought they had reached the gates of the underworld.

Then Ashley wrinkled her nose.

She stopped when she smelled the strange odor and scratched her nostrils. Leon noticed the gesture and turned to look at her, watching as she inhaled softly.

“This way.” she indicated, catching up with Leon.

They went on for a while until they came to a sort of... entrance.

There was an archway carved into the stone that led to a deep, dark path. Leon stopped Ashley by her wrist and shone his flashlight into the tunnel. He picked up a stone and threw it, causing it to bounce and echo. He analyzed the sound closely, even when none of the other three could perceive anything anymore.

The man nodded and they went deeper.

Ashley followed the strange scent, stopping every so often to check that the path was safe. 

“These people... did all this?”

Ashley touched the shiny surface of the wall and sniffed it gently.

“ I think this pre-dates Ramon Salazar's dynasty, maybe it's from the time when his ancestors imprisoned the plaga here.”

“Maybe?” Jill asked, observing the small holes dug every few meters in the walls, like little windows where they put something at some point.

“ I can't say for sure, but... it might even predate the Middle Ages.”

“What are you basing that theory on?” Chris asked.

“ Those holes in the walls have black stains on the top area, it looks like soot from a flame. They probably put candles in there and judging by the faint smell in the hollows, they may have used animal fat or oil. Besides,” she added, descending the step. “the first Salazar was supposed to have banished the "demons" from this land, which implies that they were already here when they arrived. the question is, since when?”

Her last step echoed differently and the room widened.

It was a dead end.

Ashley frowned, catching that same smell, but it wasn't coming from that room.

There was something else in there they couldn't see.

“ Are we trapped?” Jill reached down with the gun and checked the place with the flashlight.

Ashley felt the bare stone following the trail. She moved through the cavern slowly, while Leon analyzed the marks on the floor.

That wasn't... Spanish. He didn't know much, but at least those words didn't sound like anything he'd studied.

Jill noticed what the agent was looking at and moved closer to zoom in on the illuminated area.

“ What is this?” Chris whispered in confusion.

“ I think it's... Latin.” Jill reported, trying to read what it said. “In tenebris et audi vocem ejus. O domine defendat nos de impius, servo animas.”

“ What the hell does that mean?” Chris mumbled.

“ In darkness we hear your voice, O Lord, protect us from the wicked, save our souls.” Ashley's voice translated the inscription. The three turned to her and Leon let out a surprised laugh.

“ And you know dead languages too?”

“ Current species and fossils are named in Latin. I don't know how to speak it, far from it, just interpret it.” he continued to feel the walls. “That means this place has been here at least since the Roman Empire. “his hand sank into a stone and there was a click on the other side.”

Leon heard water sliding somewhere and soon after the ground beneath their feet began to vibrate. Ashley took several steps back, feeling a grip on her waist for a second. She caught the scent of Leon above her, holding the gun up, and couldn't help but smile inwardly. 

This man was simply too good. First her and then him.

They descended slowly, seeing the spiral marks on the walls, probably from a mechanism at the base that worked with weights.

The place was huge.

They saw water sliding down through several holes, filling what appeared to be the weights that made that platform descend. They could see galleries on its descent, carved into the bare stone, with primitive arches adorning the entrances.

Then the platform stopped. Ashley took a step forward to peer over the edge when she heard a thud and a hatch open.

It was as if her brain was hit with a sledgehammer.

The smell hit her in such a way that it made her gasp for air and stagger. Her eyes blurred and sparks flew deep inside her skull, causing her to see black dots in the air. She didn't hear the voices beside her, nor did she feel the stone against her legs as she fell to her knees. She clutched her head trying not to lose her balance with her vision spiraling at full speed. She clutched her throat trying to breathe again, but could only take small hysterical gasps.

She thought about the option of banging her head against the stone when the dots began to disperse and she had to hold back the retching by covering her mouth.

She looked to the back, on the other side of that stone bridge where a huge, dark doorway awaited, guarded by two huge torches. The fire moved in spirals and whispers emerged from that door like ghosts from the underworld. Grunts and gasps reached her in the tornado that was her head, dragging her to the bottom of the mouth of the underworld.

Another smell intruded, ceasing the crackling growls and softening the voices to a fade. The door receded and the flames disappeared along with the fireworks in her brain. It took several minutes for the ground to become still again and his eyes to be able to focus clearly once more.

A distant murmur reached her, growing sharper and sharper, until she managed to make out the voice beside her.

“Ash, for God's sake say something!”

She raised her amber irises to meet sapphire ones staring desperately at her. She couldn't answer, her throat still dry. She managed to gather some saliva to lubricate her vocal cords so she could speak.

“Wha...ha ha...ppened?” she managed to articulate, still a little dazed.

Hearing her voice again calmed Leon in an absurd way, making Leon sigh heavily.

“ That might as well ask you, what was that?”

Ashley blinked for a moment and looked back to the back of the bridge, where there was no longer a fire, or maybe there never had been. That huge doorway was barely a collapsed recess, with the door half-jammed and through which they could pass only one at a time.

That was where the smell came from.

“There was..." she gasped and accepted the drink of water Jill gave her. “There was a huge entrance, those columns,” she pointed to the back, “they had fire in them and…” she paused for a moment. “I heard...whispers...voices.”

“ Voices?” Leon arched his eyebrows. “I didn't hear anything.”

Ashley denied.

“ They were grunts and low squeaks, they didn't... sound human.”

The three veterans looked at each other and then at the woman kneeling in front of them. 

Anyone would think that it had simply been her imagination, but that she had suffered these hallucinations and they had not, was something that had to be related to a smell.

“ Can you get up?” Leon said gently, grabbing her arm.

She nodded and stood up. The smell had already dissipated, but it was still there. She looked at the crack in the doorway feeling her survival instincts begin to surface. Suddenly warm hands wrapped around her face and Leon appeared in her field of vision terribly close.

“ Look into my eyes.” She felt his thumbs under her eyes, stretching the skin to get a good look at her corneas. “Now look up.” she obeyed. “Follow my finger.” She turned from side to side calmly and then up and down. “ Notice anything unusual?”

Ashley opened and closed her hands.

“ No, just a little headache, but it's going away,” she told him in a sincere tone. Leon held her for a few more seconds, making sure she didn't collapse again, and when he saw that she seemed to be stable he released her, though more slowly than he would have thought. He turned toward the bottom, shining a light on that mysterious entrance.

He might not have been amused, but it was the only way they had.

Ashley picked up her flashlight from the ground and gently patted Leon on the shoulder. 

“ Shall we?” she whispered warmly. He looked at her doubtfully, still a little upset to see her slump like that.

It had scared him. A lot. But this was something she had agreed to do.

They went through the jammed wooden gate, passing through one at a time. On the other side stretched galleries between thick columns carved in stone, as if they were the bones of the earth itself and they walked through the veins. Water had seeped through some broken channel in the walls and trickled under their feet, echoing in the silent void.

It was as if time had stopped, as if down there space didn't work the same as it did on the surface.

The vulnerability of not having much visibility and relying on their senses was something that struck a chord with Graham. She was still thinking about what she had seen back there, had she inhaled some kind of hallucinogen, maybe that explained the whole door and the flaming columns, maybe she herself had imagined what that place had been like in the past and that gas had made it more real.

But then... What had those sounds been, those grunts?

She sighed, unable to come up with a single explanation, and picked up the clearest trace. 

“This way.” the blonde pointed.

The smell was getting stronger and stronger. It might not be affecting her as it had before, but that didn't mean it was gone.

She was just getting a better understanding of what the smell was.

And she wasn't liking it at all.

“ These look like catacombs.” Jill whispered, shining a light up at the high ceiling.

Chris saw more inscriptions scattered across the walls.

“How long has this been here?”

Ashley paused to read some of the markings Chris had pointed out.

“ From what I know so far, the first Salazar arrived in the fifteenth century or so and the Romans came to the Iberian Peninsula in 200 or 300 BC. From then until the decline of the Romans in the fifth century AD, it could be any time. Without laboratory testing I can't know for sure.” Shefingertips slid across the words and she pulled a small analog camera out of her backpack to start taking pictures of all the Scriptures.

“ With that at least we know that at least the plagas have been around for ten centuries longer than we had anticipated.” Leon concluded, holding Ashley's flashlight so she could take the images.

Jill glanced at Graham.

“ Hey Ashley, how do you know so much about the Salazars? We have no information about them other than what Leon wrote down in his report.”

The blonde's hands stopped and her body fell into remembrance.

On that day she thought everything she saw was a hallucination.

In what Salazar did to her in that ritual.

Leon noticed the woman's cessation of movement and for a moment he couldn't help but be curious, for... there were things he never got to tell her, or not in detail.

Then her lips finally parted.

“ Ramon Salazar... had a long history session with me.”

Chris arched his eyebrows.

“Did he pull the board out of you or what?”

She took another second to answer.

“Let's just say, all I could do was listen, being tied to a stone table where the only thing keeping me sane was the voice of that son of a bitch talking about his heretical family and his delusions of grandeur.” she paused for another long pause and then raised the camera again. “It was either that or succumb to the parasite raping my insides trying to get to my brain.”

Leon's gaze remained static on her, on her words, on the darkness that held them. His blue eyes slid to the end of the exposed scar and he unconsciously clenched his fists, feeling that little demon appear at the back of his thoughts.

On the "if's", on how come he didn't get there sooner, on what made him so slow, what-.

“ Leon.” the firm voice snapped him out of it, silencing the devil. “those amber indexes glanced sideways at him to gently shake his head. ”Don't think.”

Chris and Jill watched, confused, the man in front of them at Ashley's words, as if he could read Kennedy's thoughts.

Leon let out a long sigh and tried to calm himself. He was right there was no use thinking about it now. 

He had to focus.

Ashley switched the camera reel so she could finish photographing the entire room.

“ I see you come equipped.” Jill joked.

Ashley smiled and opened one of the pouches in her fanny pack, filled with camera film protected in plastic wrap. Jill was stunned and the one who scoffed was Chris.

“ I think she brought the whole warehouse with her.”

The four of them laughed trying to calm their growing nerves. Finally Ashley put the camera away and they continued on, ascending a small shaft with spiraling stairs.

Leon went first, aiming for whatever might come from above. Suddenly he stopped at the bottom steps, glancing down at his boots. He looked down at his soles and saw something stickier than water, something that gave off an unpleasant odor. He turned to Ashley who looked at the stained stone wrinkling her nose.

That was what she had been smelling all along.

Decomposition.

But it wasn't the normal smell of disintegrating organic matter, it was a different tinged aroma.

“Are you all right?” Leon asked in front of her.

“ Yes, keep going. We need to know where this is coming from.”

With his heart in his throat Leon ascended and reached the exit to the stairs. He passed the small threshold and the blood froze in his body.

Everything came back like a tornado. The rage, the pain, the hate, the exhaustion....

Fury and terror took hold of him again for a few moments when he saw the source of this filth.

“ My God…” Jill's voice was a mixture of disbelief and disgust.

Leon came back to earth and turned quickly to Ashley at his side. His eyes stared at that gigantic inert body. A hodgepodge of muscle and viscera where a huge crimson eye protruded split in half and oozing black fluid.

“What the fuck is that?”

Those blue eyes were once again riveted on the aberration in front of him.

He knew what it was.

He knew who that was.

“ It's Ramon Salazar.”

*

“ Let me hear your sweet cries Ashley, hee hee hee hee....”

Her throat stinged. It burned. It was bleeding.

She no longer had a voice to call for help, to call for Leon.

She could neither moan in pain nor sob in anguish.

She could only convulse in choked moans.

I wanted it to stop.

EVERYTHING.

She wanted someone to pierce her heart and end her suffering. That someone would take pity on her and let her sleep for once.

But no one came. 

Like lava coursing through her insides, ascending into her mind, devouring her body mercilessly.

She was losing. She had to hold on to something... someone.

Blood gurgled from her mouth, threatening to drown her, but not quite succeeding to her misfortune.

Her eyes wept scarlet and her pupils burned, as if there were candles inside her brain heating the corneas from the inside.

She didn't know if her bones were broken or if it was the feeling of the parasite taking control of her body.

Please... make it stop. 

“ I'm going to tell you a little story, Princess.” those cold hands touched her face, making her whimper, as if it burned. “listen carefully, because we're going to be together for a long time, little one…”

*

Now that scrawny, pale body was lying facing her, motionless. She remembered to breathe and took in air as if she had been holding her breath for hours.

But she did not move. She could only look at that torso fused with the flesh of the horrible creature.

She could only stare at that MONSTER.

The gun in her hand became more noticeable. Heavier.

Was this what was left of him, of the great Ramon Salazar?

Unconsciously she took a step forward and gingerly tapped one of the limbs.

So much grandeur and hubris...reduced to pulp and viscera.

She looked up at the rest of the body and her voice finally came out of her throat.

“Is this... what was hanging on the wall?”

Leon looked at her with a grim countenance, feeling the claws of his darkest memories clawing at his legs.

“ When I came in and you weren't there it merged with...that thing that produced plagas.”

Chris turned to Leon for a second.

“This thing is the thing that created the plagas?”

Ashley circled the body without taking her eyes off the pale dwarf.

His eyes white. Just like his flesh. Dry and putrid, devoid of blood or any life it might once have had.

She listened to Leon and Chris's conversation in the background.

“ From what I understood it sounded like that.” he paused thoughtfully. “ but it always seemed strange to me that it was so... unprotected, as if....”

Ashley continued to circle the body,arching her eyebrows at something she was beginning to see coming out of the torso. Leon's voice echoed behind her.

“ As if…”

Ashley's heart stopped.

“ As if it didn't actually PRODUCE the plagas.” she finished the sentence.

The three of them turned and saw her standing still in front of something that only she had vision of from that angle.

She turned to look at them and in her expression they could see uncertainty and... dread. 

Leon frowned and approached cautiously, shining his light on the same spot as Ashley.

He stiffened when he saw what she'd discovered.

The creature's belly pouch filled with plagas.

Ashley swallowed saliva before approaching. Leon went to stop her, but she had already knelt down to pull out the knife.

Graham held her nose before plunging the blade into the slimy flesh and slicing it open. A horrible stench reached Leon who took a step back wrinkling his nose. She waited a few seconds before breathing again, holding back violent retching and an urge to vomit.

This was exactly the smell she had perceived earlier.

The bodies of the parasites slipped lifelessly into the liquid, totally inert. It seems that these were not like their fossilized cousins. They were smaller, much smaller, more... modern.

She reached into her backpack and pulled out a few more jars. She used the knife to cut the tissue and save some samples, then looked carefully at the bag. 

None of them looked like young pests, they all looked the same, where were the eggs? where were the parasites not yet gestated? if that creature produced the plagas, inside it must have both reproductive organs, since the plagas themselves didn't seem to be able to reproduce, but mutate.

She had to know if those were all of them.

She took a breath, deeply disgusted, and bravely climbed onto the decomposing body.

“What are you doing?” Leon asked in alarm.

“ Move aside.” she warned before plunging the knife in and with both hands opening the bag from side to side.

The three veterans held their noses and quickly stepped back. The entire contents emptied out like a pool and Ashley's suspicions began to deepen.

Those were the pests she saw in that grotto. Dismembered and dismembered, but these had a strange feature she hadn't seen.

Shells.

She descended, holding her breath, and pushed one of the new specimens aside with her foot.

This one had been dead much longer. She couldn't remember any such plaga and began to put things together.

It didn't make sense that the creature would keep dead offspring in its body. In those cases the bodies either absorbed them or discarded them to make room for new specimens.

Unless...

She opened her eyes wide.

This thing didn't CREATE plagas, it STORED them.

Leon caught the gasp that came from her and raised his eyes to look at her.

“Ash?”

“You say this merged with Salazar?” In her voice he perceived a slight tinge of alarm.

“ Yes, why do you say that?”

Ashley's flashlight slid across all those bodies.

“ This thing... I don't think it was capable of producing anything.” she paused. “I think it MUTATED the plagas it already had.”

The three of them approached Ashley as she climbed down the body. 

Chris frowned.

“If this thing was storing the parasite then what was producing them?”

Ashley adjusted her backpack and consumption carefully plunged the knife under the shell of one of the plagas to separate it from the body. It cut through the flesh with great ease, which fell away leaving only the shell. Ashley stuffed it into a bag and secured them in the backpack when another scent reached her.

She stood still and looked up at the ceiling, toward a large crack where Salazar's body would have fallen all the way down there.

“ We have to hurry.” She hurried to stow and tie her gear securely. “We have company.”

Leon still couldn't hear anything.

“ What are they?”

“The Colmillos, they must have found or dug some tunnel.”

Chris cursed under his breath.

“We're screwed, the platform before can only be ascended manually or with a water mill. And there's no water here.”

Leon made sure his gun was ready and the adrenaline started coursing through his body.

“ If those beasts managed to get here, that same path could lead us outside.”

It was a risky plan, but it was the only thing they had at the moment. Then Leon heard something else, which was neither growls nor the footsteps of those demon wolves. He turned cautiously and shone a light on the source, where he discovered, with disgust, some strange insects.

Those were...

“ Um... guys? we've got a problem.”

The other three turned and tensed at the sight of bugs eating the liquid that had come out of Ashley's opened bag. The worst part?

They were getting bigger by the second.

Ashley tensed and inhaled looking for the source of the fangs. She shone her light on the ceiling from all sides unable to see anything. she felt something wrap around her ankle and crushed a centipede the size of her leg.

If they already disgusted him, now it was worse.

Jill shone her light and with more light they could see a protrusion to the side.

“ There!” exclaimed the blonde, drawing the attention of the two men.

The insects shrieked, they didn't know whether in pain or madness. They writhed on themselves as their bodies crunched and deformed, turning them into monstrosities.

“ Come on!” Chris exclaimed, standing at the base of the wall to give everyone a leg up. Jill jumped first, Ashley followed and Leon was next.

Graham and Kennedy extended their hands towards Chris, who propelled himself up the wall to reach them and pulled him up with a grunt.

Chris dropped to his knees panting.

“ You've put on weight this time with Ashley eh, Leon?” grinned Chris teasingly.

Leon rolled his eyes and helped him up.

“ Fuck you Chris, you're the elephant here.” he snarled back.

The four watched and heard the insects squirming at the base, covering the ground as if they appeared out of nowhere. They saw some crawling up the walls at the bottom and their alarms went off. 

“Let's get the hell out of here.” Jill said in the lead. Ashley followed her sniffing like a canine and Leon kept his eyes peeled for anything coming after them.

This tunnel was narrower and they had to go one at a time. The scent of Colmillos was still distant. With a little luck, maybe they would make it close to the exit before they encountered them.

That tunnel was not a crawlway. The walls looked as if water had flowed through it long ago.

They might have reached an old river, perhaps the one that joined the one she followed when she came for Leon.

The tunnel widened and they felt a little less claustrophobic. The path was still straight ahead and their hurried footsteps echoed loudly. Ashley turned to look at Leon, worried that this noise wasn't affecting him too much, and as if he could read her thoughts he simply smiled. That was enough to calm her and encourage her to keep going. The tunnel ended and they reached a wide area surrounding a central space. They ran along the path with the intention of continuing through the corridors they saw above. Ashley sniffed again and froze.

That wasn't where the smell was coming from.

The wall exploded beside her, hitting her with the violence of a rhinoceros and sending her flying through the air. She went through old wooden beams and crashed to the stone floor. She rolled to her feet and saw Jill also on the same platform as her.

“ JILL!!!AASHLEY!!!!” Chris shouted as the ground began to shake violently. 

The ground began to sink under the impact, as if it was another one of those platforms .

And then her amber eyes met the crimson ones of that hellhound.

Those uneven crocodile teeth and serrated, drooling with its bifid tongue passing between the fangs.

She stood still staring at it, feeling the weight of the weapon in her hand. The beast watched her just the same, its throat emitting low growls as suddenly its head split open and razor-sharp limbs emerged from its split body. The plaga rippled through the air and stood watching her like a predator.

Her heart thundered in her ears. Her body burned like embers. Adrenaline coursed through her veins. Was she in shock? Was she blocked? Was her body having a panic response?

That's what Leon thought when he saw her standing motionless in front of the creature. Not moving a muscle, as if she couldn't and panicked.

"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit, sh-"

The plaga lunged and Ashley dodged like lightning. The shot echoed like thunder and impacted in the Colmillo's mouth. The beast roared, but 5 more shots landed in its head before it collapsed. Ashley let out the pent-up air with a gasp and took a deep breath.

Only to have panic run through her body.

The platform began to lower further and she watched Leon and Chris search for a lever to stop it.

She caught a whiff and her more visceral instincts surfaced.

“ Jill climb up!” she exclaimed running towards her. Other Colmillos came out of the hole and Ashley raised the gun to fire without hesitation.

Jill dodged a wolf and ran for the wall.

“ What's the matter?” I hadn't understood why she had gotten so nervous.

“FUCKING CLIMB!!!!” she shouted, shooting at the dog and kicking it six feet away. She took off her backpack and threw it at Jill.

“ Come on!” she yelled, running towards her.

Jill shot and knocked down another wolf. Ashley gave her footing to climb onto a ledge. The ground was getting too low. Graham pushed herself up and grabbed Jill's hand.

“HOLD ON!” Leon shouted, jumping from walkway to walkway, still looking for a lever. He watched the two women flee from the wolves as one of them grabbed Ashley by the ankle and dragged her away.

Jill screamed his name and the trembling forced her to hold on so she wouldn't fall again. Leon felt his blood run cold.

Ashley raised the gun and pulled out the climbing ice axe.

“You won't eat me.” she growled like a dog.

Jill fired and another jumped at the blonde. The pike plunged into its head and the barrel went into its mouth to disintegrate it with bullets. Ashley rolled, dodging the pest and blocked an onslaught.

Then bugs and water began to appear around the edges of the platform.

She killed another Colmillo and Jill reached out her hand which Ashley grabbed.

Only to scream as huge jaws closed in on her side.

Leon exclaimed and pulled a wooden wall down.

God, the lever.

“CHRIS!!!” he called out to it and blanched at his protégé's scream.

The wolves and critters closed in on Ashley's feet. She fired point blank into the skull of the wolf that was biting her and blood stained her clothes.

It stung. It burned. FUCK. She shot another insect and shrieked as she felt claws dig into her thigh.

They were coming up, they were circling her.

She shot the wolf.

She shot another insect. The water began to rise.

Blood stained her whole.

Hers and theirs.

Jill tried to pull and shoot to get them to let go. Ashley climbed over the bodies. The men pulled the locked lever.

They bit into her arm.

She screamed. She fired and ran out of bullets.

She fumbled at her belt among the bodies ascending her.

Fuck. FUCK. FUCK

“ COME ON!!!” they roared lowering the lever.

Ashley reached for something in her bag. 

There was a click.

A roar.

Ashley disappeared between the bodies.

Jill shouted her name.

A snap.

And it exploded.

The lever came down and Leon ran out of air.

NO. NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

“ ASHLEY!!!”

#resident evil fandom #resident evil fanfiction #resident evil leon kennedy #resident evil 4 #resident evil #resident evil ashley graham leon kennedy #resident evil ashley graham #ashley graham leon kennedy #leon kennedy #leon scott kennedy #leon s kennedy #sexy leon #original story #original writing #original content #original art #original character #resident evil infinite darkness #fanfic #fandom #multi chapter #multichapter #older ashley graham #ashely graham resident evil 4 #illustration #digitaldesign #digital drawing #digital painting #digital art #digital commisions

[foreverindreamlandd]

Awake My Soul • 1

Pairing: Bucky Barnes x F!Reader

WC: 3.5k

Summary: It’s been 5 years since zombies first started their invasion, and despite everything you’ve been through, you’ve managed to survive up until this point. Now it’s time to face your most dangerous challenge yet….the grumpy, untrusting, fiercely protective Bucky Barnes.

Chapter Warnings: Canon level violence, gets pretty gruesome (it's a zombie fic lol), vague mentions of torture, Bucky is angy.

Series Masterlist / Series Playlist

It was raining.

Somewhere, deep in the back of your mind, a flash of a memory brought you back to the days when you could sit by an open window, inhaling the smells from outside made that much sweeter by the rain. The pine scent from the evergreens that surrounded your home was sharper, the aromas from the flower garden just below you wafted upwards, making your bedroom smell like lilacs.

If you were lucky, your mom would have made hot chocolate, walking it over to you and sitting beside you within the alcove in your room, the two of you watching the rain in silence, allowing the sounds of droplets create a symphony with the different surfaces it fell upon.

But that was just a memory. A time when you could simply observe the weather and appreciate it with very little thought.

Now, every minute shift in your environment was a potential hindrance to your survival.

Rain was no longer just rain.

It was a sound you could hide behind, a substance that could wash away your footprints.

It was a lubricant that made climbing more difficult, a resistance added to your steps as you trudged through the thick mud.

Still, even as you sat atop an oak tree, eyes scanning the area for any signs of movement, the faint taste of chocolate lingered on your tongue.

Five years of this desolate life, and still those happy memories managed to poke through.

The snap of a twig caused your head to whip over to your right, eyes narrowing as you tried to focus through the wall of raindrops to the brush below.

It took a few seconds, but then you saw them.

There were three. Two adults and one kid, dragging their deteriorating bodies along. The rainfall was loud enough to create a reprieve for you from the horrific moaning sounds that continuously fell from their skeletal mouths.

Zombies.

You shifted on the branch ever so slightly to hide from them. Their gazes remained downward as they slowly walked down the wooded path, and you were grateful for the fact that you had just applied a fresh layer of moss to your skin.

They were twenty feet ahead of you now, gaze still focused on a nonexistent destination.

Just a few more minutes and they would be gone, and then you could continue moving.

It still wasn’t safe yet. You needed to put more distance between you and them.

Not that any amount of distance would ever make you feel safe. Not from the people who terrified you more than any undead creature could.

“I will always find you.”

You swallowed the lump in your throat, forcing your breathing to remain steady.

Just when they stepped out of sight, another twig snapped.

Right below you.

Your head shot down, hand tightening around the hilt of your handaxe ready to strike.

But then your eyes widened, your mouth dropped open, and your heart stopped as you saw the source of the sound.

Kids. Two boys.

Alive.

They looked up at you, hands gripping the bark of the tree in panic.

The younger boy let out a small whimper, and you nearly jumped the 20 feet down from your spot to clamp your palm over his mouth, but it was too late.

You looked back ahead, and sure enough, there they were, bodies hobbling to what they hoped was their next meal.

“Fuck,” you breathed out, releasing your hold from the handaxe and grabbing the branch below.

The boys jumped back as you landed onto the muddy surface, their arms now grasping one another instead of the trees. The younger one looked like he was on the verge of sobbing and you slowly raised your pointer finger to your lips.

The older boy nodded in understanding, covering the younger one’s mouth.

You closed your eyes, hands moving to your side as you held onto the hilts of both axes, taking a long, deep breath as you forced your ears to block out the rain and listen for the terrifying groaning that approached.

On the exhale, your eyes shot open and you turned to run at them.

You went for the adult on your right first, lodging one ax into their neck and spinning behind them to gain momentum to pull it out as your other ax landed on the top of the kid's skull. The second adult barely had time to turn their neck before your blade was lodged inside its cheek.

They were on the ground, unmoving as you panted, securing the weapons to your sides once more. 

Then, you returned your attention back to the boys, who had stepped away from the tree, staring at you.

The older one opened his mouth to speak but you shook your head, finger going back to your lips and his mouth clamped shut.

You walked back to them, grabbing them both by the shoulder and ushering them back to behind the tree. 

After stepping back to do a quick scan of the perimeter, you looked back, face inches from theirs.

“Are you hurt?” They shook their heads. “Have you…have you been bitten?”

Their eyes widened as the head shaking grew more frantic. Then, they rolled up their sleeves and pulled the collars of their shirts, proving that there were no marks on their skin.

You nodded, letting out a sigh of relief. “Are you alone? Do you have people watching over you?”

The younger one’s bottom lip trembled as the older one whispered out, “We lost Momma and Bucky a few hours ago. There was a raid and we got separated.”

Fuck, you thought instead of saying out loud. “Do you have any idea where you last saw them?”

They shook their heads again.

Finally, the younger one was no longer able to contain himself as he quietly sobbed out, “Will you help us find Momma?”

You bit the bottom of your lip. It had been years since you had been part of a crew, when a betrayal put a target on your back and put you in a prison that made you desperate to escape to where the undead lurked.

Since you had finally managed to break free weeks ago, you’d been on your own. You preferred it that way. It was easier to be alone. 

Less people to worry about, less people to worry for.

It was that mindset that had you considering saying to the boys good luck and goodbye. Maybe if you gave them a spare blade they could stand a chance until someone alive might find them.

But then you saw the wetness on the young one’s cheek switch from rainwater to tears, and your body sagged in defeat.

“Yeah. I’ll get you to your mom.”

Overcome with emotion, the young one jumped forward, wrapping his arm around your middle. You froze, unsure what to do at first, and then your hands rested on his head and his shoulder in some semblance of a comforting gesture.

“I’m Cass,” the older boy said. “This is my brother AJ.”

You nodded. “Cass. AJ. I’m Y/n.” Pulling back you rubbed AJ’s head with a small side-smile, and you were surprised how much your heart swelled when he smiled back. 

That’s when you realized you were going to do anything and everything these two kids asked of you. “So, which way did your momma-”

Your words died in your throat as your ears picked up a sound nearby. 

Lifeless, dragging moans.

A lot of them.

More walkers, headed in your direction.

You looked to the wide-eyed faces of the boys, grabbing their hands and pulling them along. “Come on, and be quiet,” you whispered.

You started jogging to the right, careful to make sure the pads of your feet landed on the ground as quietly as possible, eyes scanning the area for any type of landmark you could hide in.

The moans grew softer and softer as you ran, and you felt a pit in your stomach start to diminish. They couldn’t catch up, meaning they didn’t have a fast one in their pack.

Those ones could have reached you easily, especially at the slowed pace with the boys.

Finally, about half a mile later, you noticed a large cliff with different jagged rocks sticking out, and some were structured together in a way that looked like they were caves.

It wasn’t awesome, but it would have to do. You could feel the boys starting to drag.

Once you reached the base of the rocks, you linked your fingers together and lowered them, gesturing to Cass to step on and climb up. Once he reached a flat point, you did the same for AJ, and Cass grabbed his younger brother’s arm to help him make it all the way up. 

You turned your head, listening for any signs of approaching zombies. It was quiet, but you didn’t want to test your luck.

With that, you hoisted yourself up the rock to Cass and AJ. Now that you were higher up, you noticed some deep crevasses further ahead and climbed over to hide within one of them.

The three of you huddle down, your arms wrapped around them while they clung to you, their breath shaky, tears streaming down their faces.

You wanted to tell them it was okay, that they were fine. But you couldn’t. You needed to keep quiet in case those walkers caught up.

Also, you didn’t actually know if you were okay.

After thirty minutes or so without hearing anything, you deemed the area safe, slowly moving up to stand, gesturing to the boys to stay where they were while you inspected your surroundings.

The rain had stopped, making it easier to listen for any alarming sounds, which you couldn’t detect. You looked up to the sky, now cloudless, noticing that the sun was starting to set. It would be dark soon. 

You thought for a moment. It was possible that you could continue on and cover more ground, and maybe you could find Cass and AJ’s camp before nightfall.

Or, you had run in the completely opposite direction and this might be the only semi-safe space you would find today.

If it had just been you, you would have gone with the more reckless option.

But now you had two small humans to look after.

With that, you walked back to the boys and told them you were going to camp out here for the night and head out first thing tomorrow. They both nodded, but you caught AJ’s bottom lip tremble.

The kid can’t be older than eight, you thought, heart breaking. Unable to control yourself, you stepped forward, pulling them both in for a hug.

“I promise I’ll do my best to keep you safe. I’ll get you back to your momma, okay?”

You felt them nod against your shoulders.

After a few moments, you pulled away and grabbed your bag, taking out the thin blanket you kept packed in there and wrapping it around them.

“Stay here,” you told them, zipping up the bag and putting it around your shoulders. “I’m going to try to find us some food. Cass, I’m putting you in charge until I get back.”

Cass’s chest puffed up, and he bobbed his head up and down. You gave them a reassuring smile before making your descent back to the ground.

It had been a while since you had traveled with anyone, and it surprised you how quickly you felt overwhelming worry and dread for the boys the further you got from them. You hoped this would be a quick trip and you could find some consumable mushrooms or a squirrel.

In the end, you settled for a pocket full of berries you deemed safe to eat. Luckily, you had left your canteen open while hiding in the tree earlier during the rain, so you had enough water to get you through tomorrow at least.

It was almost pitch black by the time you returned to the rock wall, and you smiled as you let out a sigh of relief knowing you were soon going to be reunited with your young companions.

Just as you raised your right hand against the hard surface to begin climbing, you heard an almost imperceptible shuffling sound behind you. Before you could turn around to see what it was, something had grabbed onto your wrist, pulling it down and shoving your body against the rock.

You let out a soft oof from the impact, using all of your strength to try to get out of this hold, but the arm against your back was immovable.

Hot air brushed against your ear as you heard a gruff, venomous voice whisper, “Where are they?”

“Who the fuck are you?” you whispered back, still trying to break out of the man’s grip.

Suddenly, you were spinning, and then your back was slamming against the hard surface.

And you were face to face with your attacker.

Years of surviving outside made it so that your eyes could see just as well in the darkness as it could in the light, and you were able to make out the giant man who towered over you.

His hair was cropped short, unkempt scruff covering his face. His right hand held a dagger up against your throat as his bottom lip curled up in a snarl.

You looked to his left, and noticed the sleeve to his blue henley was cut and sewn together at the shoulder.

There was no arm to require the extra fabric, apparently. Not that he needed any extra strength to hold you in place. 

“I’m not gonna ask again,” he said, his breath now hitting your cheeks. “Where. Are. They.”

“They’re here! I got them!” another voice called quietly from above you. The man’s eyes shot up from yours and you both looked to see a woman peering over the edge of the rock, Cass and AJ on either side of her.

“Don’t hurt her Bucky!” AJ cried out, and the woman covered his mouth to shush him.  

“She saved us from a pack of walkers earlier and was trying to bring us home!” Cass whisper-yelled in agreement.

Bucky’s jaw tightened, and his venomous gaze met yours. “We can’t trust outsiders,” he said, loudly enough for Cass to hear but you knew the message was aimed toward you.

“Buck, settle down,” the boys’ mom chastised, her tone filled with relief. “They’re here and they’re safe. Let’s just go home.”

AJ wiggled out of his mom’s hold. “Y/n is coming with us, right?” he begged.

Bucky shook his head, opening his mouth to say something but you spoke first. 

“AJ, I think it’s best for you and Cass to go back with your mom and Bucky,” you said, narrowing your eyes at the man who had reinvented the term of being stuck between a rock and a hard place. “I’ll be fine on my own.”

“No,” AJ wailed, now beginning to sob. “You have to come with us! We need to keep you safe!”

Your heart broke into a million pieces, but you refused to let Bucky see tears well in your eyes. However, you could have sworn that you caught his murderous expression soften for a fraction of a second at AJ’s distress.

“She’s good, Bucky,” Cass said, and you were amazed at how adult the young boy sounded in this moment. “She risked her life to save us when she didn’t need to.”

Silence.

Then, “Y/n?” the woman from above called out and you looked up, feeling the blade scrape against your throat. “We have a small camp. It’s well-protected, with a lot of good people who are willing to risk their lives for one another. It’s hard for us to trust newcomers to invite them to stay, but-”

“Sarah, don’t,” Bucky bit out.

“-But you saved my boys, and I don’t know what else I can do to thank you but offer whatever protection we can provide. As long as you’re willing to do the same for us.”

You looked back down at Bucky, who was shaking his head, eyes pleading.

The more his composure was breaking, the more you were able to see behind those eyes. And suddenly, the large, pissed off man before you was just a scared boy.

You’d be lying if you said you weren’t just as terrified.

It would be the right thing to do, to say no. To stay on your own and continue running from the living demons that refused to stop hunting you down. Setting roots anywhere meant that you were not only putting a target on your back, but theirs. It would be selfish to expose these people to the dangers that went beyond the undead.

You couldn’t let them find you or anyone else.

But…

“Please, Y/n,” AJ begged. “You have to stay with us. Please.”

It had been so long since you were wanted. Since someone cared about you. Not your body, not the blood flowing through your veins.

Just. You.

“That depends,” you said. “Does staying with you mean this beefcake is going to keep a blade on me at all times? Or will I be able to, like, eat, sleep, and pee without risking getting my neck sliced open.”

The boys let out soft giggles and Bucky’s eyes widened with shock before narrowing. Were the corners of his mouth twitching?

“Bucky,” Sarah said, “Let her go. She’s fine.”

He stared at you for a few seconds, unmoving, and you set your jaw, raising your chin in defiance. 

With one last shake of his head, he loosened his grip, stepping back from you. You rubbed a hand over your neck.

“We’re too far from camp to get there safely in the dark,” Sarah said. “This spot looks safe enough to stay until dawn.”

“I scavenged some berries that y’all are welcome to,” you said, glaring at Bucky when he scoffed.

“That’s great, thank you, Y/n,” Sarah said, then ushered the boys back to your little camp above.

You were about to start your ascent back up when Bucky grabbed your arm, spinning you around until you faced him, the two of you only inches apart.

Instead of feeling fear or anger, you felt heat.

“If you do anything, anything,” he threatened between clenched teeth, “To put one of them in danger, you’ll be wishing one of them flesheaters got their hands on you first.”

He was so close, so close to you, and yet some insane part of you felt the urge to move closer. It must have been your insanity that made you hallucinate his eyes flashing to your lips for a millisecond before meeting yours once again.

But then, thankfully, your wits returned and you smirked.

“Save your threats for those who are actually trying to kill you, beefcake.” He scowled at the pet name you had apparently given him. “As intimidating as I may seem, there’s much scarier shit out there. Scarier than you, so excuse me for not falling victim to your threats. You don’t scare me, you just annoy me.”

Then, Bucky did the one thing you never expected.

He laughed. A low, grizzly chuckle that vibrated the parts of your body connected to his, then he clicked his tongue as he pulled away from you, moving toward the rock wall.

Though the man before you had done literally nothing to earn your sympathy, realization of his missing arm caused you to feel an unshakable urge to offer to help him climb up the wall.

Before you could say anything, Bucky reached down to his right hip, pulling out a small metal grappling hook attached to a thick piece of rope.

You watched him toss the hook up the cliff to where Sarah and the boys were, pulling it taught to make sure it was secure.

Then, he placed his right foot against the rock, turning back to you with a grin.

“Whatever you say, sweetheart,” he said, the sweetness in his voice coated with disdain. Then, he turned back around and began to seamlessly climb the rope.

You watched him in awe, eyes glued to his back muscles as they carried his body up.

It was then that you realized you were alone at the bottom of the cliff. You turned to look over your shoulder into the unending forest.

You could run, you thought to yourself, hand moving up to your stomach, rubbing over the indentations. You could try to get as far away from them as possible. It would be a kindness.

But then you looked back to Bucky, who had made it up the cliff, and was now leaning down, his right arm extended down to you.

He raised his eyebrows questioningly, as if able to sense all of the doubt running through your mind, as if expecting you to run.

It may be a kindness to leave these people be, but it would be a crime to prove Bucky right.

So with that, you reached up the rock wall and grabbed his hand.

Chapter 2

#bucky barnes x y/n #bucky barnes x you #bucky barnes x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes imagine #awake my soul #ams #zombie apocolypse au #zombie au

[differenteagletragedy]

ol boys with an mcthat is like the girls from h20 but instead of a mermaid they turn into a siren. More monster like features like gills, claws, maybe fangs. I love monsters (i am the ghost mc anon you will see me quite frequently.)

Hi yes hello, welcome welcome!

-- Imagine, if you will, you go to Hawaii when you're like 16 to visit Ma's family. You go out to the beach alone one night, magic happens, and now you are a siren whenever you come into contact with water.

(I felt the need for a prologue because I wasn't super familiar with h20 lol so now the scene is set)

-- Cove. Is. Obsessed. This is the coolest thing he's ever seen in his whole entire life.

-- He really wanted to go to the beach with you when you first got back, you tried to get out if it but he knew something was up so you finally explained that now you have a little issue you need to deal with when it comes to water. He thinks you're just teasing, so you go with him and get in, then boom, old (old old) school siren -- bird legs, human torso, bird wings, claws on your hands, gills on your neck, but your same old head and face so you can be like "I told you, dummy."

-- He has questions. Can you fly? Can you breathe underwater? Can you show him how to do this too?

-- Yeah, he's gonna have to feel them feathers.

-- Basically Cove is just as attached to you as ever, but you're even cooler now. Is he secretly hoping for another sunshower? Yup. If you get an apartment together, does he "accidentally" spray water on you when he's doing the dishes?

You, suddenly standing in the kitchen with your wings knocking stuff off the counter: Could you just not?

Cove: I didn't do anything. *pet pet*

-- Derek doesn't see you nearly as often as Cove, of course, so it takes him longer to see it firsthand. But you do talk on the phone a lot, so after it happened he could tell something was up when you were talking and you felt comfortable enough to tell him.

-- He's there if you want to talk about this new challenge, or if you need to brainstorm workarounds because water is a lot of places.

-- The first time he sees it is when he comes over to visit you and Cove. You're hanging out at Cove's house and Cove is like "show him show him!"

-- Derek doesn't want you to do anything you're uncomfortable with ever, and if you don't want him to see then that's fine, but Cove just won't shut up about it or eventually slings some water at you (I said he was obsessed!) and boom, there it is.

-- He's taken aback, but obviously very polite about it. He has questions too, but he wants to know more about if you're ok than about your new abilities.

-- If you end up with Derek, he is prepared. It doesn't rain much in SoCal, but he's got an umbrella in his car just in case. If rain is in the forecast, stay put, he can get you anything you need. If you're even at a restaurant, he's got his eye on the water pitcher like it's his job.

-- Baxter does find out by accident -- it's when you go hiking together at the lodge. You weren't going to tell him, it was just going to be a summer fling and turning into a siren is like a lot for a casual relationship, but when you go over the stream, he's in such a good mood that he gives you a little splash. Whoops.

-- OP I know you didn't ask how they found out, but we are in too deep now.

-- Just you and Baxter standing in the woods looking at each other wide-eyed for like 10 minutes.

-- Baxter isn't obsessed like Cove is, but he does think it's very interesting. He's a little weirdo (I love him so much), so being with someone so unique is going to be something he likes.

-- Maybe you have the power to control water (the H20 girls had powers, according to my thorough research) -- guess who's actually going to feel safe enough to go into the ocean a little now!

-- He's also protective. He can pull little pranks for fun in some cases (see other headcannons lol) but when it's important, he's going to treat it as such.

You looking at Baxter drinking water when you're out to dinner: You're not going to pull a fast one on me, are you?

Baxter, surprised and a little hurt: I wouldn't dream of it.

-- Baxter giving you a siren bath, so tender.

#our life beginnings and always #olba #our life #cove holden #derek suarez #baxter ward #olba cove #olba derek #olba baxter #our life cove #our life derek #our life baxter #our life headcannons

[strangerstilinski]

SELENOPHILES OF BEACON HILLS | Teen Wolf Rewrite

Stiles Stilinksi/Original Female Character

chapter nine

fic summary; after an already traumatic evening involving the unfortunate discovery of a gruesome scene, amber is convinced to hike through the woods with her two best friends in search of the other half of a dead body. but it's not as if she could ever say no.. not when stiles looked at her like that.

chapter word count; 14,923

chapter notes; stiles and amber struggle to keep their best friend under control when the powerful pull of scott's second full moon succeeds in turning him into a raging asshole.

masterlist

c h a p t e r   n i n e

lunatic

Amber sighed as she stepped in a particularly deep puddle and felt the water soak into her sneaker. She shook off her foot in a sad attempt to wick away the moisture before it could fully absorb into the fabric of her sock, but it was no use because her next step squelched uncomfortably anyway.

"Where are we going?" Scott asked Stiles for the fourth time in just as many minutes.

"You'll see." Stiles repeated blankly to their friend.

"He's not going to tell us." Amber told Scott, taking a large stride past another cluster of puddles in the pothole-ridden lot where they'd parked Stiles' vehicle as they made their way through the treeline, "Besides, it's pretty obvious we're heading in the direction of the old quarry."

Stiles turned his head sharply. Keeping his left hand tucked inside of his jacket protectively, he used his right to pull her around to his other side and away from Scott, "Did you have to give it away?" He asked her quietly.

"We really shouldn't be out here." Scott interrupted them, "My mom is in a constant state of freak-out from what happened at the school."

"Are you kidding?" Amber asked him, "I'm pretty sure Jason wants to lock me up somewhere and just homeschool me at this point."

"Yeah, well. Neither one of you live with the Sheriff, okay?" Stiles announced, "It's no comparison. Trust me."

"Could you at least tell me what we're doing out here?" Scott asked as he stepped on a twig with a loud snap.

"Yes." Stiles grinned, "When one of your best friends gets dumped-"

"I didn't get dumped," Scott told them resolutely, "We're taking a break."

"Alright, well. When one of your best friends gets told by his girlfriend that they're taking a break-" Stiles amended, pulling out a large bottle from the inside of his jacket and holding it up like a trophy, "You get that best friend drunk."

The bottle of whiskey caught in the bright moonlight that shined from behind Stiles and Amber sighed, shuffling her feet, "Not to be a party pooper but.. I just- Is this such a good idea?"

He scoffed, pulling her along with a hand on her wrist as he led them further into the woods toward the quarry, "Yes, party-pooper. It is a good idea. It-It's a rite of passage! Getting drunk after your first heartbreak."

"It's just.. We have that test tomorrow morning and the full moon is tomorrow night and I think we should probably be focussing on-" She started.

"Nuh-uh," Stiles cut her off, "Not tonight. Tonight, we drink!" He announced happily, turning around and throwing his arms out to present the cluster of rocks where he intended for them to hang out.

"Stiles, did you-" Amber watched him twist the cap off the bottle of whiskey and take a large sip before sputtering and coughing as he swallowed, "Did you come out and scout this location before we got here?"

"Yeah," He coughed again, holding the bottle out to Scott, "I came out this afternoon. This is a good spot, right?"

"I.. Yeah," She told Stiles quickly upon seeing his adorably proud face, "Yeah, it's- A really nice spot." She kicked her foot against a large bit of stone that she thought might make a decent seat, "Uh, good.. rocks."

Scott took a sad sip from the bottle with a wince before handing it over to Amber. The girl eyed the dark liquid inside with a frown, she moved to lift it to her nose to sniff and Stiles reached out quickly to cover the opening with his hand.

"Don't do that." He advised her, "Don't smell it. Nothing good comes from smelling it first."

She nodded with a frown and he removed his hand so she could lift the bottle to her lips. She tilted her head back and poured a large swig into her mouth, trying to swallow the liquid before it could rest on her tongue for too long. She coughed and gagged at the bitter heat in her throat and handed the bottle back to Stiles before plopping her butt down onto her chosen rock.

The three passed the bottle between them slowly for a while, Amber perched criss-cross on the large rock that jutted up above the rest, Scott on the stone floor below her with his knees pulled to his chest, Stiles sprawled out beside him on his back where he could look up at the stars.

"Right, I wasn't looking forward to this, but I really gotta pee." Amber announced to the group, swaying slightly as she got to her feet.

Stiles tilted his head to watch her as she carefully stepped around him and moved toward the treeline, "Don't wander too far!" He called out to her as she walked away, slightly transfixed by the way her tight jeans clung to her backside.

"I won't go too far if Scott promises to tone down his wolfy hearing so I can pee in peace!" She called back over her shoulder, her long hair catching in the breeze.

"You heard the woman, Scott." Stiles told his friend, looking back up at the stars, "No listening to her pee."

"I wasn't going to listen to her pee, Stiles." Scott said brusquely.

They settled into silence and Stiles watched the way the tiny dots of the stars danced around through his blurred vision for a quiet minute, "You still thinking about Allison?" He finally asked Scott.

"Yeah." Scott said honestly.

Stiles sat up to take another drink of the whiskey before leaving the bottle sitting between them and flopping onto his back again, "Dude.. She's just one girl. Y'know? There are so many- There 're so many other girls in the sea." His words slurred at the attempt of such a long sentence.

"'Fish in the sea.'" Scott told him immediately.

"Fish?" Stiles repeated in confusion, tilting his head back to squint at Scott for a second, "Why you talkin' 'bout fish? I'm talkin' 'bout girls." He corrected with a sigh, tilting his head back toward the sky unseeingly, his mind conjuring up images instead, "I love girls.. I love 'em. I love- Especially ones with light ashy brown hair, 'nd hazel eyes that've got more green than brown in 'em, five-foot five-"

"Like Amber?" Scott asked knowingly.

"Yeah, exactly-Hey!" Stiles tilted his head back to look at Scott again in surprise, "How did you know I was talkin' 'bout- About.." Stiles trailed off distractedly, "What was I talking about?" He asked Scott, catching the sad look on his friend's face when he tipped his head back again, "Hey. You're not happy. Take a drink-"

Stiles rolled onto his side to grab the bottle again and held it out to Scott.

"I don't want any more." Scott told him with a frown.

Letting the bottle drop back down to the ground, Stiles laid on his back again, bringing his arm to rest underneath his head, "What, you're not drunk?" He asked.

"I'm not anything." Scott said miserably, looking down at his feet.

"Hey, maybe it's like-" Stiles started, "Maybe it's like not needing your inhaler anymore, y'know? Maybe you can't get drunk as a wolf," He pondered aloud, "Hey, am I drunk?"

"You're wasted," Scott told him blankly before continuing to speak under his breath, "And so's Amber.. She should probably be back by now-"

"C'mon, dude-" Stiles said, not having heard the tail end of Scott's murmuring, "I know it feels bad. I know it hurts. Well, I don't know.. But, I know this- I know as much as being broken up hurts, being alone's way worse." He paused in confusion when he processed his own words and laughed, "That.. Didn't make any sense. I-I need another drink."

"Well," An unfamiliar voice cut in, plucking the bottle up from the ground just before Stiles' fingers could wrap around it, "Look at the little bitches, all getting their drink on."

Stiles quickly stumbled to his feet, heart racing as he looked at the two men who had approached from the treeline. The smaller and lighter skinned of the two was holding Amber against his side with an arm wrapped around her waist and the girl's face was narrowed in annoyance and an underlying fear as she struggled against his grip. The larger man held the whiskey up triumphantly, eyeing the group of teens with a smug grin.

"I- Um," Amber looked between the group nervously, "I ran into these guys on my way back-"

"She told us she was here with her friends," The smaller man interrupted with a frown, "We were expecting more girls.. But, I guess just the one'll have to do." He chuckled, leaning his dirty face into Amber's hair and prompting her to jab him sharply with her elbow.

“Hey, man-" Stiles started anxiously, words cut off when Scott took a small step in front of him and spoke more firmly.

"Don't touch her." Scott spoke darkly. Stiles turned to look at him for a moment and saw no fear on his friend's face, only a cold anger.

"What's that, little man?" The larger guy asked as he raised his eyebrows, annoyed at Scott's lack of submission.

"I don't think he wants to share the girl, or the booze." The smaller man said, readjusting his grip and tugging Amber back against him when she managed to put a small amount of distance between them beneath his slackened grip.

"Let. Her go." Scott said slowly in the same dark voice.

"Listen.. You guys let her go, the three of us will leave and-" Stiles started placatingly, his heart hammering in his chest, "And you guys can keep the bottle."

"No." Scott cut in, looking back at Stiles for a moment and ignoring the furious look of disbelief of his face, "You guys brought me here to get me drunk. I'm not drunk yet."

The stranger holding the whiskey shook his head with a laugh and lifted the bottle to his lips, taking a long swig. Stiles nervously watched Scott take a couple of steps forward until he stood face to face with the two men. Scott's head turned between Amber's fear-filled eyes and the larger man in front of him.

"Let her go. And give me the bottle of Jack." Scott's voice dropped as he spoke, deepening into what was almost a growl. Stiles watched claws protrude from Scott's fingertips and Stiles' eyes widened. He quickly flicked his gaze back up at the scene in front of him. The two men both flinched back in surprise as they looked at whatever emotion covered Scott's face and the larger man slowly held the bottle out toward Scott.

Amber apparently took the moment of distracted fear as an opportunity, and she stomped the heel of her foot down onto the toes of the man still loosely holding her around the waist. She stumbled forward when he let her go in surprise and Stiles grabbed her by the arms and pulled her to stand behind Scott.

She huddled close to Stiles and fisted her small hand into the fabric of his shirt. His eyes raked over her in a rush, catching the lingering fear in her eyes and the way her chest was rising and falling with shaky breaths beneath her sweatshirt. After determining that he didn't think she'd been physically harmed, Stiles reluctantly turned his attention back to the confrontation still taking place.

Scott glanced back toward them quickly, his eyes glowing bright gold, before he turned to face forward again and threw the bottle of whiskey a couple hundred feet across the clearing. It shattered loudly against a tree and the two strange men took a nervous step away.

"We-" Stiles cleared his throat anxiously, "We cool?"

The men both nodded, backing another few steps away while keeping their eyes glued to Scott.

"Great meeting you, then." Amber said sarcastically. She tugged on Stiles' hand and grabbed the sleeve of Scott's jacket as she began to pull them away and back in the direction they'd initially hiked out from, "Let's go." She pleaded, pulling more firmly on Scott's sleeve when he didn't immediately budge.

"Yeah, Scott. Let's go, man." Stiles agreed, locking his fingers with Amber's and stumbling in his inebriated state.

He squeezed her hand guiltily as he thought about his insistence on coming out and drinking, an anxious pit growing in his stomach as she pulled him along. So far, he didn't feel like he was doing incredibly well on his promise to keep her safe.

The three friends sat in the vehicle for several long minutes after they finally climbed back inside, a thick silence filling the Jeep. Each of them unsure exactly what to say.

"So, that was kind of really scary." Amber finally admitted quietly once the silence had stretched just a hair too long. She looked between her friends for their reactions, at Scott behind the wheel and Stiles tensely sitting in his own passenger seat.

"Agreed." Stiles told her, "Am, I'm so sor-"

"I wouldn't've let them hurt you." Scott interrupted, his eyes flicking to Amber before looking back out the windshield with an angry stare, "I mean it. Just seeing him touch you like that.. If they'd hurt you I would've- I mean, I-I actually wanted to-"

He shook his head and she reached out to rest a hand on his arm to stop him, "Scott, it's okay."

"I wouldn't have let them hurt you. Either of you." He clarified, his eyes drifting past her to look at Stiles.

"We know, man." Stiles told him, leaning his head back against the window.

"Let's get out of here?" Amber prompted quietly after a moment, her attention focused on Scott.

He nodded and started up the vehicle, getting them back onto the main road. He drove the Jeep back to Stiles' house, but refused the offer to stay the night and instead insisted on walking home.

Amber watched him go with a worried frown, shivering in the late night air as she eased back from wasted into pleasantly drunk.

Stiles pulled her inside the house and they stumbled up the staircase toward his bedroom, the two of them laughing loudly at one another as they tripped over the troublesome stairs.

He veered off toward the bathroom and she entered the bedroom and moved to stand beside the dresser, leaning against the wall as she waited. When he reappeared a few minutes later, he had already changed into pajamas and she chewed distractedly on her lip when she saw how soft and attractive he looked.

"You know, you could find clothes to sleep in yourself for once." He told her with a laugh as he came to stand in front of his dresser.

"I don't want to dig around through your drawers." She frowned.

"I don't have that many clothes. There wouldn't be much digging." Stiles laughed, leaning against the piece of furniture casually and looking at her.

"No, I just meant," She paused, "I wouldn't want to, y'know, find anything.. Racy."

He blinked in surprise, "I- Amber.. First of all, I hide things better than that. My dad is a cop. A Sheriff." He laughed incredulously, "And even if he wasn't, I wouldn't keep porn in my underwear drawer."

She blushed awkwardly at his words and shuffled on her feet, her mind drifting to the contents of her own dresser.

He balked at her reaction, "I- Do you keep porn in your underwear drawer?"

"Ew, gross, no. I don't have physical copies of porn. It's the twenty-first century, Stiles." She defended quickly.

"Okay.." He started slowly, "Then what do you hide in your underwear drawer that has you so red?" He prodded gently, an eager look on his face.

"Um," She swallowed, determinedly looking at the lamp across the room, "Not porn."

"Well if it's not porn then what else would you-" He paused with wide eyes. He stood up straighter and took one step to the side to block her line of sight across the room. His own cheeks were tinged pink as he looked at her blushing face, "You.. You keep your-"

"Eugh, Stiles don't say it!" She pleaded, stepping forward and covering his mouth with both of her hands, "Yes I have a-" She paused, face hot with embarrassment, "A you-know-what. And yes, I hide it in my underwear drawer. Please, let's never talk about it again."

He was still looking at her wide-eyed and he nodded distractedly, his focus seemingly somewhere else. She dropped her hands from his mouth as she took a step back and sighed after a few seconds passed and his focus didn't return.

"Stiles, please stop thinking about my sex toys." She pleaded quietly. She'd begun to pull off her hoodie when she finally heard his voice again.

"Toys? Toys as in plural? As in more than one?"

She finally ripped the sweatshirt over her head and she glared at him as she dropped it to the floor, "I thought we were going to never talk about it again? Here we are.. Talking about it."

"Right, you're right. I'm sorry." Stiles blinked and shook his head, his eyes drifting down to her tank top for a moment. He blinked again and turned to the dresser, pulling open a drawer in preparation, "Right, okay. What'd'you need? Just a tshirt?"

"Can I have something with long sleeves?" She asked, shivering as if on command.

He shifted through his stack of tshirts for a moment before pulling out a white long sleeved tee. He held it out to her and she reached to take it from him, but he pulled his hand back playfully before she could grab it.

She made a quiet noise of discontentment and reached for the shirt again but Stiles lifted his arm over his head and held it just out of her reach, a large grin on his face as he watched her push up on her tiptoes. She pulled at his arm with one hand and nearly had the shirt in her reach when he readjusted once again.

He laughed, holding his hand outstretched behind his back where she couldn't get to it. She pinched her face in annoyance and determination and leaned closer, her arm reaching around him to grab for the shirt but her fingers only just reaching past his elbow.

"Stiles, c'mon I'm cold-" She tried again, leaning into his chest with her cheek against his as she tried to gain a couple more inches in arm length.

"The thermostat is set to seventy," He laughed again, his head turning to look at her put-out expression.

She huffed in frustration and gripped his opposite shoulder in her hand as she hauled herself higher up his body to reach for the clothing. She heard him huff another small laugh at her and she turned her head to glare at him, a quip on her tongue about it not being funny, but their faces had been hovering closer together than she'd thought and when she turned, her mouth brushed across his cheek before skimming softly over the plushness of his lips.

Her gaze caught on his eyelashes as they fluttered shut and something in her belly flipped when she felt the soft breath he let out over her lips and she gasped quietly before jerking away.

She released his shoulder quickly, dropping back down onto the floor flat-footed and easing herself back until their chests were no longer pressed together. Her heart was pounding loudly in her ribcage and her lips tingled from the soft touch of his mouth against hers.

"I'm sorry." She said quickly, eyes wide.

Stiles looked stunned and she swallowed as she watched his arm holding the shirt slowly drop back down to rest at his side, "I- No- No apology necessary-"

She nodded and trained her focus on a tiny mole on the side of his neck, worried that if she looked at his face, she wouldn't be able to force her eyes to look at anything but his lips.

Stiles reached out to awkwardly offered her the shirt still gripped in his hand and she accepted the shirt quickly, taking a small step back before pulling it on over the thin fabric of her tank top. She reached up to pull her hair free from the collar of the shirt before thoughtlessly beginning to remove her jeans. She managed to pull one leg free and lifted her other foot to tug at the fabric around her other ankle but she swayed lightly on her feet as she finally rid herself of her jeans and she felt Stiles reach up to steady her with a hand on her waist.

"I think 'm still kinda drunk." She admitted with a quiet laugh, finally looking up to find him standing temptingly close.

His brown eyes flicked slowly back and forth between hers before he spoke, "Yeah, me too."

She took a small step back out of his reach again, "Brush our teeth 'nd then bed?" She asked him, taking another step toward the bedroom door.

Stiles reached up to rub at the back of his neck and nodded, gesturing for her to leave the room first.

They brushed their teeth quickly and Amber ran back toward the bedroom excitedly, jumping into the bed and landing in an ungraceful heap in the pile of blankets where she began to kick at the duvet until she could stick her bare legs beneath the fabric.

Stiles entered the room just as she was pulling the blankets up with a contented sigh. He watched her silently for a moment before flicking off the light and coming to climb in beside her.

She flopped down onto her preferred pillow and stared up at the ceiling, dark shapes swaying and bending in her vision dizzily now that her intoxicated body was laying completely still. Her mind drifted sleepily after a few minutes in the quiet and she yawned before speaking softly into the dark.

"Can't believe we kissed after all these years.. I mean.. We've been best friends since the third grade 'nd we kiss for the first time and it's a total accident-"

"Wait, wait-" Stiles interrupted her quietly, "That wasn't our first kiss, though."

She rolled onto her side in the dark and looked at the dark shape of him in confusion, "What do you mean? Yeah it was."

She heard more than saw him shake his head against his pillow, "No it wasn't," He told her adamantly, "We've kissed before."

"No we haven't," She laughed quietly, "I think I'd remember if we'd kissed before, Stiles."

"Well, we did," He said quietly, "You were in second grade. There was this jump rope tournament going on at recess for weeks and you and Lydia refused to be a part of it. But you watched from the sidelines every day and you made these little bracelets with dandelion stems for the kids that got eliminated-"

He shook his head again in the dark before continuing, "And, anyway- Then it was just down to me and that kid Vernon and then Jackson, and- And I remember you said something about how you promised to marry the winner the next day." Stiles told the story quietly and Amber's face contorted in confusion as she struggled to comprehend his words, "Anyway, I bribed Vernon with an X-Men comic, and I untied Jackson's shoelaces, and I won."

"I do remember that," She admitted quietly, "But Stiles, you didn't win. Lydia did the whole, 'You may now kiss' thing under the slides but it was me and that third grader with the pretty hair-" She paused, trying to remember the boy's name — It hadn't been English. It had been a Czechoslovakian name, or maybe Romanian. She sighed in frustration when she couldn't quite remember, "I think he moved away after that school year. His name was.. Like, Mooshy-"

"Mieczysław." Stiles interrupted, the pronunciation seeming to fall off his tongue easily.

"Yes!" She told him quietly, "See, you do remember him."

"Amber. You know my birth name isn't Stiles.." He said slowly.

The seemingly sudden change in subject left her feeling confused but she allowed it, "Yeah, I know," She agreed with a yawn, wiggling in place in the bed to burrow deeper beneath the blankets, "It's, um-" She frowned, "I-I don't think you've ever actually told me your real name."

"It's Mieczysław." He told her with a small laugh.

She reached out and punched him in what she approximated was his arm, "No, it's not." She said quickly, but as the puzzle pieces slowly began to slide together in her brain, she gasped in the dark, "Stiles, no it's not." She repeated in disbelief before punching him again.

"Ow-" He rubbed at the newly sensitive spot on his arm, "I thought you knew!" Stiles defended, reaching out in the dark and grabbing her fist in his hand so that she couldn't hit him again.

"So then.. That was the year you were held back.. And you got rid of the shoulder-length hair.." She started, pausing for a moment, "But, the next year you weren't-"

"Going by my birth name was always hell. The teachers couldn't pronounce it, let alone the other kids-" He told her, "We went to visit my grandad that summer. He's this raging asshole of an army vet, but- He always went by Stiles and I liked it. Made my mom and dad start calling me it almost immediately and refused to answer to anything to else."

"Meecshislav," She whispered with careful pronunciation with a yawn, grinning when Stiles squeezed his hand around her fist softly, "It's kinda pretty."

"Yeah, pretty's exactly what I'm going for." He chuckled sarcastically.

She shuffled closer in the bed and nestled her head beneath his chin, taking a deep breath. He smelled like laundry detergent, and body wash, and whiskey, and something underneath it all that was inherently Stiles.

One of his arms came up to wrap around her back and she nuzzled contentedly into the warmth of his chest beneath the blankets. She resolutely blamed the remaining buzz of alcohol in her brain for the words that sleepily left her mouth next.

"Bu' you are. Think y're very pretty."

And then she was out like a light.

When Monday finally came around after the police-enforced four day weekend, just being inside of the day-lit school building felt surreal. Amber sat on the floor outside of the front office with Stiles, her legs sprawled out in front of her. She tapped her fingers impatiently against the bare skin off her thighs below the hem of her skirt.

"Stiles, I know you wanna talk to your dad, but we're seriously going to be late if we don't-"

"No," He interrupted her. "No one's gonna fail us for being two minutes late for a standardized test, alright? I need to talk to my dad before he goes out looking for Derek tonight."

She sighed, knowing that her friend was right. She was worried about the safety of all of the police officers who would be going out on the night of the full moon with a murderous Alpha still on the loose. She glanced at the clock on her phone screen, chewing her lower lip anxiously.

The bell signaling the end of the fifteen-minute morning break trilled out loudly in the hallway and Amber flinched, looking at Stiles nervously for only a second before the office door swung open. Sheriff Stilinski's voice could be heard murmuring softly to the principal and the two officers with him as they all stepped out into the hall.

Stiles got to his feet clumsily, pulling Amber up by her bicep. The Sheriff cast them both a displeased look when he spirited them and he dismissed the two officers as the teens came to stand in front of him.

"Don't you both have a test to get to?" The Sheriff asked, crossing his arms over his chest and raising his eyebrows as he looked between them.

Amber nodded and Stiles spoke quickly, "What's goin' on? Did you find Derek yet?"

"I'm workin' on it," Sheriff Stilinski told him. He looked at where Amber was checking the time nervously on her phone again before returning his attention to his son, "You, go take your test."

"Alright, but dad, listen to me-"

"Go." The Sheriff insisted.

"This is really important," Stiles told him urgently. The Sheriff glanced between the two teens again and sighed when Amber nodded her own insistence. "You have to be careful tonight, okay?" Stiles pleaded.

"Especially tonight." Amber emphasized.

"You guys, I'm always careful." Sheriff Stilinski told them earnestly.

Stiles took a breath, "Dad, you've never dealt with this kind of thing before, okay? At least not like this."

"I know. Which is why I've brought in people who have." The man told them both. They frowned in confusion before he continued, "State detectives. Now, go. Both of you. Go take your test."

Stiles scrunched his face in frustration before readjusting his grip on his backpack and begrudgingly pulling Amber down the hallway with a sigh.

"Those state detectives aren't going to be any help at all, are they?" She leaned close to ask the question quietly as they fast-walked down the hall toward the east stairwell.

"Nope. Not one bit." He told her as they climbed the stairs two at a time.

As they rushed into the classroom for the test, they were still in the first half of students to arrive and Amber sighed in relief as she took a seat at an empty desk. She quickly pulled out a pencil as Stiles threw his backpack to the ground and settled into the seat behind her.

She tapped her pencil eraser against her desk anxiously as she waited for the rest of their classmates to file into the room. When Scott stepped through the doorway, Amber watched him falter as he caught sight of Allison at a desk in the front of the room. A few students shuffled around his frozen body awkwardly as they moved toward the remaining empty desks.

Scott stepped forward a few slow steps to approach Allison's desk and Amber winced in sympathy for them both.

Before Scott could say anything, Mr. Harris stepped up behind him and leaned in close as he dropped a set of test booklets on the desk at the front of each row, "Mr. McCall, please take a seat."

Scott seemed to hesitate for a moment before he frowned and made his way toward the empty desk remaining in front of Amber and Stiles, only a few seats away from Allison. As he fell into his seat, he gave Amber and Stiles a small smile of commiseration, passing the stack of blue test booklets back onto Amber's desk.

She kept one booklet before passing the final two back to Stiles for him and the student sitting behind him. He gave her a reassuring smile and his fingers brushed softly over hers as he took the tests from her outstretched hand.

She turned back around in her seat with a sigh. She had studied and done practice tests the entirety of Thursday and Friday. Though she had no reason to be nervous, she found herself wiping her clammy hands on the wool of her short skirt under her desk anyway.

"You have forty-five minutes to complete the test," Mr. Harris' voice announced from the front of the room, "Twenty-five percent of your grade can be earned right now, simply by writing your name on the cover of the blue book." He told them, letting his glare rake over the students slowly as he continued, "However, as happens every year, one of you will inexplicably fail to put your name on the cover and I'll be left yet again questioning my decision to ever become a teacher." Mr. Harris sighed with an eye roll as he sat down at the desk at the front of the room, "So, let's get the disappointment over with. Begin."

Amber wrote her name at the top of her booklet and quickly flipped open the front cover, her eyes raking over the words on the page rapidly. She sped through the first couple of pages, recognizing many of the questions from her practice tests, and circled her answers quickly as she went. She chewed her lower lip and tapped the fingertips of her left hand against the top of her desk as she plowed through the mercifully easy test questions.

There were only a few unanswered questions remaining in her booklet when Scott suddenly shot up from the desk in front of her. He grabbed his backpack and abandoned his open test on his desktop, rushing toward the door.

"Mr. McCall!" Their teacher called out, watching Scott ignore him as he ran from the classroom.

Amber turned her head worriedly to glance back at Stiles, but he already was rising from his own desk and running after Scott.

"Mr. Stilinski!" Their teacher shouted at him as he left the room. Amber began to stand from her own seat and Mr. Harris shot her a sharp look, "Sit. Down."

She shied back from his scolding and frustratedly went back to her test, quickly skimming the last few questions and circling her answers. She flipped the booklet closed and pushed up from her seat, grabbing Stiles' backpack from the floor behind her desk and rushing to the front of the room.

"Miss Callisto, if you don't return to your seat and finish your test, I am going to give you detention for the next-"

She set her completed booklet on top of his desk, "I'm finished." She told him quickly, eyes flicking to the door worriedly.

Mr. Harris narrowed his eyes and flipped through the booklet to verify whether or not she was lying. When he determined she was telling the truth, he scrunched his face up in annoyance and nodded once, dismissing her.

She tightened her grip on Stiles' bag and ran from the room. She rushed down the hallway in the direction Scott and Stiles had gone in only a minute before, looking around wildly for a clue as to where they'd gone.

"Guys." She whisper-shouted as she ran down the hall.

She got no response, but she heard a cellphone ring out with the same ringtone Scott used. It came from the next hallway over before cutting off sharply. She rushed down the hall and realized with a slightly queasy feeling in her stomach that she was heading in the direction of the boy's locker room.

When she reached the doorway, the door that had been covered in the janitor's blood just a few nights before had been removed from its hinges. She rushed through the opening without allowing herself time to think about the last time she'd been in the room.

"-I can't. I can't breathe-" She heard Scott gasp before he took a wheezing breath.

"Scott?" She called out worriedly, sprinting to the back of the room in a panic.

She skidded into Stiles' back when she turned the corner toward the showers and found Scott hyperventilating, shirtless and soaking wet. Stiles was digging through Scott's backpack frantically and he pulled out Scott's inhaler from the bottom of the bag, holding it out toward their friend.

"Here, use this." Stiles said, shaking the inhaler at him. Amber and Scott both looked at him in confusion and Stiles shook it emphatically again, "Come on. Do it."

"I- Just try it, Scott." Amber told him, taking it from Stiles' hand. She pulled the cap from the mouthpiece and held it out closer to Scott as he continued to gasp in choppy breaths.

He took the inhaler from her hand and brought it up to his mouth, squeezing the device down and taking the medicine into his lungs. He leaned over for a few seconds, beginning to inhale deep breaths as he calmed and Amber sighed in relief.

Scott breathed slowly for a few seconds before looking up at them in confusion, "Wh- I was having an asthma attack?"

"No. You were having a panic attack. But, thinking you were having an asthma attack, actually stopped the panic attack." Stiles explained slowly, "Irony."

"How- How did you know to do that?" Scott asked him.

Stiles looked at Amber sadly for a moment before returning his attention to Scott, "I used to get them- After my mom died. And-and then Amber did too, when her parents-" His voice faded out.

Amber chewed on her lower lip at the admission, recalling all of the times Stiles had calmed her down or distracted her from her own panic attacks.

"Not fun, huh?" She asked Scott quietly, reaching down and pulling at the hem of her skirt awkwardly.

Scott shook his head at them sadly, taking a slow breath, "I-I looked at her and it was like someone hit me in the ribs with a hammer."

"Yeah, that's heartbreak." Amber told him with a sympathetic smile.

Stiles chuckled sadly and nodded, "There's about two billion songs written about it."

"I can't stop thinking about her." Scott panted, leaning his head back against the shower wall.

"You could think about this," Stiles started, "Her dad's a werewolf hunter.. You're a werewolf. So, it was bound to become an issue-" He laughed quietly and Amber reached over to slap him in the arm. "That wasn't helpful." Stiles agreed with a small nod of his head.

"It's gonna hurt, Scott." Amber said softly, "And it sucks, but.. It won't feel like this forever."

"Dude, I mean- You got dumped." Stiles told him with a shrug, "It's supposed to suck."

"No," Scott disagreed, "That's not all. It was like I could feel everything in the room.. Everyone else's emotions."

"Like, everyone else's stress and anxiety about the test." Amber realized, looking at him pityingly.

"It's gotta be the full moon," Stiles said, seemingly deep in thought. He shook his head as he refocused and looked between his best friends, "So, Amber and I'll lock you in your room later like we planned. That way, you'll be contained, and the Alpha- Who's your boss," He reminded him, "Can't get to you either."

"I think you guys need to do a lot more than lock me in my room." Scott told them honestly.

"What- Are you worried about the Alpha or- Or the hunters?" Amber asked him worriedly.

Scott shook his head, stepping out of the shower stall and coming closer to his friends, "No. I-I think if I get out- I think I might kill someone."

Stiles climbed over the changing bench in the locker room, lacrosse stick in hand, and sat down in the open space beside Scott as Coach Finstock came out of his office.

"All right, geniuses!" Coach shouted to gain the attention of the team, continuing to talk as they huddled around him at the back of the locker room, "Listen up! Due to the recent pink-eye epidemic- Thank you, Greenberg- The following people have made first line on a probationary basis. Emphasis on 'probationary'."

Stiles looked around wide-eyed. He glanced at Scott to find that his friend wasn't paying any attention to the team meeting taking place but Stiles sat up straighter as he focused his attention on their Coach.

Finstock lifted the clipboard in his hands up to look at the list of player names on the sheet of paper, "Rodriguez," He read off slowly, "Welcome to first line. Taylor.. And, uh-" The Coach paused, squinting in confusion at the paper in front of him, "Oh, for the love of crap. I can't even read my own writing.. What is that? An 'S'?" He questioned aloud.

Stiles was barely containing his eagerness, rising to hover above his seat and shaking in anticipation, praying for his last name to be called. Stilinski.. Stilinski.

"No, no, wait." Coach immediately backtracked. Stiles deflated and fell back onto the bench as Coach Finstock continued, "That's not an 'S', that's a- That's a 'B'. It's definitely a 'B'." He announced, "Rodriguez, Taylor, and Bilinski!"

Stiles' head snapped up in excitement, "Ha! Aha!" He yelled enthusiastically, rising to his feet and lifting his arms above his head in triumph. He whooped and cheered and looked around the room with wide eyes, but he seemed to be the only one affected by the incredible news.

"Bilinski!" Coach Finstock yelled at him with an unimpressed glare.

"Yes?" Stiles asked quickly.

"Shut up." Coach told him.

"Yes, sir." Stiles winced, sitting back down beside Scott as a couple of their teammates laughed.

"Stiles-" Scott said to him quietly.

"It's Biles." Stiles corrected quickly, "Call me Biles or I swear to god I'll kill you."

"And another thing!" Coach called out, "From here on out, we're switching to co-captains. Congratulations McCall."

Stiles looked at Scott in surprise and found a similar look of astonishment on his face. Stiles nudged his knee against his best friend's excitedly as Jackson stepped forward to stand beside Coach.

"What?" Jackson asked quietly.

"What do you mean, 'What?'" Coach asked him, "Jackson, this takes nothing away from you. This is about combining separate strengths into one unit. This is about taking your unit, McCall's unit, and- We're making one big unit." Coach told him assuredly, "McCall. It's you and Jackson now. Everybody else, asses on the field!"

Coach blew on his whistle in emphasis and Stiles quickly grabbed his duffle bag and stood up with Scott to walk to the front of the locker room, "Dude, can you believe this?" Stiles asked, "You're captain, I'm first line.. I'm first freaking line!" He yelled excitedly.

They made their way out into the hallway and Scott still hadn't spoken so Stiles turned to his friend in confusion, readjusting his bag over his shoulder as they walked, "Are you not freaking out?" Stiles asked, still in disbelief at the events of the last two minutes, "I'm freaking out!"

"What's the point?" Scott asked blankly, "It's just a stupid title. And- I could practically smell the jealousy in there."

Stiles paused, jerking back in surprise and pulling Scott to a stop, "Wait. You can smell jealousy?" He asked in confusion.

Scott shrugged, "Yeah. It's like the full moon's turned everything up to ten."

"Oh," Stiles said, getting distracted with a sudden train of thought, "Can you pick up on other things? Like," He shrugged in an attempt at nonchalance, "I don't know... Desire?"

"What do you mean 'desire'?'" Scott asked him.

"Like.. Sexual desire." Stiles clarified with another shrug.

"Sexual desire?"

"Yeah, sexual desire-" Stiles repeated quickly, "Lust, passion, arousal."

Scott sighed and looked down the hallway. Stiles followed his gaze after a second to see the girl of his affections exiting the girl's bathroom and walking down the hallway toward her locker, looking as inhumanly beautiful as she always seemed to, "From Amber?"

"What?" Stiles scoffed a little too quickly, "No. In a broad, general sense. Can you determine sexual desire?"

"From Amber to you?" Scott clarified once more with an unimpressed raise of his eyebrows.

"Fine, yes. From Amber to me." Stiles admitted in frustration, "Look, I need to know if I actually have a chance, okay? I've been obsessing over her since the third frickin' grade and something sort of, almost, but didn't really happen last night and- I just need to know. I can't mess up our friendship for nothing, dude."

"Why don't you just ask her?" Scott questioned blankly.

"Ah, well. To save myself from utterly crushing humiliation. Thank you, Scott." Stiles told him sarcastically, "Okay, so please? Can you just go and ask her if she likes me? See if her heartbeat rises, pheromones come out-"

"Alright. Fine." Scott said quickly, sighing in regret immediately.

Stiles watched Scott head down the hallway in the direction of their best friend with a nervous excitement building up inside of him. He bit down on a smile and bounced on his toes before rushing out toward the lacrosse field, where he would be practicing. Because he was on first frickin' line.

Coach Finstock was holding a team meeting before lacrosse practice, which usually meant either Greenberg had managed to catch some sort of contagious disease again or there was a change in the lineup — possibly both.

Amber stood just outside the locker room, her ear hovering close to the newly installed, closed metal door. She impatiently attempted to eavesdrop on what was being said, but she couldn't make out much more than the muffled sound of lockers being slammed shut. Eventually, the noise faded and she realized the meeting was being held outside of Coach's office, which was tucked away at the very back of the locker room.

Abandoning her post with a sigh, she wasted a few minutes of time in the restrooms, going to the bathroom and reapplying her tinted lip balm in the mirror.

In lieu of standing in the girl's room any longer, she eventually made her way back into the hallway to head to her locker to grab her jacket and backpack. She was only a few yards from her destination when she heard Scott's voice call out to her.

"Hey! Amber. Can we talk for a second?"

She turned around and caught sight of Scott approaching her locker, changed into the maroon bulk of his practice jersey and lacrosse padding.

"Yeah, of course," She agreed easily as he led her into an empty classroom before closing the door softly behind them, "What happened in the meeting, anyway? I tried to listen in through the door but I couldn't really hear anything."

Scott waved her off, "I made co-captain and Stiles is starting. That's not-"

"Oh my god!" She yelled excitedly, "Are you serious! That's amazing! Where's Stiles? I need to-"

"Just wait. That's not what I wanted to talk about." Scott interjected, guiding her back a few steps further into the room. Once he's pushed her to lean back against the teacher's desk at the front of the class, he released her arm.

"Okay, what? What's going on?" She asked immediately in concern, eyes raking over his face for some sort of clue.

"Do you, uh.. Do you know if Allison still likes me?" He asked sadly.

"Scott," She said softly, reaching out a hand to take his, "Of course she does."

"Really?"

The look of hope on Scott's face made all of the protective instincts she had for her best friend flare up and she rubbed her thumb softly along the back of Scott's hand.

"Yeah," She said softly, "I mean, give her some time. She's scared. We were all scared, right? And then you had to leave in order to protect us and I- maybe right now she's not necessarily grateful but-"

"Are you grateful?" He asked, the expression on his face changing into something Amber couldn't quite decipher.

"Huh?"

"You," Scott repeated, "Are you grateful?"

"You went out, knowing there was a possibility of facing the Alpha all alone, so you could get a key that would've saved us all.. I mean, duh. Of course I am, Scott." She reached her free hand up to rub the small space where his upper arm was exposed from his lacrosse pads.

Before she could comprehend what was happening, Scott had leaned into her space and brought his mouth down against hers. She pulled back slightly but the boy stepped closer and pressed her more firmly into the desk. He brought a hand up to tangle in the hair at the base of her neck to keep their mouths pressed together.

She turned her head to the side and took in a breath, "Scott-" She started, but Scott's lips covered hers again before she could finish.

Her heart began to beat harder in her chest with adrenaline as the wood of the desk pressed uncomfortably against the tops of her thighs. She pushed at her friend's shoulders but with his newly acquired supernatural strength, he didn't budge so much as an inch. She broke the seal of their lips once more but she only managed a shaky breath before he guided his mouth back over hers with the hand on the back of her neck. She pushed harder at his shoulders, leaning back over the desk as she did so in an attempt to put more space between them.

When Scott's free hand brushed against the hem of her skirt as it trailed up the outside of her thigh on the way to her hip, her stomach swooped anxiously.

She tightened her shaking right hand into a fist as his fingers curled around her waist. Leaning back a few more inches, she broke the seal of their mouths once again and swung her arm with as much force as she could manage in the limited space between their bodies. When her fist made contact with Scott's jaw, the boy took an immediate step back from her in surprise.

"What the hell!?" He yelled angrily, his hand rubbing at the spot where she'd hit him.

"Me!? Scott, what the fuck was that?" She yelled back, her voice hitching as she pulled a deep breath into her lungs.

"God, Amber. You're a tease, y'know that?" He glared at her and her eyes caught on the way his lips were smeared lightly with the bright pink tinge of her lip balm.

"I- What?" She asked quietly this time, her hands were shaking, and as the adrenaline from before faded, she noticed the sharp pain in the knuckles of her right hand.

"Don't act so innocent," Scott scoffed, "You're always touching and rubbing me. My arms, my neck? Don't even get me started on Stiles- You need to put out sometime, Amber, or you're gonna end up alone."

Scott took an angry breath and she couldn't understand the look of rage in his eyes. He was actually, genuinely, mad at her.

"Scott.." She started, voice wavering before realization suddenly washed over her, "It- It's the full moon, isn't it? The.. The moon's really affecting you this much already? We- We'll figure this out, okay, you just need to-"

Before she could continue, he had turned and stormed out of the classroom.

The silence that he left behind had her ears ringing as she remained unmoving, leaning against the desk at the front of the room. She watched the door for a full minute, half expecting Scott to walk back in with an explanation for some of what had just happened, but he didn't come.

Her hands were still shaking lightly when she lifted her right hand to inspect her sore knuckles. She found the joints reddening and beginning to swell already. She clenched her fingers into a tight fist and gasped at the sharp pain that radiated through her hand.

She took a couple of slow tentative steps forward before pushing out of the classroom. There were still people milling about in the hallway but she found that couldn't hear them over the heavy rushing of blood that filled her ears as her heart continued to pound.

Her backpack and jacket were both still in her locker, so that was where she headed.

When she got to her locker, her hands fumbled with the lock, the metal slipping repeatedly from between her shaking fingers. She huffed out a frustrated breath through her nose and willed herself to calm down.

The moon's power over Scott was only going to get stronger, and she needed to pull herself together if she wanted to help him.

After her padlock refused to open for the third time, she found herself pulling and tugging at it hopelessly. When the lock remained intact she felt heat prickle at her eyes as if she were about to cry.

"What, did you forget your combination?" A voice said beside her.

She exhaled sharply and looked up at where Lydia was standing beside her locker. When their eyes met, Lydia's face twisted into worry and she reached out to comfort the brunette.

"Hon, what-"

Amber flinched away from the outstretched hand before it could make contact with her arm and her next few breaths were shallow, unable to get a good lungful of air. The sounds around her were beginning to distort again and she felt entirely too warm, like she was going to explode out of her own skin if she got any hotter.

Her breathing was ragged and the longer she panicked, the fuzzier her surroundings became. She didn't know how much time passed, but when her breathing eventually began to slow, she felt cold water against her cheeks and flinched slightly in surprise.

"Hey," Lydia's voice said softly, placing a cold, wet hand to Amber's face again, "You coming back to me?"

Amber nodded as she slowly began to take in her surroundings. At some point, they'd moved into the girls restroom. The tap was running and every few seconds, Lydia moved her hand under the rush of cold water before patting her chilled hand to the flushed skin of Amber's face.

"Good," Lydia said, ripping off a piece of paper towel from the dispenser by the sink and drying her hands before dabbing at the wetness still on Amber's cheeks. "You gonna tell me what happened now? Did Stilinski do something?"

"It's stupid." Amber admitted quietly.

Lydia tutted at her and tilted her head thoughtfully, "If it upset you that much, it isn't stupid." She promised.

Amber shook her head, moving to place her right hand under the cold tap and sighing in relief at the cold water over her swollen knuckles. "Scott-" She started, clearing her throat when the words came out scratchy, "Scott kissed me-"

"What?" Lydia said in surprise, dropping her hands from Amber's face and looking at where the girl was gently cradling her hand under the tap.

"-And I had to punch him."

"You- You had to-"

"He wouldn't- I couldn't-" Amber faltered, unsure how to finish the sentence. She took a shaky breath, "Yeah, I.. I had to punch him."

"I'll kill him." Lydia stated, her eyes already clouded with dark thoughts.

"No! No, that's not-" She paused, unsure how to defend Scott without including werewolf drama, "It'll be fine, honest. He- He's just really torn up over Allison."

"If McCall was forcing himself on you-"

"Lydia, I would never let him anywhere near Allison if I thought he'd ever hurt her, okay?"

"But what about him hurting you?" Lydia frowned.

"I'm fine." Amber promised determinedly, pulling her hands from the water and drying them on a fresh strip of paper towel. She took a deep breath, turning away from the sink, "Honestly, I'm fine. I was just overwhelmed, okay? We should go get our stuff together before we miss the beginning of practice."

Stiles was practically oozing with anxiety as he waited outside on the players bench, watching for any sign of Scott or Amber heading toward the field. His knee jerked up and down violently and his heart was beating hard beneath his ribs as his nerves grew.

After several minutes, he caught sight of Scott and he barely contained the urge to wait until Scott was sitting on the bench before he questioned him, "Hey! What happened?" Stiles asked in nervous excitement.

"What?" Scott asked distractedly, readjusting the velcro on his glove and tightening it around his wrist.

"What do you mean, 'what?'" Stiles asked incredulously, "Did you ask her? Did she say anything? Did she say she liked me? Did she imply she liked me? Did she smell like she liked me?"

"Uh, yeah. Sure, dude." Scott told him unconvincingly.

The answer didn't instill much confidence and Stiles frowned at the lack of confirmation. He was about to ask Scott to clarify when the whistle blew for the start of practice and Stiles sighed, pulling on his helmet as he rose from his seat and grabbed his lacrosse stick.

They went out onto the field to begin drills, an offensive player charging on a couple of defense and shooting on goal. Stiles stood behind Scott in the line of offensive players as they waited their turn to run through the drill.

Scott seemed to be breathing heavily already, shoulders rising and falling with exaggerated movements, and Stiles frowned in confusion, leaning forward to speak over Scott's shoulder, "Dude, you okay? Look, I know we just got good news, and all, bit there's still seven hours until the full moon, okay? So-"

The whistle blew for Scott to take his turn and he only managed to run forward a few feet before he was thrown to the ground by the two defensive players. Stiles winced and watched his friend rise to his feet again angrily.

Coach blew his whistle and turned toward Stiles, "Who's next? Let's go!" He gestured for Stiles to take his turn, "You got a problem with that, Bilinski?"

"What?" He asked in surprise, readjusting his grip on his stick, "Uh, no-"

"Alright! You're up, big boy. Let's go!"

Stiles swallowed, readying himself to charge forward, but Scott made his way back to the front of the line and bashed into Stiles' chest with his lacrosse stick aggressively. Stiles stumbled while Scott pushed him back a step before he went to collect another ball to take his turn at the drill again.

"That's it, McCall!" Coach yelled, "That's the spirit! You gotta earn it! Earn it, McCall!"

Stiles' gaze drifted past the goal and he caught sight of Amber and Lydia making their way toward the field, heads bent close together in conversation. He watched the girls for only a few seconds before Coach Finstock's whistle blew softly and his attention was pulled to Scott as he ran forward again, rushing toward the defenders.

Scott quickly shoulder-checked both of the defensive players and sent them to the ground, continuing on without pause. Danny stepped forward out of the goal to block him next and Scott plowed into him violently, swinging his stick at the goalie's helmet and shoving him down to the grass before shooting the ball into the goal.

Danny went down hard and everyone immediately flocked over to check on him, worriedly shouting his name. Stiles watched Scott rip off his helmet as he took a few steps to the side and Stiles moved to follow him, pulling his own helmet off and shaking his head, flabbergasted at his friend's behavior.

"Dude," Stiles called out as he approached Scott, "What the hell are you doing?"

Scott scoffed, "What? He's twice the size of me."

Stiles glanced over to where the sport's paramedic was checking on their goalie's bleeding face before looking back at Scott beside him, "Yeah, but everybody likes Danny." Stiles told him, "Now everybody's gonna hate you."

"I don't care." Scott huffed in annoyance before storming away to stand at the back of their teammates.

Stiles stood stunned for a moment before he followed after him to stand where everybody was still huddled around Danny, even Lydia and Amber having rushed into the crowd at some point.

"What happened? Is he okay?" Amber was questioning, standing between Lydia and Jackson.

"Looks like he just has a bloody nose-" Jackson started before trailing off, staring at the girl beside him with an amused look of confusion.

"What?" Amber questioned, looking up at him.

"Callisto," Jackson chuckled quietly, "Your lipstick's smudged."

Stiles closed the final steps of distance between himself and the group and his eyes immediately gravitated to Amber. His chest tightened when he found the pretty pink tint that normally covered her lips was smeared around her mouth, the glossy shine smudged in a way that suggested she'd been thoroughly kissed. He felt his stomach drop sharply.

"Oh. Shit, I-" She reached up to blindly wipe at her mouth with the back of her sleeve. Her wide eyes cut sharply to where Scott was stepping up to stand beside her, "I, um. I don't know how-"

But Stiles was no longer listening to her embarrassed stammering. Instead, his eyes were caught on the shiny pink smudges that covered Scott's mouth. Stiles stared with a painful ache of betrayal as Scott's lips pulled into a smirk while watching the way Amber frantically tried to clean the makeup from her mouth.

Stiles looked between the two of them with a growing pit in his stomach. His jaw clenched and he was forced to take a small step back as his mind raced with an anger he’d never felt, heart thumping wildly in his chest.

Seven hours until the full moon was at its peak.

"Right. Now, you can't tell your father about this, because he'll kill me." Kate told Allison quietly, standing just behind her niece's shoulder. The older woman surveyed Allison's stance, legs shoulder-width apart, arms stretched out in front of her as she aimed at her target.

"Okay." Allison agreed with an excited grin.

"Okay," Kate agreed, nodding and clapping her hands together softly, "Well, what's our hapless victim's name?"

Allison kept her focus trained on keeping the little red dot in the center of her target's chest where it sat in the chair in front of her, "Mr. Bear."

"You named your teddy bear, 'Mr. Bear'?" Kate asked her in a teasing voice, "That's like, the worst teddy bear name in the world."

"I was five years old." Allison defended, eyes drifting to the side for a moment to glance at the woman beside her.

"Alright, well," Kate conceded, lifting a hand to gesture at the target sitting in the chair, "Just shoot your unimaginatively named bear and put it out of its misery."

Allison's smile spread and she fought a laugh before focusing on the task at hand, narrowing her eyes in concentration. She pulled the trigger and a cluster of wires shot out from the device in her hands, planting themselves into the teddy bear and shocking it with electricity with a repetitive low clicking noise.

Allison took a step back as she watched the bear smoke softly from its now-charred fur and her eyes burned with tears.

"See! Now that's what I'm talkin' about!" Kate laughed, looking at the teddy bear gleefully, "See, if you'd had that the other night-" She seemed to suddenly catch sight of her niece and faltered, "Woah, now.. Wait a minute. I thought you wanted to learn how to do this, sweetie?"

Allison plopped down to sit on her bed with a wet laugh, "I just don't know what happened.

"With Scott?" Kate asked, sitting down beside her and watching as Allison nodded sadly, "Aw, listen. My gorgeous, young niece, you're gonna break hearts left and right, okay?" The tears in Allison's eyes broke free and she sniffled quietly as she listened, "And he was lucky to have gotten the tiny little taste of Allison Argent's world that he got."

"But, it just-" Allison took a shaky breath as more tears fell from her eyes, "It felt so right with him. And then he started acting so strange and now I don't know what to believe."

"Well, sweetie, he's a guy. You can't believe anything." Kate told her with a roll of her eyes.

Allison shook her head softly, "It's just, the whole thing with Derek Hale the other night. And Scott saying he didn't know him, but I know he does, and I-I saw them together so-"

"Woah, woah, wait. Hold on. Back up. Scott knows Derek." Kate repeated slowly, gauging Allison's face closely as she spoke, "Alleged killer, Derek. Are they friends?"

"No." Allison told her quietly. Suddenly nervous at her aunt's intensity, "I mean, at least that's what he said. But I know his best friend Amber was kind of seeing Derek at some point so maybe-"

"How about you tell me everything-" Kate interrupted, "That Scott and Amber have said about Derek."

"What do you mean, everything?" Allison asked anxiously, leaning away and rubbing her palms along her thighs over her jeans.

Kate pulled Allison back with a hand on her shoulder, bringing their faces close together, "I mean everything." She told her firmly.

Allison looked at her aunt's intense gaze and swallowed, taking a deep breath before beginning to spill all of her friend's secrets.

Stiles checked his phone once more, re-reading the text message Amber had sent him twenty minutes before.

have to take care of something first but I'll be there as soon as I can! promise!

He tucked the phone back into his pocket and fumbled with the duffel bag in his hand as he slid his key into the front door to the McCall house. He unlocked it and pushed the door open, stepping inside and turning around to close it behind him.

"Scott?" Ms. McCall's voice called out as she stepped into the entryway in fresh nurse's scrubs.

"Stiles." He corrected with an awkward laugh. He had assumed she'd have left for work by now.

Ms. McCall glanced down at the key still clutched between his fingers and she raised her eyebrows, "Key." She pointed out with a slow blink.

"Yeah." He smiled, holding the object up proudly, "I had one made." After the last time I got in without one and you almost bludgeoned Amber and I with a baseball bat, goes left unsaid.

"That doesn't surprise me." Ms. McCall nodded with a frown, "It scares me, but it doesn't surprise me."

Stiles dropped his duffle bag to the ground beside the door and it landed with the loud metallic tinkling of chains rubbing against one another. He grimaced as he looked up at Ms. McCall's suspicious face.

"What is that?" She asked him, looking down at the bag in question.

"Uh, school project." He responded quickly.

"Mm," The woman said, unconvinced. "Stiles, he's okay, right?"

"Who, Scott?" He questioned stupidly, "Yeah, totally-"

"He just... Doesn't talk to me that much, anymore." She admitted quietly, "At least not like he used to."

"Well he's, uh- Had a bit of a rough week." Stiles told her, sticking his hands in the pockets of his sweatshirt with a casual shrug.

"Yeah, yeah. I get it." She agreed, "Yeah, um. Okay. Uh, y'know, be careful tonight."

"You too." He nodded as he watched her pull her car keys out of her purse.

"Full moon." Ms. McCall clarified, nodding up at the ceiling.

Stiles flinched, "What?" He asked in surprise.

"Uh, there's a full moon tonight," Scott's mom laughed, "You should see how the E.R. gets. Brings out all the nut jobs."

"Oh.. Right."

"Y'know," Ms. McCall started, stepping closer as she approached the front door, "It's actually where they came up with the word 'lunatic'."

Stiles stood frozen in awe as she patted him on the shoulder and headed outside, closing the door behind her. With a shake of his head, he picked the duffel bag back up and raced up the stairs, hoping to set up before Scott got there.

He pushed open Scott's bedroom door and flicked on the light, his eyes catching on the figure sitting in the chair in the corner of the room.

"Ho-Oh my god!" Stiles yelled, flinching back in surprise as he looked at where Scott was ominously sitting, "You scared the hell out of me. Your mom said you weren't home yet."

Stiles walked deeper into the room and dropped his bag loudly to the floor again, this time in front of Scott's feet.

"I came in through the window." Scott told him blankly, unmoving from his armchair in the corner.

"Okay..." Stiles said slowly, watching his friend silently for a few seconds before squatting down in front of him and beginning to unzip the bag, "Uh, well. Let's get this set up. I want you to see what Amber and I bought the other day."

"I'm fine." Scott told him emotionlessly.

Stiles looked up at him in surprise as he unzipped the bag the rest of the way.

"I'm just gonna lock the door and go to bed early tonight." Scott continued.

"You sure about that?" Stiles asked doubtfully, raising his eyebrows and gesturing at Scott's face, "Because you got this kinda serial killer look going on in your eyes.. And I'm hoping it's the full moon taking effect 'cause it's really starting to freak me out."

"I'm fine." Scott told him slowly, "You should go now."

Stiles looked at his friend for a moment, entirely unconvinced, "Alright, I'll leave." He leaned back and his eyes dropped down to the contents of his duffle bag again. He reached into the bag for a moment, fingers drifting over against the copious rungs of smooth metal before tapping his other hand against the fabric on the outside with a sigh, "Well, look, would you at least look in the bag and see what we bought? Y'know, maybe you use it, maybe you don't.. Sound good?"

Scott leaned forward in his chair slowly as he stood, his eyes not leaving Stiles until he had taken several slow steps and knelt down directly over the bag. Scott reached a hand inside and pulled out a fistful of metal chains, lifting it out and examining it with a blank stare.

"You think I'm gonna let you guys put these on and chain me up like a dog?" Scott asked coldly before dropping the chain back into the bag.

Stiles sighed, "Actually, no."

He grabbed Scott's left wrist and handcuffed him to the radiator on the wall in one swift move, jumping back out of the way as Scott reached for him angrily.

"What the hell are you doing!" Scott yelled, kneeling on the floor and pulling at the handcuffs.

"I'm protecting you from yourself." Stiles said, looking down at his friend determinedly, "And giving you some payback." He admitted, watching as Scott slowly turned to glare up at him, "For making out with Amber."

Scott seethe in anger and Stiles smiled in satisfaction before turning to leave the room.

"Stiles!" Scott growled after him, continuing to pull loudly at the metal handcuffs against the radiator.

Stiles went downstairs and collected a bottle of water from the fridge and a old metal bowl from the cupboard beneath the sink. He carried his haul back upstairs, pouring some of the water into the bowl as he walked.

"I brought you some water." Stiles announced, holding up the plastic bottle in display before making a show of pouring the rest of the contents into the dog food bowl in his other hand.

He placed the bowl down on the floor in front of Scott, satisfied by the scowl on his face and returning his glare before turning to leave the room. He flinched at the impact of the cold water and lightweight metal against his shoulder when Scott threw the bowl at his retreating back.

"I'm gonna kill you!" Scott screamed angrily.

Stiles took a deep breath, glaring at the wall in the hallway for a few seconds before back spinning around to face his friend.

"You kissed her, Scott!" Stiles finally yelled, "Okay? You kissed Amber. That's my- That's like the one girl that I ever-!" He huffed angrily through his nose before continuing, "And you know? The past three hours I've been thinking, it's probably just the full moon, y'know? He doesn't even know what he's doing and tomorrow he'll be totally back to normal. He probably won't even remember what a complete dumbass he's been. A son of a bitch. A fucking unbelievable piece of crap friend!"

Stiles took a much needed breath after his rant and Scott lifted his head with a dark look.

"She kissed me." Scott told him with a devilish grin.

Stiles deflated slightly, his stomach filling with a hollow sadness at the words. He swallowed and clenched his jaw, gearing himself up to respond when someone else spoke first.

"What?" A soft voice cut in from behind him.

Amber waited until the last possible minute to show Jason her bruising hand. He was pulling on his shoes to head into the fire station when she slowly approached, hiding her right hand behind her back.

"Hey, um.." She started slowly, "I have a first aid question."

Her brother looked up at her with thinly veiled suspicion before finishing his shoe laces and standing upright, "Okay." He said slowly.

She sighed, "So, I hurt my knuckles earlier.. It doesn't hurt that bad anymore, but I'd feel really stupid if I actually, like, fractured something and didn't ask you to look at it."

Jason sighed and held out his hand patiently. Once she laid her hand in his waiting palm he brought it up to his face to examine it closely, gingerly prodding at her knuckles and feeling around the bones.

She winced at the gentle touches to her sensitive knuckles but didn't pull away.

"What did you do, now?" He asked softly, turning her hand as he checked the swelling.

"I, uh, punched a brick wall." She explained, not feeling inclined to mention that said brick wall was named Scott. At his sharp look she continued, "It was an accident. I don't just go around punching walls."

He sighed and let her remove her hand from his grip, "Nothing's broken. You should ice it tonight and keep it elevated when you can." He told her easily as he pulled on his jacket, "Holding a pen at school is gonna suck, but it should heal up in a couple days."

"Okay." She nodded gratefully, examining her red knuckles herself for a moment.

"Do me a favor and try not to get yourself seriously injured tonight? Maybe stay in and watch a movie and stay out of trouble." He asked weakly.

"Stiles and I are going over to Scott's to work in a project." She told him.

He sighed and nodded as he pulled open the front door, "Be good. Please. I love you."

"Love you."

She dashed upstairs after he left and changed into a pair of jeans, pulling off her knit sweater and swapping it out for a cutoff crewneck. She checked the time stamp on the text she'd sent to Stiles before she'd spoken to her brother and saw that it had been nearly ten minutes already.

With a sigh, she raced downstairs and grabbed her keys before heading over to the McCall house, hoping she wouldn't be too late to help Stiles and Scott get everything set up.

She parked her car at the end of the driveway and jogged up to the front door. Stiles had promised to leave it unlocked for her and she was relieved to find that it swung open easily when she turned the knob.

The moment she stepped into the house, Amber could hear Stiles's raised voice upstairs, but it wasn't until she reached the top of the staircase that she was able to make out the words he was shouting.

"-I've been thinking, it's probably just the full moon, y'know? He doesn't even know what he's doing and tomorrow he'll be totally back to normal. He probably won't even remember what a complete dumbass he's been. A son of a bitch. A fucking unbelievable piece of crap friend!"

She had moved to stand in the doorway behind Stiles and hesitated as she took in the way that Scott wasn't chained as they had originally intended, but instead had just one wrist cuffed to the metal heater beneath the window.

She watched Scott lift his head with a dark look, his eyes drifting over to her briefly before focusing on Stiles, "She kissed me."

"What?" She said in disbelief before taking a couple of steps forward and coming up to stand beside Stiles.

Scott grinned devilishly and looked between them, "She made the first move, Stiles." He said, "You should've seen it."

She immediately thought back to the way she'd been trying to comfort her friend just before he'd kissed her and she felt her eyes prickle with frustrated tears as she became suddenly self-conscious. Scrunching her face up in annoyance at her own emotions, she huffed a breath through her nose. When she risked a glance over at Stiles, she found him looking between them, unsure.

"You're being an asshole, Scott." She told him quietly.

"Oh, yeah? Is that what you're into, then?" Scott quipped back quickly before turning his attention on Stiles again, "She would've done a lot more too, man. You should've seen the way she had her hands all over me."

Amber was seething in anger and Stiles took a shaky breath beside her. His hand dropped onto her shoulder and he pulled her back gently as he guided her out of the room without a word.

"She would've done anything I wanted, Stiles!" Scott called out to their backs, "Anything!"

They stepped to the side once they got into the hallway to slip out of view of the doorway and Amber took a deep breath, "Has he been like that since you got here?" She asked, her eyes drifting back toward the bedroom.

"Yeah, pretty much," Stiles told her, "You missed the truly terrifying way he was just sitting by himself in the dark and also the murdery look he gave me when he saw the chains but- Yeah, pretty much like this and slowly getting worse."

She sighed in frustration, bringing her fingers up to tangle in her hair and leaning back against the wall.

"Hey, wait-" Stiles said, his eyes catching on her right hand, "What happened there?" He questioned, pointing to the redness on her raw knuckles.

She looked at him in confusion for a second before she saw that he was gesturing toward her injured hand. She sighed again and slid down the wall to sit on the floor, bringing her knees up to her chest.

"Oh, that." She laughed humorlessly, watching as Stiles slid down to sit beside her in the hallway, "I punched a werewolf in the face."

"Who, Scott?" He asked quickly. She nodded and he pulled her hand toward him gently to look at her knuckles, "I'm sure he deserved it. I know I'd like to punch him right now.. But why'd you punch Scott?"

She tilted her head against the wall to look over at him as he frowned at the red swelling on the back of her hand, "'Cause he kissed me."

Stiles raised his eyebrows, "Noted. Kiss Amber, get punched."

She snorted softly, lips pulling into a frown as she shook her head, "It wasn't like that," She started, unsure how much she wanted to tell him, "He was really upset about Allison.. Asked if she still liked him and I told him she was just scared, y'know? She doesn't understand why he left. She doesn't understand that he did it to protect us from the Alpha and I-" She sighed and turned to look at the hardwood floor with a frown, "I was holding his hand. And- and rubbing his arm. And I told him I was really grateful for what he did.. I guess it was stupid. He thought-"

"Hey, no. Amber, stop it." Stiles said firmly, "I don't care what you said or did, alright? Scott should've never kissed you. Like, ever. Seriously, never. I mean, he knows..."

"He knows what?" She asked quietly when Stiles' voice faded out.

He shook his head, "Nothing. He just- He never should've kissed you."

"Agreed." She told him, "D'you think the full moon is gonna be like this every time? Forever?"

"God, I hope not." He said, thumping his head back against the wall once and closing his eyes.

She tilted her head to the side to rest on his shoulder and they settled into silence for a few minutes. Though they weren't speaking, the house wasn't quiet. It was instead filled with the sounds of Scott determinedly pulling at the metal of his handcuffs and yelling angrily at them through the closed bedroom door.

Scott stopped shouting for a few minutes, still tugging quietly the handcuffs with a quiet sound of metal clinking.

"Guys?" Scott's voice called out gently, "Please let me out."

Amber thumped her head back against the wall once and reached her left hand across her body to grab Stiles' as Scott continued softly.

"It's the full moon, I swear." Scott pleaded weakly, "You know I wouldn't do any of this on purpose."

Stiles tilted his head to look over at her and she shook her head resolutely, pinching her lips together in silence.

"Please, you guys. Let me out. It's starting to hurt." Scott begged quietly, pulling at his handcuffs again.

Amber took in a shaky breath at his words and this time it was Stiles who shook his head at her before squeezing her hand reassuringly.

"It's not like the first time.. It's the full moon, it's Allison breaking up with me-" Scott explained, "I know that it's not just 'taking a break'. She broke up with me. And it's killing me." He told them slowly, "I feel completely hopeless.. Just, please let me out."

"We can't." Stiles spoke softly, to Scott or herself, Amber wasn't entirely sure.

"No, no-" Scott began to mumble frantically before he screamed out loudly in what sounded like pain.

Amber moved to stand instantly but Stiles pulled her back down beside him as Scott continued to scream.

Amber released Stiles' hand to raise her own to her ears, palms pressed tightly over her hair as she tried weakly to block out the loud screams coming from their best friend. Her stomach turned sickeningly and she turned sideways, curling an arm around Stiles' leg and dropping her head down to rest against his knee. The two of them listened to Scott's pained screaming for a long minute, eventually giving way into a low growl before cutting off all together.

The sudden silence rang eerily through the house but this time when Amber rose to her feet, Stiles didn't stop her and instead followed suit. They both crept slowly toward the bedroom, looking between the door and each other.

"Scott?" Amber called out quietly. There was no response and her heart thumped nervously in her chest.

"Scott? Are you okay?" Stiles asked loudly, his hand reaching for the doorknob.

When the bedroom door swung open, Scott was no where to be seen. The handcuffs lay in a broken heap next to the radiator, a small trail of blood beside them. The window had been pushed open wide and more blood trailed along the windowsill and led outside.

"Oh, fuck." Amber said quietly, eyes wide. She stared distractedly at the space where Scott had been a few minutes before and was finally pulled out of her thoughts when Stiles tugged her back by her wrist to leave.

They stumbled as they ran down the stairs and out of the house, sliding into the Jeep parked at the top of the driveway.

"Where would he have gone?" Stiles asked frantically, starting the vehicle and backing out of the driveway.

"I-I don't know!" Amber said as she buckled her seatbelt with shaking hands, "Allison's house? The preserve?"

"I don't think even wolfy Scott is stupid enough to go to a hunter's house on a full moon." He told her logically, turning off of Scott's street.

"Okay, so, the preserve then?"

He shrugged at her but took the next turn toward the edge of town anyway. They drove too fast than was really considered safe on the winding roads that led out to the preserve and ten minutes later, they were coming up on the lot they'd parked in the night before.

"Stiles-" Amber leaned forward in her seat, pointing out the scene at the edge of the forest.

There were red and blue flashing lights shining between the trees and Stiles turned sharply into the lot. He put the car in park and threw himself from the Jeep, leaving the driver's side door hanging open behind him.

Amber climbed around the front of the car and followed after him only a second later, tumbling from the vehicle and rushing to stand behind Stiles.

"Dad?" He called out in the throng of officers at the scene.

One officer shrugged unhelpfully at him and the others all continued on with what they were doing, paying no attention to the two teens who had just arrived at the scene.

"Dad!" Stiles called out again, more urgently.

She reached a hand out to his arm, "Stiles, I'm sure he's-"

"Has anyone seen my dad?" He yelled.

The people around them all shied back from his panicked question but gave no answer. Amber was about to reassure him again when a stretcher was rolled past them with a white sheet laid out over the top of what was quite clearly a dead body.

The look on Stiles' face was one of pure horror and she wanted desperately to reassure him that it wasn't his dad underneath, but she was too afraid to be wrong. Stiles began to reach forward to expose the person beneath the cloth and she did nothing to stop him.

The stretcher hit one of the potholes as it rolled along the parking lot and it jostled violently. An arm from the victim fell limply from beneath the sheet and the badly burnt flesh made the both of them falter for a second.

"Stiles." A familiar voice called out from just a couple of feet away and both Stiles and Amber flinched in surprise as they turned, "What're you kids doin' here?" Sheriff Stilinski asked them with a shake of his head.

Stiles sagged in relief and pulling his dad into a tight hug. The Sheriff looked at Amber over his son's shoulder in confusion but patted him on the back and returned his son's embrace.

When Stiles stepped back after a long moment, Amber reached forward to tangle their fingers together and Stiles gave her hand a squeeze as he took a steadying breath.

"Now, circling back to my initial question," The Sheriff looked between them and crossed his arms, "What are you both doing here?"

"Uh-" Stiles fumbled for a lie.

"We were listening to the police scanner again." Amber said quickly, nodding in mock shame at the Sheriff's disappointed look, "Yeah. And we got nervous, what with a murderer on the loose, and Stiles wanted to check that you were okay."

The Sheriff looked at his son, who was nodding along with her story, and shook his head, "Next time, feel free to call me." He told Stiles, "Now go home. Both of you."

Stiles looked at where the body was being lifted into the ambulance, "W- But-"

"Now." The Sheriff demanded firmly.

Stiles sighed and pulled Amber back to the Jeep. They climbed in and she looked across the cab at him expectantly.

"Well, what now?" She asked.

Stiles drummed his fingers on the steering wheel in thought, "We can't just drive around all night every full moon looking for any sign of Scott." He huffed, "I don't- I don't know what to do."

"What if we split up?" She asked as he pulled back out of the lot, "I'll wait at Scott's incase he finds his way home like almost runaway dogs do-" Stiles snorted and she carried on, "You drive around for a little while. And if neither one of us finds anything, we'll decide from there."

He scrunched his face up unhappily at the thought of splitting up and contemplated her offer for a long minute before nodding reluctantly.

"Fine." He agreed, "But you call me the second you see him. As in, before making contact, y'know? Do not approach the rabid dog and all that."

"Deal." She agreed, "But the same goes for you."

"Deal."

Stiles dropped her off at the end of the driveway before taking off again in search of Scott.

She walked up the driveway slowly and was nearly to the front door when it pulled open and her eyes snapped up to the person exiting the house as they closed the door behind themselves.

"Derek!" She breathed out, rushing toward him.

He looked up at her for only a second before she had jumped up onto her toes and wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and shoulders, her whole body suddenly trembling. She hugged him tight and took a shaky breath, squeezing his shoulders softly through his leather jacket with the tips of her fingers to be sure he was real.

After a long moment, Derek reached an arm up around her back to pat her shoulder blade gently and she inhaled sharply in what sounded almost like a sob. She released him and dropped back down to the ground, taking a small step back not giving the action a single thought before she was punching him angrily in the shoulder.

"Ow, fuck!" She gasped, shaking out her aching hand and glaring at him when he looked at her in worried confusion.

"What-"

"No, no- Don't even think about it. I've been so worried about you and you just- You just show up out of nowhere, completely fine?" She ranted, peeking down at her sore knuckles for only a second before turning her attention back on Derek, "Where have you been? How long have you been healed? How did you heal?"

He blinked, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket, "It took a couple days to heal completely. Wounds from an Alpha take longer. Especially life-threatening ones."

"Life threaten-" She repeated under her breath, "That's exactly my point! We thought you might be dead. I thought- I thought either the Alpha took your body or you just dragged yourself off somewhere to die." She explained, voice shaky with sudden tears.

"I didn't die." He told her unhelpfully, shifting uncomfortably on his feet at her show of emotion.

"Why didn't you let me know you were okay?" She asked quietly.

Derek shrugged, "I didn't think it mattered."

"Didn't think it mattered whether you told me you were okay or didn't think it mattered if you died?" She questioned.

Derek's eyebrows furrowed for a moment in thought before he shrugged again.

She sniffled and stepped forward once more without hesitation, invading his personal space all over again, wrapping her arms tightly around his waist and burying her face in his chest. His arms came up to softly wrap around her with less hesitation this time around, settling over her shoulders.

"I thought you were dead and it was horrible and awful and I'm so glad that you're not." She sniffled into his shoulder.

Derek patted her shoulder gently, "I-" He paused for a second before continuing, "I'm sorry I didn't tell you I was alive."

She nodded against his shoulder, "I forgive you." She mumbled into his jacket before leaning back and giving him a serious look, "But if you do it again I'll find a way to kill you myself. Got it?"

Derek scoffed at the threat as he stepped back from her, rolling his eyes. She raised her eyebrows expectantly and he rolled them again but nodded.

"Okay, good." She said, looking up at the house behind him, "Any chance Scott's in there?" She asked nervously.

"Yeah, I dragged him home right before you got here." He told her.

"Cool." She acknowledged, pulling out her phone to text Stiles and dropping down to sit on the front stoop to wait.

Derek watched her in confusion for a moment when she slid her phone back into her pocket but remained seated outside.

"You're not going in?" He asked, nodding to the front door behind her.

She shook her head, "I've exceeded my allotted Solo Scott Time for this full moon." She told him, lifting her bruising right hand in display.

"Scott hurt your hand?" Derek questioned immediately.

She nodded with a shrug, "Yeah, his face did. When I punched him."

Derek's anger seemed to melt away and he blinked in amused surprise, "You punched Scott in the face?"

"Yep."

He shook his head with a pleased smile on his face before turning his head toward the street with a nod, "I'm gonna get going."

"Okay." She leaned back against the door, watching him turn to go and calling out to his retreating form, "Be safe! It's a full moon tonight, y'know. Some people say that werewolves run amuck on the full moon. Stirring up trouble 'n such."

Derek snorted as he walked away, "So I've heard."

#stiles stilinski x oc #stiles #selenophiles #stilesfic #stiles stilinksi fanfiction #stiles stilinski #dylan o'brien #dylan obrien fanfic #teen wolf #teen wolf season one #teen wolf fic #teen wolf fanfiction #teen wolf rewrite #stiles fanfiction #1x08 #teen wolf season 1 #dylan o'brien fic #dylan o'brien fanfiction #stiles fluff #*

[mlmxreader]

The Devil of Haddonfield | Kim "Horangi" Hong-jin x m!reader

『••✎••』

↳ ❝ I am the shadow where there once was light (murdered!horangi x vengeant!m!reader) - @satan-incarnate-666 ❞

: ̗̀➛ When you're forced to watch the man you love die in front of your very eyes, there's only one way that you can really deal with the grief.

: ̗̀➛ swearing, major character death, blood/death, gore, graphic depictions of murder, mutilation, gun violence

•───────────────★•♛•★──────────────•

The thirty-first of October, you and Horangi were sent to a small village in some rural area where fuck knew what would happen, to go against some fucking stupid group who decided that they were worth more than the entirety of Kortac put together; the cunts put up an awfully good fight, but it wasn’t until you were both cornered in a desolate house’s kitchen, that you would forever hate the day.

It was some English prick, he had Horangi pinned against the counter while two of the others pinned you down and kept you secure and prevented you from getting free; they made you watch as the first bastard stabbed Horangi over and over and over with a kitchen knife.

You would never forget the sight of the blood on the floor, so thick and so dark that it almost looked black; you would never forget the sounds of him struggling to get his last words out, choking and close to vomiting.

You would never forget when they left you both there to die, laughing as they walked away; his blood on your hands when you tried to revive him, begging and pleading with tears in your eyes for him to come back.

Telling him over and over that he had to come back, he was going to take you to see his parents next month like he always did. You were going to announce that you were getting married at last, knowing how much his mother and father had begged him to propose. 

You would never forget the name of that village, and nor would you ever forget the name of those awful fucking bastards who had taken everything from you.

Haddonfield.

Fifteen months later, after being forced to see a psychiatrist by König, you returned to that very house; Horangi was standing by the kitchen counter, arms folded across his chest and his ankles crossed.

He looked just as beautiful as the day you had lost him; his deep brown eyes were covered in a dull white sheen, and you could see the stab wounds leaking through his shirt as he cleared his throat and pointed over to the kitchen knife.

Dull and rusted, it was still painted so delicately with his blood, and when you looked over at it, he cleared his throat and tried to speak. It was a mangled and choking mess, each syllable causing blood to spew from his lips; but you could at least make out a few of the words.

“You need to get revenge,” he had struggled to stay. “Otherwise I can’t move beyond this kitchen.”

“How do I know you’re real?” You asked softly, approaching him and making a move to hold his hand.

It was cold, almost as if it were hollow wood, and damp from the blood; but you knew the feeling of skin on yours, so you sighed, shaking your head.

“Don’t apologise,” Horangi coughed out, shaking his head at you before gently gripping your chin with his forefinger and thumb, forcing you to look at him. “You couldn’t save me.”

Your vision began to blur, something wet and warm on your face as you stared at him. “I love you so much, Hong-jin, you know that, don’t you?”

He cracked a smile, his teeth orange from the stains as he nodded. “I’ll always haunt you.”

“Really?”

“Always,” he croaked out, daring to press his forehead to the side of your neck. Blood spilling onto your shoulder, and although you could feel the cold and wet presence, you couldn’t bring yourself to care.

“I’ll make this right,” you told him softly, rubbing his back gently. “I promise. I will get those fucking cunts for what they did to you.”

“That’s-” a violent cough, wet and spluttering. “That’s my boy.”

You let go of him, grabbing the knife and stuffing it into the pocket of your dark blue coveralls; it was Horangi’s idea to do it, but you found an old mask hidden in the cupboard.

White all over, and almost a rubbery texture. It smelled of old damp and long gone cleaning products, almost sickly, but you knew that if you were going to do it, you had to make sure that you were wearing a mask. At least then, you wouldn’t get any blood on your face. 

But every step of the way, Horangi followed; when you arrived at König’s home, he was there. He opened the door for you, and directed you on where to go to find the man in charge.

So tall, his feet hung off of the edge of his bed, his bare chest rising and falling. With a whisper, Horangi pointed at his throat.

“Make it quick,” he instructed. 

You spared a single look at him, then shook your head; you straddled the giant’s lap, careful not to wake him and thankful that he was a heavy sleeper, before you pressed the tip of the knife against the inside of his ear.

You took a deep breath, and forced it in before retracting it; panicked, he woke, and tried to fight you off, but you easily steadied your grip on the knife, and jammed it between his eyes before pulling it left and tracing the shape of his face all the way around.

With a soft grunt, you pulled off the skin, leaving most of his face red and raw; muscle throbbing. He kept trying to fight, until you smashed the knife into his scalp, and pressed down until you felt the pillow beneath his head; blood smeared everywhere, splattering and spluttering and spilling.

But you couldn’t bring it in yourself to care, taking chunks of flesh from his skull until he stopped moving and stopped breathing and struggling so much. You turned to Horangi, raising your brows slightly.

He nodded slowly. “That’s one.”

You rummaged through his work files in his office until you found them; Task Force One Four One and their partner. You clenched your jaw, laying the file out as you glared at it; with bloodied fingertips, you took note of every name, and every address.

Simon Riley. John Mactavish. John Price. Kyle Garrick. Kate Laswell.

“Which one?” You hissed out.

Horangi stood beside you, his hand heavy on your shoulder as he pointed to one picture. “Him.”

You nodded, scowling as you stuffed the pictures into your pocket. “Fucking cunts.”

“Hey,” he cleared his throat, blood splattering onto your mask. “I’m with you, alright?”

You put your hand on his, flashing him a quick and small smile. “I know, I know.”

You went back to the bedroom, picking up the discarded slap of facial flesh, and huffed before carelessly tossing it out of the window. The wet slap against the pavement was loud, but you couldn’t find it in yourself to care; he had sent you and Horangi there, he had caused Horangi’s demise.

He was the first one on the list for a reason.

Garrick was next.

You knew that he wasn’t there at the time, you could only recognise him as the sniper on the far roof that you had passed; he wasn’t there.

He didn’t aid in Horangi’s death; so you were gentle when you snuck up behind him and wrapped the phone cord around his neck, keeping his back close to your chest as you whispered in his ear.

“You’re not the one I want,” you told him. “This is just to make sure.”

“And what about him?” Garrick choked out, pointing at Horangi.

“This is for him,” you murmured, waiting until he relaxed to let him go. You looked at Horangi again, raising your brows slightly. “Good?”

Horangi nodded. “Should be - strangulation isn’t as quick, but I’ll know soon.”

You nodded curtly, clearing your throat as you pulled out one of the pictures from your pocket. “This one next… the captain… one of the cunts that held me down.”

Horangi hummed, standing next to you and smiling for a second. “He’s just your type.”

You glared at him, scoffing. “Hey, you’re lucky, pretty boy.”

“How’d you figure?”

“I also like ‘em when they’re drop dead gorgeous.”

Rolling his eyes, he groaned softly, trying not to smile.

With each kill, each step closer to revenge, he was slowly starting to feel himself fade away; his hands were getting more and more transparent, and although he was trying to hide it, it was getting more difficult for him to feel you against him.

He knew all too well that his time would run out when you  got your revenge for him. He knew all too well that his time with you was running short, even if he had promised that he would always haunt you. He hoped that the afterlife would be kind enough to let him stay at your side, even if there would come a time when only you would be able to see him.

Even still, he helped you to clean your mask before you went into the Captain's home; his touch was just as soft and tender as ever, deft fingers against the coarse rubber.

Horangi hoped that you did not think any less of him, he hoped that you would not scorn his name once you had achieved your goal. Still, as cold as his lips were, he pulled up your mask, and leaned in so that he could gently press his lips to yours, holding the back of your neck like he always used to.

“I promise,” you whispered. “I will not rest until they've all paid for what they did to you.”

Horangi frowned, nodding slowly as his icy fingertip gently traced your bottom lip. “I know, my beloved.”

“Just four more,” you murmured. “Just four more, then we're done.”

“Of course,” he agreed. “Just Price, Soap, Ghost and Laswell.”

“Price next,” you told him with a curt nod. “But… stay here. Please?”

“Sarajevo?” He whispered.

But you shook your head, clenching your jaw. “Appel Quay… this one… it's for me.”

Horangi swallowed thickly, but sat himself down on the grass nearby as he dared to crack a broken smile. “If you need me there, just say my name three times in the mirror.”

You nodded, bending down to kiss his forehead softly; you felt like you were going to fall through him, but steadied yourself and smoothed out your clothes before heading to the house.

The stupid cunt left his back door unlocked, and when you saw the dog sleeping on the kitchen floor, you knew why. You didn't want to hurt it. But you had to get to Price.

So you sighed, and opened the door; the dog ran out, giving you time to slip inside and close the door behind you. You locked it before creeping up the stairs, ensuring that your mask would not fall off.

He slept soundly in his bed, mouth open and drool seeping onto his pillow. You took a look around, and then gently closed the bedroom door before turning on the light, folding your arms across your chest.

“Wakey wakey, Pricey wicey,” you sang softly.

Stirring, Price groaned and grumbled before he slowly started to rise. He immediately grabbed the gun from under his pillow, aiming it at you.

“Oh, I wouldn't do that if I were you,” you tutted, shaking your head.

Price narrowed his eyes, chewing at his lip. “What the fuck are you doing here?! Who are you?!”

You shrugged, leaning against the door. “I am the shadow where there once was light… I am the cruel hand of the night… I am your reckoning.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?!”

Slowly, you took a few steps forward. “Fifteen months ago. You held me down as your men stabbed my husband to death. His name was Hong-jin. Kim Hong-jin. He was the best man in the world, a dogshit gambler but the best man I've ever known. He loved me. I loved him… you and your man, Soap, held me down. You made me watch as that big cunt stabbed him! You made me fucking watch! You forced me to fucking watch as my family died!”

Price sat there, stone faced and cold, still keeping his gun aimed on you. If he felt anything, he wasn't showing it. “I followed orders.”

“Bullshit!” You screamed, pulling out your knife and brandishing it so eagerly. “Fucking bullshit! You fucking laughed! His name was fucking Hong-jin! He had a husband! He was loved! You sadistic cunts laughed when he died!”

He clenched his jaw. “I followed orders.”

“Oh, fuck off!” You pointed the knife at him. “You never gave a shit about orders! His fucking name was Hong-jin, and you will fucking remember it! He was human! Flesh and blood!”

Price didn't feel like wasting time. He cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger.

You stumbled back, looking at the hole in your shoulder, then scoffed as you looked at him, shaking your head; Price shot again, but you kept going, raising the knife up before bringing it down against the side of his neck with as much force as you could muster.

Fear in his wide eyes, he choked out a mangled prayer, staring up at you as you brought the knife down again and again and again until his head rolled onto the floor. But you didn't stop, grabbing the discarded head and squeezing it as tightly as you could until you heard the bones crack loudly.

You grabbed the back of it, and in a sharp fog of rage, you brought his face to the wall; teeth shattered and fell to the ground, his nose became mangled and nearly falling off.

But you didn't stop, you couldn't - until you felt a hand against your shoulder, and a soft whisper break through your screams.

“It's alright. He's dead.”

You dropped the head, turning to Horangi with wide and wet eyes before crashing into him; he was so cold, yet he didn't feel entirely solid like he used to. Like he was fading away slowly. You sniffled, your face buried against his almost transparent neck.

“He laughed!” You howled. “He laughed when you died!”

“I know,” Horangi said softly, going to touch you but sighing when his fingertips gently stuck through your coveralls. “It's alright.”

You sighed. “I'm so sorry I didn't save you…”

Horangi couldn't even bring himself to speak, a sharp sting in his throat made him able to only choke on his words as he sniffled and nodded slowly.

He could feel himself fade a little more when you broke away, wiping the tears from your eyes before clearing your throat and nodding to yourself.

“Soap next.”

“Alright.”

Horangi didn't leave your side, even when you told him to wait outside while you dealt with Soap, he didn't obey; he stuck close, hiding behind the corner slightly while you pinned Soap to the floor and screamed in his face.

The man was terrified. Looking to Horangi for mercy but knowing that he would never get any; his nose was bloodied, his lips torn off and discarded nearby.

Horangi only watched, there for you and only you.

You dug your fingers into his cheeks, grabbing the flesh as hard as you could before you tugged it clean away; Soap cried out, trying to defend himself and push you away, but it was of no use.

You grabbed the knife, and stuck it into his gums, pulling it down so that the flesh and his teeth tore away; he started to choke when one became lodged in his throat. His face went pale as he looked at Horangi yet again.

But he would never help. After everything that the 141 had done to him and to you, Horangi could never bring himself to be sympathetic to them. They were malicious murderers, little else.

They had ruined yours and Horangi's chances of being a family, of being together.

You sunk the knife into Soap's neck, slowly dragging it down and breaking bone and muscle without care until you reached the waistband of his trousers; you sunk the knife in further, tracing his stomach before tossing the knife aside and sticking your hands in.

Blood and organs squelched as you keenly tossed them out, letting them hit the floor with wet slaps each time as you worked your way up. When you got to his heart, you grinned, and stuffed it into his mouth.

“Guess you weren't heartless after all.”

Two left. Horangi could feel himself being pulled away from you, knowing that time was almost up.

He knew that his time was slowly running out, that soon enough, he would leave you for good and would have to suffer the consequences of wandering the afterlife without you; without the one man that he couldn’t have lived without.

It brought a sharp sting to his chest, and he nearly doubled over every time he thought about it; yet he had to remain strong for you - there were only two left. Just two to go, that was all. Only two.

Ghost. Simon Riley. He had just gotten out of visiting Gaz in the hospital, who by some miracle, had survived been strangled with a phone cord. It had been by sheer dumb luck that Gaz had been found by his next door neighbour, and that they had dialled 999 in time.

He was stable, although the doctors made it all too clear that he would be in no shape to go anywhere for at least six weeks. He had to recover, his larynx was all but destroyed.

Ghost felt good about the chances, though, glad that Gaz had survived more than anything.

Yet, when he got to the car park, something didn't feel right. He frowned as he looked around, examining the car park with expertise; he had visited Gaz every day since the attack, he had apologised so many times to Gaz’s mother and father that he felt like his voice would run out if he did it even one more time.

He had never felt like that in the car park before, watching the ambulance men standing at the exit smoking cigarettes and chatting for a moment, wondering if they had stolen a look at him and had judged the scars that littered his face; he shrugged it off, shaking his head as he made his way to his car.

A hand laid on his shoulder as he went to grab the door, and instinctively, he turned around and forced his elbow into whoever was behind him; yet nothing moved. He wondered if he had imagined it, he hadn’t exactly slept well since Gaz was attacked.

But when he turned around, and looked into those eyes, he clenched his jaw.

There was a darkness within them, concealed by the white rubber mask, and Ghost knew that he was staring into the eyes of evil itself; he didn’t waste time, trying to grab your arm but grunting when you twisted his and smashed it against the car door - a loud crack, Ghost took a split second to look at how his bone protrude through his skin, orange and sticky.

He took a swing with his other arm, but you grabbed his fist, and forced it through the car window with ease; glass pushed beneath his fingernails, and made him growl under his breath as he seethed.

He tried to kick, but you were too quick for him, and pinned him to the ground; Ghost struggled, putting up his hands and trying not to show any sign of weakness when the knife easily pushed through his flesh and forced bits of glass to slice into his face.

Opening up old scars. You pressed the knife to his throat, and leaned over. 

“You.”

“Who the fuck are you?!” Ghost hissed out, trying to squirm free. 

“You took everything from me,” you growled, slowly removing the mask and tossing it aside. Ghost’s eyes went wide as he swallowed thickly. “You remember me? Do you remember how you and your teammates made me watch as you fucking murdered my husband?!”

Ghost nodded slowly. “Yes.”

“You took everything from me,” you could feel your eyes become wet, your vision going slightly blurry. “You took the man I loved from me… there is nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding of life or death. Good or evil. Right or wrong…”

Ghost looked into your eyes, and clenched his jaw when he realised; within your eyes, within the irises and the colour of them, were the darkest eyes he had ever seen, concealed like the worst secret in the world. The Devil’s eyes. There was no point in trying to reach you, in trying to reason with you; living behind your eyes was purely and simply… evil. 

“You’re the Devil.”

You shrugged, glaring at him. “I went back to Haddonfield… because of you. Because you fucking took everything from me - and you weren’t ready for me. But it’s your funeral, Lieutenant Riley.”

Ghost looked around, hoping to find some way of getting out from underneath you, but when he spotted Horangi, his mouth fell open, and he shook his head. “He’s not even fucking dead!”

You shook your head, having hear enough; you brought the knife up, and shoved it through his eye; you pulled it back, wiping it on his shoulder as he yowled, and then stuffed it into his chest over and over and over until you could feel the concrete beneath him, until you could feel a hand on your shoulder. 

“It’s done,” Horangi told you softly. “Come on.”

“But he killed you,” you whimpered, your bottom lip trembling. “I have to make sure he doesn’t fucking come back!”

“He won’t,” he reassured with a short shake of his head. “I can feel it, he won’t.”

You were reluctant, but you still allowed Horangi to direct you to Laswell’s house; she was home alone, her wife was out on business, and you managed to sneak up on her while she was smoking a cigarette on the patio.

You slit her throat, and gently sat her down on the patio chair before leaving again.

She didn’t need to be tormented, she didn’t need to be reminded of what the one four one had done and the cruel and despicable ways of which they had treated Horangi; you made sure that it was quick.

Even still, when you went back to Haddonfield, you held onto Horangi’s hand tightly, sobbing as you watched him slowly fade before your eyes.

“Do you have to go?”

He nodded, swallowing thickly. “I’ll come back - I’m always gonna haunt you, I promise.”

“But-”

“You’ll be alright,” he told you reassuringly, even though his throat stung and he felt as if he was going to be sick. “I won’t be gone for very long.”

“Wait,” you pleaded, tugging at his hand even though you could hardly feel it in your own anymore. “Please. Just one more day… please…”

“I wish we could have one more day,” he said gently, going to pull you into a hug and trying to act as if it didn’t physically hurt when his arm simply fell through you. “I would give anything to have just one more day.”

“Then don’t go!” You whined, shaking your head as snot covered your nostrils and tears streamed down your face, both dripping onto the floor between your feet. “Please!”

“You did everything right,” Horangi smiled as he bit down on his bottom lip to prevent it from quivering. “I love you, and I always will. I won’t be gone for very long. I promise. I will be back for you.”

“I love you,” you sobbed. “I really do, Hong-jin, I fucking love you and I’m… I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”

He shook his head, and although he knew that you couldn’t feel it and that his hands were slowly losing their strength, he tried to give your hand a quick squeeze. “You did save me.”

#mlem writes #horangi x reader #horangi x you #horangi imagine #horangi #horangi cod #horangi mw2 #kim horangi hong jin #horangi call of duty #kim hong jin #cod x reader #cod x you #cod x y/n #cod x yn #cod imagine #cod oneshot #cod one shot #cod fanfiction #cod fanfic #cod fic #cod mw #cod mw2 #cod modern war #cod modern warefare 2 #call of duty x reader #call of duty x you #call of duty x y/n #call of duty x yn #call of duty imagine #call of duty oneshot

[flower-seeks-the-moon]

Tender

My entry for the Hey Sweetheart, 2024 challenge on @ficwip. Also posted on AO3.

Your hands, your hands,

Fall upon mine as waves upon the sands.

O, soft as moonlight on the evening rose,

That but to moonlight will its sweet unclose,

Your hands, your hands,

Fall upon mine, and my hands open as

That evening primrose opens when the hot hours pass.

—  John Frederick Freedman, Hands

For all that he teases her about how well he knows her, Wisteria wonders if he has any inkling of just how much everything comes into sharper focus for her when he enters any room.

He’s not the only observant one, between the two of them.

“Darling.” His thumb rubs circles on the back of her hand, a gesture as familiar as breathing after the countless times he’s done so. “You’ve been deep in thought for a while. Care to spare your lover a moment to share what’s on your mind?”

She looks at him, drawn from her absent staring at the expanse of the park he’s taken her to.

In the splendor of autumn, deep within the golden boughs and quaint streets of his hometown, she can see how well the season suits him. Despite his initial unease at returning to Golden Grove, Baxter seems to be holding up pretty well, an unspoken weight lifting off his shoulders as he takes in the - in his own words - largely unchanged streets and the woods that surround them. His eyes are soft as ever when they glance over at her, a familiar deep brown that keeps her grounded.

Her mind wanders down odd paths and tends to float away from the present, like the pale clouds that her own eyes are reminiscent of. Her friends have always teased her that one day she might float too far out of reach for any of them - in fact, she has almost done so, the year that she silenced herself for fear of being a burden on Terry, Miranda, and Cove.

And yet, Wisteria realizes, that same wandering cloud always has a place to come home to. It’s the deep earth and ancient heartwood that her heart sings for, as a small bird coming home to roost on the tall branches of an old oak tree.

“You,” she replies, fingers entwining tighter with his. “I’m thinking about you.”

I think a worryingly large amount about you. Of your hands, of your eyes, of the way your smile feels more tangible instead of dreamlike when you look at me. I wonder why you’re so fascinated with me, when you’re much more interesting.

But Terry told me that it’s normal to think that much about people that you love.

She has noted long before how easily some of her statements can make him flush, for all that she didn’t mean to do it. Wisteria watches with no small amount of interest at the red that creeps over his cheeks. It’s a mystery to her how he seems so surprised at times when she’s always been direct about her affections.

One day, she hopes that Baxter Ward will no longer be so startled at the notion of how he’s wanted.

To his credit, he recovers in record time. With a crooked grin on his face, he tugs her closer. She scoots across the park bench, heart skipping a beat (or several) when his fingers hold her chin in place to tilt it up.

“Only good things on your mind, I hope?”

She crinkles her nose up at him but doesn’t deny it, making him chuckle under his breath. “Just thinking about how your hands sometimes tell me more than your words, you smooth operator.”

He stills against her as she blinks up at him. “Oh? And pray tell, what do they tell you?”

And you call my stare intense?

One of the things she appreciates about him is how long he’ll wait, for her to articulate her thoughts. Back in the summer of their youth, she’d been an impulsive teenager, but her words have become more spare as the years have passed. The confidence with which she says her ‘blunt’ statements is now reserved only for the closest of friends and family.

It’s one of the things that comes with adulthood, she supposes. Rarer smiles, rarer words; she doesn’t want to be too much, cramming herself into something more easily digestible. But Baxter doesn’t want it easy , he wants her.

She has to remind herself of that, sometimes; if she doesn’t, Baxter will make sure she doesn’t forget.

Guess we’ll have to keep reminding each other.

A few beats pass between them. Yet despite the force of his gaze, she never feels threatened. And so she speaks. “When you’re nervous, your hands do this.”

Wisteria copies the gesture with his thumb, keeping her attention solely on his face. The way his breath wavers as the pad of her thumb circles on his skin makes her swallow.

“Indeed?”

She nods, looking down at their joined hands, the way his long, tapered digits seem to dwarf hers. “It comforts you. I’m… glad.”

That she could be a comfort to him in times like this.

It’s not dissimilar to the way she clutches the straps of her messenger bags, and plays with them, whenever something makes her antsy. He’s been holding her hand almost the entire time they returned to Golden Grove. On the flight - business class, because this is Baxter she’s talking about — more and more of his subtle gestures that scream I need comfort started up.

This is a trip they’ve been planning for weeks. It took her moving back closer to her childhood home for him to admit, over dinner, how he wonders from time to time about his old friends.

And so, come a time when their schedules could both afford a small vacation, Baxter Ward takes her to see his town.

A homecoming, after all the years that he’s spent running from the people he’s left hanging. After he reunited with her earlier last year, Wisteria’s a witness to the careful —  always so careful, and a little afraid, but he’s trying and I’m so proud — overtures he’s made towards her friends and family. The people in Sunset Bird, who he left confused and maybe a little saddened, after the summer he left.

I was the saddest, she thinks to herself, once the fury that turned my vision red had cleared. But you were all alone, while I had-

Baxter drags a hand through his fringe, pulling her back from memory lane. A smile tugs at the corner of her mouth at the gesture. “And when you’re unsure of what to say, you do that.” She laughs under her breath at the narrowing of his eyes. “Or the way you run your fingers along the edges of your clothes, or tug at your collar.”

“You do know everything, don’t you?” His voice is far too light for the simmering heat in his stare. She knows what this entails.

It makes her heart pound, but as he told her before, more than once: Wisteria’s always been attracted to a roguish man. And she brings out that side of Baxter, easy as dancing is to him.

“I watch you, a lot.” She mutters, distraction coming in the form of his arm now encircling her waist. His hand is warm, even through the layers of her clothing, dressed as she is for the season. “Does that bother you?”

“Oh, Ria.” Laughing low in his throat, Baxter’s free hand tugs at the length of her braid. If she doesn’t watch out, she knows that he’ll undo it, fond as he is of the ink-black strands. “Surely, you know me better than that. We’re rather in the same position. I watch you a lot, too.”

It’s rather unfair, she thinks, how quick he is to rob her of her breath with just one look. When she eyes him, wordless, he pulls her onto his lap. Public park be damned, it seems. He meant to show her the place where he used to ride a bike, carefree as a child, with his younger friends and the ballet dancer who first caught his heart. She’s always been curious about Qiu Lin, and the way Baxter spoke of their love for their neighbor.

That’s always the thing with Baxter Ward, isn’t it?

He has a way of spinning the simplest of childhood memories into something out of a romance novel, even if he’s only the observer and not the participant.

This is the furthest thing from her mind now that he has her astride his long legs.

“When you’re this quiet,” he breathes, smile all wicked and face bright. “And uncertain of what to say next, you’ll avoid my eyes and pinch your brow - like so.” She does exactly that, making him laugh. As his chest rumbles, she grabs his shoulders, digging her fingers into the fine fabric of his turtleneck.

His lips crush against hers, and she sighs into his mouth. By the time they part for air, she's holding on to the front of his clothes like it's a lifeline and she, a drowning woman.

As always, he’s happy to let her be as rough as she ends up being with his clothes. The indulgent smirk on his face makes her want to act up.

Wisteria glowers at the dark material when she realizes how it covers his throat. “Right.”

Only to stop short when he speaks, voice low in her ear. “And you’ll stare at the birthmark on my neck like it holds all the answers to your questions. Hmm?” He cups the back of her head as she ducks, the fabric of his sweater a shield between her burning face and the rest of the world. She sits still against him; the rest of the world fades around them, until all that she can sense is the hammering of his pulse, the spice of his floral fragrance, and the comforting warmth he gives off.

So fucking distracting.

And she nods against him, not trusting the right words to come to her.

Baxter hums in satisfaction; she can imagine his face as he tilts his head. Pretending at his effortless nonchalance, even as his heart jackhammers much like hers.

“Thought so.”

This incorrigible man. He’s lucky he’s so damn cute.

He doesn’t let up. As his hands wander down her sides to rest on her hips, she feels his lips move against her skin.

Once she looks up, he pounces.

“Sweetheart,” he murmurs, well aware of how flushed the tips of her ears are. “Have I told you how much comfort you bring me, when I long to run from the things that frighten me so? You have quite the power over me, impossible little siren.” He leans in, letting his teeth catch her bottom lip, making her breath stutter. And then there’s that undeniable smirk she feels as he sighs. “It once vexed me, but I must confess: I am utterly besotted with the way you distract me.”

With how hard her fingers dig into his clothes, she’s almost worried she’d tear them up. And yet she suspects she won’t be entirely apologetic about it.

“… Good,” she exhales against him, their breaths mingling. A bracing warmth against the chill of autumn. Wisteria supposes she’ll never have to worry about being cold, when he’s a living furnace. “I guess you knew, huh.”

“You are worried for me, I am aware.” He presses a kiss, light as a butterfly, on the tip of her nose. “You’re very sweet, you know?”

She cocks her head, then demurs. “You’re sweeter.”

It doesn’t even bear much thinking, the words just tumble out. She adds, “But yeah. You were holding on to me quite a lot on the flight.” And even now, his hands never quite leave her, always resting on her back. If his arm isn’t already around her waist, or her fingers entwined with his. Baxter is a very tactile person, she’s long realized, even when they were younger. “You look like you’re feeling better now, though.”

“Hm, I wonder why.” He shares a dry look with her. “But I am doing rather well now, I must admit. This place feels smaller now.” The latter words are almost too low for her to hear. “To think that I once circled these same paths with a bicycle, with them…”

Leaning back, she takes in the view once again. It’s an alien view, for she’s never really left the seaside even when she moved out of her mother’s home and found her own place. As a few stray leaves blow across the pavement, she admires their colors. They’re all pretty shades that she’s more familiar identifying with a sunset across the horizon, shining over a boundless expanse of rippling water.

The dark-haired man below her, his eyes like molten honey, further completes the picturesque place. 

“This is a nice place to play in.”

She tries to imagine it: young Baxter, cheeks fuller and small face bright as he puts foot to pedal, zipping past this bench. His friends’ laughter, high-pitched and childish. Would he laugh openly, to join in with the other children? Wisteria stifles a chuckle, and decides that he’s closer to smirking his amusement.

“What are you smiling about, I wonder?” He tugs her back against him, not that she ever left his lap. When her eyes flicker back to his face, he raises a brow.

Returning his look, she lifts her shoulder in one careless shrug. Might as well explain her thoughts to Mister Curious. “Just trying to imagine a kid — you on a bike, racing your buddies. I bet it was all black and white, and your helmet all fancy.”

Baxter snorts, briefly covering his mouth. “You’re correct in that assumption. I was no racer, however. Such exploits were more the territory of Autumn and Renee.” Hmm, she supposes not, remembering his words about how proper he was expected to be. As he looks down at her, his cheek dimples as he grins. “Much like you are no surfer, despite your proximity to the Holdens.”

“You and Cove are never going to let me forget how I fell off that surfboard, aren’t you?”

Well. It was only last summer, so it’d be pretty hard to forget. What she didn’t anticipate was how the two men would join forces to poke fun at her. Traitors.

He has the audacity to chortle. “No,” he sing-songs the answer, though he wraps his arms tightly around her waist. “I was a tad worried, however, before I remembered that you know how to swim much better than I do. Had I been there with you, perhaps I would have caught you, much the same way I came to your rescue across that log on our hike.”

“Oh no,” she intones, mock-serious. “Whatever shall I do, without you? Freshwater and saltwater, I’ve got so many choices to take a deep dive in, here.”

His answer is a full-bodied laugh. Throwing his head back, he leans against the back of the bench and jostles her on his legs. He’s quick to steady her, though his laughter doesn’t subside. A few of the most adorable snorts she's ever heard intersperse between his giggles.

Wisteria once again wonders if she’s this good at comedy, or if Baxter is just easy to please.

And then she promptly decides she doesn’t care; it’s wonderful; to hear him so unrestrained is a gift. She cups his face in her palms, leaning in enraptured, soaking up his joy. Unfiltered, his laughter is something she ought to bottle up and save for a rainy day. It's hot peppermint tea with just the right spoonful of honey, drunk before a roaring fireplace, shared with the one who holds her heart in his hands.

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” she scoffs, lowering her lashes and pretending to think. “Remember that time you clung to me when the tiniest crab ran over your foot? I think you need me more than I need you.”

Baxter just bares his teeth at her, unrepentant and warm and all hers. He reaches up and engulfs her hands in his. “That’s all true, Wisteria. I implore you, do continue to be my valiant protector against the horrors which lurk in the sea.”

“Nah, you can just borrow Cove for that.”

“I doubt Derek would appreciate me taking away his boyfriend when I already have you here.”

A third voice rings out, interrupting her would-be retort.

“Looking really comfortable there, Baxter Ward.”

Neither of them is the type to jump apart, even caught like this. She simply turns enough to watch the stranger - to her, at least - sidling up the path. Her brows rise, appreciative, at the tousled deep red hair and freckled, elfin face. Now this is one pretty lady.

She arches a brow at her partner, the urge to tease returning full-force. “Say, Baxter. How did you have a crush on Autumn, when your other friend’s this pretty?”

The pretty lady blinks, owlish, at her; her cheeks turn pink even as she smiles politely. “You’re not what I expected. Wisteria, was it? I think we’ll get along pretty well.”

She feels a deep sigh against her. Baxter’s chest heaves, dramatic as ever, as he grasps the front of his shirt with his palm. “I did not come here to reunite with my friends, only for my partner to be stolen away from me.”

“You don’t need to worry about that,” she scoffs, even as she hears his friend snicker. So much for dignified first impressions, they're already a pair of clowns in front of his childhood friends. “I was only questioning your taste as a thirteen-year-old.”

“Ah, but you slander yourself. You were my next crush, as a fourteen-year-old.”

Goddamn it. He has a point there.

“Autumn would be interested to hear more about that, once they get here.” Renee inserts herself into the conversation, pinning her childhood bestfriend with her stare. “They’ll be here pretty soon, with their girlfriend and Tamarack.”

“That’s wonderful.” He coughs, tilting his head to meet Renee Murray’s eyes. And she can see it: the uncertainty tensing his features, in the split-second before it passes and the distant smile that hurts her comes to the fore. "I see that life has treated you quite well."

She sucks in a breath and pokes his cheek hard, making him drop the act.

It’ll take a while for him to get past his initial, instinctive reaction to pull away . Not when there’s still guilt weighing down on his shoulders for the friends he abandoned; as she hears it, he was… unavailable at a time when they needed him most.

‘I was caught up in my own self-loathing, but the way I utterly forgot about their struggles was unforgivable in my eyes.'

Baxter makes an aborted motion to hold on to her, when she scrambles off his lap. She silences his worry with a quelling look, holding her hand out to him once she’s straightened up. The fragility of his smile has never been clearer, except for these moments, and she swears to protect it in any way possible.

For all that he’s afraid of facing his friends, he’s fearless when it comes to showing his affection for her. There is no hesitation when he places his hand —  and his trust —  in hers, squeezing her tight before he stands.

Feeling Renee Murray’s attention on her, she turns and observes her. She sees a firmness on this woman’s face as she approaches her old childhood friend, only to turn to Wisteria. And then, it softens when their gazes meet, and her lips curve up in response. There’s no resentment in those eyes, she can tell that much. 

A good sign, perhaps. These are the people who saw Baxter in his childhood, who were there for him as much as he allowed them to be, back when he was a ‘stuck-up’ boy.

Wisteria very much wants him to reclaim a piece of his boyhood, stolen from him by the years of dismissing his place within this town.

His fingers tighten around hers, once more, the pad of his thumb running across her skin. A wordless thanks.

“Renee,” her love, faltering yet so brave, begins to take the first step back towards his friends. “It’s been quite some time since I last saw you.” He takes a fortifying breath, and continues. “Thank you for accepting my email.”

A sudden wind rustles the fallen leaves at their feet, nipping at their noses and cheeks and heralding the coming of changes that are a long time coming. She takes a look upwards, lifting her free hand to capture a golden leaf out of the air. As the two friends reunite, Wisteria presses her lips to this little incarnation of fall.

Please let him be alright.

She opens her palm and lets the breeze take it away, carrying all her wishes for the years ahead. Healing, for the man beside her; more kisses shared underneath this same sky, throughout all the seasons. Spring, summer, autumn, and winter. Him, surrounded by all their loved ones and flourishing like a tree soaking up a gentle rain.

The worst has come to pass, and here they are now. Though all things may end at some point, there are countless little ways to begin anew.

From here, there’s nowhere to go but up.

#hey sweetheart #ficwip #our life: beginnings & always #olba #baxter ward #fanfiction #happy valentines! #luna's fics #baxter ward x mc

[sonicfanthenightfury5099]

I’m so obsessed with your werewolf AU, it’s so good and I really enjoy your writing! This may be a weird request but how about a oneshot where Michael is finally caught and locked up again, but years after he breaks out again and returns to his s/o?

You can write it whenever you want, don’t feel rushed uvu have a really nice day! ❤️

That is an interesting one-shot request. I had to get a little break from the writing cause the last thing I need is a burnout halfway in the process. And another note, I'm not a huge fan of the other Halloween movies that has the whole Michael and Laurie siblings' plot point, so I'll try my best with this and try not to have a burnout.

And finally, Thanks Anon hope your day is going well.

===Return to me===

18+ Minors DNI

He went off on his usual routine when you left for work that day. When you returned from work, he was still away. He left a note saying he'll be back around 4 in the morning, so you didn't have to wait for him to have supper cause he usually fills up on his hunts. The night started to get late, and you decided to get to bed. You think to yourself you'll wake up tomorrow with Michael cuddling up as usual with him sleeping and arms wrapped around your waist close to his chest. You drifted off, hopefully to see him in the morning.

You awaken around 7 am. Noticing the lack of Michael in your shared bed, he left a note, and he said he would be home around 4. Where was he? You got up and checked your phone, a message from your friends saying they finally caught The Beast. Your heart dropped in your chest. No, it can't be. It was by the time you turned on the TV as the morning news talked about the capture of Michael Myers, The Beast of Haddonfield. Footage from last night played seeing your man being held with rope and muzzle with him snarling, barking and whining before he was tranqed to load him up in the Armored Car.

Your heart broke. He was now gone, captured after you've been together for 3 years now. You couldn't help but cry. You thought you'll never seen him again. You remember the first time you met him, he was about it eat you but spared you and later coming to your back door with a flower in his blood covered hands. Remember the first time you saw his face, your first kiss, the many times you and him went out in the woods on his back, the first time having a night of passion, all the cuddling and him always saying about the day of having pups. But it will never happen, Michael was caught during his hunt. He'll probably be back in Smith's Grove. You cried through the whole day in your house, the place you and Michael lived in.

His stuff was still here from the past 3 years. His various clothing, hair brush, a squeaky toy you gotten him as a gag gift for him, but he fell in love with it, and all the Polaroid pictures you take of the both of you. "He's gone, taken away from me..." You said as tears stand your cheeks and eyes reddened. "I hope one day, he'll return back to me." You said as you placed his things in a boxes till the day he comes back home.

6 Years Later

You were walking home from a friend's place late in the night and was thinking to yourself as you watch the twilight sky. You opened your door to your house. You couldn't bear to move out from the house it had too many memories of Michael in it. Locking the door behind and putting your coat on the rack, you noticed something off. The back door was opened. "Someone broken in?..." You thought. "The Key under the rock! Shit!" You yelled in your thoughts. Arming yourself in case the robber was still here, you heard heavy footsteps from the upstairs. Their in the bedroom. Slowly moving up the stairs, trying your best to not alarm them.

The door was ajar when you got there. You'll catch them off guard and knock them out and call the police. Taking a deep breath you charged into your room to see no one. "Huh?" You said. Unaware, the figure behind wrapped one around your waist and one hand coving your screams. You struggled under the grip until you felt the familiar lips on your cheek and low growls. "Hello Y/n, you missed me?" The voice, was it?

The grip loosened for you to look at the figure. It was Michael.

"Mr. Wolf?" You said as tears started to form in your eyes. "Hi little lamb." He said, stroking your hair. You started to cry and hug him. It's been so long. "Thought I wouldn't see you ever again." You said in tears muffled by Michael's shirt. "I cried for so long when I heard you were caught 6 years ago. I thought you were dead." You looked at him with watery eyes. "I thought so too, but I'm here now. I managed to escape and hicked hike under a tarp on a truck." Michael replied, wipping the tears from your eyes. "I remember your scent. You never left here." Michael said. "I couldn't. I have too many memories, our time together." You replied with a teary smile. "I kept your things." You told him as you made your way to the closest.

Boxes marked "Michael's things" were taken out of your closet to show Michael. 3 boxes worth of it, one for his clothes and the others his favorite things. "You kept them all." Michael replied, seeing his old things before he was caught. He picked up his hair brush he really liked. "I would fall asleep with one of your shirts to remind me of you, holding me in your arms at night." You said as you guided his arms around you once more. "I never forgot about you." You said hugging him tight. "I found love with you." He said as he lifted your chin up and kissed you deeply.

Michael's passionate kisses never did change over the 6 years. Kissing the special spot in the crook of your neck. "I wanted to do this for so long after getting out." He said in his low growl and lifted you up and on to the shared bed.

The night was filled with passionate pleasure. You moaned from the amount of it. He rolled his hips into yours as he took his time. He was waiting to do this after being captured, kissing your lips and your body throughout. "Do you remember when I said that one day you'll bear my pups?" Michael asked with low grunts. "I do." You replied with gasps, you close to your orgasm as Michael started to pick up the pace. He was close behind. "Well." Michael said as he grunt with teeth sharpening, claws forming, and fur starting to sprout. "Do you still want to bear them?" He asked. You both were getting closer to your climax as Michael started to change into his Wolf forme. "I. I. I. I. I Do." You were on the edge till Michael folded you into the Mating Press as he huffed and puffed till you both orgasmed. You screamed Michael's name as he howled driving his Knott deep into you pussy.

Holding you as you came down from your high. You never felt so good in so long. He knows where to hit your sweet spot, feeling his breath on your sweat drenched body as he pants with his clawed hands, holding you in place to finish filling your womb with his hot seed. You kissed that wet nose of his, smiling at him. He changed back as he pulled out and laid right beside you, kissing your lips and rubbing his hand over your tummy. "Will it happen, you, me, and sounds of little paws on the floor?" You asked Michael as he kissed your forehead. "Someday, Y/N. Someday." Michael replied as he wrapped you up in the sheets over your body to get some sleep after the cool down. Placing your cheek on his chest, hearing his heart beat and feeling his rising and falling chest.

"Welcome Home, Michael." You said as you close your eyes for some sleep.

#michaelmyers #halloween1978 #werewolf #michael myers x reader #werewolfau #werewolfmichaelmyers #oneshot #michael myers smut

[vibratingskull]

Mermaid AU part 2

Part 1

Thrawn x f!reader

You look up to your ceiling, incapable of sleeping

Did it really happened ? Did you crossed path with a merman?Did you hallucinate this meeting?

But the shiny scales you hide in your drawer tells you no.

You want to see him again.

To really believe you NEED to see him again

But you already got back to the cove, he was nowhere in sight. Not hard to understand why, who would hang around where your life was once threaten?

 But you have to be sure!

You pick up some stuffs and leave your house in the dead of night.

At the beach you sneak to the barks and meticulously detach one, push it into the ocean and jump inside

You paddle until the beach is nothing more than a thin line in the horizon. You deduced he would most probably be in the open sea than the shore.

As to lure him, you hope mermaids are like in movies and are sensible to song. He looked like a night creature with his eyes.

You take out your ukulele from your bag and start playing a simple yet joyful melody. You whistle at first, before switching to singing

You sing your heart out for two hours, searching the water with your flashlight from time to time, in hope of seeing a red glow at the surface

But nothing.

You come back the next day

And the next

And the next

And the next

One, two, three month pass but you continue with this crazy hope that you didn’t dream, wondering dometimes if you weren’t just a fool.

One evening it was so late you dozed off mid-song and sleep on the sturdy wood of the bark, craddled by the waves getting more and more agitated

Suddenly, you feel a pointy sharp thing grazes across your cheek and the cold bite of some sea water drops 

You open your eyes in a flash and catch a glimpse of shiny red before it disappear just as quick

You rise so quickly you almost fall overboard, searching franctically the waters with the flashlight

 You only catch a large tails rapidly disapearing in the depth of the ocean.

He is real...

He is real!

You scream in joy in the lonesome dark night, and paddle after him, fighting against the agitated sea.

One wave crashes on you, drenching you to the bone

The next one however...

The next one propulse you out of the bark in the black sea

You try to pierce the surface, but in this black sea up and down looks alike

You break out with a gasp, cold to the bone, when a third wave pushes you back deep under the surface.

You start panicking when something grazes your leg

You can’t see a damn thing

“Something” grasps your arm and drag you behind it at an impressive speed 

You’re back at the surface, you gasp for air.

In way less time it took you to reach the open sea you’re back on the sand of the beach

But as it releases you you grasps it yourself and throw the flashlight right at it

It protects itself with its hand

It’s him! 

He roars and almost slashes at you with his claws

He frees his arm and jump back into the water swiftly

You look him disappear, trembling, wet and miserable

But you’re smiling

You look down at your hand and open it

An expertly crafted bracelet rests on your palm

You have your proof

You’re contented

@blueninjablade3

#mermaid au #thrawn x f!reader #thrawn x you #thrawn x reader #thrawn #grand admiral thrawn #mitth'raw'nuruodo #fanfic #vibratingskull