All Of This Nonsense, Please

A place for reblogs because I can't find anything once it gets buried in my likes.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

hi I have very little ‘hey look at me!’ energy, so I won’t keep mentioning this, but

--if you don’t mind unfinished stories--

please take a look at the Gentleman Thief AU and/or the a/b/o slow burn The Old Factory that I have up on my dreamwidth (https://suspicious-cocksicle.dreamwidth.org/profile). they are both, as far as I am aware, unique set ups for R76 fics, and I worked hard on what’s available for them.

Gentleman Thief AU: 1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9

The Old Factory: 1/2/3

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

hey, just a quick reminder that I have (nearly) all of my R76 projects posted on one of my dreamwidth journals:

https://suspicious-cocksicle.dreamwidth.org/profile

there’s even some newly added unfinished stuff which I thought was worth sharing, including a slow burn a/b/o fic:

The Old Factory, part 1 of 3: https://suspicious-cocksicle.dreamwidth.org/14569.html

and a futuristic period piece featuring Reaper the gentleman thief:

Gentleman Thief AU, part 1 of 9: https://suspicious-cocksicle.dreamwidth.org/15247.html

[suspiciouspopsicle]

we’re all getting fucking puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuurged

fuck you, tumblr.

if anyone wants alternate links for my fics and what not, i’m on

AO3 (all fandoms listed, but not usually all fics): https://archiveofourown.org/users/Suspicious_Popsicle/works

and dreamwidth:

Fluri fics: https://suspicious-popsicle.dreamwidth.org/profile

Reaper76 fics: https://suspicious-cocksicle.dreamwidth.org/profile

aaaaand just for funsies, i grabbed a url just now for Mo Dao Zu Shi: https://suspicious-corpsesicle.dreamwidth.org/profile

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

a (very very very belated) b-day gift i made for the wonderful and talented Leah (firesonic152 on twitter & Ao3)!! This little Soldier was definitely a labor of love! XD

(no, really, i’m so slow at sewing it’s why it was so late ;;;;;;;;;;;;;)

(the camera flash sort of whited out the scar and the yellow outline around the 76, but i promise those details are there!)

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

@notitlesapply replied to your post “i found out about corn wolves and started messaging Leah over discord...”

                       Ohh that was really good! I liked the atmosphere in this one. The mood was perfect! I liked it a lot!                  

thank you! <3 i’m glad to hear that part came out well! -^^-

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

i found out about corn wolves and started messaging Leah over discord and ended up with a ficlet.

NSFW pre-SEP, urban fantasy-ish kind of thing

fair warning--this is super messy bc i was copying it straight out of the discord send box as i wrote it.

Jack's eighteen, never been off the farm, just enlisted because he wants to run and run and run from all this stifling sameness and save it at the same time from the omnics that are bringing war to their doorstep. He steals some alcohol from his parents' liquor cabinet and coaxes a boy from his class out into the field with him late at night. He's never been with anyone, and now everything is changing, *he's* going to change it, leave it all behind and fight the whole goddamn world if he has to. Bloomington is so small, but it's huge in its emptiness and Jack's got too much fight in him to stay and suffocate. He's laughing as he pulls the other boy along as they run, laughing and taking messy swigs from the bottle and confusing anxiety with excitement. He's leaving tomorrow. He might never be back and he's still trying to trick himself into thinking that'll be by choice and not bad luck in the war.

The kiss isn't his first, but it's clumsy enough to be, all brittle laughter and shaking hands and a future that's rushing at him too fast and not fast enough. They kiss and touch and drink and shush each other and laugh. Jack struggles out of his red hoodie, gets his shirt off, and the sound of the irrigation system doesn't even register to his ears, but the boy who would have been his first freezes. He heard something, he insists.

It was only the irrigation system, just water in the pipes.

*No*! It was something *else*! Something...

The wind rustles the corn. Through the haze of excitement-anxiety-alcohol-yearning for the formless unknown, Jack remembers the stories about wolves in the corn.

They only come for kids, he jokes, teeth bared in a death's head grin. He takes a drink, wipes his mouth on his arm, watches the boy shiver and start at nothing and then dart away back the way they'd come.

Jack is left alone amid the stalks, disconsolate for reasons he cannot name. He takes a deep pull from the bottle and flings his arms wide, daring something--anything--to approach him.

The leaves laugh at him, dry and rustling. The wind is cold against his bare skin, leaving goosebumps in contrast to the warmth in his gut the alcohol left behind as it burned down his throat like gasoline catching fire. He dares the world to come after him. He's eighteen and immortal and he's just enlisted. Death is a story to frighten children.

This time, he hears the irrigation system, a gurgling growl almost beneath hearing. It circles him, just water in the pipes. He's heard it a thousand times before, a million times. It's the sound of vast nothingness, the sound of stagnation. It's the sound of nowhere. It almost hides the soft pad of footfalls.

The hairs along Jack's arms prickle. He listens, turning, trying to follow the sound, bottle forgotten in his hand. The wind drags fingers across his back. The leaves laugh as his heartbeat speeds up, as sweat forms on his skin and chills him. He thinks he hears a chuckle, a sound caught halfway between water in the pipes and windswept leaves and he jerks around, trying to pinpoint the sound, trying to tell himself that it's nothing, trying to calm his pulse he's a soldier near enough he's signed his life away to the war against the machines and the corn wolves only come for children.

He hears the laughter again. It's clearer now. The stalks whisper amongst themselves, nodding, looking down on him, shirtless and anxious and almost free, almost chained to a cause, and so full of anger at the everything and nothing that his eighteen years in this place have been. He circles, teeth bared, growling challenge, and not all the soft, gritty, slithery sounds of footsteps are his. There is nothing in the corn. There is someone in the corn. It's a joke, it's a trick, it's his friends trying to surprise him before he leaves them all behind, probably for good.

He sees a flash of gold.

It's gone before he gets a good look, but his mind tells him it was an eye, huge and inhuman and watching him. The wind sounds like panting breaths. It carries a scent with it now, an animal musk. From the corners of his eyes as he turns and turns and tries to catch the source of the sounds that seem to be always just behind him, the shadows seem too full.

He thinks he sees fur.

He thinks he sees the glint of teeth.

The better to gobble you up with, he thinks, but he's not a child, he's not he's not he's a soldier soon so soon he'll be gone gone gone

Laughter sounds from just behind him, husky and warm and shooting down his spine with all the heat of the liquid courage burning in his gut. The world is so much bigger than he's had a chance to see, and he whirls, snarling, filled with fight and fear and anger and a challenge to the whole goddamn world because he will not spend all his days in this dizzyingly empty town.

There is a stranger behind him, standing bold in the light of the moon. Dark-skinned and dark-eyed, *gorgeous*, Jack thinks to himself, stunned, but not too stunned to miss the whispers of *danger danger danger* or the instinct to run.

He sets his feet, flexes his fists, meets the stranger's eyes.

The man has no weapon. He is smiling widely, but there is something wrong there, something strange in his grin, something about the gleam of his teeth in the moonlight and how very, terribly sharp they seem.

The fear is a humming in Jack's bones now, a chorus of *run wrong danger* with no substance. His hurried heartbeat floods his veins with the command to flee, but Jack is no child, he's a soldier, a fighter, he's *not afraid*...!

I'm not a child, Jack snarls, and he doesn't know why. The wolves only come for children, but they do not walk on two legs.

The stranger laughs low, and it's the rasp of dry leaves, the hiss of water through pipes. How do you know? he asks, eyes alight and Jack swears the brown glints with gold. Can you live on your own? Find your own meals? Fight your own battles?

Yes, Jack barks back, and Yes, and *Yes!*

Can you defend your territory? Protect your pack? Claim a mate?

*Yes!* and *YES!* and Jack

hesitates

alone and fueling fury with fear, heat simmering beneath his skin to drive away the chill of night as the stranger paces round him, watching, always watching

*the better to see you with*

Ears perked for Jack's response

*the better to hear you with*

Lips parted in a hungry smile that glints with hints of

such

sharp

teeth

Yes, Jack whispers and his throat is dry and his skin feels too small and the scent of musk is heavy on the air, heady and intoxicating and he stops turning to follow the stranger's movements, stares him down as he steps closer, grinning as if sharing a secret with Jack.

He steps in too close and the warmth of him is shocking after the chill wind. He tilts his head, eyelids sliding shut over those brown-gleaming-gold eyes as his nose nearly brushes Jack's collarbone, as his teeth pass so close to Jack's throat. Jack's pulse is beating as if to reach out to this stranger who smells of musk and earth and sweet corn and old blood. He breathes in deeply, taking Jack's scent, and Jack knows in his bones suddenly, clearly, that this man will always be able to find him.

No scent on you but your own, the man rumbles and he sounds pleased. Jack swallows hard. The bottle hits the ground and he jumps and feels the man's grin briefly against his skin.

Can you take a mate? the stranger asks. Will you be taken?

Jack wants to say yes and doesn't know which question he would be answering.

Jack is the one to take the final step forward, pushing his chest up against the stranger's. They're of a height, but the man is still looking down on him, still laughing, still watching him with a burning hunger in Jack's eyes that makes him shiver, makes him think of old stories, makes him think of biting down on a knuckle in his stuffy room as his breath comes faster and faster and he strokes himself to half-formed imaginings.

The stranger's kiss is softer than Jack would have expected. Brief and dry as the rustling leaves. His tongue swipes against the seam of Jack's lips, dips inside as they part, and retreats. He pulls back, lip curling, and Jack has a moment to wonder if the taste of alcohol bothers him before he sets his claws into Jack's shoulders and drags him close once more. He kisses fiercely, ravenously, as if he wants to devour Jack. It's as heady as his scent, and Jack loses himself trying to keep up, trying to give as well as he gets, trying to prove himself and please this man.

It would be scary, if he could stop and think and focus, how badly he wants to please this man.

Fingernails like claws tear Jack's skin from shoulder to wrist, and he jerks free of the kiss to shout in pain. He has no time to fight, no time to defend himself, as those clawed hands slip around to the backs of his thighs and lift him off the ground--as if it's nothing, as if he weighs nothing--and reflex has him wrapping his legs around the stranger's waist, his arms around his shoulders. The movement grinds him against the man's body, and Jack gasps, hips jerking up of their own accord, seeking more friction, more contact. The man laughs and digs his fingers into the meat of Jack's ass, claws pricking through his jeans, grip grinding him achingly slowly against the man's stomach. As Jack writhes in his hold, he turns his head, nose skimming along Jack's bloodied arm as he draws in a deep breath. His tongue is long, hot against Jack's skin. He laps up salt sweat and blood, nips at Jack's skin and laughs at the way it makes him yelp, follows the line of his arm back to his chest where he presses his tongue against the heavy beat of Jack's heart and breathes harshly, hungrily over his skin before he sets his teeth in and bites down.

Jack howls. His shoulders slam back, his hips thrust forward. The staticky start to pleasure fizzes against the pain-heat-pressure over his heart as the grip of teethe eases, as the wound is bathed with a long tongue, as lips press against his skin and suckle at the bite.

He'll bear the mark for days, he thinks as his hips roll reflexively forward, chasing the growing pleasure, feeling the increasing pressure of the hardness between his legs.

The stranger bears him down onto the dirt, onto the carpet of fallen leaves. His red hoodie is crumpled beneath him, soft against his skin, and he grabs it, grips it, fingers digging in to this connection to the world he wanted so badly to leave behind, the small, empty world with no strangers, no surprises, no future, no room to grow. He gasps as the stranger rocks atop him, grinding their bodies together just right so that Jack can feel the heat of him, feel his interest, his need. He moans, and the sound is gobbled up, swallowed down in another consuming kiss. Hands close around his wrists, pin him down, but the fight in him is boiling away, feeding a different sort of heat, and his struggles weaken beneath the kiss, beneath the rough roll of hips and his own need.

He is left gasping and shivering when the stranger pulls away.

For a moment, all Jack can see are the stars, a tattered canvas of them far overhead, ringed by nodding cornstalks. The fields whisper all around him, and he feels watched. There are eyes in the heavens, eyes in the shadows beneath the leaves, eyes buried deep in the earth. They see him, and he is small and alone and desperate to prove himself.

*I am not a child*

He hears them laugh at the echo of his own words.

But the stranger...Jack looks at the stranger and sees desire.

It consumes him better than the kiss did, setting him alight and burning right down to his core. The stranger looks at him as if he can see everything that Jack was and is and will be. He looks at Jack as if to devour him. He looks at Jack as if he is the only other being to exist in the world. He does not look at Jack as if he is looking at a child.

Those eyes, more gold than brown and burning burning burning trace up Jack's body until they meet his gaze.

Onto your knees, the stranger says. His voice is raspy, as he commands, and Jack obeys without question. He rolls to his knees, trembling with nerves, with anticipation, with the fire licking at the underside of his skin and the wind cooling the sweat on his back and his cock hard and heavy in his jeans and the war waiting for him and his old red hoodie clenched in his hands and ground into the dirt.

Claws prick at the bones of his hips, glide over skin with pressure enough to suggest how easily they could tear into him and that shouldn't excite him but it does. The claws catch on the waist of his jeans and tug.

Get rid of these. The rasp has deepened, sounding almost like a growl.

Jack fumbles the button loose, unzips his fly. He starts to ease his jeans down over his hips, but he mist be going so slow. The claws dig in and yank, leaving scratches down his thighs. He gasps and rolls his hips. The pain was almost expected this time, almost a part of the pleasure burning like banked coals in his core. He hears a rough chuckle that sends a pleasant shiver up his spine, and whimpers as a hot tongue trails up the fresh scratches on his thigh, licking away the blood as it wells up. He glances back--is the man's hair thicker than it had been? longer?--and teeth sink into his thigh just beneath the swell of his ass. The bite draws a yelp from him.

Face forward, comes the casual command, and Jack obeys. Again, he feels the stranger's tongue against his skin, licking away the blood, soothing the small hurt. He shuffles, spreading his knees farther apart without having to be told as that mouth laves attention across the curve of his skin, into the soft flesh of his inner thigh. His cock is throbbing, begging to be touched, and he claws at the dirt and twists the fabric of his hoodie between his fingers and grits his teeth against the mocking laughter that hums over his skin.

His breath catches as he feels that tongue press against his hole. Hot and wet, it laps against his skin, dripping with thick, slick saliva. He keens as it is forced in, hot, so hot, moving insistently inside him, stretching him out, teasing him. It seems to press so deeply as hands settle on his ass, claws digging in as his cheeks are spread wider and he feels hot and heavy breath across tender skin. Still the stranger's tongue delves deeper, long and clever and Jack's chest and cheek are pressed into the ground, his teeth are cutting into his knuckles as he stifles the moans that spill from his throat. So good, it feels *so good*, so much better than doing it himself, so much hotter and fuller and he revels in it, craves it, craves the pain of the claws, the syrupy-slow buildup of pleasure, craves more, more, anything this man will give him--he wants it all.

He's begging before he knows it, chewing the words out around his bloodied knuckles: please, please, ohgod*please* yes *PLEASE*! he wants, wants, *wants*, *WANTS*

Jack wants so much. Wants to be filled, wants release, wants his freedom, wants glory and victory and adventure and *life* and he's running away into the midst of a war because it's his only ticket out, he's going to die if he doesn't, going to suffocate and waste away on nothing but, oh, god, the machines don't care about what he wants, don't care that he's only eighteen and hasn't lived. He could die in this war. It dawns on him that he could *die*, probably will die, he's nothing special, just a kid trying to get out of Bloomington, and suddenly he's scared and he's furious because he isn't getting out just to die, they can't take all that possibility from him they can't! Jack wants and wants and *wants*. He wants everything the world has to offer him. He wants a *life*. He'll start with this.

fuck me Fuck me. *Fuck me.* *FUCK ME!* His pleas turn to demands before he knows it, and he shudders as the stranger chuckles and slowly, oh so slowly, pulls his tongue free.

You're shaking, he says, and there is amusement clear in his growling voice. Are you sure you want this?

Yes...! Yes! Please, just...! Jack groans and buries his face in his hoodie. It smells of his own sweat, of home and laundry detergent, of normal things. A laugh bubbles out of his throat. He's face down in a cornfield, offering his ass to....

What are you?

Clawed hands skim over his stomach. Fingers splay possessively across his skin. The stranger caresses him, fingertips and palms strangely rough as they glide up. He cups Jack's pecs, massages gently, rocks against him as Jack moans plaintively. He thumbs Jack's nipples and pinches at them playfully. His fingers find the bite mark over Jack's heart. It's still oozing blood, and he digs the tips of his claws in as Jack bites back a shout, feeling his cock twitch.

I'm yours if you'll be mine.

The warmth he had brought to bear upon Jack's back vanishes with his touch. There is barely a moment for Jack to lament the loss before he feels something hot and blunt press against his entrance, and then he's trying to remember how to breathe as the stranger presses inside him, hot as a brand and impossibly large. Jack's spine bows, his mouth hangs open in a shout he has no air to voice. Darkness dances at the edges of his vision, swallowing up the cornstalks and the starry sky, darkening his vision until a palm presses to his chest and rubs gentle, reassuring circles against his skin.

Deep breath now, the stranger says, and Jack mistakes it for encouragement rather than a warning. It's the only warning he gets before teeth sink into the crook of his neck and the stranger's hips snap forward, slamming so deeply into him that Jack's vision goes white.

It's all motion and heat after that, and Jack no longer has the ability to keep himself quiet. He shouts and curses and begs and in the frenzy he isn't certain if he's pleading for mercy or for more. Though he's never been with anyone before, he's sure it shouldn't feel like this, sure that it shouldn't be so large, that it shouldn't stretch him so wide, that he shouldn't feel like he's going to be split open. His body sings with the ache of it, adding the sting of the bites, the sharp jabs from the scratches on his shaking arms and legs, the dig of pebbles beneath his knees, the grinding of his cheek into the ground, the burn of muscles stretched beyond anything he could have prepared himself for. And the trade off for all of this...the trade off is pleasure that blanks his mind and explodes like fireworks along every nerve. Every thrust hits something deep inside him that draws a hoarse cry from his throat, makes his fingers twist in the fabric of his hoodie until it rips, makes his struggle to spread his knees wider, to rock his hips back just so to meet that movement, to accept it, to take that impossible length all the way in, let it fill him up in a way that nothing else ever will. His heart is in his throat, beating so fast he wonders if it might burst, if this will be it for him--no war, no omnics, no escaping all the miles and miles and miles of empty horizon. He's at the mercy of the big, bad wolf, and all he can do it pant and claw at the ground and beg for more as his voice grows hoarse and his cock leaks precum and aches for touch.

Jack shuffles, half-suffocating as he gasps into the fabric of his hoodie. He reaches beneath himself, grabs his cock, and strokes, hips stuttering between the need to meet the stranger's thrusts and to fuck into his fist. The stranger is relentless. He is huge in Jack's senses, a massive body bearing down on him, fucking him into the dirt, radiating heat and panting harshly, louder than Jack's own flagging shouts.

Squirming, Jack manages to work his free hand beneath his chin. He strains, reaching up, up, until his fingers slip against his skin, and he knows they'll come away red. He draws a breath and digs them into the bite on his shoulder and comes with a scream torn from his raw throat.

The stranger growls, and there's something approving in the sound, something possessive in the way he lays himself out over Jack's back, rolling his hips almost lazily now, dragging his length out and sliding it back in. He's hairy and stiflingly hot. His tongue curls over Jack's fingers and laps at the bite. When he nuzzles Jack's ear, it's cold and damp. His teeth are far too sharp where they dimple the lobe.

Jack is breathing raggedly, white noise in his ears, pulse thumping at his skin everywhere it nears the surface. He moans weakly as the stranger continues fucking into him, the pleasure-pain becoming too much of too much as he wrings the last of his orgasm out onto the field. Tears are streaming down his face. He's going to burn up from the inside. His heart is going to give out.

Neither of these things happen.

Jack scrabbles weakly in the dirt as he feels the heat inside him increase, feels the girth stretching him impossibly, painfully wide expand. He realizes what's happening a moment before the stranger buries himself inside Jack and comes with a low, inhuman howl. His cock twitches, spilling out until Jack feels sick with it, until he feels it forcing out from the seal where their bodies are connected so intimately together. He feels it oozing down his legs, dripping onto the ground to mingle with his own.

When the stranger finally pulls out, the trickle turns into a flood. Jack collapses, unable to hold himself up. He thinks he hears, in the moments before the darkness between the stars falls to settle like a blanket upon him:

I will find you again.

...but he cannot be sure.

When he wakes, it is still dark, and he knows from the bruises and the mess that it was no dream. He is still bleeding slightly. His skin is smeared with dirt and blood and other fluids. He has bitten through his bottom lip, and it is swollen and throbbing. His back and hips ache so badly that he cannot immediately stand, and his legs shake when he does manage to get up. He has no idea how to explain his condition to his parents.

A glint of amber from the corner of his eye has him turning excitedly to look, but it is only the  bottle he dropped. Not all of it spilled, and he tosses back the last swallows, pretending he doesn't see the claw marks in the dirt around him, or the prints like the paws of a giant wolf.

Jack escapes Bloomington. He distinguishes himself in basic, and is given a chance to join a Soldier Enhancement Program. He does not pass it up.

The SEP is made up of the best of the best, but there is one candidate who seems to inspire more awe than others. The lone survivor of a unit caught between two groups of omnics, Soldier: 24, Gabriel Reyes pulled himself out of the cornfield where he had been ambushed, bearing wounds that should have killed him, and somehow survived and healed and came to be among the best even among the elite ranks of the SEP.

Jack pays him little mind aside from as a goal to surpass until they cross paths by chance one day, alone in the hall leading to the showers. He glances at Reyes, then does a double take, then grows still. Something in the way Reyes carries himself has changed. His expression has shifted into a wide grin showing off too-sharp teeth. There's something different about him, something bigger than he's showing tucked away beneath his skin. Jack shivers, and it isn't fear or admiration that runs down his spine and twists in his gut as the scar over his heart in the shape of teeth twinges with a sudden ache. He can't tear his eyes away--doesn't think he even wants to--as Reyes steps in close and breathes in deep, wearing an expression of an all-too-familiar hunger.

Found you, he says, and Jack swears his eyes gleam gold beneath the lights.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

okay, yeah, i seriously should not have been posting that the way i was XD

seems like i can’t add a read more on a reblog that will open the previous read more as well. =/

gonna just repost the whole thing all in one behind a cut. sorry for all the oddness tonight.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

@strangefingers replied to your post “so, corn wolves. Jack’s eighteen, never been off the farm, just...”

                       Wow!!! This is really riveting and I'm curious to see where it goes.                   

nowhere unexpected, i’m sure, but i appreciate the vote of confidence lol

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

so, corn wolves.

Jack’s eighteen, never been off the farm, just enlisted because he wants to run and run and run from all this stifling sameness and save it at the same time from the omnics that are bringing war to their doorstep. He steals some alcohol from his parents’ liquor cabinet and coaxes a boy from his class out into the field with him late at night. He’s never been with anyone, and now everything is changing, *he’s* going to change it, leave it all behind and fight the whole goddamn world if he has to. Bloomington is so small, but it’s huge in its emptiness and Jack’s got too much fight in him to stay and suffocate. He’s laughing as he pulls the other boy along as they run, laughing and taking messy swigs from the bottle and confusing anxiety with excitement. He’s leaving tomorrow. He might never be back and he’s still trying to trick himself into thinking that’ll be by choice and not bad luck in the war.

The kiss isn’t his first, but it’s clumsy enough to be, all brittle laughter and shaking hands and a future that’s rushing at him too fast and not fast enough. They kiss and touch and drink and shush each other and laugh. Jack struggles out of his red hoodie, gets his shirt off, and the sound of the irrigation system doesn’t even register to his ears, but the boy who would have been his first freezes. He heard something, he insists.

It was only the irrigation system, just water in the pipes.

*No*! It was something *else*! Something…

The wind rustles the corn. Through the haze of excitement-anxiety-alcohol-yearning for the formless unknown, Jack remembers the stories about wolves in the corn.

They only come for kids, he jokes, teeth bared in a death’s head grin. He takes a drink, wipes his mouth on his arm, watches the boy shiver and start at nothing and then dart away back the way they’d come.

Jack is left alone amid the stalks, disconsolate for reasons he cannot name. He takes a deep pull from the bottle and flings his arms wide, daring something–anything–to approach him.

The leaves laugh at him, dry and rustling. The wind is cold against his bare skin, leaving goosebumps in contrast to the warmth in his gut the alcohol left behind as it burned down his throat like gasoline catching fire. He dares the world to come after him. He’s eighteen and immortal and he’s just enlisted. Death is a story to frighten children.

This time, he hears the irrigation system, a gurgling growl almost beneath hearing. It circles him, just water in the pipes. He’s heard it a thousand times before, a million times. It’s the sound of vast nothingness, the sound of stagnation. It’s the sound of nowhere. It almost hides the soft pad of footfalls.

The hairs along Jack’s arms prickle. He listens, turning, trying to follow the sound, bottle forgotten in his hand. The wind drags fingers across his back. The leaves laugh as his heartbeat speeds up, as sweat forms on his skin and chills him. He thinks he hears a chuckle, a sound caught halfway between water in the pipes and windswept leaves and he jerks around, trying to pinpoint the sound, trying to tell himself that it’s nothing, trying to calm his pulse he’s a soldier near enough he’s signed his life away to the war against the machines and the corn wolves only come for children.

He hears the laughter again. It’s clearer now. The stalks whisper amongst themselves, nodding, looking down on him, shirtless and anxious and almost free, almost chained to a cause, and so full of anger at the everything and nothing that his eighteen years in this place have been. He circles, teeth bared, growling challenge, and not all the soft, gritty, slithery sounds of footsteps are his. There is nothing in the corn. There is someone in the corn. It’s a joke, it’s a trick, it’s his friends trying to surprise him before he leaves them all behind, probably for good.

He sees a flash of gold.

It’s gone before he gets a good look, but his mind tells him it was an eye, huge and inhuman and watching him. The wind sounds like panting breaths. It carries a scent with it now, an animal musk. From the corners of his eyes as he turns and turns and tries to catch the source of the sounds that seem to be always just behind him, the shadows seem too full.

He thinks he sees fur.

He thinks he sees the glint of teeth.

The better to gobble you up with, he thinks, but he’s not a child, he’s not he’s not he’s a soldier soon so soon he’ll be gone gone gone

Laughter sounds from just behind him, husky and warm and shooting down his spine with all the heat of the liquid courage burning in his gut. The world is so much bigger than he’s had a chance to see, and he whirls, snarling, filled with fight and fear and anger and a challenge to the whole goddamn world because he will not spend all his days in this dizzyingly empty town.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

((belatedly adding a NSFW warning))

There is a stranger behind him, standing bold in the light of the moon. Dark-skinned and dark-eyed, *gorgeous*, Jack thinks to himself, stunned, but not too stunned to miss the whispers of *danger danger danger* or the instinct to run.

He sets his feet, flexes his fists, meets the stranger’s eyes.

The man has no weapon. He is smiling widely, but there is something wrong there, something strange in his grin, something about the gleam of his teeth in the moonlight and how very, terribly sharp they seem.

The fear is a humming in Jack’s bones now, a chorus of *run wrong danger* with no substance. His hurried heartbeat floods his veins with the command to flee, but Jack is no child, he’s a soldier, a fighter, he’s *not afraid*…!

I’m not a child, Jack snarls, and he doesn’t know why. The wolves only come for children, but they do not walk on two legs.

The stranger laughs low, and it’s the rasp of dry leaves, the hiss of water through pipes. How do you know? he asks, eyes alight and Jack swears the brown glints with gold. Can you live on your own? Find your own meals? Fight your own battles?

Yes, Jack barks back, and Yes, and *Yes!*

Can you defend your territory? Protect your pack? Claim a mate?

*Yes!* and *YES!* and Jack

hesitates

alone and fueling fury with fear, heat simmering beneath his skin to drive away the chill of night as the stranger paces round him, watching, always watching

*the better to see you with*

Ears perked for Jack’s response

*the better to hear you with*

Lips parted in a hungry smile that glints with hints of

such

sharp

teeth

Yes, Jack whispers and his throat is dry and his skin feels too small and the scent of musk is heavy on the air, heady and intoxicating and he stops turning to follow the stranger’s movements, stares him down as he steps closer, grinning as if sharing a secret with Jack.

He steps in too close and the warmth of him is shocking after the chill wind. He tilts his head, eyelids sliding shut over those brown-gleaming-gold eyes as his nose nearly brushes Jack’s collarbone, as his teeth pass so close to Jack’s throat. Jack’s pulse is beating as if to reach out to this stranger who smells of musk and earth and sweet corn and old blood. He breathes in deeply, taking Jack’s scent, and Jack knows in his bones suddenly, clearly, that this man will always be able to find him.

No scent on you but your own, the man rumbles and he sounds pleased. Jack swallows hard. The bottle hits the ground and he jumps and feels the man’s grin briefly against his skin.

Can you take a mate? the stranger asks. Will you be taken?

Jack wants to say yes and doesn’t know which question he would be answering.

Jack is the one to take the final step forward, pushing his chest up against the stranger’s. They’re of a height, but the man is still looking down on him, still laughing, still watching him with a burning hunger in Jack’s eyes that makes him shiver, makes him think of old stories, makes him think of biting down on a knuckle in his stuffy room as his breath comes faster and faster and he strokes himself to half-formed imaginings.

The stranger’s kiss is softer than Jack would have expected. Brief and dry as the rustling leaves. His tongue swipes against the seam of Jack’s lips, dips inside as they part, and retreats. He pulls back, lip curling, and Jack has a moment to wonder if the taste of alcohol bothers him before he sets his claws into Jack’s shoulders and drags him close once more. He kisses fiercely, ravenously, as if he wants to devour Jack. It’s as heady as his scent, and Jack loses himself trying to keep up, trying to give as well as he gets, trying to prove himself and please this man.

It would be scary, if he could stop and think and focus, how badly he wants to please this man.

Fingernails like claws tear Jack’s skin from shoulder to wrist, and he jerks free of the kiss to shout in pain. He has no time to fight, no time to defend himself, as those clawed hands slip around to the backs of his thighs and lift him off the ground–as if it’s nothing, as if he weighs nothing–and reflex has him wrapping his legs around the stranger’s waist, his arms around his shoulders. The movement grinds him against the man’s body, and Jack gasps, hips jerking up of their own accord, seeking more friction, more contact. The man laughs and digs his fingers into the meat of Jack’s ass, claws pricking through his jeans, grip grinding him achingly slowly against the man’s stomach. As Jack writhes in his hold, he turns his head, nose skimming along Jack’s bloodied arm as he draws in a deep breath. His tongue is long, hot against Jack’s skin. He laps up salt sweat and blood, nips at Jack’s skin and laughs at the way it makes him yelp, follows the line of his arm back to his chest where he presses his tongue against the heavy beat of Jack’s heart and breathes harshly, hungrily over his skin before he sets his teeth in and bites down.

Jack howls. His shoulders slam back, his hips thrust forward. The staticky start to pleasure fizzes against the pain-heat-pressure over his heart as the grip of teethe eases, as the wound is bathed with a long tongue, as lips press against his skin and suckle at the bite.

He’ll bear the mark for days, he thinks as his hips roll reflexively forward, chasing the growing pleasure, feeling the increasing pressure of the hardness between his legs.

The stranger bears him down onto the dirt, onto the carpet of fallen leaves. His red hoodie is crumpled beneath him, soft against his skin, and he grabs it, grips it, fingers digging in to this connection to the world he wanted so badly to leave behind, the small, empty world with no strangers, no surprises, no future, no room to grow. He gasps as the stranger rocks atop him, grinding their bodies together just right so that Jack can feel the heat of him, feel his interest, his need. He moans, and the sound is gobbled up, swallowed down in another consuming kiss. Hands close around his wrists, pin him down, but the fight in him is boiling away, feeding a different sort of heat, and his struggles weaken beneath the kiss, beneath the rough roll of hips and his own need.

He is left gasping and shivering when the stranger pulls away.

For a moment, all Jack can see are the stars, a tattered canvas of them far overhead, ringed by nodding cornstalks. The fields whisper all around him, and he feels watched. There are eyes in the heavens, eyes in the shadows beneath the leaves, eyes buried deep in the earth. They see him, and he is small and alone and desperate to prove himself.

*I am not a child*

He hears them laugh at the echo of his own words.

But the stranger…Jack looks at the stranger and sees desire.

It consumes him better than the kiss did, setting him alight and burning right down to his core. The stranger looks at him as if he can see everything that Jack was and is and will be. He looks at Jack as if to devour him. He looks at Jack as if he is the only other being to exist in the world. He does not look at Jack as if he is looking at a child.

Those eyes, more gold than brown and burning burning burning trace up Jack’s body until they meet his gaze.

Onto your knees, the stranger says. His voice is raspy, as he commands, and Jack obeys without question. He rolls to his knees, trembling with nerves, with anticipation, with the fire licking at the underside of his skin and the wind cooling the sweat on his back and his cock hard and heavy in his jeans and the war waiting for him and his old red hoodie clenched in his hands and ground into the dirt.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

i went about this in entirely the wrong way lol

next bit is increasingly NSFW, so behind a cut it goes!

Claws prick at the bones of his hips, glide over skin with pressure enough to suggest how easily they could tear into him and that shouldn't excite him but it does. The claws catch on the waist of his jeans and tug.

Get rid of these. The rasp has deepened, sounding almost like a growl.

Jack fumbles the button loose, unzips his fly. He starts to ease his jeans down over his hips, but he mist be going so slow. The claws dig in and yank, leaving scratches down his thighs. He gasps and rolls his hips. The pain was almost expected this time, almost a part of the pleasure burning like banked coals in his core. He hears a rough chuckle that sends a pleasant shiver up his spine, and whimpers as a hot tongue trails up the fresh scratches on his thigh, licking away the blood as it wells up. He glances back--is the man's hair thicker than it had been? longer?--and teeth sink into his thigh just beneath the swell of his ass. The bite draws a yelp from him.

Face forward, comes the casual command, and Jack obeys. Again, he feels the stranger's tongue against his skin, licking away the blood, soothing the small hurt. He shuffles, spreading his knees farther apart without having to be told as that mouth laves attention across the curve of his skin, into the soft flesh of his inner thigh. His cock is throbbing, begging to be touched, and he claws at the dirt and twists the fabric of his hoodie between his fingers and grits his teeth against the mocking laughter that hums over his skin.

His breath catches as he feels that tongue press against his hole. Hot and wet, it laps against his skin, dripping with thick, slick saliva. He keens as it is forced in, hot, so hot, moving insistently inside him, stretching him out, teasing him. It seems to press so deeply as hands settle on his ass, claws digging in as his cheeks are spread wider and he feels hot and heavy breath across tender skin. Still the stranger's tongue delves deeper, long and clever and Jack's chest and cheek are pressed into the ground, his teeth are cutting into his knuckles as he stifles the moans that spill from his throat. So good, it feels *so good*, so much better than doing it himself, so much hotter and fuller and he revels in it, craves it, craves the pain of the claws, the syrupy-slow buildup of pleasure, craves more, more, anything this man will give him--he wants it all.

He's begging before he knows it, chewing the words out around his bloodied knuckles: please, please, ohgod*please* yes *PLEASE*! he wants, wants, *wants*, *WANTS*

Jack wants so much. Wants to be filled, wants release, wants his freedom, wants glory and victory and adventure and *life* and he's running away into the midst of a war because it's his only ticket out, he's going to die if he doesn't, going to suffocate and waste away on nothing but, oh, god, the machines don't care about what he wants, don't care that he's only eighteen and hasn't lived. He could die in this war. It dawns on him that he could *die*, probably will die, he's nothing special, just a kid trying to get out of Bloomington, and suddenly he's scared and he's furious because he isn't getting out just to die, they can't take all that possibility from him they can't! Jack wants and wants and *wants*. He wants everything the world has to offer him. He wants a *life*. He'll start with this.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

so, corn wolves.

Jack’s eighteen, never been off the farm, just enlisted because he wants to run and run and run from all this stifling sameness and save it at the same time from the omnics that are bringing war to their doorstep. He steals some alcohol from his parents’ liquor cabinet and coaxes a boy from his class out into the field with him late at night. He’s never been with anyone, and now everything is changing, *he’s* going to change it, leave it all behind and fight the whole goddamn world if he has to. Bloomington is so small, but it’s huge in its emptiness and Jack’s got too much fight in him to stay and suffocate. He’s laughing as he pulls the other boy along as they run, laughing and taking messy swigs from the bottle and confusing anxiety with excitement. He’s leaving tomorrow. He might never be back and he’s still trying to trick himself into thinking that’ll be by choice and not bad luck in the war.

The kiss isn’t his first, but it’s clumsy enough to be, all brittle laughter and shaking hands and a future that’s rushing at him too fast and not fast enough. They kiss and touch and drink and shush each other and laugh. Jack struggles out of his red hoodie, gets his shirt off, and the sound of the irrigation system doesn’t even register to his ears, but the boy who would have been his first freezes. He heard something, he insists.

It was only the irrigation system, just water in the pipes.

*No*! It was something *else*! Something…

The wind rustles the corn. Through the haze of excitement-anxiety-alcohol-yearning for the formless unknown, Jack remembers the stories about wolves in the corn.

They only come for kids, he jokes, teeth bared in a death’s head grin. He takes a drink, wipes his mouth on his arm, watches the boy shiver and start at nothing and then dart away back the way they’d come.

Jack is left alone amid the stalks, disconsolate for reasons he cannot name. He takes a deep pull from the bottle and flings his arms wide, daring something–anything–to approach him.

The leaves laugh at him, dry and rustling. The wind is cold against his bare skin, leaving goosebumps in contrast to the warmth in his gut the alcohol left behind as it burned down his throat like gasoline catching fire. He dares the world to come after him. He’s eighteen and immortal and he’s just enlisted. Death is a story to frighten children.

This time, he hears the irrigation system, a gurgling growl almost beneath hearing. It circles him, just water in the pipes. He’s heard it a thousand times before, a million times. It’s the sound of vast nothingness, the sound of stagnation. It’s the sound of nowhere. It almost hides the soft pad of footfalls.

The hairs along Jack’s arms prickle. He listens, turning, trying to follow the sound, bottle forgotten in his hand. The wind drags fingers across his back. The leaves laugh as his heartbeat speeds up, as sweat forms on his skin and chills him. He thinks he hears a chuckle, a sound caught halfway between water in the pipes and windswept leaves and he jerks around, trying to pinpoint the sound, trying to tell himself that it’s nothing, trying to calm his pulse he’s a soldier near enough he’s signed his life away to the war against the machines and the corn wolves only come for children.

He hears the laughter again. It’s clearer now. The stalks whisper amongst themselves, nodding, looking down on him, shirtless and anxious and almost free, almost chained to a cause, and so full of anger at the everything and nothing that his eighteen years in this place have been. He circles, teeth bared, growling challenge, and not all the soft, gritty, slithery sounds of footsteps are his. There is nothing in the corn. There is someone in the corn. It’s a joke, it’s a trick, it’s his friends trying to surprise him before he leaves them all behind, probably for good.

He sees a flash of gold.

It’s gone before he gets a good look, but his mind tells him it was an eye, huge and inhuman and watching him. The wind sounds like panting breaths. It carries a scent with it now, an animal musk. From the corners of his eyes as he turns and turns and tries to catch the source of the sounds that seem to be always just behind him, the shadows seem too full.

He thinks he sees fur.

He thinks he sees the glint of teeth.

The better to gobble you up with, he thinks, but he’s not a child, he’s not he’s not he’s a soldier soon so soon he’ll be gone gone gone

Laughter sounds from just behind him, husky and warm and shooting down his spine with all the heat of the liquid courage burning in his gut. The world is so much bigger than he’s had a chance to see, and he whirls, snarling, filled with fight and fear and anger and a challenge to the whole goddamn world because he will not spend all his days in this dizzyingly empty town.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

((belatedly adding a NSFW warning))

There is a stranger behind him, standing bold in the light of the moon. Dark-skinned and dark-eyed, *gorgeous*, Jack thinks to himself, stunned, but not too stunned to miss the whispers of *danger danger danger* or the instinct to run.

He sets his feet, flexes his fists, meets the stranger's eyes.

The man has no weapon. He is smiling widely, but there is something wrong there, something strange in his grin, something about the gleam of his teeth in the moonlight and how very, terribly sharp they seem.

The fear is a humming in Jack's bones now, a chorus of *run wrong danger* with no substance. His hurried heartbeat floods his veins with the command to flee, but Jack is no child, he's a soldier, a fighter, he's *not afraid*...!

I'm not a child, Jack snarls, and he doesn't know why. The wolves only come for children, but they do not walk on two legs.

The stranger laughs low, and it's the rasp of dry leaves, the hiss of water through pipes. How do you know? he asks, eyes alight and Jack swears the brown glints with gold. Can you live on your own? Find your own meals? Fight your own battles?

Yes, Jack barks back, and Yes, and *Yes!*

Can you defend your territory? Protect your pack? Claim a mate?

*Yes!* and *YES!* and Jack

hesitates

alone and fueling fury with fear, heat simmering beneath his skin to drive away the chill of night as the stranger paces round him, watching, always watching

*the better to see you with*

Ears perked for Jack's response

*the better to hear you with*

Lips parted in a hungry smile that glints with hints of

such

sharp

teeth

Yes, Jack whispers and his throat is dry and his skin feels too small and the scent of musk is heavy on the air, heady and intoxicating and he stops turning to follow the stranger's movements, stares him down as he steps closer, grinning as if sharing a secret with Jack.

He steps in too close and the warmth of him is shocking after the chill wind. He tilts his head, eyelids sliding shut over those brown-gleaming-gold eyes as his nose nearly brushes Jack's collarbone, as his teeth pass so close to Jack's throat. Jack's pulse is beating as if to reach out to this stranger who smells of musk and earth and sweet corn and old blood. He breathes in deeply, taking Jack's scent, and Jack knows in his bones suddenly, clearly, that this man will always be able to find him.

No scent on you but your own, the man rumbles and he sounds pleased. Jack swallows hard. The bottle hits the ground and he jumps and feels the man's grin briefly against his skin.

Can you take a mate? the stranger asks. Will you be taken?

Jack wants to say yes and doesn't know which question he would be answering.

Jack is the one to take the final step forward, pushing his chest up against the stranger's. They're of a height, but the man is still looking down on him, still laughing, still watching him with a burning hunger in Jack's eyes that makes him shiver, makes him think of old stories, makes him think of biting down on a knuckle in his stuffy room as his breath comes faster and faster and he strokes himself to half-formed imaginings.

The stranger's kiss is softer than Jack would have expected. Brief and dry as the rustling leaves. His tongue swipes against the seam of Jack's lips, dips inside as they part, and retreats. He pulls back, lip curling, and Jack has a moment to wonder if the taste of alcohol bothers him before he sets his claws into Jack's shoulders and drags him close once more. He kisses fiercely, ravenously, as if he wants to devour Jack. It's as heady as his scent, and Jack loses himself trying to keep up, trying to give as well as he gets, trying to prove himself and please this man.

It would be scary, if he could stop and think and focus, how badly he wants to please this man.

Fingernails like claws tear Jack's skin from shoulder to wrist, and he jerks free of the kiss to shout in pain. He has no time to fight, no time to defend himself, as those clawed hands slip around to the backs of his thighs and lift him off the ground--as if it's nothing, as if he weighs nothing--and reflex has him wrapping his legs around the stranger's waist, his arms around his shoulders. The movement grinds him against the man's body, and Jack gasps, hips jerking up of their own accord, seeking more friction, more contact. The man laughs and digs his fingers into the meat of Jack's ass, claws pricking through his jeans, grip grinding him achingly slowly against the man's stomach. As Jack writhes in his hold, he turns his head, nose skimming along Jack's bloodied arm as he draws in a deep breath. His tongue is long, hot against Jack's skin. He laps up salt sweat and blood, nips at Jack's skin and laughs at the way it makes him yelp, follows the line of his arm back to his chest where he presses his tongue against the heavy beat of Jack's heart and breathes harshly, hungrily over his skin before he sets his teeth in and bites down.

Jack howls. His shoulders slam back, his hips thrust forward. The staticky start to pleasure fizzes against the pain-heat-pressure over his heart as the grip of teethe eases, as the wound is bathed with a long tongue, as lips press against his skin and suckle at the bite.

He'll bear the mark for days, he thinks as his hips roll reflexively forward, chasing the growing pleasure, feeling the increasing pressure of the hardness between his legs.

The stranger bears him down onto the dirt, onto the carpet of fallen leaves. His red hoodie is crumpled beneath him, soft against his skin, and he grabs it, grips it, fingers digging in to this connection to the world he wanted so badly to leave behind, the small, empty world with no strangers, no surprises, no future, no room to grow. He gasps as the stranger rocks atop him, grinding their bodies together just right so that Jack can feel the heat of him, feel his interest, his need. He moans, and the sound is gobbled up, swallowed down in another consuming kiss. Hands close around his wrists, pin him down, but the fight in him is boiling away, feeding a different sort of heat, and his struggles weaken beneath the kiss, beneath the rough roll of hips and his own need.

He is left gasping and shivering when the stranger pulls away.

For a moment, all Jack can see are the stars, a tattered canvas of them far overhead, ringed by nodding cornstalks. The fields whisper all around him, and he feels watched. There are eyes in the heavens, eyes in the shadows beneath the leaves, eyes buried deep in the earth. They see him, and he is small and alone and desperate to prove himself.

*I am not a child*

He hears them laugh at the echo of his own words.

But the stranger...Jack looks at the stranger and sees desire.

It consumes him better than the kiss did, setting him alight and burning right down to his core. The stranger looks at him as if he can see everything that Jack was and is and will be. He looks at Jack as if to devour him. He looks at Jack as if he is the only other being to exist in the world. He does not look at Jack as if he is looking at a child.

Those eyes, more gold than brown and burning burning burning trace up Jack's body until they meet his gaze.

Onto your knees, the stranger says. His voice is raspy, as he commands, and Jack obeys without question. He rolls to his knees, trembling with nerves, with anticipation, with the fire licking at the underside of his skin and the wind cooling the sweat on his back and his cock hard and heavy in his jeans and the war waiting for him and his old red hoodie clenched in his hands and ground into the dirt.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

so, corn wolves.

Jack's eighteen, never been off the farm, just enlisted because he wants to run and run and run from all this stifling sameness and save it at the same time from the omnics that are bringing war to their doorstep. He steals some alcohol from his parents' liquor cabinet and coaxes a boy from his class out into the field with him late at night. He's never been with anyone, and now everything is changing, *he's* going to change it, leave it all behind and fight the whole goddamn world if he has to. Bloomington is so small, but it's huge in its emptiness and Jack's got too much fight in him to stay and suffocate. He's laughing as he pulls the other boy along as they run, laughing and taking messy swigs from the bottle and confusing anxiety with excitement. He's leaving tomorrow. He might never be back and he's still trying to trick himself into thinking that'll be by choice and not bad luck in the war.

The kiss isn't his first, but it's clumsy enough to be, all brittle laughter and shaking hands and a future that's rushing at him too fast and not fast enough. They kiss and touch and drink and shush each other and laugh. Jack struggles out of his red hoodie, gets his shirt off, and the sound of the irrigation system doesn't even register to his ears, but the boy who would have been his first freezes. He heard something, he insists.

It was only the irrigation system, just water in the pipes.

*No*! It was something *else*! Something...

The wind rustles the corn. Through the haze of excitement-anxiety-alcohol-yearning for the formless unknown, Jack remembers the stories about wolves in the corn.

They only come for kids, he jokes, teeth bared in a death's head grin. He takes a drink, wipes his mouth on his arm, watches the boy shiver and start at nothing and then dart away back the way they'd come.

Jack is left alone amid the stalks, disconsolate for reasons he cannot name. He takes a deep pull from the bottle and flings his arms wide, daring something--anything--to approach him.

The leaves laugh at him, dry and rustling. The wind is cold against his bare skin, leaving goosebumps in contrast to the warmth in his gut the alcohol left behind as it burned down his throat like gasoline catching fire. He dares the world to come after him. He's eighteen and immortal and he's just enlisted. Death is a story to frighten children.

This time, he hears the irrigation system, a gurgling growl almost beneath hearing. It circles him, just water in the pipes. He's heard it a thousand times before, a million times. It's the sound of vast nothingness, the sound of stagnation. It's the sound of nowhere. It almost hides the soft pad of footfalls.

The hairs along Jack's arms prickle. He listens, turning, trying to follow the sound, bottle forgotten in his hand. The wind drags fingers across his back. The leaves laugh as his heartbeat speeds up, as sweat forms on his skin and chills him. He thinks he hears a chuckle, a sound caught halfway between water in the pipes and windswept leaves and he jerks around, trying to pinpoint the sound, trying to tell himself that it's nothing, trying to calm his pulse he's a soldier near enough he's signed his life away to the war against the machines and the corn wolves only come for children.

He hears the laughter again. It's clearer now. The stalks whisper amongst themselves, nodding, looking down on him, shirtless and anxious and almost free, almost chained to a cause, and so full of anger at the everything and nothing that his eighteen years in this place have been. He circles, teeth bared, growling challenge, and not all the soft, gritty, slithery sounds of footsteps are his. There is nothing in the corn. There is someone in the corn. It's a joke, it's a trick, it's his friends trying to surprise him before he leaves them all behind, probably for good.

He sees a flash of gold.

It's gone before he gets a good look, but his mind tells him it was an eye, huge and inhuman and watching him. The wind sounds like panting breaths. It carries a scent with it now, an animal musk. From the corners of his eyes as he turns and turns and tries to catch the source of the sounds that seem to be always just behind him, the shadows seem too full.

He thinks he sees fur.

He thinks he sees the glint of teeth.

The better to gobble you up with, he thinks, but he's not a child, he's not he's not he's a soldier soon so soon he'll be gone gone gone

Laughter sounds from just behind him, husky and warm and shooting down his spine with all the heat of the liquid courage burning in his gut. The world is so much bigger than he's had a chance to see, and he whirls, snarling, filled with fight and fear and anger and a challenge to the whole goddamn world because he will not spend all his days in this dizzyingly empty town.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

i got my copy of the Thicker Than Blood zine and some goodies! =D

it’s so cool to see all the different stories and styles, and to actually be able to hold a physical copy! awesome work everyone! thank you!

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

word count’s up to 27400.

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

@lil-hiss replied to your post “@strangefingers replied to your post “me: doesn’t drink bc i have yet...”

                       Don't know why but I've always seen Jack as someone who either enjoys a good glass of bourbon or just down a long island ice tea.        

i was so mad when i found out that there’s no iced tea in a long island iced tea. =/ false advertising. illegal. the sheer number of different types of alcohol in it does make me think of Jack, tho. (why is it so easy to imagine him being a drinker??)

ty for the starting points!!

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

@strangefingers replied to your post “me: doesn’t drink bc i have yet to come across anything that doesn’t...”

                       poll friends to ask for their opinions about jack's drink preferences                   

gonna hunt around via google to see what i come up with, i think.

But!

if anyone has suggestions--not even necessarily for something Jack would like, but even just something a character might think he would like, they would be appreciated. =)

[allofthisnonsenseplease]

me: doesn’t drink bc i have yet to come across anything that doesn’t smell like bathroom cleaner

me: doesn’t know shit about alcoholic beverages

me: decides to write in a scene that will require a list of four to eight drinks that various people might guess Jack would like based on a brief first impression

:D