Warnings: NSFW (minors DNI); oral sex (m receiving), unprotected p in v (this is fiction. wrap it before you tap it!), language, depression, descriptions of death, dying, and serious bodily injury
A/N: Erm, I love this crispy boi, so I panic wrote this before everyone forgets Mouthwashing is good. Also, I posted this on mobile, soz if the formatting is weird! (Title image source)
“Okay, Captain, I’ll be back in a bit.” An awkward wave. A pitiful smile. Always with that nauseating, pitying smile.
Poor, sweet, selfless Anya. Even though he could see the disgust, the fear, the anguish pouring off her, she still came in, still gently tended to his wounds, tirelessly brushed his tears away and patted the pillow beside his head (but never his head) as he wailed.
Oh the irony.
Did he deserve it?
Every vibration of the Tulpar sent his fried nervous system reeling. It was as if he could still feel the blast and smell the smoke. He still stunk of sealant foam, even weeks after. When the ventilation turned on, he could feel the sting of mint and cold air. He desperately wanted to cover his eye, or maybe scratch the spot just above his hip where he’d been itchy for days. But no.
Of course not.
Curly could hear a moment of hushed bickering – the pleading midtones of Daisuke and the gruff, slurred baritone of Swansea. His tinnitus kicked in before he could catch what they said, but he caught the hurried frame of the former scurrying down the hallway. He wished he could reassure the young intern. But with his eye going blurry and Anya’s hastily administered medication waiting to kick in, all he could do was whimper and wriggle a bit on the cot.
The false orange waves glared down at him. He faded in and out of consciousness for a while, all the while those damn orange waves burning into him. Burning his eye. Not a moment of peace.
He could never live this down. He’d let everyone down. Down, down, down down down-
“Oh Captain~”
That wasn’t Anya.
Anya. Empathetic, traumatized Anya. She’d held her head high pulling him out of the cockpit and bringing him back from the brink of death. He could still hear her sobbing, coughing gags from behind the divider when she thought he was sedated. The rest of the crew was the same. Daisuke would shudder and his stomach would spasm when he looked for too long. Swansea’s jaw ground like he was trying to eat his molars. And J-
“Hi, my love! You’re a sight for sore eyes today.” Her. “The boys are squabbling about who knows what, so I thought I’d escape in here.” She looked perfect.
While the others had begun to look a little smaller in their uniforms, pale and worn around the edges, she was always crisp and bright. He could hear her laughs and humming all around him when he most needed it, keeping him from tipping over the edge into madness. She fluttered into the medical room, fixing his bandages when Anya couldn’t make it and placing butterfly soft kisses to his forehead.
“Is that itch still bothering you?” She cocked her head to the side, the orange illuminating her as the only appealing thing left on this godforsaken ship that still liked him. He hissed confirmation as best he could, which she miraculously seemed to understand.
She approached, warm and comforting, but still Curly recoiled. He’d caused enough damage, he thought. She raised her hands in surrender. “It’s just me, honey. Let me help.” He fretted loudly as she crept closer. “Curly, honey, it’s okay. I want to help.”
The moment her cool hands touched his bandaged skin, it was like a calm spread across what was left of him. It smoothed his frayed wiring and settled his crawling flesh.
“See, isn’t that better?”
His heaving breaths slowed.
“Let me make you feel better.”
It wasn’t advantageous to hold his breath, but it hitched in his throat all the same as her hands came to rest on his hips, light as a feather.
When anyone else was tasked with caring for him, removing the bandages was an excruciating process. But when she did it, he hardly felt anything. It was almost as if he could feel her hold his hands, squeeze his wrist the way she always did before the crash, kiss his lips, bump his feet as she moved around the bed. There was something magical about her touch. There had always been.
She gently pulled his medical gown off, examining the wrappings and pads. She praised him through her observation. She hummed a little tune as she removed layer after layer. He shivered and cried, feeling more exposed than ever under the judgemental orange eye. She turned on a heater and warmed her hands each time he flinched. She found the areas where he still had skin, laying tiny kisses on each torn patch.
As gentle as ever, she removed the gauze from his lower abdomen. There was a time when he would’ve thrown an arm over his head, squeezing his eyes shut so he could focus on her warm breaths and wandering fingers. Now all he could do was stare. She met his unwavering gaze.
Anya gagged. Daisuke flinched. Swansea tensed. Jimmy leered.
Her withered hands tenderly removed the last piece of cotton from below his navel, allowing her to access his most vulnerable areas. His legs trembled, and she followed his worried glance towards the medical room doors. “Don’t worry, Captain, we have plenty of time.”
Before the crash, he had stopped taking the time to appreciate just how beautiful she was down there, but he didn’t have a choice anymore, vision hazy around the remaining edges as she guided his length out of the padding of gauze.
“Let me help you, Captain,” she whispered as she planted a kiss at the raw base of his shaft. He gurgled out a moan, ribbons of gauze falling uselessly to the ground as he desperately reached for her, wanting to cup her stained cheeks or pull at her hair or something. She hummed against him, his burnt body not minding her one bit as she licked a broad stripe up and swallowed the whole head of his cock in one swift movement, like taking a shot. He gasped and yelped into the minty, medicinal air, pleasure mixing with raw, primal pain.
With years worth of practiced moves, she guided him to the back of her throat, hollowing out her cheeks and dragging her perfect lips back up his charred shaft, then back down, down, down. He could only watch.
Still, the nightmarish orange mellowed as she caressed him.
She watched his breathing carefully, the way she always had, and released him with a loud pop. His high receded with a needy wail. She cooed, smoothing the wrinkled dressings on his head.
“May I?” she asked, mostly out of habit, as she clambered onto the hospital bed, shucking off her uniform as she did. Before the crash, he might’ve jokingly scolded her for disposing of her clothes in such a way (before flipping her over and fucking her senseless) but no longer. He could only watch.
Orange tinted. Love bites across her breasts, a tattoo on her collarbone, a still-raised nasty scar across her sternum from a repair gone wrong (Daisuke apologized and cried so much he nearly threw up), the hole where her navel piercing used to be. All the things Curly was intimately familiar with but seemed to be seeing again for the first time.
She enveloped him slowly, buttery soft, in the only warmth he could describe as comforting anymore. He watched her nose scrunch as she guided him in, the way her hands splayed out across his mangled chest, the twitch in her left leg she always got when she got too ambitious and seated herself faster than she could accommodate him.
All the creaks and groans of the injured ship faded. Orange, honeyed and consolatory, washed his wounds and mended his breaks. He rambled into the astringent air his sorrows, his regrets, his love, his admiration. Her thighs held him down weightlessly. She kissed his chest, his face, his bandages, keeping him grounded as she fluttered around him.
The cot rocked gently as she set a pace, guiding her hips down and allowing Curly’s to stutter up to meet them. Movement wasn’t great for his back, but he needed this. This was for him. He could be selfish. Just this once.
Babbled words that could never manifest now lodged themselves in his throat, building as much pressure in his upstairs brain as downstairs. All the words he could never say. All the confessions. All the apologies.
Anya gagged. Daisuke flinched. Swansea tensed. Jimmy leered.
She dipped forward, her sweaty forehead coming to rest on his chipped collarbone as she trembled for him. She used him as a lifeline, the way he always had. Her panting breaths held many words, words she could still tell him. Only him. He craned forward, praying to anything and anyone out there that he could have his goddamn lips back, just for a moment. The butterflies in his stomach were violent, bashing against his insides, pulling him closer, up to his perfect climax and then down, down, d-
“See? I told you I’d be back.”
She was gone. A flicker of caution lights, a bright flash, and she was gone. He’d lost her again.
Back to that same dull angry orb. Anya’s fingers brushed tenderly against the fire blanket covered black vinyl bag that laid on the desk. She’d said her goodbyes and sealed it herself. Her hand trembled through an unreciprocated half of a secret handshake, the other half taken to the grave.
“Sorry, I just needed a breather,” she sighed, pulling her eyes off the bag. “I hope you got some- Captain?”
She’d noticed Curly’s frantic eye movement and thrashing, well beyond what he should’ve been capable of after his painkillers kicked in. Anya went into full nurse mode, soothingly checking his vitals and turning him to check on his compression sores and watch for any signs of infection. She hummed as she worked, the same tune Curly had heard for many years. He sobbed loudly, which poor Anya took to mean she was hurting him. She apologized profusely, pulling her trembling hands away.
All the while, Curly couldn’t shake the feeling of cracked lips on the knuckles of a hand that was no longer there.
Summary: You put an agent in her place after she flirts with Bucky.
Word Count: Over 2.5k
Warnings: Established relationship, violent threats (not against the reader or Bucky), protective vibes, catty behavior, possessive vibes, implied sexy times, Bucky Barnes (he's a warning, okay?).
A/N: Inspired by an anon ask asking for Bucky's wife to stick up for him. ❤️ Not beta read and written on my phone, so any and all mistakes are my own. Please follow @navybrat817-sideblog for new fics and notifications. Comments, reblogs, feedback are loved and appreciated!
Bucky stared at you from across the break room table, his pretty blue eyes not blinking as you looked back at him. The two of you were locked in a lengthy staring contest and you didn’t want to lose. But as the air in the room began to dry your eyes and he flashed you a beautiful smile, you couldn’t stop yourself from blinking. And the moment you did, he struck.
Snatching the last bit of the beloved pastry right from the middle of the table.
“Damn it,” you muttered, crossing your arms when he chuckled. “You cheated.”
“Oh, yeah?” he smirked, making a show of taking a slow bite. Your eyes followed his tongue licking his lips and you pressed your thighs together without thinking. The bastard made eating look sexy and he didn’t even take a full bite. He was taunting you. “How did I do that?”
“You cheated by existing.” You gestured to him, your smoking hot husband in his black t-shirt and tactical pants. To the person who made those clothes, you saluted them. “And you have serum in your veins, so I’m pretty sure you don’t have to blink as much as I do and that’s an unfair advantage.”
He chuckled again, graciously passing over the last small bite of the pastry. Your eyes lit up in thanks, popping it in your mouth with a moan. It was true love to share food like that. “I don’t think that’s how the serum works,” he teased. “And you’re a goddess, so isn’t that cheating, too?”
“Okay, but I’m not actually a goddess,” you countered, though he did make you feel like one.
His eyes softened, leaning across the table and crooking his finger. “Yeah, you are,” he whispered, kissing your lips once you met him halfway.
Before you could deepen the kiss, a shrill voice rang out in the breakroom. “Sergeant Barnes! There you are!”
Bucky’s cheek twitched as he settled back in his seat. The voice echoing in the room would’ve been enough to make anyone wince, but his enhanced hearing made it worse. He worked hard to block out noises so he’d be comfortable, and your eyes instantly narrowed at the person who brought him discomfort.
You recognized her after a moment, a pretty woman who would likely fall out of her top if she sneezed too hard. She hadn't worked there long, but she had her eye on Bucky from the start. She always flirted with him, tried to stand close to him and push her chest close, and he always dropped in the conversation that he was a married man. Apparently she didn’t get the hint that he wasn't interested. Either that or she was into taken men.
“Hi, agent,” Bucky politely said.
“Agent. Always so formal,” she giggled, dragging a chair over from another table and taking a seat without asking. “I’ve been looking all over for you, Barnes. You're a hard man to track down.”
Bubbly agents didn’t bother you in the slightest. You appreciated anyone who could stay upbeat in the line of work you dealt with. It wasn’t the enamored look in her eyes either that bothered you because you understood people wanting Bucky and you were secure in your relationship. No, what bothered you was that he had clearly been kissing his wife and she pointedly avoided looking at you after interrupting. That was just rude.
It also bothered you how uncomfortable Bucky looked when she moved her chair closer to him, his shoulders stiff and smile not reaching his eyes.
“Been spending some time with my wife,” he said proudly, reaching across the table to take your hand. You dipped your head down with a small smile, your heart still doing that funny flip like it had since the moment you met. He even managed to clear out the room so you two could be alone. “We were just finishing up.”
She didn’t spare you a glance as she set a hand on his metal arm. His cheek twitched again, squeezing your hand. It took a lot of effort for you to not knock her back from the table for touching him without his permission. “Excuse me,” you began, your tone even. “I don’t-”
“Do you think you could spar with me later?” she cut you off and either didn’t see or ignored your glare, leaning forward in her seat to make her chest stick out more. Bucky didn’t look. “I’ve been having trouble with a couple of moves and you’re so good at them,” she added, her eyes on him like she wanted to eat him up.
Which wasn’t going to happen.
“I don't think…” he stopped when her fingers trailed higher.
“Please, Sergeant?” she pouted.
Your eyes went back to your husband to get a read on him and make sure he was okay. He wasn't. His smile still didn't look right and his back was ramrod straight. Squeezing his hand seemed to ground him since he breathed a little easier, though your anger was simmering.
“I, um, don’t mind sparring if you really need the help,” Bucky began, gently pulling his arm away. “But you interrupted my time with my wife.”
Her smile faltered while yours widened. Bucky didn't like anyone cutting you off, whether that was your time together or interrupting you speaking. “What?” she asked.
“Hi there. Been sitting here the whole time.” You wiggled your fingers when she finally looked your way. “Excuse us for a second,” you said, avoiding her stare the way she avoided yours. “Bucky, do you think you can wait outside? This agent and I need to have a little chat.”
Your husband looked like he was trying not to laugh and you would take laughter over discomfort any day of the week. “Be nice if you can,” he teased, pressing a featherlight kiss to your hand. “I love you, baby,” he whispered.
“I love you, too,” you whispered, something unspoken passing between the two of you.
Defending each other was second nature, always would be.
Bucky didn’t immediately leave the room when he stood up. Instead he rounded the table so he could bend down and kiss your mouth, too. You smiled as it lingered, your heart skipping a beat. “Don’t keep me waiting out there long, Mrs. Barnes,” he whispered.
“I won't, Mr. Barnes,” you teased, tucking some of his hair behind his ear.
Straightening up, he gave a small nod to the agent for her sake. “Come find me later if you still want to talk about sparring. Maybe I can find someone for you.”
“Okay, Sergeant,” she smiled, a glimmer of hope in her eyes. That look wouldn’t last.
You waited until Bucky was gone to face the agent, who stopped smiling the second your husband was out of sight. Leaning back in your seat, you crossed your arms and asked point-blank, “You trying to fuck my husband?”
The wide-eyed expression was priceless when she realized you weren't asking as a joke. “What are you... I just asked him to spar,” she tried to brush it off.
“Please, don't insult my intelligence,” you said. It was beneath both of you to do so. “I get why you want him. Besides being one of the sexiest creatures to ever exist, he’s a good man. Polite, probably treats you with respect. More than most of the men around here.”
She shifted away from you and nodded. “He's a nice guy.”
“He is,” you agreed. They didn't make men like Bucky anymore. “And I’m not going to tell you to stop hitting on my husband, but I highly suggest that you back off. At the very least, don’t throw yourself at him right in front of me. It’s sad.”
“Why?” She had the nerve to smirk. “Worried I’ll steal him away?”
You smirked, too. She had balls and you respected that, but this wasn’t a battle she’d win. “Steal him away? You make it sound like he’s a toy and he isn’t. He’s a man, my man,” you said, holding up your hand so she could get a good look at your wedding ring. “And you are not a threat in the slightest. Our bond is much stronger than that.”
Her smirk went away fast, replaced by something sad. You almost felt sorry for her until she said, “Jealousy isn't a good look on you. It’s kind of… ugly.”
You scoffed. If she wanted to play, you’d play. “Jealous of what? You hitting on a married man who doesn't want you?” you asked, not feeling guilty in the slightest when her face fell. “I’m not telling you to back off because I'm jealous. I told you that because you’re only going to embarrass yourself if you keep trying and you’re going to make my husband more uncomfortable than he already is. I don’t like people making my husband uncomfortable.”
An unspoken threat hung in the air long enough that she swallowed. “And how exactly did I make him uncomfortable?”
“Besides you hitting on him, you touched him without making sure it was okay to do so,” you answered, letting a bit of venom seep into your tone. Bucky went years without autonomy and consent was important to you. He suffered enough and didn’t need to deal with things like this. “I’d hope as an agent you’d be able to pick up on subtle body language cues enough to know that he didn’t want you touching him.”
“And how do you know he doesn’t want me touching him? Are you a mind reader or something?” she sneered, flicking a nonexistent piece of flint from her shirt. “If he really didn't want me touching him, he would've said so. And guess what? He didn't say a word.”
You saw red, your hands curling into fists. For her to ignore the nonverbal cues… “I know my husband. I know Bucky. He doesn’t want you touching him nor does he want to start anything with you because he’s extremely faithful. He won’t throw away a loving, trusting marriage for a quick fuck or doomed affair,” you stated. She bristled, but tried to recover. “If you make a pass at him, he’ll reject you. He’ll do it as respectfully as he can because he’s a good guy, but he will reject you. That’s a promise.”
“Because he loves you so much. Jesus, what makes you so special?” she spat, surprising you both. But the longer you looked at her, the more she deflated under your stare. “I mean… He doesn’t say much to me, but when he does it’s always about you. ‘My wife this’ and ‘my wife that’ and he’s always so… proud.” She shook her head. “Do you know how lucky you are?”
You did feel a little sorry for her now. Crushes hurt, but better that she hurt now and heal than to keep pushing and hurt more later. “I’m not special. We just love each other, that’s all. And, trust me, I’m aware that I’m very lucky to have him. Someone who gets me and will fight for and beside me,” you said, a loving smile touching your lips. You hoped Bucky was listening outside the door. “There’s a guy out there waiting for you, but that guy isn’t Bucky. So don’t lower yourself by trying to go after someone who’s taken.”
She side-eyed you, crossing her arms over her ample chest. “And what if I don’t stop?” she asked.
You giggled humorously, all sympathy gone. The agent actually looked nervous at that sound and you were glad because you weren't going to play nice. “Well, if you don't back off, Bucky could make a complaint about you harassing him or at least request that you’re transferred. Maybe fired since you’re still in your probationary period,” you began, looking at your wedding band when she began to protest. “At the very least, I could have your schedule rearranged so you can spar with me. You see, Bucky taught me a few moves and if a bone or two breaks, well…”
It wasn't an empty threat either. Bucky loved fighting for you, but you could hold your own. It turned him on.
Her eyes darted to the door when you stood up and stretched. “Listen, you don't need to-”
“But do you know what I'm going to do for now?” you asked, cutting her off the way she cut you off. “I'm going to take my husband to one of the interrogation rooms and suck the soul out of his body through his incredible cock,” you smiled sweetly, taking pleasure in the sputtering sound she made. “And after he recovers, he’ll have the choice of bending me over the table and either eating or fucking my pussy. He’ll probably choose both. He’s pretty insatiable.”
She got to her feet, too, and you half expected to see smoke come out of her ears. “I don't need to hear–”
“What? Does hearing that Bucky is going to fuck me and not you make you uncomfortable?” you asked innocently before you got close to her. “Shove your tits in my husband's face again or touch him without his explicit consent, and I won't just make you uncomfortable. I’ll make your life a living hell.”
While you lost the staring contest to Bucky earlier, you very much won against this agent. She stood perfectly still and averted her gaze as you pushed your chair in. “Is that a threat?” she mumbled.
A cliche question, so why not give a cliche answer? “It’s a promise,” you smiled, heading to the door. “Oh, if he does decide to spar with you, I expect you to apologize and behave yourself. I’ll hear about it if you don't.”
Bucky leaned against the wall, waiting for you as you exited the room. He looked over the moon. “We’re going to one of the interrogation rooms, huh?”
You giggled, taking his hand as your cheeks warmed. “Of course, that's what you took from that.”
“How could I not?” he asked, pressing a soft kiss to your temple. “Thanks, baby. I thought I dropped enough hints that she’d back off.”
“Nothing to thank me for,” you assured him. He deserved to be comfortable at work. If some guy kept hitting on you, he would've stepped in, too.
“You think she’ll back off now?”
“I think so, but you tell me if she doesn't,” you said. You’d keep an eye on her, too, just in case. And if she pushed again, you’d put her back in her place. Maybe you’d make her listen while Bucky fucked you. With his permission, of course. “So, which room should we go to?”
He chuckled, the sound a happy one in the hall. “Room B. We can be as loud as we want,” he replied, tugging you closer. “I’ll show you just how special you are to me.”
Heat filled your body, anticipating how good it would feel to have him fuck your throat and more. “My body is ready, Sergeant,” you teased, shrieking when he picked you up and ignoring the whistles from other agents that walked by.
They were used to the shenanigans of Mr. and Mrs. Barnes by now.
And you couldn't wait for more.
Just like we deserve a loving Bucky, he deserves love, too. ❤️ Love and thanks for reading! ❤️
type: limited series, part 1 (6.4k)
in an attempt to tame an unruly alpha, you are given. he did not come with warning labels. but neither did you.
series cw: reader described as plus-sized/curvier, alpha/beta/omega dynamics + universe, dark!simon, mature language and content, suggestive language and content, graphic depictions of murder + violence, military criticism, protective!simon, possessiveness, dom/sub dynamics, size kink, praise kink, unprotected piv, cumplay, oral (fem!receiving) 18+
Whenever she woke up marked the last day of the rest of your life. One moment, the world inside of your head was unnervingly quiet. The next, someone else was there, whispering in the dark, taking over.
You aren't proud of her. No, you hate her. There is no one you hate more, you don't think, because she lets the direction of the fucking wind distract her from what really matters. She paints her environment in a soft, glazed picture, and she tries to hold up her canvas and convince you that her reality is real. But then you blink, and you get flashes of how dull the sky really is and the dirt that stains your shoes, and you know that she's just a liar.
A controlling, desperate thief.
When you heard her voice for the first time, you begged your reflection in the mirror to just kill you already.
If you were an alpha, maybe you could've just drawn away into yourself and lived a quiet life in the middle of nowhere. If you were a beta, perhaps the weight of nothing would've given you a little more freedom to do the things you wanted to do.
But no. You're an omega. Nature's servant. A natural follower. Destined for nothing except to open your legs and say, "yes, alpha, all for you," because if you are anything but complacent, you're unwanted and a waste of your very being.
Your eyes stung when you took your first little pill. They rattled in different colors in a little orange bottle, and it felt like sand as it dissolved under your tongue. Even though it makes you sick, you take them anyways. Even though the pills change colors and shape and efficacy because you buy them from someone different every time, you take them because it makes your omega shut the fuck up finally.
You bury her. And you won't let her out.
The truth of it is that you're only fighting yourself. Your omega, she is you, isn't she? She's a part of you, she makes up your very genetic makeup, and to hate her is to hate yourself. But nature is cruel–it gave you years of freedom. Years to know what life was like without her, when she was dormant, asleep, just waiting for you to finally wake up.
Then your very self locked the cage. Your fingers claw at the bars, but it's no use. It's your very own punishment. So in turn, you bury her, too, silencing her cries, quieting what she wants most in the world, because it isn't fair, fuck you, you whiny bitch.
She's a pathetic puppy; and you are more than happy to step on her fucking neck.
Your aim is off today. The sound is muffled through the earphones you wear, but they've never thrown off your balance before. When you lean over the railing and squint at the target papers towards the back, you can see the bullet holes just a few inches off center.
You're never off-center.
"Getting rusty on me, Kit?"
You turn around, setting the gun down, and you smile wide when you see a familiar face. You pull the headphones off, putting them aside before making your way towards her.
Kate Laswell is surprised when you throw your arms around her and hug her tight. She smells good; she smells like chocolate, dark chocolate, something bittersweet. She's got that edge to it that they all do, something a little heady and all-encompassing, but she's the only alpha that you've ever found comfort being near. You see her nose scrunch a little when she embraces you back.
You must stink like synthetics. You care, only because you hate to make her nose sting this way. It's never been meant for her. At times, you thought maybe you could do a little convincing; maybe if you batted your lashes enough, she’d take pity on you, hide you away in some CIA shack with her deep on a Montana farm and play house. You’d cook, and she’d protect, and you’d be perfect little alpha and omega until the end of your days.
But Kate doesn’t like baggage. Not even the sweet kind, and especially not the kind that makes it even more difficult to make the hard decisions.
Kate isn’t a soldier. She makes choices based on the greater good, the lesser evil. She doesn’t get to be selfish. She doesn’t have that luxury.
When you pull away, she looks down at you strangely. She looks tired. Her dark hair is in a mess of a braid tucked under a cap, and she looks like she hasn't slept in days. Her attempt of a smile emphasizes the lines around her eyes. You open your mouth to tell her something, but she shakes her head.
"I'm not here as a friend," she says softly, and you frown a little.
"Aren't...haven't we always been friends?" You ask, and Kate lets out a shaky sigh, nodding her head behind her.
"We need to talk. C'mon."
You retrieve the gun and holster it, fastening it into your thigh holster before you follow her. She has a car waiting outside, a big, black SUV with the door already open for her. When you get inside, she knocks on the divider, and the car immediately starts moving. You brace yourself against the side of the car as it speeds off, reaching for a seatbelt.
"Jesus, Kate, what's going on? I-I have training later, I can't–"
"You're not...going back to base," she says evenly. You frown a little, leaning back in your seat, and you put your hands in your lap as you try and get a read on her. Even exhausted, Kate is hard to decipher. She has a stone-cold expression, calm and unbothered, and you curse her CIA training for making her impossible to understand, to even get a glimpse of what she might say next. Her face makes you anxious, and the scent in the car that changes puts you on edge.
"Okay," you scoff a little. "Then where am I going?"
Kate sniffs a little, crossing her arms over her chest. She doesn't break eye contact with you when she says, "Wheels up in 30. I have an assignment for you." She reaches under the seat, pulling out a manila folder, setting it down beside you. When you pick it up and flip it open, you narrow your eyes.
"I'm..." You shrug your shoulders, "I'm not really CIA. You don't give me orders."
"As of one hour ago, you're mine. And this...this is your duty."
Your eyes blur as you skim the text on the pages. You flip through the papers flimsily, getting more and more irritated until you throw it at her, your chest rising and falling fast as you pant, barely able to see her through your tears.
Program. UK. Field assignment. Mate. All the keywords to make your stomach curl and your autonomy shrink in front of your very eyes.
"Kate, don't do this," you beg her softly. You soften your voice, and you let your omega drip syrup into it. You want to see her eyes dilate–you want to make her protectiveness kick in just enough that she might just appease you. It’s desperate, and you know it’s wrong, but you do it anyways, you have to. "Please don't do this. Please. You fucking promised me, you promised–"
"You need to understand that I don't have a lot of fucking choices," she says sharply. She pities you, that much you can tell. She looks pained, but it doesn’t matter how pained she might feel because it isn’t happening to her. It’s happening to you, and she put you on that base so that it wouldn’t happen to you, and she tricked you into getting into this car, and now it’s her–
"Kate, I'll do anything, please," you gasp. You reach over and grab her hands, tugging her towards you. "You know. You know what...w-what I've been through, what this all is, you know...please. Please..."
You promised me. You gave me your word.
"I can't–"
But the CIA can’t be trusted for shit.
"I'll be yours," you try, squeezing her palms. Appease. Beg. Bare your neck. Give her what she really craves. "Just claim me yourself, a-and...and we don't have to do this, w-we can...I-I can go back to–"
Her face contorts, offended, disgusted. You try and swallow down the sting of her rejection, but you cannot help yourself. You would do anything to not be subjected to this fate, to the fate she promised she'd save you from. The only alpha you have ever trusted, and she's pulling away from you, bit by bit.
"I could never do that to you," she interrupts, shaking her head. "I couldn't."
"But you'll do this instead?"
"It's the lesser evil," she says finally, pushing your hands back. It aches. Despite you never leaning towards her, it is still an alpha turning their nose up at you, and the thing inside of you cries at the feeling; she begs you to do more, but you swallow her down, fingers itching for another pill just so you can really squash her singing. "And in my world, that is the best I can hope for."
"It's punishment!" You cry, and she reaches over, cupping your cheeks, pulling you close. You scrunch your face at her touch. Her hands are cold, and they do not welcome you. "A-And for what? For being something that I can't change?!"
"It's mercy," she whispers. Her thumbs stroke your cheeks in soft circles. "I can't protect you anymore, do you understand? They don't want you there, and I can’t take you with me. Even taking meds, even spraying yourself to shit, they don't want you, and I can't protect you if they send you away, do you understand me?" You start to cry, closing your eyes, and you hear the familiar voice in your head preening. She's desperate, slipping through the cracks, and you squeeze your eyes shut as you try and force her backwards. You’re panicking, and maybe she’s trying to help, but you hate her. "I have to get you out of there, and this is the only way."
"Please..."
"I can't protect you," she says gently. "But he can. And he'll be good to you. I promise, this...this I can promise."
You rip yourself away from her, curling into yourself as you scoot away from her as far as possible. You press yourself against the door, tucking your knees into your chest. Whatever passes by outside is a blur, and your brain doesn’t register any of it. The only thing in your head is betrayal, traitor, those sick, stupid bastard alphas, all of them–
"Fuck your promises," you whimper, and when she reaches out for you again, you flinch, burying your face into your hands.
Kate is a liar. She never keeps her promises; that’s her job, it is what she does. The CIA is nothing if they aren’t incredible liars–it’s what they’re known for, and Kate takes to it like a fish to water. As far as you are concerned, she lured you in with bait, and now she's shut the door on a trap. It is lined with padding, soft, delicate, but it still holds you back, it still keeps you still and stagnant and forever chained to an existence that you detest more than anything. She used you; it was in her best interest to keep an omega under her thumb, to do with you as she pleased when she needed one, and you suppose once you are taken, she will find another to do the same with. She will give another desperate one like you false hope, and when she needs another omega to keep someone else complacent and willing, she will offer them up with her signature on paper–just like that.
She tries to touch your hand before you board the plane. She tries to meet your eyes, get your attention, anything. You cower when she reaches out, and when she steps backwards, you walk on.
You never look behind yourself. Not even when you sit, and not even as the ramp closes shut.
Fighting is futile when you are who you are. It's unexpected. It's frowned upon. You are made up of something that is intended to be docile, to be big-eyed and soft. If you were a dog, they would want you to roll over and bare your belly and forget how to do anything but obey, but that is not the kind of thing that you ever wanted to be, even when you were small, even before you knew what you really were.
You hate what you are. You medicate yourself to the point of being incoherent, you bare your teeth and aggravate the submissive nature you inherit to deter any kind of match. You make yourself undesirable, not just in your physical nature but in the very essence of yourself.
You want to start over, as something else, or you want to never have been at all. You hate this place, you want them to cast you out, you want to be left to your own devices because dying alone and unwanted is better than submission; it;s better than the imprisonment that your kind subjects themselves to, willing or not.
It sickens you. You watch your own kind fall to their knees, close their mouths, and allow their very being to disappear just to make another satiated. Happy. Their entire lives, reduced to being someone else's waiting hand, someone else's property. It's sad, it's pathetic, it rocks you to the very center of yourself, and you demand more of it, you reject this life and the voice in your head that fights with you every single day of it.
She hates you, too, your omega. She claws at your insides and begs for something to drink, but you dry her out. You don't allow her to even breach the surface of the wasteland you've suffocated her with. She is naïve; she doesn't know what is good for her, she doesn't know that you are saving her from a life of constant torture. She screams for you to let her out, but you take another pill and force her back into the dark.
Or at least you did. You haven't taken a pill in days. They won't let you, even when you asked, even when you began to beg. You promised to be good if they just appeased you. You promised to be quiet if they just slipped it under your tongue, even if they injected it into your very veins, anything, just please, please, I don't want to–
Everything is surreal. You feel like you're seeing everything in color. What used to be dull and uninteresting now sparkles in your very eyes, it glows under the sun. Everything is sharper and less blurry. Sounds are clearer. You can hear the wind more loudly in your ears and feel it under the soles of your shoes. But what dizzies you the most is your sense of smell.
Everything before had been so bland. You have been under the effects of suppressors for so long that you don't think food has ever smelled so bad and so good (eggs make you gag now, and the crisps they give you make your mouth water).
They keep you confined in a small room. You are not allowed in the presence of any alphas; you can smell them passing by the door, but whenever the stink of one of them lingers, there's loud voices, lots of heavy boots. A beta comes to collect you to do a daily workout and to shower, and then you are back in your room, your meals delivered on a tight schedule (and the food, after a few days of your tray being barely picked at, gets so much better–it's better quality than you've seen on any military base, and when you asked, all they said was "lieutenant's orders").
Today is different. Today, along with your breakfast, a large black hoodie is folded underneath the tray that they leave on the end of your bed. You set the food aside, picking up the hoodie, and when you unravel it, you spread it out, gawking at the size of it. Whoever this hoodie belongs to is more bear, more beast, than human. An enormous thing, but when you pick it up, you immediately pick up on its strong scent.
You press the front of it to your nose. Your eyes flutter shut, and you sink into the bed a little as you take a deep breath of it. Warm, but gritty, like charcoal. Cigarettes. Military-issue soap. Clean. Eucalyptus. Fire. Something with depth, something with teeth. You don't realize what's happening to you until it's too late.
Alpha. It smells undoubtedly like alpha, and you're certain by the size of it that it belongs to one. You nuzzle your face into it a little, instinctively, and you don't even register your omega knocking, peering through the door that's been cracked open for her.
She squeals with delight. She's getting dizzy, drunk, and you feel a soft noise in your chest bubble as she pets the back of your mind, keening at the introduction of it. She’s giggling. You can feel her tugging at your insides, whispering in your ear–See? I told you. I told you that you’d like it.
They smell strong. They smell capable. They smell pure.
When you put the hoodie down, your legs are pressed together, shaking from how hard your thighs are squeezed. When you relax, you refrain from the need to touch yourself, but you failed before you even started. You can feel how wet you are; your panties must be soaked, and you feel yourself pulsing with some sort of distinct urge to give in, give in, give in.
It's unnerving, the lack of control you have. Your omega has always been a few feet underwater, but she's breaching the surface now, her lips gasping for air.
You try to push her back.
Stay down.
When the clock strikes for dinner, you aren't surprised by the knock. But you are surprised that when the door opens, there isn't a beta in uniform holding your tray. Instead, you cover your nose a little, blinking harshly as a large man comes into the room. He's got a strange beard and a floppy hat, and when he smiles, he reminds you of a teddy bear. You can tell just by his physique what he is, but his eyes are kinder than you're used to.
You will yourself not to trust them. You trusted kind eyes before, and now you’re locked in a prison of your own making.
"'ello," he introduces himself, holding out his hand. "'m Captain John Price. 's nice to meet you."
You glare at him, not saying a word. When he figures you won't shake his hand, he just nods. He lets his hand drop, hooking his thumbs into his tact vest, and he rests at ease.
"I've come to collect you," he says lowly. "It's time."
You pick up your tray of food from behind you and hurl it towards him. He ducks just in time, moving one shoulder backwards as the metal hits the wall behind him and clatters to the floor in a splattered mess. John shakes his head a little, scratching the back of his neck, and he clicks his tongue. You’re unnerved and a little pissed off when a hint of a grin flickers over his face.
"Fuckin' hell," he breathes. "Yeah...you'll do."
"The fuck is that supposed to mean?"
"Let's go," John snaps. "Won't ask again."
When he reaches for you, you swipe the fork from the bed, stepping close and sticking the little prongs up against his chin. You aren’t satisfied until you can feel his scratchy beard against it, piercing the skin just enough.
"If you touch me, I'll shove this right up your chin through your goddamn nose," you threaten, and John’s nostrils flare, his hands going up flat beside his head.
"Easy," he murmurs, and you feel like he’s talking to a skittish mare. "Just need to guide you, that's all."
"Well, I don't want to go anywhere."
"If you don't do this, I have to send you back," John explains. "And Kate made it very clear that is supposed to be my last resort. And you don't want to go back."
"Anything is better than this," you hiss, and he narrows his eyes.
"Not this. What they do to unruly omegas..." He leans forward, snarling a little. "Ones like you. Ones that bite. And scratch. They don't deal with them. They'll sedate you and use you as training practice. And while Kate might have a heart big enough to keep you outta that place, I don't have it. So get your arse moving. Now."
You put your hand down, dropping the fork, letting it clatter to the floor. He grips you by the collar of your shirt, urging you forward, and all the hairs stand up on the back of your neck as he gets dangerously close to scruffing you. It's enough of a threat that you immediately relax, your own body betraying your emotions as it tries to make itself smaller. To appease. To submit.
"This can't wait any longer," John mutters. "Has to happen today."
Your lip trembles.
"What has to happen today?" You ask.
"You're meeting your mate," he says. You know that was the answer, but you had to ask it anyways. You think of the hoodie you received all those hours ago. The smell of him, complete intoxication. "Simon."
Simon.
"Sounds like an asshole," you snap, irritated, and John chuckles a little.
"Mmm. He is. You'll adore 'im."
You flinch at the flickering fluorescent lights as he leads you down a narrow hallway. When you pass other soldiers, John puts you in front of him, glaring and baring his teeth a little. You're confused by this sudden display of aggression on your behalf, but when you spot the looks in others’ eyes, you're grateful for it nonetheless.
You know your scent is strong; piercing the walls around you, displaying your displeasure, discomfort, fear so plainly. It's an awful thing to not be able to hide how you feel, to not feel like you have any control over how you present to others, but you have no practice masking any of it. You have been drowning your omega for so long that you didn't realize the strength of her building up behind the synthetic walls you had built. She's livid, angry, permeating the spaces in your mind that you thought were solid and now are broken and hollow inside.
You stop in front of an unmarked door. John looks over you, eyeing the jacket you wear.
"Take tha' off," he says lowly. You frown, stepping back, but he nods again. "Take it off. You'll get it back, just give it to me."
You shrug your jacket off gently, handing it to him. John holds out his hand for yours, and when you cautiously give it to him, he rubs the fabric against your wrists to soak it in your scent before disappearing behind the door. You wait outside, pressing your ear to the metal, but you hear nothing but low mumbles. You do hear a heavy gait, big feet moving around that don't belong to Captain Price, and you close your eyes as you try and see if you can hear his voice.
You don't.
The door is opened just slightly, John cocking his head to the side.
"He wants to see you."
You raise a brow.
"Your mutt?" You ask smartly, and John scoffs a little, kicking the door open wide finally. Behind it, you can see a small little office situated. Dozens of file cabinets, a stained wooden desk, a peeling leather chair. There are papers everywhere, a disorganized mess and walls filled with medals, plaques, letters, pictures of faceless men. And standing beside the desk, towering over it with his head nearly hitting the ceiling is a bear.
A fucking bear.
He's so tall. Over six feet of hulking man, big shoulders taking up too much space. You can tell just by looking at him that he has to duck his head and move his body sideways to get through the doorway you're standing in. He has big hands and thick thighs, and your lips part when you realize his thigh holster has been released as much as possible just to still fit snugly around him. He's wearing dark jeans and a thick black hoodie, and he looks even bigger with a strapped tact vest that holds numerous little gadgets, weapons (fuck, he looks like he can kill you with the pencil laying haphazard beside him).
You can't see his face. He covers it with a mask, a snug covering tucked under his hoodie with the plastic front plate of a skull sewn to its front. He's holding your jacket in one hand, the other clenched in a tight fist as you step through the door.
"Is this your dog, Captain?" You ask finally. Simon doesn't speak. He tilts his head to the side, eyeing you, taking in the way you look from the tips of your combat boots all the way up over your head. His gaze lingers on your middle, the wideness of your hips and the curve of your body.
John crosses his arms over his chest.
"Suppose so," John shrugs, rolling his eyes a little. You blink, finally making eye contact with Simon. His eyes are dark and beady. He's intense, just as his scent had been. Your omega warms your throat and screams in your ear.
Grab him. Latch onto him. Don’t let him go. Do you see him? Look at him–
"Does it bark?" You wonder, glaring. Simon unclenches his fist, rolling his fingers out a little. They twitch beside his leg. His face twitches a little, too, you can see the mask move just slightly.
"When he wants to."
"Does it bite?"
John snorts. "Mmm. Afraid so." He opens the door behind him. "Don't kill each other. If I don't see her for supper, Simon, I'll hold you to it."
When you are alone, Simon still remains silent. He hasn't moved from his spot by the desk, still in a strange staring contest with you as you stand there trying to read him. Like Kate, he's impossible; this time, you don't even have the luxury of looking over his face, although you suspect even without the mask, he must have mastered some kind of expression of nothingness. He seems like the kind of brute to give nothing away. Not even his displeasure.
"Hope you're good on a leash," you say finally, crossing your arms over your chest. "I like to go on walks."
His face moves under the mask again. Finally, he moves. He unravels your jacket in his hand, holding it open for you to put on again. You eye him strangely before coming closer to fit your arms into it.
When you turn your back to him, you realize how much of his shadow you're tucked under. When he drops the fabric back on your shoulders, you still as he leans over one side of you, bending. Without thinking, your head tilts to the side, giving him more space into the side of your neck. You do it without even thinking. Your omega bleeds through you, and you feel her warmth everywhere now, making you move, but you let her this time.
Your scent gland pulses there under your ear. He can see it, hear it practically, rushing like the blood in his ears. You close your eyes when you feel him come closer, the cotton of his mask just barely grazing your neck as he takes a deep breath.
The growl he lets out shakes you to your core. Your pupils get blown wide at the sound, and your head flops back slow, exposing more of your neck. He uses the opportunity to bend just that much more, until the front of his mask is pressed against the gland, and he can breathe you in, right at the source.
He's snarling under the mask. You can hear his teeth knock together, his tongue wetting his lips. You shiver, leaning into him, your hand raising up to caress the back of his neck as he nuzzles his nose there, taking another deep breath. You step back enough that he presses up against you from behind. You can feel his pelvis right against your ass, and you arch your back just enough to fit him right where he belongs. A gloved hand catches you at your waist, and you put your free hand on the desk in front of you until his cock is right there between your ass.
Your omega is panting. She's clawing, right there at the edge, fighting against quicksand as she's desperate to meet him. The feeling of him, the scent of him so close, it's an aphrodisiac, potent, suffocating. Something warm is wrapping around you, sliding along your skin, tickling your toes. It's between your thighs, in your mouth, wetting your tongue. You're not sure what this feeling is, but it's thrilling.
He's purring. Big, rumbling sounds coming from deep in his chest. More animal than man as his tongue comes out under the mask, and you can feel him lick a nice stripe over the raised, warm skin under your ear. Your omega is being pulled to the forefront. She’s like a magnet to him. The closer he gets, the stronger she bites into you. Your mouth drops open when his hand falls between your thighs, gripping onto you and pulling you up against him in one, slow grind. You can feel the length of him, fucking enormous, and you’re leaking into your cargos as his fingers squeeze the fat of your thigh.
"Fuck–okay!" You pull away abruptly, turning to face him. You put your hands on his chest and push him back a little. He doesn’t move at your touch, but your voice startles him enough that he moves his hands up and away from you. He straightens up, blinking away the haze in his eyes, and you swallow hard. "T-Too much..."
He huffs, moving forward to bury his face into your neck again, but you step back, putting a hand on his chest firmer this time. You have stepped out of the cloud that surrounds him, but you can still taste it, and it’s pulling you back, and you’re losing control.
"Simon," you say his name gently, and he stops, his face scrunching a little under the mask before he stands back up again. "If I have to be your mate...we need to set some boundaries." He blinks, saying nothing. "Like...a-asking for permission."
You can tell by the way his mask twitches that he doesn't usually ask for permission. He wants, and he receives.
Typical.
“What?” You ask, scoffing. “You don’t talk?”
He doesn’t move. You crane your neck to look up at him a little better, and you smooth your hands lower on his chest. You can’t help but appreciate what you feel. He’s wearing a tactical vest, but you can still feel the deep breaths he’s taking, the strong, fatty muscle under your palms. He is the epitome of sheer strength and undeniable ability. Your omega draws your hands back up his chest, over his pecs that pull taut, and they wind up around his neck as you stand up on your toes and lean into the curve of his jaw. You put your nose to it, barely. Simon moves his hands down, cupping you under your ass and picking up your weight with not even a grunt until you can press your face deep into him.
Fuck, it’s like a drug. It’s addictive. His scent impales you. He smells like war. Like chaos and smoke, and your mouth starts to water as you keep breathing him in. You pull back just enough, blinking up at him. You look a little dizzy and intoxicated, and he squeezes your ass to hold you steady as he puts you back onto your feet.
“Uhm…” You sniffle a little, holding onto him. Your hands curl around his shoulders, and you keep yourself upright like this. “I didn’t wanna be here. I don’t…I don’t want this. I never did.” You blink away tears, but he sees them when you draw your eyes back up to his. “T-They made me. It hurts.”
“Wot hurts?”
His voice scares you when you finally hear it. Your lip shakes, and when you blink again, your tears fall down your face. Simon snarls when he sees them, reaching up with hands too rough and wiping them off your face, but they keep coming.
“I’ve never been o-off my meds–” You gasp, and your breaths start to come in panicked and too fast. “Everything hurts. T-The lights are too bright, everything hurts my nose, the sheets are too itchy, and I-I can’t breathe–”
Simon moves away from you immediately. He closes a fist and pounds the lightswitch, and only the yellow glow of the lamp on his desk illuminates the room. You curl into yourself, hugging your own arms, and Simon comes back to stand in front of you, narrowing his eyes.
“I did not want you either.”
“That’s just grand, this is perfect,” you hiccup, and Simon grunts.
“But I have orders.”
“You act like your Captain is just debriefing you for a fucking mission,” You snap, glaring at him. “I’m a fucking person. I know your kind may not see us that way, but I am. I’m not a mission. I’m not something for you to win or to conquer, you fucking asshole!”
When you raise a hand to hit him, he catches your wrist before it lands. He squeezes just enough to hold you at arm’s length, and you lean forward and spit on him instead. It wets the mouth of his mask, and he nearly loses himself as his eyes flash with something dark. He looks away from you for a moment to collect himself. When he turns back, he uses his other hand to cup the back of your head, silencing you.
“You listen ‘ere, omega–” The way he says your title makes the fight in you shrink. Your omega squeaks, ducking her head, that bubble of submission pilling in your throat as he holds you so close to your naked scent gland. “Dunno wot anyone told you, but I don’t have to win you when y’r already mine.” He ducks his head, pulling you closer, and you freeze when he presses his masked mouth at the base of your pulsing scent gland. It wafts into his nose, dilating his pupils, and he snarls. “And when you inevitably lose control of yourself–you already fuckin’ are, you reek of it–I’m goin’ to sink my teeth right ‘ere, and then it won’t fuckin’ matter ‘ow you feel.”
Your eyes blur with angry tears. You gasp, your breaths hitching, and Simon seems to feed off of your fear, your misery. If he wasn’t wearing a mask, you imagine he’d be licking your tears for a chance to taste your sadness. The worst part of it all is that your omega adores it. She’s been aching for so long for this kind of authority. For that edge to tickle her right under her chin where she likes it. The whiff of alpha that she’s getting is driving her out of control, and you don’t know how make her quiet down. She’s so loud in your head, banging against the walls–give it to him, give it to him, give it to him.
“You’re a fucking monster,” you whisper, glaring up at him. It’s no use–you will never scare him. Simon is what scares other alphas into submission. In one paw, he could crush your windpipe if he wanted to, with just a squeeze. Simon hums, and you imagine him smiling under that mask, some kind of vicious grin that you would love to smack off of him.
“Tha’s right, swee’eart,” Simon mutters. “I am. ‘n now you belong t’me. Everything that you are–” He smooths his hand down your neck. You seize when his hand slides over the curve of your waist until it cups under your ass and forces you up against him. “‘s mine. Your omega–’s mine. Your mouth–mine. Your arse–mine. That cunt that’s going to take my knot like a good little omega should–mine. So y’r gonna get y’r things, and y’r gonna move them into my quarters, and then we’re gonna go get supper, and y’r gonna shut y’r fuckin’ mouth.”
“I hate you. You’re the biggest son of a bitch I have ever met in my entire life, you are exactly the kind of asshole I knew you would be, you are no different than I thought. You’re a terrible, awful, horrible–”
“I can smell you,” Simon snaps. “Don’t try to be fuckin’ smart with me, I can smell how wet your cunt is, so why don’t you just be a good girl and do as I say?”
You bare your teeth a little, and Simon sticks a gloved thumb into your mouth. Without thinking, you relax. You suck it into your mouth and sigh, and Simon rubs his thumb against your tongue, shutting you up nice and well. He traces your teeth with it, and you start to cry. You cry because you don’t know why you can’t fight. Your grip his forearm, but your nails won’t dig. Your feet are planted to the ground, and you can’t move. Your mouth sucks, and he pushes, and you’re frozen here.
He knows what to do. Doesn’t he taste so good?
He seems to like your teary eyes. The big, fat tears. His eyes crinkle, and you know he’s smiling, and you wish you could rip that expression off his face, but all that stares back at you is death. Simon growls, and every bit of resistance in you fails. Slow, like molasses, your knees buckle, and he catches you. He pets your mouth, and when he leans in and presses his mouth to your ear, all you can do is cry.
ghost/fem reader
There's a killer on the loose. But your logging town is small and quaint and doesn't even appear on maps, so you know you're safe. That all changes when a gruff, big, taciturn man shows up at your workplace one day.
Or; Simon is a fugitive serial killer, and you're the housekeeping girl that caught his eye.
Sometimes, you believe you were born in the centre of a dying star.
Born on the crest of death and fated for a bleak life. Dead, before you even had a chance.
The universe sweeps before you. Infinite. Expansive. Hungry. You float at the mouth of the galaxy and it swallows you whole, but doesn’t seem to like the taste of you—too bland, too trite—so it spits you back out and sends you tailspinning.
You land with a lack of courtesy. Tossed between trees and dropped in a basin. You find yourself in nowhere, Oregon. In a town flecked by a lake inlet and a clement fjord, where the moose population outnumbers the people population. It has a maritime allure but strangely enough, isn’t commercial enough to be a tourist hub. It’s too hidden in the thicket. Too deep in a borehole.
Every day here is the same. It's an abyss that yawns before you with no end in sight, lacking undue entertainment and vividness and excitement. There’s no light pollution so far off the beaten track, so oftentimes, you’ll wish upon shooting stars for someone to come for your deliverance.
There’s a reason they say be careful what you wish for.
The day isn’t even halfway over and your bone tips already ache with hard work.
It isn’t to say your workplace is busy. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. A cut-rate motel with more vacancies than residents found far-removed from the highway, taking only cash, no card, which is good for deterring paper trails and welcoming the transient but is bad for providing records when the police come knocking.
You’ll get the occasional trucker, the sparse backpacker. In any case, folks stay here when they don’t want to be bothered. They’ll drive past the splintery welcome sign and stop at the diner for earthy, full-bodied coffee and a slice of famous rhubarb pie. They’ll recuperate in the motel and leave before sunrise, and you’ll be there to clean up what they leave behind, scrubbing the memory out of the fibreglass bathtub for whoever’s next.
It’s a place where time fleets away. Hallucinatory. Where people pay their due and you hang your head because after all, you’re nothing more than the housekeeping girl. Cottony pinafore and a black dress. Mary Jane flats. Fingers desquamating from years of bleach and vinegar stuck in your nail beds. You get handed dog-eared tips and in return, you don’t ask questions. But maybe you should have.
You’re sliding the window cleaner back into its compartment on the cleaning cart just as your boss scales the veranda. He’s grinning and sporting sweat stains across his armpits. A patchy beard. A loose tie.
Your nerves lock up tight when he grasps your shoulders. His razorous fingers and the pinchbeck of his wedding band saws under your skin. The dregs of his afternoon drinking knocks into you, and you try not to let your body betray you. Despite that, your eyes water and your nose crinkles. You white-knuckle your dress and almost pop the fabric of your pinafore.
“How’s my favourite employee?” he grins. “Is she workin’ hard?”
There’s an irreverent innuendo somewhere in his smile. You ignore it and opt for a stale smile.
“I’m working,” you eke out. “I've got to restock the bathroom, then I’m done.”
“That’s good, peach. Real good,” he watches you collect toiletry essentials, then tacks on, “there’s a man in the lobby.”
You falter. The travel-sized shampoo bottle almost slips between your forefinger and thumb.
“An outsider.”
It’s an observation, not a question. If the man in the lobby were a local, Phillip would have given you a name because in this town, everybody knows everybody. The fact that a name was bereft tells you your new guest came from elsewhere. Maybe he’s cutting through the main road on his way to Yachats for your town’s cascade mountains and bigleaf maple, or for the diner’s famous rhubarb pie. In any case, he's in need of a rest stop.
“Mh. I’m gonna check him in. Just wanted to let you know I’m givin’ him this room, so try to hurry it up, okay peach?”
You blink slowly. This motel holds twelve rooms—there’s never been a need for any more—and currently, nine of those are occupied. That leaves three. There’s no reason for your boss to put up the new guest in Room 11, especially when you’re still cleaning it.
Phillip reads the question in the bend of your eyebrow. He smiles knowingly and pats your head. “He requested a room on the higher level. Room 9’s aircon is busted and Room 6 shares a wall with the Pettie’s. They’re loud.”
You sigh. “Ah.”
“Sorry peach,” he smiles like he’s apologetic, but you don’t think that’s the case. “Just get it done, alright? And add some extra coffee packets."
You furrow your lips. Displeasure flutters over you but you wash it away with a smile, refusing to irk him. You nod and pivot, bones bending against your skin for an escape as his hand whispers against your bum in an encouraging caress.
Anger simmers in your marrow. Phillip simply chuckles, disparaging.
“That’s a sweet peach.”
His voice gets muted by the tinny, rattling radiator as you make it to the bathroom. You stock it up dutifully—perhaps taking extra long to ensure he's not waiting outside for you—and spritz air freshener around the room when you finish. It’s a flaky, expired bottle of Platinum Ice which barely masks the town’s deep-seated smell of old-growth forest, petrichor and woody debris. You hope the new guest doesn’t have a sharp nose.
You make sure to stuff the coffee station with extra packets before stepping out of the room. Off the mysteriously stained carpet, onto the veranda. You putter around with your large keyring, thumbing through the nickel-brass since you also have a key to the elementary school, post office, and city hall (aptly titled shitty hall by locals, since this town isn’t much of a city and the building’s roof is held together by nothing but rusty rivets and tassels of sprig collected in the corners). You’ve got so many keys because again, everybody knows everybody, and it isn’t rare to see the housekeeping girl at the motor lodge supplementing her income as a part-time teaching aid.
Finally, you find the master key. You lock the room and roll the cleaning cart into the utility room before locking that too. Your wrist drags across your forehead, wiping away sweat, and you tug on your dress because perspiration has pasted it onto the pert curve of your breasts, the squish of your thighs. You furtively glance down your bodice and watch how the sweat pocks your skin, knotting your nipples against your cheap bra. Lament catches you in regards to your shower after work—it’s going to be freezing since the heating system here is so fickle—and in the paroxysm of your grief, the sound of heavy breathing eludes you.
You don’t hear his footsteps. He’s an ambush predator. Stalking and shadowing in the tall grass, waiting for the moment your hackles melt to bite into your neck like an unripe stone fruit. You don’t see him, but you feel him. His breath tickling down your neck. The erogenous zone behind your ear.
A gasp parts your lips and you whip around, coming face-to-face with a paunchy chest plated by moth-eaten flannel. You heft your head up, exercising the hinge in your neck. Paling at the sight that greets you.
He has a Cabela’s cap on. It’s pulled over his eyes, but a few blonde curls peek out from under the crown of his hat. He has a damaged, blistered face. A cauliflower ear. Nicks on his cheeks that distend from his skin and have turned pallid with time, rippling like seafoam petticoats on waves as he flickers his jaw. He wears jeans and mud-clogged boots and holds a duffel bag.
His gaze unties you. You slowly find words, fitting them in an orderly queue in your mind as you avert your gaze and stare at the floor. Squirming. Preening. Sweltering.
“Welcome to Sockeye Inn, mister…”
Silence. He lets your words awkwardly trail off. Doesn’t do anything to belay the discomfort in your belly. The man simply stares at you with brown eyes.
Humiliation crawls up your spine and settles on your cheeks. It burns through your skin, withering you away, to which you fidget with your fingers and baldly nod towards the door.
“Your room is ready,” you murmur. “Enjoy your stay, sir. Uh– if you need anything just give us a shout. Phone’s on the bedside table.”
Foolishly, you wait for a response again. Nothing. He towers over you, owlishly blinking, one slower than the other because he seems to have a lazy eye. You clench your skirt and softly shoulder past him, heading for the stairs as you hear him putter with the keyhole.
You’ve halfway scaled it when a rasp distorted by what seems to be years of cigarettes stops you dead in your tracks.
“Bring me a BLT and root beer.”
You burn up at the muscle in his voice. The drag. Just as you’re about to reply, his room door slams shut and rocks across the veranda.
Your dress is stickier than it was before. Perhaps an ice cold shower isn’t so bad after all.
The end of your shift slowly arrogates.
After delivering food to Simon Riley—you glinted at the logbook while waiting for his order, reading his name—you left his room as soon as possible. You set the food down and found yourself plugging your nose. The Platinum Ice you sprayed before didn’t accost you— instead, it was pomade. Lucky Strike cigarettes. Decaying heartwood. Bleach.
You pointedly breathed through your mouth. It didn’t actually help though, since you could taste it then. The ethanol in the air drizzled over your pockmarked tongue and glided down your throat. Collected in your stomach.
You almost retched it back up at the sight of him.
Through the foggy shower wall, the colour of his hazy contour was striking. It seemed to be a tight fit for him, hemming in his lumberjack build. The shampoo bottle looked like a damn accessory in his large hands and his chased shoulder blades pressed soap against the glass pane, sudsy.
Your curiosity pulled your gaze lower. Down to the heavy mass between his thighs, thick and fat. Bulbous.
His spine suddenly went erect, straightening like a chary animal. As if by the agitated pappus of his skin, his chin lifted in your direction, and that’s when the earth collapsed under your feet and you beetled for the door.
You distract yourself in the kitchen. Emptying the dishwasher. Taking the garbage to the bear-proof receptacles. Putting the oven on steam clean. Kate, the kitchen supervisor, stares at you oddly under her hairnet but she isn’t going to reject a set of helping hands.
You scrub at a pan hoping it will erase the image burned into your mind. Hoping that the steel wool will have the same effect on your temporal lobe as it does on the pan. You don’t realize your hands are chafing and the pan is flaking, not until Kate is passionately complaining beside you, her spit dashing onto the side of your face.
“—fuckin’ freeloaders. They drain our taxes but can’t even do their damn jobs. Wait until one of their family gets butchered, you’ll see, that’s when they’ll start taking this seriously.”
She waves a newspaper in your face. The paper stack fans in front of you, blowing you with cool air. You’re just barely able to read the big, blocky headline.
Connection Made Between Ventura, Gilroy and Eugene Serial Killer — Aptly Coined the Ghost.
“Eugene!” Kate slaps the newspaper, frazzled. “Not even three hours from us!”
You scarcely listen to her, her voice ripening into white noise as you scrutinize the police sketch on the newspaper’s margin. The offender is drawn with an overripe balaclava and probing eyes. Dark brown, as if his corneal opacity has laid claim before death. His eyelids have no tension, but a furl of crow's feet gather at the corners. It’s uncanny. Eerie. And even though he’s pressed on paper, you can’t help the unease welling inside you.
A part of you waits for the other shoe to drop. For him to manifest and crawl out of the paper, dripping ink and viscous tar, ruining your Mary Jane flats and the floor you’d just mopped.
Hemlock hits the back of your throat. Lemony, sedgy. Your eyes fixate on the information detailing his crimes. Spines broken and necks snapped with inhumane strength. Pieces of flesh carved with the precision of either a surgeon or a butcher. Rigour mortis locking the victims in a scream, nail beds caked with skin which implies a struggle, but leads nowhere since the Ghost’s DNA hasn’t been found on any database.
(He’s as elusive as his name suggests. Investigators say he could be foreign, or that he has a clean record. The latter seems unlikely for the violent calibre of his crimes.)
There’s also his modus operandi—slicing off his victim’s ring finger, taking it with him. A cruel reward.
“They say he’s taking Route 101,” Kate tacks on. “That he’s a long-hauler. How the hell will they catch a long-hauler?”
You shake your head, shrugging. Your tongue is too heavy and your gums rub against the round of your cheeks when you try speaking. The sentence gets snagged on your molars, and all that comes out are sparse words, lamely falling to the floor with how out of breath you are.
“…They’ll catch him.”
“They better,” she shortly huffs. “I don’t want this town making the paper for all the wrong reasons.”
Death comes to you in a cornfield.
You’re sprinting through the crop, barefoot and scantily clad and pricked by thorns. Your clothing catches on thistle and corn husk, slowing you down, but the quick-footed trampling at your tail keeps your pace steady and stable.
Your lungs burn. Your bones rasp. Your eyes well up with how fast you’re moving, with how your retinas strain to see more in the pitch black than just reflective corn silk and the crescent moon.
The midnight sky is close to swallowing you whole, but at this point that would be an act of mercy. The whistle of his cleaver slicing through the air and the stomp of his boots are promptly catching up, heckling you, barely whispering against the flowy cotton of your dress.
By a cruel twist of fate your foot catches on a tiller and sends you flying. Your nose softens the impact, the crack of cartilage reverberating through your skull, glutinous red spurting down your chin as you try scrambling to your feet.
But true to his name, Ghost, he slips through matter and suddenly, he’s standing in front of you.
Black, sweaty tank top. Freshly sharpened meat cleaver. Stout arms. Predatory eyes. Rotting balaclava—which at this point, you’re starting to believe was grafted onto his face, fitting him like skin.
You raise your hands for mercy.
But you should know dead stars have exhausted all their luminosity—that after death, they hold no power. That space is a graveyard. That’s why the Ghost poises his cleaver behind him. That’s why the last thing you see is his cleaver handle swinging towards you, about to collide with and shatter your cheekbone into a million pieces—
—but daylight strikes you with no clear trajectory.
It’s your alarm that rings, waking you up from a nightmare, telling you to brush your teeth and scrub yourself down and pop your supplements before biking to work. You do so sluggishly, standing under the shower spray as you massage your cheekbone. Burning your toast as you scour the news for developing details on the Ghost case. Ordering a cup of coffee from the local diner and gulping it down behind the motel lest Phillip catches you.
Your nightmare—omen, prophecy, portent of death?—pursues you like the persistent stench of fish on an angler’s hands all morning. You flinch at the slightest noise while scrubbing toilets, you constantly look over your shoulder while sweeping floors.
Malaise builds in your blood vessels like creosote. It doesn’t thin into fluid, flowing in and out of your appendages and around your sex until you situate yourself in front of Room 11. Fluffing up your skirt and puffing out your chest.
You announce your presence and rap the door with your Mary Jane flat because your hands are occupied with new bed sheets. Your knuckles blanch around the linen, quivering, struggling to keep it in your grip. The sheets almost flutter to your feet when a voice penetrates the door, abrasive and husky. Rough. Grating against your spine and shaving down the vertebrae.
“Door’s open.”
You wait a few seconds before contorting yourself against the threshold. You try the handle and lo and behold, it’s unlocked, swinging open when you press your weight onto it.
You step inside and toe off your flats. Next to Simon’s boots, they look fit for a doll, and a dizzy spell ricochets through you at the size difference. At the stark reminder that he’s as big and packed as a thick tree stump.
You walk inside and heed the CRT television playing the news.
It does nothing to soften the scream that rips out of you as you round the corner.
Simon is in bed, pulling on a cigarette. His pudgy tummy and bristly chest are bared, the steel wool of his happy trail disappearing into the bed sheets furled around his hips. The flat sheet is thin enough to outline something stirring. Something thick and pressed against his inner thigh.
He stares at you, eyes of Argus. It’s so intense you’re sure he can sense the slick running down your back. The dew that settles in the gusset of your panties.
You stutter. “I can come back later.”
Simon sits up with a groan. It rattles you. His joints must be fettered with age, or hard work, but in any case your head goes cottony with the picture of him splitting wood and hauling heavy bovine flanks.
You swallow thick as he shakes his head. “It’s no problem, sugar. I’m not even here.”
The pet name makes you squirm. You sure do feel like it—sugar, that is—with the way you could melt on his tongue, wedge yourself between his teeth. Turn syrupy and sappy at the back of his throat.
He takes another drag of his cigarette. You watch raptly as his jaw feathers around it, lips proffering another plume of smoke.
He blinks. “Well?”
You eke out an apology and fiddle with your hands.
“I’ll have to, um, change your bedsheets first.”
Simon shakes his head. He taps the ashy casualties off the tip of his cigarette and you watch as it sinks onto the bed sheet, almost burning through the floral motif. “No need.”
“Well,” you cough, forcing your eyes away from him, “if I don’t, my boss…”
Simon pricks up. The hind of his spine straightens the same way a dog would sit straight and plumb after hearing rustling in a bush. His muscles tighten, thick, and his face twists into a sneer. The bed sheet around him falls and you lock up tight lest it bare his pubic bone.
“Is he a minger?”
“I’m sorry?”
He huffs. “‘s he a bully?”
“Oh, no,” you blandly laugh. “Mister Graves isn’t a bully. He just…”
“Makes you uncomfortable?”
There’s a lapse between acknowledging his question and spitting out an answer that makes you kick yourself. Simon already looks dubious. You hug the sheets closer to your chest and smile, your cheeks feathering like beeswax.
“He’s a kind man.”
“Not wha’ I asked,” he says. The bed creaks as he leans forward, the sheets slipping lower, scarcely covering his sex. “I asked if he does stuff he shouldn’t be doin’.”
Your heartbeat quickens. Briefly, you wonder if he can hear it. He probably can, albeit softly, due to his lumpy cauliflower ear.
“He’s a married man,” you mumble. “He doesn’t touch me if that’s what you mean. Not like that.”
“There’s only one way to touch someone,” Simon grunts. His chest starts churning a little, as if he’s agitated. “Does he put his hands on you?”
Your skin burns, remembering. A phantom scar runs through you, long and creeping, mapping all the places in which Phillip’s pinchbeck wedding ring has burned you. The suture of your spine, the pappy flesh of your neck, the rise of your hips where his palm has melted through your dress and smarted your skin.
Your silence makes Simon grunt.
Panic surges up your throat. You feel the need to defend Phillip, in some approximation of gratitude and fear since you’re on his payroll and you don’t want to reap the consequences should you rat on him and he find out.
“No!” you hurry. “Mister Graves isn’t like that. He’s a good man. Honest.”
Simon’s eyes push against your skin. He scrutinizes you, tests you. Waits to see if you’ll fidget too much and flake away and sink into the carpet.
He growls. “You fancy him, is tha’ it?”
Answering yes is the only way to shake him off your leg. You do so archly, so it seems as though the thought of your boss has you flushing when really it’s Simon. He’s fully upright, and now you can see the girthy base of his cock. Stirring, twitching. You suppress a moan.
“Yeah…” you murmur. You can feel your makeup turning blotchy, running down your cheeks. “It’s just a bit…embarrassing, is all.”
He lapses into it again. Staring at you. Razoring his way into your head and thumbing through your consciousness, searching for an Achilles’ heel. A crack he can break into a hole because he has the size for it—barrel-chested, stupidly thick fingers.
Simon slips out of bed and disturbs the coiled aches of the mattress. He holds a washcloth over his crotch. It’s crusty and keeps shape and covers almost nothing, confirming your inkling.
His bulbous cockhead winks at you from under the hem. It’s heavy. Leaky. Dripping precum that laves down his legs and gets caught in the wiry hair of his thigh.
Anxiety pools in your armpits and around your groin. Or maybe that’s just arousal. Brackish and sticky, rubbing your pussy lips together, hugging your clit.
Simon pulls on his cigarette once more and then folds it into the bedside table. You should scold him. You should tell him that he’ll have to pay for damages even though the wood is already degraded and mouldy. You should scuttle out of the room and call for Phillip, but that would be a crueler fate. Instead you stay fixed to the carpet as Simon steps forward. Cock swinging between his legs, tummy jiggling.
You don’t know whether he’s going to pull you in for a kiss or rip off your dress or—and you’re unsure why you think of this—take you by your skull and smash it against the television stand. He has the muscle to, surely, but somehow you know he won’t. And the thought of that makes your skin hot.
You’re at his mercy.
You gird yourself for his lips or for your dress to be torn off, but your preparations flux away as Simon steps close and crowds you against the television stand. The stench of Lucky Strike cigarettes and gamey meat impair you, as he reaches behind you and increases the television volume. You want to say something but cotton fills your mouth and the news report floods your ears. It’s fragmentary—you can only heed oddments of the news anchor’s latest updates.
The Ghost is still at large. Corpses keep popping up around California and Oregon, each with their ring fingers sliced off. The tipline has been leading investigators nowhere, shepherding them to the end of the earth and over the edge, floating, where they’ll move through molasses and will never be able to catch him.
White male. 6’4”. 196 centimetres. Brown eyes. Heavyset. Likely military background. Likely a surgeon, or a butcher. A dangerous, ruthless individual.
If spotted, do not approach.
Simon’s breath fans against your neck, rousing the bristles of your warm cheeks. He turns off the television and steps back. An ether opens up in the pit of your stomach as your gaze falls on his bulging pelvis, on the purplish veins and webbing muscle, sitting like a tuft under his navel, disappearing behind the washcloth where his cock stirs.
Simon tuts. “World’s goin’ to shite.”
You nod.
“You shouldn’t be out here anyway,” he tacks on. “Should be at home takin’ care of your man’s house. Keepin’ safe.”
You flash your naked ring finger embarrassingly fast. “I-It’s just me…and my cat.”
His eyes darken. His head tilts down at you. He purrs.
“Better get started on mine then,” he breathes. “Put yourself to good use.”
You shyly get to cleaning his room.
You try to ignore his hand disappearing behind the washcloth, pumping his cock. You can’t ignore the silk ruining your panties. Scarcely, you manage to ignore the caution creeping up your back. Your lower instinct that screams at you as you feel his stare tracking you across the room, burning. Smouldering. Warning.
Daylight scissors into you.
It melts the sleep in the corners of your eyes. It clears the haze in your head. It interrupts the sultry dream you were having. Your flesh is still pocked and your clit is still peaked, as you rehash the contents of it.
You can still feel Simon’s weight on top of you, sweat compressioning you, the sheets gathering under your slick back. Your underwear had dangled from one of your ankles, flapping and swaying as Simon pounded into you. Your head bobbed over the lip of the mattress. Your tits bounced, nipples caught between his gnashers. Your slick ran down your cunt and over your asshole, pooling onto the floral bed sheets. You just quit your job. You didn’t care about the sheets. Or the Pettie’s down the veranda. Phillip was on the other side of the door too, and he could hear everything. Your moans. Simon’s balls dragging over your furled hole. His groans—
—And the sudden tearing of cartilage and skin stretching, rubbery, as Simon shifted into something else above you. Something larger. Deadlier. His drool dripped onto your chest, and his cock was suddenly too big for your pussy, popping back out until only his tip managed to squeeze inside your puffy hole. He snarled down at you, but it got covered by a creeping balaclava. You still reached your orgasm, quivering around his cockhead. Watching him go spotty and graphite-like in your vision, as if he were a composite sketch.
You get out of bed and wash the absurd dream away under the shower. The nozzle hits your clit weakly, and you never reach your high. You show up to work pigeon-toed and sweaty. Pent-up. You scrub harder at bathtubs and almost snap at Phillip when he swats your bum. Almost. Simon is watching from the dining hall, and he makes you skittish.
The day rolls by sluggishly. There’s a Do Not Disturb sign dangling from Simon’s door, so you don’t get the chance to see him in his room. You huff and puff at the Pettie’s and give Kate attitude. It’s the peak of afternoon when you’re sent home, shoulders stiff because Phillip squeezed them and tacked on, ”I can always help out if you’re stressed, peach,” before shepherding you out the door.
You bike into town. Indulge in the diner’s famous rhubarb pie because the motel’s cherry pie is nowhere near as good, though you’ll never tell Kate that. You polish off your treat then ride to the beach (which is more of a graveyard for birds and braided, washed ashore sea meadow), and prop your bike against the wooden bollards.
The beach is familiar with you. It sees you when you're overwhelmed by the monotonous colour of your life. You never worry about meddling kids or loud teenagers or anything, because the stench of fish usually keeps them away anyway. It's your own Shangri-La. Your little Eden. Albeit overcast and greyscale, with an ocean spray that gets into your hair and dries out your mouth.
You slip out of your Mary Jane flats and wade through the sand dunes, breathing in salt and sulfur and tasting it on your lips. You maneuver around seawrack and driftwood and eventually find yourself seated behind a tussock of seaoats, watching as the waves lazily beat against the shore.
It's easy for you to lie down and get comfortable among the scent of iodine and the feel of pillowy granules. It's also easy to let your eyes flutter shut, lulled into limbo by the ebbing tide and murmuring waves.
You stir awake with flaccid lungs.
Presentiment hangs in the air, thick, like a blanket of smog. It interrupts your breathing pattern and makes you light-headed. Vertiginous. Makes you see things that aren't there…
…Such as the off-white scleras and twists of dilated blood vessels that stare at you from the foreshore.
They approach you eerily. Two pieces of driftwood floating over the waves, jolting slightly as it hits the sand, splintery and mossy and heavy.
The man feathers toward you from the blue glow of the beach. You squint through the darkness, because maybe it's the sheriff, but you know he walks with a drunken gait and he…strides like a bear on its hind legs.
The way he lurches for you says otherwise. Perhaps he's rather a panther or a coyote, or some crude backyard breed of all three.
A large palm splits itself over your mouth. An arm lays beside you and secretes a musk of sweat and iron. A knee digs into the plush of your cunt, agitating your clit, as a warm breath fans over your pulse point.
"Waited for me, didn't you?" he rasps against your neck.
In your stupor, you brace your hands against his shoulders. A sticky substance coats his skin, too viscous to be sweat.
Nausea knots in your throat. Tremors wash over your body. You dig your nails into his flesh, and when your hands don't fall through it like you hoped, you gravely realize he's made of muscle and skin instead of your drunken, sleep-inspired imagination.
You experience a cruel loss of equilibruim. If you weren't already lying down, you'd collapse to the ground. You go limp in the sand, thawing into his hands which you unwillingly notice are caked with that sticky substance too.
"There's dangerous folk 'round here," he grunts. "What if someone else followed you? A big, bad man?"
A chord of recognition stirs in your brain at his voice. That brash accent.
"Simon…?"
He chuckles. "It's me, sugar."
You squeeze your thighs together but it's abortive. He pries them apart anyway, and cups your pussy through your panties.
He rubs you through the gauze, knuckling your soft lips. Through the darkness you barely see the misshapen silhouette of his mouth. That snarl, curling off him as if he suffers from some chronic wasting disease, slowly atrophying and turning into some vestigal cadaver.
He kisses down your sternum. Grips your hand and forces it over his crotch. Your fingers brush over the solid mass. It's hard due to both stiffened denim and his thickening cock.
"All for you," he mumbles. "Take it out, sugar."
You fumble with the metal teeth of his zipper. You pull him out with both hands and your mouth goes dry. Tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. Deadly nightshade hitting the back of your throat. Despite you, your thighs squish together, and a rumbling chuckle slips through the seam of his lips.
He's huge. Fat and heavy, so much so you need both fingers to wrap around him.
"Give it a kiss, yeah?" he coos. "Like a sweet girl."
You spread your lips against his cockhead. You pull away and a string of precum chases you, but Simon is pushing your head back down and bucking his bristly pubic bone into to your nose.
"There it is," he grumbles. "Such a big girl, aren't you?"
You look up at him with wide, wet eyes.
The stiffs of hair on his pubic bone tickle your nose. You smell sweat and iron, but you can't tilt your head away, because the stout muscle of his arms keep you in place.
Fighting is futile. His cockhead hits the back of your throat like oleander and he holds your jaw in place, dimpling your cheeks with his rough fingers, letting his balls slap against your chin.
Just as you're getting used to his size, he pulls out, breaking the strands of saliva and precum between you.
"Take off y'panties, sugar."
You pull them off and squirm at the way the gusset clings to your pussy lips a little while longer. Simon takes it against his nose and sniffs it, running his fingers through your pussy, spreading your slick.
You don't get a warning before he's curling one of his fingers into you. Massaging your walls. Scissoring you open. Thumbing your clit.
He adds another and twists them deeper—meaner—into you. He swallows your whimpers but spits them back into your mouth when he empties his saliva down your throat. He keeps stroking the inside of your pussy, your sticky walls, and rubbing your clit.
He squeezes your cheeks together and gives you a big kiss. He coos condescendingly into your lips, and licks away your fresh track of tears. "It's supposed to hurt, baby. Don't be mad, alright? It'll feel good soon."
He gets deeper and deeper. Knuckle-deep, when he curls his fingers inside you. You lock up tight and thrust your hips through the bulk of your orgasm, trembling and quivering around him.
Your lips quiver around a plea when he pulls his fingers out. It's a lapse of judgement on your part—you know it—but you can't help it anymore.
"Please what?" He grins. It's ugly. Like a truss of stitching falling off his face, mangled and chewed up.
"Can you g-go…" you squirm when he rolls his tumb over your clit, agonizingly slow. "Can you go–"
"C'mon baby," he whispers against your lips, "spit it out. Big girls use their words."
"Canyougodownonme?" you gasp and grip onto him, bucking your cunt into his palm.
He chuckles against your mouth. He kisses down your chest. He crinkles his nose against the husk of your pussy. He deeply inhales and vibrates at your scent. He darts his tongue out and flattens it against your dewy folds, licking a stripe up your slit.
You writhe but he holds you in place with those big, thickened hands of his. They're wet but at this point you can't tell if it's your arousal or that mysterious substance on him. You can't even think about it, not with your thoughts melting away, escaping you like the humming waves.
Simon's a bit too aggressive in how he eats you out. It doesn't come from a juvenile attempt influenced by sex-on-screen with undue emphasis, but rather his tongue spelling devotion into the fat of your cunt.
Your fingers flex into his blonde head of hair. It's closely cropped, but you still manage to pull him closer, grinding yourself down on the bumpy bridge his nose. You pull on his hair and he growls and sends a quake up your spine. He wraps his lips around your clit and swirls his tongue further into you, softly suckling your juices out.
The waves fold over each other, beating against the shore. They crest and crash and just as they race up the sand dune, teasing your flexing toes, your second orgasm crashes into you too. You twist and twirl Simon's hair in your grip and almost miss the feel of something cold being slipped onto your finger.
You're shaking, trembling, as you raise your hand. You're hazy and the moonlight is shrouded by clouds. It makes the mystery object look smeared across your vision, blotchy and spotty.
You hold it a little closer to your face, examining the twinkle as Simon massages your thighs to ease the quiver.
You turn your hand over and whisper your thumb over its curve.
You bristle when you realize what it is. It hangs off you a little loosely, burning your knuckle.
A pinchbeck wedding ring.
Stained with red, and still warm from the body it was pulled from.
Bile gathers in your throat and burns your mouth. Tears gather in your eyes. A small gasp parts your lips, billowing out of you like the mushroom-head of a flare just as realization fully commits itself to you.
You shiver. Both through realization, and your orgasm. "…What did you do to him?"
"Took care of him," Simon grunts, caressing your hair. "I'm supposed to handle the monsters under your bed, ain't I?"
You spare him a glance. You heed the white of his teeth and a smudge of—you know it's blood—across his cheek. His eyes, hidden in the shadowy canopy. His nose, bent out of shape and speckled with blood.
"You're not going to hurt me."
He brushes your hair back. "No."
You pant into him when he captures you for a kiss. "…Why?"
"I'm supposed to take care of ya," he grunts. "That's what couples do, no?"
He pushes something in your grasp—a folding knife. Your thumb slips over the two initials engraved into the handle—your initials.
"How do y'feel about Kate?" he asks.
Your coworker flashes into your mind. "I like her"
Simon—the Ghost—grunts. "And what about that bloke at the diner? What's his name?"
"I– Franklin?"
"Hn. Does he bother you?"
You thumb through your memory. Perhaps what you say is an embellishment, giddy of what Simon's going for.
"He did steal my bike once…" you mumble.
Simon pricks up. His chest puffs out and squishes against your arm. "He married?"
"Yeah, um," you swallow, "for about ten years."
"You want his pretty ring? Or his wife's?" Simon asks, then kisses you. "Anythin' you want."
Your lips stretch into a smile.
Simon cups your cheek, blood rubbing off on you. For the first time ever, you feel exhilarated at the thought of the future. At the thought of being taken care of. Doted on.
Suddenly the town doesn't feel so cold anymore. It doesn't feel like an invisible barricade is hemming you in. Simon is your ticket out of here, and a ticket to your new life.
You can abandon your pinafore and Mary Jane flats and maybe he'll spoil you with frilly socks and a cute sundress. Maybe he'll fuck you in his truck or in gas station bathrooms as the corpse of a man who wronged you rots in the truckbed. Maybe you'll get caught but at least you'll be together and at least your name will finally be known.
Blood is warm. if blood is cold, you’re really fucking feverish or the person is dead. it’s only sticky after it coagulates.
It smells! like iron, obv, but very metallic. heavy blood loss has a really potent smell, someone will notice.
Unless in a state of shock or fight-flight mode, a character will know they’re bleeding. stop with the ‘i didn’t even feel it’ yeah you did. drowsiness, confusion, pale complexion, nausea, clumsiness, and memory loss are symptoms to include.
blood flow ebbs. sometimes it’s really gushin’, other times it’s a trickle. could be the same wound at different points.
it’s slow. use this to your advantage! more sad writer times hehehe.
Stab wounds:
I have been mildly impaled with rebar on an occasion, so let me explain from experience. being stabbed is bizarre af. your body is soft. you can squish it, feel it jiggle when you move. whatever just stabbed you? not jiggly. it feels stiff and numb after the pain fades. often, stab wounds lead to nerve damage. hands, arms, feet, neck, all have more motor nerve clusters than the torso. fingers may go numb or useless if a tendon is nicked.
also, bleeding takes FOREVER to stop, as mentioned above.
if the wound has an exit wound, like a bullet clean through or a spear through the whole limb, DONT REMOVE THE OBJECT. character will die. leave it, bandage around it. could be a good opportunity for some touchy touchy :)
whump writers - good opportunity for caretaker angst and fluff w/ trying to manhandle whumpee into a good position to access both sites
Concussion:
despite the amnesia and confusion, people ain’t that articulate. even if they’re mumbling about how much they love (person) - if that’s ur trope - or a secret, it’s gonna make no sense. garbled nonsense, no full sentences, just a coupla words here and there.
if the concussion is mild, they’re gonna feel fine. until….bam! out like a light. kinda funny to witness, but also a good time for some caretaking fluff.
Fever:
you die at 110F. no 'oh no his fever is 120F!! ahhh!“ no his fever is 0F because he’s fucking dead. you lose consciousness around 103, sometimes less if it’s a child. brain damage occurs at over 104.
ACTUAL SYMPTOMS:
sluggishness
seizures (severe)
inability to speak clearly
feeling chilly/shivering
nausea
pain
delirium
symptoms increase as fever rises. slow build that secret sickness! feverish people can be irritable, maybe a bit of sass followed by some hurt/comfort. never hurt anybody.
ALSO about fevers - they absolutely can cause hallucinations. Sometimes these alter memory and future memory processing. they're scary shit guys.
fevers are a big deal! bad shit can happen! milk that till its dry (chill out) and get some good hurt/comfort whumpee shit.
keep writing u sadistic nerds xox love you
ALSO I FORGOT LEMME ADD ON:
YOU DIE AT 85F
sorry I forgot. at that point for a sustained period of time you're too cold to survive.
pt 2
also please stop traumadumping in the notes/tags, that's not the point of this post. it's really upsetting to see on my feed, so i'm muting the notifs for this post. if you have a question about this post, dm me, but i don't want a constant influx of traumatic stories. xox
turnnoffyourmind
jacobvanloon
dededos
andulkaphoto
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