Idk if your requests are open, but I'd like to ask (very politely) for a inhuman!vessel x reader :)
Just some sleepy cuddling, he's purring like crazy and won't let you get up, eventually having to pin you down with some magic (and you can decide how that goes from here 👀 but please do avoid smut)
Thank uuu and no pressure <3
Ok, so…no smut. Challenge accepted. This will be Area Eden inhuman!Vess (aka. Big Teeth) cause that's the only one I'm spending enough time thinking about to write fast. Let's call it a compromise. There's also some AE worldbuilding, but I tried to keep it light and tight, focused on the cuddle.
Content: cuddle compulsion magic, light tickling, lots of limbs, six eyes, cuteness aggression. SFW/T!! (For once! I don't think there's a single swear word even!)
It's been raining for what feels like years. If you're lucky it's the solid downpour that passes quickly. Mostly just the seemingly endless Pacific Northwest heavy damp. No real sun for days, just more or less bright shades of grey and green and the slate colored white-capped waves. But you’re curled up in Vessel's latest blanket fort, as the rain shatters against the floor to ceiling windows on the other side of the gauzy curtain and you don't mind the rain, or the journey to get here, one bit.
After spending most of the journey hugging the coast north of Astoria tracking rumors of a winged Apex (only to find it was just some strange flying Shimmer-beast), consensus among the Vessels had never been achieved faster than when II consulted the maps and identified a nearby safehouse. The decision to hunker down for a couple of weeks almost made up for the fact that "nearby" meant a three days ride into the mountains to what must have once been the modern fortress of some wealthy tech bro hoping to ride out the apocalypse in that bland instagram brutalist style. You had straggled through the open gates just as a storm broke, lashing the trees and the buildings of the compound with wind and sleet. Thunder rolled off the sea, bouncing through the hills and echoing enough times to make the nightmares shift restlessly.
Now, aside from the distant patter of rain on double pane glass, there's no sound but the enormous, breathy purr that seems to come from everywhere all at once around you. But that's probably because you're nearly completely encased in limbs—arms? Legs—and a long body. Void dark skin that glimmers faintly with its own iridescence over dense muscles except where it disappears under the sleek feather-fur over his shoulders and arms is pressed against every inch of you in a way that no human body could manage.
The iridescence is new.
It only happens here, that is when you're together in these little dens he builds for you. And he always builds one when you're in a safehouse. You suspect you know what it means, but you want to be sure.
You're skin to skin. Yours, which was chill and damp when you crawled in is now flushed with warmth again. He runs hot in this form, and uses it to devastating effect. One final shiver passes through you and he tightens around you, as if he could press heat into your skin just through contact. The involuntary motion is enough to rouse you from the drowsy haze you've slid into, lulled by the rain on the window and that sound that's really more vibration. The vibration shifts, rising up into a questioning chirp from the throat beside your ear. A warm gust of air trembles through your still damp braid. He's scenting you, a moment later the brush of a velvety muzzle tickles your forehead.
"Vess, I gotta get up." You mumble, sleepy but trying for consciousness.
You'd stumbled up here an hour ago? More? To tell him dinner was ready and he'd dragged you in. Fed you bits of glowplum—Sleep only knew where he found those so early in the season—and dried strips of the savory Shimmer morels that were your favorite. And then he peeled you out of your clothes—now in a pile on the floor by the doorway—and eased you into the perfectly arranged circle of blankets and pillows and his body. You'd been dozing every since.
When you try to move he chirps again, settling into a protesting rumble and the secondary arms snug around your ribcage. He's got a pack animal's way of mapping your nervous system in great detail through his senses, understands the way your heart rate, breath and even chemistry reacts to exercise, lack of sleep, environmental stress. He's concluded long before you drifted off the first time: you're exhausted.
"I gotta hang up my clothes to dry and—" A yawn interrupts your protest.
The vibration shifts and you feel it in your low back, the cradle of your hips, which corresponds to his lean belly pressed against your spine. That tone is clear. Disapproval.
"Vess." You whine softly. "I gotta help the guys—"
The most liberty you get is the ability to roll in those limbs so you're facing the his chest. You slide your fingers over the too-many joints and muscle of the nearest limb, until they're dancing lightly across his collar. His skin twitches under your touch and a tiny trail of phosphorescence rises in the wake of your fingers like the inverse of freckles, bright like a starfield. That too is new. No more glow jars. Just his skin, where you touch it, rising to a soft light and fading again. You figured out quickly that if you want steady lighting you have to touch him and keep touching him. You're not complaining. His texture—thicker than human skin but velvety and warm—is your new favorite thing.
The tickling has the desire effect. He allows a little distance between you, enough to take you in with six lambent eyes. The ones you think of as his human eyes are the brightest, the slitted pupils threaded with gold to distinguish them from the amber sclera. The Sleep eyes are uniformly rose gold, with a low glow he seems to be able to turn up or down. He snuck up on you once in the dark when you were playing hide-and-seek and they didn't shine until they were inches from your face. You'd shrieked, then leapt at him, arms and legs wrapping around him as you bit him and he made pleased noises because he likes feeling your blunt little teeth as much as he likes setting his own sharp ones against your skin with the kind of control that makes you shiver.
He was so freaking cute, sometimes. Terrifying, but cute.
All six eyes blink lazily in sequence so that at least four are always fixed on you. His version of a greeting.
"Hi." You blink up at him with a sleepy smile.
"Stay." He croons.
He so rarely uses words in this form you want to reward him with compliance but you really need to get downstairs. III was in a terrible mood and II was tired from finding the trail and Sixie might have a thorn in her paw—
"Need you," he adds, optimistically. You like being needed and he is not above using it to achieve his aim: namely you, warm and dreaming in the cocoon of his body. He likes listening to the way you mumble in your sleep, watching your eyelids flutter and dance, the heat of your body rising and cooling in response to its own internal processes, the tiniest flavor of ozone and salt in your skin because Sleep is always close when you're dreaming.
"I need you too, love." You whisper, pressing your face into his collar and taking a big breath of him. You rub your chin against his too long jaw in imitation of his preferred greeting and that pleased purr resumes, higher up in his chest, vibrating through his limbs and into you.
He settles, content in his success.
Then the breath leaves you in a long exhale as you start to rise anyway. "But I really need to go help—"
The breath leaves you in a grunt as he tightens all his limbs at once, dragging you back in. Stubborn.
"Vess!"
"Stay." He orders, snuffling at you until your coordinated attempt to rise devolves into squirming. "With me."
"Vessel Marie." Gigging you try to shove him away but he holds you fast. Too many joints make it nearly impossible to break his hold, even without the strength.
"Teeth." He grunts. "Big Teeth."
You laugh breathlessly. "Vessel quit acting like you're two different people—beings, or whatever."
You jab his ribs in the spot that you know makes human Vessel squirm and your enormous, supernatural predator trills alarm, hollowing his belly to get away until one hand clamps around your wrist.
He catches the other before you can even think about attempting it and pins them both to your chest.
"Stay?" He croons again, pleading and meets your eyes. Quite a feat considering how many there are.
Absurd for a creature this savage to have such long, featherlike lashes. He blinks them all at you, too big mouth curling in this versions attempt at a smile. It's charming, in a mildly unnerving way.
"Ok." You exhale.
As soon as his grip relaxes you wiggle free.
You almost make it. Correction, he almost lets you make it.
After all, II and the others have been managing setting up camp for years, having you stumble around between them trying to help is as unbearable as it is unnecessary. The others agree. Ivy was the one who tugged Vessel's tether gently in the signal that set him out ahead of the others to build his sanctuary in the first place. Ivy always knows what you need. And right now that's to cuddle.
You're at the overlap in the blankets that form the door when Vessel starts to sing.
It's not human Vessel's voice—exactly—but also it is in some fundamental way. And your limbs stop being your own, just like the bear on the road your first day with the Vessels, or his rune ants, or the orb weaver, or countless other creatures you've encountered on the way that have been swayed by that voice.
"You said 'ok.'" He says mournfully. "And then you tried to go."
Uh-oh.
"And you really want to stay."
He's got you there.
"I'll help you stay, with me." He says.
That's the power of his voice in this world. It reveals.
"Vess." You whine, but you're already returning, sliding into that soft warm place that he's made for you, beside him. Are you mad at being compelled to lie down with him and let him hold you? Maybe you would be if that's wasn't what you really wanted all along.
He strokes your hair as you settle back in and the song falls away beneath the renewal of that deep, growling vibration. Long, multi jointed limbs close around you. The hand most closely resembling a palm skates up the middle of your back to just below your shoulder as if he were forming a cradle for your heart. His long, sharp nails flex lightly against your skin when you stroke him and your resulting shiver drives you even closer, as if you could crawl into his ribcage and pillow your head on his heart. That purr reaches into your bones to draw out answering contentment.
His skin lights up everywhere you touch.
It's happiness. That light. You're sure of it now.
Hiyeeee!
You asked if my requests are open. Honestly, no one's ever requested anything before you (and my previous Anon), so I'm still figuring it out (I should probably have a chat with my therapist about the fact that I'm still mildly surprised than anyone wants me to write anything for them) I should also probably figure out some kind of README for requests, but rn the answer is yes, if I can see a way into to work it into Area Eden!
I really had fun with this and will probably post a longer version on AO3 with MOAR worldbuilding! Thank you for the request!
Also, big kudos and thanks to @the-darklings who has been such an inspiration for how to respond in ways that filter requests through my own lens, which was one reason I found writing to request intimidating for so long! If you're into a hot eldritch horror who turns out to be the perfect BF and haven't read her Better Bobby series...WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE, RN?"
The answer, muffled as it is by your own flesh is unmistakeable. You're not going anywhere. Not until he's good and done with you. Which will certainly not before you've succumbed to the pressure that's coiling in your spent hips, streaking up your quivering thighs, pooling again in the freshly wet squelching noises from where his mouth meets the swollen folds at the center of your thighs. That alone is evidence that you're wrong. Again.
"II."
He can't get over the sound of his name on your lips, the way your voice keeps growing more ragged, more desperate, more abused. He's not going to quit until it's obliterated entirely and you're nothing but a wreck of mewling, brainless, ruined flesh.
It's only fair, after all. You started this. He's going to finish it.
You'd been ahead of him on the trail that morning, a narrow hilly pass that kept you single file for hours. And after that stupid shit that had gone down at the last stop he wasn't letting you out of his sight. So he'd been behind you, all day. Watching your hips sway with the exaggerated rise and fall as the nightmare navigated the steep downslope until his cock chafed his jeans and his mouth watered.
He sent a signal down the tethers. Mine.
Vessel's tightened sharply—big teeth's influence no doubt—before softening as he bowed out.
III yanked back, surly but accepting.
Ivy's vibrated with laughter.
And when II had turned his attention outward again you'd been looking over your shoulder. Because of course you were part of them now and couldn't not feel all the communication buzzing around you.
Then you winked.
Oh, You were so going to get it.
He caught up as you dismounted for the break in the hottest part of the day, as your feet hit the ground he caged you between the nightmare and his body. The way you softened into him drove him insane. Dragging you into the grass for a quick shag—III style—seemed like a perfectly good option. But he had always been a fan of tension and anticipation.
"You look good up there, sweetheart." He rumbled. "Never been jealous of a saddle before."
You laughed a little and a fully body shiver rolled through you. "A saddle?"
"Want you to ride my face like that." He squeezed your hip, pressing his thumb into the crease inside your hip to draw you toward him.
"II." Your cheeks flushed as you gaped over your shoulder, taking him in.
You glanced around but the others were all conveniently busy. He held his ground, the lightest brush of his cock against your ass to let you know he was serious.
"Come on, sweetheart." He whined softly. "I'll make it so good for you. Just wanna feel you slick and sweet on my face."
He relished in the way you swallowed, audibly. "Baby, we're—"
"Just think about it, darling," He whined, biting back a grin because they all knew you were fundamentally incapable of resisting when they pleaded. "You and me, all you have to do is rock those pretty hips on me the way you do in that saddle and I'll do the rest."
Your breath stuttered and he watched your fingers flex and release on the leather under your hand. He had you. He so had you.
"Bet I can make you cum so hard you forget your name." He teases against the back of your neck, pressing.
"In one?" Your mouth twitches. Cheeky.
"In as many a you let me give you." He promised whinging a bit. "Just say yes, please sweetheart. So I can spend the rest of this miserable afternoon thinking about how good you're gonna taste dripping down my tongue."
His cock was rock hard by the time you gave one of those tiny breathless yeses and leaned against him fully.
"Yeah, sweetheart, you know I'm gonna take good care of you." And he would, until you were completely wrecked.
***
So that's how it starts. And you do taste every bit as good as he imagines you will. Trouble is, he planted the seed so early you too have been thinking about it all day. And because it's II and he seems to have a preternatural skill for knowing exactly which combination of tongue and suction is going to push you over the edge you come fast, braced on the headboard as you grind your hips onto his face. And in case you were worried you'd be pushing too hard he gripped your thighs on either side of his head and locked you in place so all you could do was rock and undulate over his spread lips and his thick, greedy tongue.
You shudder to a slow roll, huffing softly as he backs off your sensitive flesh but doesn't stop, not entirely. And his hands stay locked around your thighs, fingertips pressing you open. It's not long before his tongue is moving with more pressure and another release is climbing your spine. Your movements are slower now, less coordinated, more desperate humping than any of the sleek rhythm of before.
That seems to make him even more feral, stroking up and into you until you grip his hair and plead. He's laughing softly between sloppy kisses. Sweat pools down your spine, a drop dangling at the end of your nipple. His hands slip up your thighs, over your belly and get a firm grip on your hips.
"II, I…" He's got to be ready to burst, and after how good he made you feel you can't wait to wrap yourself around him and return the favor. "Come on, let me, ride you."
"In a minute," he pants.
When you glance over your shoulder his cock twitches in his mostly unbuttoned jeans and a dark stain is leaks at the head where it emerges from his waistband. A few creamy white splatters spot and blur the vivid tattoos over his low abs.
Your brain stutters. He came? Just eating you out?
Fuck that's hot.
He takes advantage of the fact that you're just figuring out exactly how much he likes it and drags you down his chest, rolling you onto your back beneath him. Your legs come round his hips instinctively, and he luxuriates in the feel of that hot, swollen flesh against his twitching dick, but he's not ready for that, if he will be at all. He's got a checklist.
Mewling, brainless, ruined.
You've got a ways to go.
So he pushes your legs apart, ignoring those little protests and he laps and kisses his way down your chest, sucking at the sweaty pool of your navel and savoring that rich, warm flavor of you growing stronger and more redolent as he descends. Your curls are thick with the mess orgasms and his own mouth. Perfection.
He licks a long stripe up your center, massaging your outer walls with his fingertips until you're tugging his hair again, spine curling and arching. He controls the timing, the rhythm, letting your arousal wind up and sink down a few times before drawing you back up again. Your heart hammers against his palm on your ribcage and he swipes a thumb over your nipple just to feel you shake.
He loves having you like this, open to him, could do this all night. The combination of the taste of you and the scent and those little nosies you make and knowing he has you completely at his mercy unravels him. He needs you to feel good, like he needs his next breath. Because they'll have days like yesterday as long as this life lasts and he needs you to know they've got your back, good or bad. He'd break a man for touching you soon as he'd break you down with orgasm after orgasm until you forget everything but this moment. This is his purpose.
Before he knows it is own hips are rocking into the mattress beneath him. He can't help himself. The sticky wet of his own cum, the texture of the blanket and the rough edge of his jeans, the moaning, broken sounds you're making. Fuck. You push your hips up into his face, gripping hair and curling your thighs around his head.
His arousal climbs but the soft little gasping cries you're making as you cum has his attention.
Yes, that definitely qualifies as a mewl.
"Again?" He grins up at you pleased. You stare down your body at him, adorably bewildered. "That's my good sweetheart. A little more, ok? You're so delicious I just need to taste you. Just lie still, ok?"
He doesn't really think it's an option, since your bones seem to have melted under your skin, but knowing how independent you are he wants to give you the courtesy of thiking you have a choice.
You groan at the tender way he keeps at you, even though you have already come more times that just by oral, ever. You pray he doesn't flap his mouth to Ivy or they'll be back in competition mode and you don't think you could survive another round of that. Maybe you should just use your word, get ahead of this thing. "Baby, I—"
But then he does that thing with his tongue, just flicking lightly then flattening and flicking again. Whatever you were about to say—protest or plea— is lost in the way your throat locks on your breath and a massive shudder wracks you. The next words are basically incoherent babbling and you can't seem to stop shaking. So sexy seeing all that smart just vaporize as your body takes over, doing what it was meant to do.
Brainless.
He slips his fingers along your clit, gently because you're bound to be oversensitive by now and props himself up on one elbow to watch your face. You're staring up at the ceiling and your left breast is quivering with the hammer of your heart.
"Still with me?" He teases.
You let out a low, indecipherable sound.
"Yeah ok," he nods, dropping a kiss on the inside of your hip. "Trouble is I'm not done yet. I need more out of you before we call it quits for the night. So…gonna just have to get comfortable. You need some water?"
You shake your head a little and give a noise that's probably no. Yeah, he's still got a ways to go if you've got that much sense left.
He drops a kiss to your mound above his fingers, and then works them lower, slipping into you and parting you just slightly as his mouth closes over you again. You’re slick and swollen and tender and you jerk a bit but he’s slow and patient and persistent. He’s going to get what he wants. You’re going to give it to him. You both know it. Because he has one more word on his list.
So now you're back at the part where you're whining something silly about you can't and he's just ignoring that because he knows you can, you both feel the next one coming. And because he's using his mouth and his fingers this time the liquid rush of you races over him, warm and slippery and soaking into everything.
Ruined.
He grins, rolling off to your side. Kisses, slow and thorough pass your flavor back to you and you devour them off his tongue so enthusiastically his cock twitches again. But he's gotten what he needs. He threads your fingers together, curling his free arm around your head and drawing you in.
"All right, sweetheart." He croons, glancing up as the door knob turns, "You were so perfect for me. You did everything I asked. You can have your reward."
And then he waits to see whose tether you tugged.
AN: on Anon, you clearly unleashed the kraken on this one. I hadn’t even considered what a menace II would be, but of course he is! And he’s so good at sharing the spoils of his efforts. Now he gets to lie back and enjoy the show….
I've been playing with writing the chat out on the road following their return from Sleep's realm and this started out as a head canon and grew its own little plot, so forgive the formatting!
Summary: On the road again, the boys figure out that you have no idea how to be a girlfriend, and set out to teach you the only way they know how, post-apocalypse style
Content: 18+ (MDNI) dirty talk, dom Ivy, sweet boyfriend!II, III plays rough, Cryptid Vessel (references to: a little-light cnc, oral, and getting down with a cryptid)
WC: 1.8k
Something’s changed since you left the island. There, you were still tough, but also open like spring blossoms, your smile, your eyes, your arms, you laughed with them, teased them, reached for them as often as they reached for you. Once you're out on the road again, it’s like you fold all that in under a shell. You close. It's the only way II can think to explain it when he and Ivy are foraging for dinner. You'd started to go out yourself as soon as they'd made camp and the horses were cared for, but II took the basket gently from you and told you to sit down, relax. Go cuddle with Vess he's had a rough few days. You'd stared at him, looking confused and a little hurt?
Ivy's noticed it. You won't let him help saddle Hecate, or even give you a leg up. When it's your turn to do dishes you decline help. Hell, the fact that you insist on taking a turn at all boggles him. You do your own laundry, even though III teased you that he's had plenty of practice washing blood out of clothes after Big Teeth was finished. When Vess just needs to put his arms around someone and seeks you out, you buzz about instead, making sure he's had water, and food.
They want to respect your boundaries, so they let you be. Maybe you’re just nervous about being off island again. Given time, you'd relax, feel safe out in the world with them. But after a week or two you're dropping into your bed roll exhausted, or snapping at them and then bursting into tears of apology. You’re retreating from them.
It's II who puts it together, of course. "She doesn't know how to be a girlfriend."
You're in your bedroll, alone again, and they’ve gathered for an informal meeting out of earshot on the other side of the horses. He tells them about your date and wanting to be a girlfriend.
They all stare at him. Even Vessel looks up from singing to a hill of sparkly ants that have begun to form patterns in response to his voice that almost resemble runes. He's still a little gone some days, but that's probably to be expected.
"Clever, mate." III nudges Vessel. "Now focus. II explain.”
"She'd never been on a date before the world went to shit. And she's been taking care of herself ever since. She doesn't know how to do it."
"Do what?" III snorts.
"Let us take care of her." Idiot goes unspoken but III flips him off anyway.
"That's the dumbest thing—"
"Careful what you say next." Ivy mutters. It's so obvious when he looks at it that way. "Ok, so how do we change that?"
"We show her." II grins.
Ivy stops offering. He just does. Hecate is saddled in the morning before you finish breakfast. He takes your bowl when you're done and tells you gruffly to go away when you try to help wash up.
He leans on the dom thing you seem to like so much and if you argue he just stares and asks if you would like to change your answer. If you keep insisting you can handle it he takes whatever you have out of your hands and you by the back of the neck, then directs you to the nearest flat surface. Turns out you don't argue so well with his dick in your mouth…or anywhere else for that matter. You never tap out, or use your word, so he considers it a win.
II just talks to you. It works for everything else. When he takes your laundry and you protest, I can do it, he smiles and kisses your nose. I know you can, but I like doing things for you. It makes me feel good and you like making me feel good right? You flush, because of course your mind goes to sex, which none of them are getting enough of with you while you're in Miss Independent mode. While you're still recovering he starts toward the hot water bucket. Then let me do it. He calls over his shoulder.
The moment you sit down at the end of the day he breaks out the maps and starts asking what you know about the area. While you talk, he pulls off your boots and takes one foot and the other into his lap. Before long you're not talking anymore. It's the only thing besides a row of orgasms that will reduce you to a drooling, limp mess and he uses ruthlessly. The rest of them deal with the horses and dinner and camp, smiling as you groan softly in that way that means someone's getting some tonight. And II's generous with the spoils of his efforts, he always shares. You're useless for just about anything after he and Ivy have their way with you, you've never slept so well in your life as you do those nights. Usually someone has to nudge you awake in the morning—when everything's done and it's time to ride out of, of course.
III goes the opposite direction entirely. You want to work? Fine. He's just going to overload you, but with a twist that somehow always ends with you in his bedroll when his watch shift is done.
Unload these. He dumps saddle bags at your feet. You open them to discover a pack of what passes for wild strawberries these days, those wicked-fishhook thorns removed and cleaned with a little note in that perfect script eat these by the time I get back or be ready to run. When he gets back your eyes are on him, the last strawberry in your fingers. They are your favorite. He knows you like to savor them. You meet his eyes and slide it between your lips. He grabs for the balaclava he always keeps in his back pocket with a feral grin. Run, Bunny.
While you're cleaning the guns again, he bumps Ivy's semi-automatics aside for the massive 375. This next. You groan because you were almost done. Plus you don't know what he's doing with the revolver but there appears to be something jammed into the empty chambers. You pop open the cylinder and scraps of paper poke out of each chamber. You unroll the first. You smell good after I fuck you in the trees. The second I like how you sound when you beg for more. The third, sometimes I want to fuck you awake. The fourth, I'd like to fuck you till you pass out. The fifth, still the prettiest tits I've ever seen. The sixth. Think ii's stretched you out enough for me to try? That night you crawl in between him and Ivy and try. It goes very well by all accounts.
After a long day in the rain, having to skirt the trail to avoid some strange powdery substance that seemed to be rendering things unconscious before consuming them, you're all filthy. III hands you the soap and a towel and marches you to the thermal springs that makes this place worth the effort. Ivy wants to eat out tonight. Go clean up. You stare, blinking innocently and drop the fucking soap. Good thing Ivy likes how you taste after III's come in you.
Vessel struggles the most. He has the least positive association with that word of all of them. Girlfriend conjures someone who’s barely there, who he can’t ever hope to please no matter how hard he tries. He knows what II means, he just doesn’t know what it feels like without a sense of not being good enough. And he doesn’t want that with you. He wants what they started in the farmhouse, what it grew into on the island. You, moving between them with an ease and joy and so much pleasure, finding parts of yourself in each of them, safe to reveal and explore them. Provider. II says to him. Vessel straightens, startled. II flinches because Vess has one of the neon green orb weavers spooling her web over his fingers in intricate starburst patterns. Don't let that thing bite you. II sighs. You'll be glowing in the dark for a week. Vessel looks mournful and the little spider waves her forelimbs at II as if offended by the thought. Vessel helps her onto her branch and bows a little, watching her retreat to the little gourd shaped hollow lined in silk beside her beautiful web. It shines and flickers and insects seem to be helpless but to fly into it. They tuck their wings and antenna and seem content as she emerges to encase them in silk. He admires the spiderweb rings adorning his fingers. II just stares at him. He's back and more grounded after their visit to Sleep's realm, but also a little weirder. Physically he seems bigger somehow, the way he was after he'd started hitting the gym regularly before the last tour. And II's pretty sure he's caught those extra eyeholes glowing on occasion, even with no sign of the rest of Big Teeth for weeks.
Provider, Vessel repeats staring at the arachnid. II nods, warily, unsure he's been understood.
So Vessel builds blanket forts. At least, III calls them that jokingly, but it catches on.
On nights that their camp allows Vessel retreats to a cozy, high place with his bedroll and yours, a bit of wire he's scavenged, some old drapes. He really leans into it when they opt to stay in a safe house for a couple of days. That's when the pillows come in and blankets, textures that he thinks will feel good on your bare skin. Like the orb weaver he creates lures with things strange or interesting or beautiful, flower petals that shine with chrome like iridescence, a train of light up bugs that blinks along a path, singing beetles were a choice. It seems silly but it works. II doesn't bother to tell Vessel he was really thinking more like the "ride or die, secret insider" part of the song. The others watch you disappear up rafters or dilapidated stairs, a rope later or vines like you're under a spell. When you arrive Vessel is waiting, hand extended. Sometimes he has fruit or a new fungi for you to try, or a strange leaf or bug to show you. And then you disappear into that cocoon of bedding and phosphorescent jar lamps and don't emerge until Vessel starts his turn at the watch or sometimes after dawn. The sounds you make as he consumes you each time make them long to see what happens in that tiny little space between worlds. But that's between you and Vessel. And maybe, II thought that one time when Vessel's glance skated over the others before following you into the nest and all six eye slits lit up in your wake, the thing in his chest that isn't just teeth, after all.
okay question, are u able to write fluff/hurt/comfort or whatever but in the pov of someone younger? like yes i am legally an adult (19 so i barely feel like an adult) yet i often struggle to put myself in the pov of a character that is older (not that old like late 20’s to 30’s).
maybe it’s imposter syndrome who knows lol
but anyways, if you can write sum (totally keep it area eden core because it’s sick as fuck!!!) where the pov is someone younger and the relationships with the vessels (for whoever you choose to include) are platonic that would be awesome sauce.
it could be one of them teaching the reader how to hunt!
or maybe some creature hurt the reader and they got so scared :( but one of the vessels (or all of them) takes care of their wound and makes them feel better, or make something up that you think works the best!!!
(again you totally do not have to i just love your writing and the whole apocalyptic vibe you’ve got going on!!!)
Ok so some of you might have feelings about this, but honestly the first thought was that I already have (had) a younger character that all the Vessels and Hesperides loved platonically (familial? I dunno). And I know I keep bringing her back for things, but it's been mostly as a plot device. Seems only fair to tell this one from her POV.
Content: animal death, blood, minor wounds, animal attack, post-apocalypse induced despair, stitches. (4k)
This is how you learn to survive.
You've watch them as the group of you slowly works its way north. You watch closely, carefully, because they are literally all you have but also because you love them, which sometimes feels like the same thing, but you loved them long before they were your everything and it feels important to understand the difference.
You try to help, try to anticipate the best ways. Sometimes it works. Sometimes you just wind up in the way.
Unlike mum, they talk to you whenever they can, so you know it's not your fault when they snap or yell at you. And they try to teach you, even as they are learning and making mistakes.
Ivy showed you how to set a snare and gut a fish. He drew the line at teaching you how to skin things.
So you go to III for that. III takes you aside with a brace of giant tough shelled rats and a couple of very sharp knives. Then shows you how to do the bloody business, and tucks you into his side when you cry. He tells you that you did a find job helping cook and and put them out for people and that would be more than enough. But when you wipe your face and hold out a hand, he gives you the sharpest blade and shows you where to make the first cuts. At the end, his eyes are a little shiny and his nose flushed but he nods and inspects your work, pointing out a few places you left a patch of hair or took three cuts where one would have done.
"Nice work, girlie." He drags you under one arm. "Make a pioneer out of you yet."
That's what they all call it, to make what is less scary. You're pioneers.
"Like Oregon Trail," One of the guys who'd been in the pit the night the world ended had said, "only we're more likely to get eaten by trees than die of dysentery. Would kill for some oxen and a wagon, though."
The size of the group has been changing, you pick up stragglers here and there from burned out settlements or camps that were run through by trappers or militia. You loose a few to trees or predators, or just human stupidity. You've been about stable at sixteen for a while, which is large enough that you're not easy pickings, but still a lot of mouths to feed.
Somebody said Canada had always been nicer anyway, so that was the generic destination, though mostly because no where else seemed certain.
One thing you know for sure is how hard it is, just keeping everyone alive, and fed. Especially constantly on the move. Beer bellies and that "extra ten pounds" are gone now, people are starting to look hollowed out. You spend most of the time you aren't moving around scavenging.
Those oversized rats weren't the best eating, but bringing down something bigger took work since game was still scarce and avoided humans.
"I want to go too." You told III as the group headed out to hunt checked their rifles.
"Ok." III ignores Ivy's frown and the subtle shake of II's head.
Crys looks up from tucking extra rounds into her hip pouch. "Babe, you really should just—"
"She can go." III says firmly.
"You're not serious." Crys stares at him.
"She needs to learn." III says, slinging his rifle across his back.
"She's thirteen!"
"She can skin it and cook it, why can't she take it down?" He countered without looking away from checking his water and extra rounds. "She's been killing it at targets. Could always use another sharp shooter."
"Targets!" Crys yelps.
He and Ivy exchanged a glance.
"Crys anything could happen." Ivy says quietly.
Crys' face goes bright pink and for one terrifying moment you're afraid Crys, the most level-headed one is going to cry.
"Come on, Songbird." Ivy drops a hand on Crys' shoulder, squeezes. "Won't be the hardest thing we have to do."
Crys nods.
You break up into groups. The couple from Section 1, who bonded over being in the same seat a row apart at the show, take one of the techs with a pretty good aim. You go with Crys, Ivy and III.
Aster doesn't approve, but she keeps her mouth shut. She checks your straps, makes sure you're not carrying any extra weight. Kisses your forehead and tells you to stay close to III, no matter what happens. "Somebody has to look after his big dumb ass."
"Heard that." III mutters, but he leans down obediently for her to check his straps too and makes brushing a tear off her cheek look like he's picking at pie needles in her hair.
Before you head out you find Uncle Vess, sitting on a big bolder a little apart from the group. His mask is up for once and you know it makes Aster happy to see he's getting a little sun.
"Hey, Cuckoo Bird." His hand reaches out.
"Hey Spider Fingers." You match your fingertips to his, or try to. No one can quite do it, even III.
"Going hunting?"
"Yep." You try to sound confident as you shuffle the rifle on your back around, attempting to find a comfortable spot for it so you can sit beside him.
In the end he has to help, handling the firearm gingerly around you. He's never been good with guns. Knives either. Or clubs, or bows, or any other weapon he's tried. But he doesn't need one. Not really. Because by the time things get so bad they need him, it's beyond such things. And you know how powerful he can be, when he needs to.
"Gonna bring down a big one." You say, confidently. "Ten pointer."
He nods without speaking and squints out over the hazy distance. It's going to be a clear day, and warm.
"Vess?"
"Yeah, Bird."
"Can you bless us? Do you think?" You whisper. "I know you don't believe in that kind of thing, don't think you're….that kind of thing. But you know, Sleep. He hears you. Maybe you could just, say a nice word over us."
He looks at you and for the first time you wish he was wearing the mask because his eyes are sad. "We must embrace what Eden provides, Cuckoo."
You nod, biting your lip. He's been on about it for weeks. It's time. Eden provides.
He's got folks talking about the fungi again, studying which ones the animals are eating. A couple of fans—section 2, row 1 seats 24 and 25 are experienced with mushrooms and are pretty sure they've identified a few species that are probably safe to eat. But most are still dead set against it. The animals are changing. Marisol, the nurse says its still safer eating flesh than the shimmer world plants directly.
We're all in permanent Keto, Crys sighs as she stirred another stew. This one watery and gamey, but everyone was too damn hungry to argue.
Vessel doesn't argue. He is firm and patient. You don't know how to tell him you're frightened, too. You don't want to turn into a bush, or grow wings, or horns or a tail. You want to be you, and you want him to be him, and Ivy and III and II and Aster and Crys and Lippy too. Though you wouldn't mind if Eden gave Lippy back her sight. She's learning to get by without it, but seeing her cry when she falls down or drops something breaks your heart.
"Ok, Vess." You whisper, hating the way your voice wobbles like a kid.
You're almost on your feet when he reaches out. You give him your palm and he flips it, cradling it in one of his. With his index finger he traces a series of lines and arcs across yours. It tickles, but you hold still, don't even breathe until it's finished.
When he lets you go he folds his hands in his coat, as though he's ashamed of them.
"See you later, Uncle Vess."
"Goodbye, Cuckoo Bird."
***
You're hungry and thirsty and tired, but you don't say anythig. You didn't think hunting would involve so much walking, or climbing, or waiting.
But when it happens, everything happens at once.
III rises from crouching, fingers trailing in dust you don't recognize but he seems to know are tracks. He holds up to fingers, points left.
Crys is quiet. She drops her rifle from her shoulder. He points right. She hesitates, a glance at you. III meets your eyes and jerks his head.
Ok, you're with him. Yes.
III always takes the shots. You're going to learn from the best.
Crys's mouth tightens but she doesn't argue. You don't know if she's mad that he's taking you or worried that you might miss the shot. They're all hungry. But she and Ivy will be backups, if there's a second shot, they'll take it.
You fall in beside III, matching his careful, quiet stride, the slow purposeful way he un-shouldered his rifle. Low ready, check the load, move slowly. Never hurry.
You'd been following a creek through a patch of trees down a rocky slope and now it floods the low end of a clearing forming a shallow, marshy pool. You can see the tracks now, clearly around the edge, and you get excited. Elk. That will feed a lot of people. Your mouth waters. You control your breathing, stay calm.
Then you round the corner and everything stops. A herd of young bull elk—a dozen at least—dot the meadow, but they're not like anything you'd seen in the wildlife glossary II had brought you when he and Ivy went into the bookstore in Bellingham. These are a pale green, with darker heads and legs, and vines for tails. Their ears are massive leaves, and blossoms crown the base of their antlers. Each has antlers that reach straight upward from a nearly horizontal base, like candle holders on the fancy table setting at the place mum used to clean before she got the gig on the road.
You’re so stunned you can’t move. They’re like something out of a fairy tale book. All stately and majestic and completely unreal. Eyes like river stones, polished and wet and striated.
They're beautiful.
"Ah shit." III mutters.
The first tear runs down your cheek.
It's not fair that you all should be starving to death and wandering, that the people you love most in the world can't do the thing they love because they're trying to keep everyone alive. And here are these beautiful, perfect, impossible creatures.
The salty wet streak intensifies, tickles your nostrils. The inside of your nose is hot, itchy.
"Annie…"
You sniffle. Loudly.
Twelve antlered heads go up at once, twenty four river stone eyes fixing on you and III. That's when you remember the book's warning. Elk are territorial and dangerous, especially young males.
"Annie." III slings his rifle down as a few began to paw and snort, and another rattles its antlers. "Run."
You jump when the first gunshot goes off, then flinch at a second and a third. III isn't aiming. Doesn't really need to. They're headed right at you. He manages to wing one, and another, sending a spray of leaves and blood flying, but they keep coming.
"Run!" III bellows.
There's more gunfire—Crys? Ivy?
You veer toward a stand of trees. You were good at climbing trees back home. You’re halfway up the nearest trunk, looking over your shoulder for III when you realize it’s got barbs in you and you start screaming.
Ivy is there, whipping out a Bowie knife and slicing the barbs out of your palms. He gets most, but you still leave skin behind as he grips you around the waist, yanking you out of the pursuing vines.
“Goddamn clusterfuck.” he mutters as he sets you down and hefts his rifle. “Stay put.”
Where would you go? There are raging flower elk everywhere and the trees want to eat you.
Ivy charges in. He takes aim at the buck chasing Crys. He swings and fires again at another.
In a few of his big strides he's far away and you're all alone.
Aster said stay close to III. When you look for him, he's pinned against a tree in the gap between antlers and kicking madly at the buck attached to them. You shoulder your rifle. Remember Crys' lesson and fire.
The first shot misses.
The second hits dirt.
The third pings off a rock and startles the buck hard enough that one of his antler tips pierces III's arm and he screams in pain.
One shot left.
Everything in you goes quiet and calm. Eyes, breath, quiet. Squeeze. The buck's knees buckle, a dark spot appearing behind its shoulder as it groans and sinks to the ground. III looks around, spots you and grins.
Then his face changes. You've never seen III frightened, not truly. Until now.
That's when you hear the snorting and the drag of a hoof through dirt behind you. You turn your head slowly, lips mouthing, please no, please, please.
Ten yards away a buck stares at you, antlers lowering as he bellows a snort. Your rifle is empty. Crys is accross the meadow. Ivy reloading.
III screams, waving his arms. "Come get me you bastard."
But you're closer. You drop the rifle, frozen. The bull charges. You turn away and hold up a hand.
Wait, you won't remember this part until later:
About a week after, when Vessel's on watch, you'll go through his stuff, though you know you shouldn't, and find the sigil, Vessel drew: Gods.
You mouth the lyrics.
I see the gods avert their gaze from me
My fucking form is but a wreck beneath them
And you'll cry again.
But that's later.
Now, the impact you're bracing for never comes. When you open your eyes you've dropped to your knees and the bull elk stands before you, antlers lowered, nostrils wide. He's so close you can make out the texture of that fur of leaves, the rising and falling of his ribs heaving with breath that stinks of grass and spatters on your fingers. His muzzle lowers. You meet that eye, like river washed agate.
His head jerks up a second before a shot rings out. The enormous body lurches as he staggers sideways and then to his knees, rolling onto his side with an enormous groan.
III races up, throwing down his rifle to scoop you up off the grass, clutching you against his chest so hard you'll have bruises tomorrow.
"Annie girl." He keeps saying over and over, and his voice is broken.
"It's OK." You mutter numbly. "Uncle Vess blessed me."
And then you pass out.
When you wake up it's later. The entire hunting party has reassembled to deal with the three fallen elk: yours, III's and the one that must have been hit in the chaos and staggered off to die. There's a euphoric celebration tinged with panic. It's too much meat, too quickly. Some of it will spoil.
But then you start to dress them and learn that three quarters to half of each animal is actually branch and leaf and not meat at all.
"Should have taken a few more." III stares at the meager pile, a single elk's worth, all up, and none of the good organ meat with the nutrients they're all sorely lacking by now.
"Feel like tracking them down?" Chrys sighs wearily, dropping beside you.
"Fuck no." III exhales.
"That's what I fucking thought." She presses a palm to your forehead, like you might have a fever. "Come on, let's get some water in you sweetheart."
"That was a hell of a shot, love." Ivy hunkers down on your other side and offers his canteen.
You ache, your entire body one giant sore. You must have hit a rock when you fell because one knee is gashed open. Plus, your palms are raw and your face hurts. Oh, right: you pressed your cheek to the bark trying to climb in a hurry.
You can't stop the tears.
III hobbles over. He's in not much better shape, a crude bandage around his arm, scrapes on his face, and raw patches from his own time with a tree on the back of his neck and head.
He drops beside you, puts an arm around you and drags you in. That's when you give up trying to be strong, brave, an adult. This world is terrifying and even the beautiful things want to kill you.
"I want to go home, III." You plead, folding into his chest.
"Yeah, we'll get you back to camp, cook up some of this meat," he soothes. "Put you to bed with a nice full belly."
"No!" You wail, cringing at how much like a baby you sound. "Home! I want to go home. I want mum and her shithead boyfriends and my mates. I want my bed and my poster and my bunny, not that other bunny, I want my bunny, III. I hate it here. I hate this and I want to go home."
His chest shudders against you. Crys starts to murmur something comforting but he must give her a look because her words fall away.
"I know." He whispers. "I do too. I miss my dog, and my basses and the crap futon in my mum's basement. And my Switch. Wish more than anything I could take us all back there. But I don't think that place exists anymore, Annie."
You sob even harder at that. Everything hurts and if this is all there is you don't want it. Not anymore.
"I hate being alive." You scream, muffled in his soggy shirt.
Crys makes a strangled noise.
"Hey, you saved my life today, you know what that means?" III says urgently. "Means I owe you one. And I saved Crys so she owes me. And Aster saved all of us that one time so we're in deep with her. And the guy—Row 22—the engineer that kept us from crossing that shitty bridge because it was structurally unsound. We owe him too. So now we gotta stay alive, and pay each other back."
"I don't want to." You insist.
He exhales slowly and something hot and wet splashes against the top of your head.
"I know you don't, love." He says. "None of us do. But I can't let go of you, either. Any of you. And I don't think you can, either. Or you wouldn't be out here with us, trying to keep everyone alive."
A shudder runs through you and the protest gets stuck in your throat. A warm hand settles on your head. That's Ivy. You'd know his touch anywhere. Crys cups your fingers.
You don’t all make it back until well after dusk. III carries you, piggy back, the last few miles, even though he’s limping. Back at camp, everyone is thrilled at the meat and leaps to work.
"Annie love what happened." Aster races up to meet you. “III, my god what—“
“It’s all fine.” He mutters, clearly winded. “Best have Marisol take a look at our little Annie Oakley here though."
She diverts to find the nurse.
"First kill!" III shouts at her back. "Get her a big bowl when its ready. She's earned it.”
He stays, even when you’re surrounded by Aster and II, who can't stop tutting unhappily though you know it gets on III's last nerve. You need stitches, and your palms are raw and open where barbs ripped free. You stare at the bloody one while on Marisol disinfects and bandages the other, remember the feel of Vessel's fingertips drawing lines and arcs.
When you look up he’s lingering at the edge of the firelight. He’s masked and the shadow falls over his mouth.
Something Marisol does hurts and you flinch unable to catch the whimper.
"You're being very brave." II rubs your shoulder. “It's ok to cry."
He watches intently, jerking every time you wince. "Can't you give her something?"
"I don't have anything left to give." Marisol hisses the thing she won't dare say in front of the others. You realize she considers you one of them. The band, the Espera, the ones who decide. You try to stifle your whimpers, to be brave. "We need painkillers and antibiotics, II. Sylvia is coughing again."
"Maybe we try Mount Vernon or Arlington?" II levers himself up to consult his maps.
It’s not until Ivy comes over with a bowl of roasted elk that your tears fall again. Silent, heaving breaths, nearly soundless and wet.
“Aww, darling.” He settles at your other side. “This was a shit day. Won’t always be like that, I promise.”
You think of those beautiful, terrifying elk and you know that he means well, but he’s lying. This is the world now, terrifying and breathtaking all at once. You vow to never be lured into a stupor again, fooled by beauty. And if this is the world, you need to know how to survive in it. To live off of it. To be the one who gives the blessing, not the one who needs to be blessed.
“I want what Eden provides.” You say through a snotty nose.
“What?” Ivy leans back to stare at you.
"Annie—“ III protests but Ivy holds up a hand.
“I don’t want to eat, that.” You repeat, but your belly rumbles and the smell of fresh meat makes you lightheaded with hunger. “Not just that. I want what Eden provides, too.”
“Love.” Aster protests.
“No,” you shake your head. “I know what I want.”
And Vessel is just there, a bowl of some savory smelling stew in hand. He knees at your feet, offering it to you as if penitent. As if waiting for a blessing only you can bestow.
***
A/N: This turned out to be longer, with a more melancholy, lit-fic style ending than I intended, Anon. I tried to get as many of the Espera and Vessels in as possible to make up for the lack of fluff!
If it's any comfort, this really is a turning point for the survivors, because embracing "what Eden provides" (aka eating the Shimmer grown plants) makes them better able to manage this world, and they find out about the island in Mount Vernon.
I'm headed to the mountains myself for a couple of days so if I don't respond right away, just know that I'm getting MOAR inspiration and I'm grateful to you for reading.
I don't know if you'd be comfortable with writing about having kids but I give it a shot anyway:
More with inhuman vessel, when you get pregnant he just goes full beast instincts. He has a nest built and you're not allowed to leave, he's always adding more pillows to the pile, you're practically smothered in his affection all day
Only gets worse after child is born, where vessel is now in the nest too only getting up to eat and bathroom.
If you're comfy with all this you can write a small scenario about nest life with ves
Please and thank uuuuu <3
Content: Preg!Reader (and all the related symptoms); labor and delivery; breastfeeding; science goes boink!
Big Teeth notices first. Your scent has changed. But also the way your skin feels in his hands and how you feel wrapped around him. Warmer, wetter. It become more obvious when you're sleepy all the time, and when you burst into tears over the slightest thing, like when III squeezed your breast too hard and wound up across the room, pinned under Big Teeth's massive foreclaws.
holy shit mate, i was just playing with her like we usually do. III says, looking at you desperately.
You grip Big Teeth's shoulders, and he lets you pull him away, push yourself between him and III. It's ok, it just surprised me how tender I am. I don't know why...
Why what Peaches? III smirks, because everything makes sense all of a sudden.
You are silent, ignoring him. Outside you whistle for Hecate and vault astride when she gallops up. Then she shrieks sideways, almost dumping you off as Big Teeth grabs you around the waist, secondary arms clutching you to his chest.
What the fuck is the matter with you! You screech at your monster lover. I asked her to come.
No ride. He growls. Carry. Where?
You huff. You can still ride a fucking nightmare. But his gaze is firm and he won't let Hecate anywhere near you.
Clinic you sigh finally.
You do insist he stays outside, not wanting to scare the clinic staff or the patients. Flannel greets you, surprised to see you on an off day, but when you tell her what you're looking for she hustles you into an exam room, the bathroom. You stare at the white stick, then refuse to look at it, then race back. Repeat. How many minutes? How can this thing still be good after ten years in the shimmer? Even if it says...
holy shit. you whisper. FLANNIGAN!
You're crying before she gets there, the test in your shaking hand. I don't know—
But she meets your eyes. I don't care who the daddy is. it's your choice. always.
But there's no question in your heart. You are home. You are safe. You are loved. So much love. More than enough. Plenty to go around. She must read it on your face. Better come clear out my office then.
Flannigan's office is full of bodies. There are three mostly-human ones and one mostly-inhuman, still "a bit void around the edges” all waiting. II's chewing his thumbnail raw. III's pacing. Ivy is fucking with the model of the inner ear on Flannel's desk. When you open the door it clatters to the desk in pieces. All of them staring at you expectantly.
You burst into tears.
Congratulations, Daddies. Flannel sighs.
***
We're going to need a bigger den. II sighs, stretching his back as he comes downstairs.
Mostly because Big Teeth is pretty dead set against you leaving. It's fine now, you're mostly "sleepy and weepy" as Ivy so elegantly puts it. Pukey too, and Big Teeth is the only one who doesn't seem to mind, cleaning up after you without complaint. If any of them want to spend time with you they have to come upstairs, sum it to inspection and crawl into the sanctuary. They've been taking turns. Only Big Teeth is there full time. The only time he'll leave is when the Hesperides come to visit. Mostly because Aster whacked him with a shoe that time he tried to stay.
She needs girl time. She demanded. Not to be smothered by a freaking six-armed overprotective bogeyman.
Eight, II chimed in, amused. Aster appears to be the only one on the island Big Teeth might be a little afraid of. He only breaks out the final set if he really needs to move.
Aster rolled her eyes at him. When she enters the second trimester she's going to get her energy back and good luck keeping her hemmed in all day. Might need those extra arms.
Holy shit is it true. Try as he might Big Teeth can't seem to keep you pinned down. So he follows you. When you're not in the den he's your shadow. But you also get really horny and so then it's all hands on deck. He seems relieved when one of the others come up and he can crawl off into the corner to sleep.
Invariably you slow down again before the end. It's hot in August, even on the island, and you're huge. And cranky, and miserable, and swollen. That's when Big Teeth is happiest. He brings you more pillows than you know what to do with and arranges each so carefully around you, and holds you and rubs you back and rocks you and carries you from place to place. You go for walks when II insists, because Flannel insisted. Otherwise your world becomes the den. Big Teeth learns to control his own body temperature, cooling himself so that he can hold you all the time without complaint.
You go into labor and find yourself in a house full of men (and one monster) who are absolutely beside themselves and completely fucking useless.
GET FLANNEL You roar as a contraction hits. And ASTER. I want ASTER.
Then you burst into tears.
Despite a house full of unvoiced fears, the delivery goes "about the same as it always did," in Flannel's words. There is some low key squabbling over who gets to hold the baby but you growl at them all until even Big Teeth backs down. Everything hurts and you're more tired than you've ever been before and it feels like someone drove a mac truck through your body but you did it. And now you need to do what comes next—provide food, bond, show Sleep Her newest vessel.
The entire house becomes the den. Big Teeth is ruthless about who is allowed in—Vessels, Hesperides, Flannel—and who is not—anyone else. He sings now, all the time. He holds and he rocks and he nuzzles. After all, he has more than enough arms for the both of you.
And one morning, a bit after you've both settled in, you look down to see six eyes fixed on you from above the tiny mouth latched to your breast. A set of each: Denim blue, variegated green, mourning dove grey.
Well that’s unexpected.
I've given up trying to explain any of this with science. You tell Flannel on her next checkup. She has ten fingers and toes, six eyes and four daddies. Done.
And then you hand your daughter off to the nearest one and retreat to the den for a nap.
AN: Ok, I'm calling this AU just because I'm not sure where canon is going to settle yet on second-gen Vessels.
Edited to add: I’d been awake for too many hours when I finally pushed post on this, so my note was a little abrupt! Sorry. This was fun to write even though I don’t think it quite fits my cannon (Big Teeth is becoming his own little AU). I let myself get a little unhinged with the ask, having both been pregnant and am often annoyed with how it’s depicted in most media. Also, I couldn’t just leave the others out of it! Polyfam for the win!
dom!ivy anon here, i have read that ficlet so many times 😭😭😭
since you’re open to request, i would love to know when each vessel knew (and why) they wanted to “keep” spark. we know they gossip like old ladies 😂
and big teeth?! don’t get me started, i would love to see vessel and big teeth co exist more together as one (if that makes since) i love the acceptance of the vessels and spark.
Yay:) Dom!Ivy was a fun one to write.
I love this ask so much. What a lovely thing to think about.
Here's my take, which is longer than I expected it to be, mostly tooth-achingly fluffy (Eden-style) and comes with a bonus of Big Teeth and the Vessels.
Relationships: Polyvessels/Reader
Content: past children in danger, references to Big Teeth doing what he does best.
"When did you know?" II asks as he and III sit on a boulder beside the creek, ostensibly on watch.
He wipes the back of his neck with a scrap of cloth as the sun beats down on them. Fuck it's hot. Being in the mountains again makes him feel even closer to the sun, if that were possible.
You and Vessel and Sixie are in the shallow end of a rock lined pool formed in the boulder eddy, ostensibly looking out for the small pack of kids who went in to cool off and have turned it into a water fight. Except Vessel lost his footing and is now on his back in the water, flailing. You're laughing so hard you're no longer making any noise at all.
It's knee deep. Your knees.
The kids have all piled on him and Sixie is barking, dancing around you all because she approves of games that involve roughhousing.
"When did I know, what?" III is annoyed to have his afternoon amusement interrupted.
"Spark." II insists, not picking up on the hint.
III exhales sharply. What's Drummer Boy overthinking about now?
"What about her?" III gives him his full attention.
"When did you know that you wanted…" II looks out over the trees lining the creek, scanning for movement as he searches for words.
"To keep her?"
"Her to stay, with us." II rolls his eyes. "She's not a stray."
"Point of fact she was a stray." III bats his eyelashes at II and pitches his voice high. "'Can I just go along with you a few days? Till we get to a settlement, or you decide to keep me because I am so smart and feisty and adorable and have nice tits and a cute ass?'"
"Jesus." II laughs. He can't help himself.
"And we are keeping her." III grins, pleased that he's been able to pull II out of his internal yap. "Keeping her happy, keeping her satisfied, keeping her fed—so she keeps that ass— trying to keep her from doing anything stupid, and keeping her alive when she does it anyway. Pick any of those you like, drums."
"Fine." II snorts. "Answer the question."
"It was the blood that did it." III says bluntly.
He counts it as a victory when II is completely stumped. Good. That will teach him to interrupt III enjoying his new favorite show: what goofy shit will you get Vessel to do because he's so gone for you.
"You thought I was going to say when dug a bullet out of Ivy." III smirks.
"Well that would be the obvious…"
"Nah. That was just her being a doctor. Hippocratic oath and that." III rolls his eyes. "But the blood was above and beyond. She opened up her veins for him, mate. Didn't have to do that. Doesn't know when to quit giving. And I just thought, this bird is going to give everything she is to keep people alive out here. Her own fucking blood. Crazy. And it's going to get her killed because 99% of these assholes wouldn't do the same. Needs someone to have her back, make sure she doesn't go too far, and reel her back when she does. Case in point, all these damn kids."
He jerks his chin at the pool. The oldest is no more than ten, the littlest ones still need to be carried and cry when they fall down. Are all kids so freaking…kidlike? Trappers had them. Rounded them up because rumor had it some city farm was testing "cures" on exposed post-shimmer kids and paid well for subjects.
"So, fuck all if I let her die out here because she can't help herself," III says. "She's ours now. Plus she gives me shit when I'm fucking her. Real mouth on her. Gets me going. Love it."
They look up at a familiar roar as Big Teeth emerges from the pile. The kids all shriek in delight at the sight of the that impossible black spreading over his limbs, and the six lambent eyes.
They're not afraid of the monster. This is the one that came for them when the nice lady with the scar on her face tried to sneak them out of the trapper camp and got caught. He put himself between them and the men who had killed their families and he pulled those men apart, limb by limb, while the scarred lady held them close, told them, "Close your eyes. He's my guardian angel. You're safe now."
Now, he emerges from the pile of kids and the knee deep water in that Vessel-Big Teeth hybrid shape. Mostly human, or as Ivy puts it "a bit void around the edges," six-eyed, only two extra limbs. Enough to gather most of the littlest ones up as he rises to his far more agile feet.
II wonders if he settles in that shape because they associate it with the night he brought Annie to them. Maybe it's his way of signaling that he's safe.
Vessel shakes, spraying you all in water, and as the tiny feather scales on his shoulders tremble the light flickers around them, like an inhuman disco ball.
"What about you?" III turns on II. "When'd you know?"
II shifts a little. He's still not sure this is the right thing, keeping you, taking you with them. Kinda still wishes you were on the island, safe. Because even after the talking he'd given to you about waiting to follow the trappers away from the settlement before going in for the kids, you'd still went off on your own to take care of it. If Vessel hadn't gone Big Teeth and taken off when he did…
II doesn't want to think about it. Turns out you're no better than the rest of them at not doing something stupid when there are lives on the line.
He's saved from having to answer when Ivy's nightmare pushes through the brush to the creekside, one of the older kids riding behind him.
Vessel lets you go and you charge through of the water, wading through the creek to the other side to meet Ivy as he slides down.
They all feel the white ribbon ripple with relief and Ivy's answering cord draw tight. Then you're in Ivy's arms and off your feet.
"Come on." III nudges II and clambers down. "Let's deal with the horses and camp so Ivy can teach someone a lesson about running off to be the hero."
When they reach you two, Ivy's got you tight and your ribs shake.
"Yeah, girl. It's good." Ivy murmurs in your hair as II grabs the bridle. Ivy gives him a grateful nod, mouthing over your head. Dealt with. They're done.
And then he turns his full attention on you, gripping the back of your neck.
"Look at me, girl." He demands, rough. His eyes are hard and his jaw tight.
You're barely able to meet his gaze. "I'm sorry, Veasy. I know I should have waited. I just couldn't let them—"
"You did good." He says, dragging your mouth to his. "Real good."
"Fucking christ," II mutters.
Someone has to keep you, all right. Because III's right, and Ivy's an enabler.
***
A few hours later II's at the fire keeping dinner warm in camp. III has watch and heads out on a perimeter patrol with Sixie. God only knows where Vessel is off to. II suspects he keeps his own watch these days. But he's actually looking less haggard. And has put on a few pounds, which is a good sign. Whatever agreement he's made with Big Teeth is working out, so who is II to argue?
Except II misses the few hours they spent together in one's bedroll or another. Mostly just talking, sometimes making out, or sleeping.
It's well after dark and most of the kids are asleep when you and Ivy wander back through from the deeper pool downstream they'd used for bathing. You're both damp around the edges and Ivy has an arm around your collar. Good. Somebody needed to show you there are consequences for going off plan.
Ivy sends you to bed with one final forehead kiss. Doesn't matter how rough things get with him or III, you always get forehead kisses.
On your way past the fire you tangle fingers briefly with II. "Night, love."
"Night, sweetheart."
Ivy drops beside the fire with a contented grunt, flinging his long legs out in front of him and twisting his spine until it pops satisfyingly.
II hands him a cup of stew and a hunk of bread. They'd had time this afternoon for him to do a quick cornbread and Ivy grins, leaning over to drop a kiss on his head.
"Goddamn, you are a marvel." Ivy chuffs, ripping off a chunk. "Best fucking thing I've ever tasted. Best bread in the whole goddamn world."
Oh yeah, whatever you two got up to at the creek must have been good with you, because Ivy's rarely so effusive. You're so good for them. All of them.
"When did you know?" II asks after he's had a moment to eat.
"This about keeping Spark?" Ivy's brows lift. He's prepared. III must have warned him between moving downstream and setting up camp.
II nods.
"When we left her behind." Ivy says bluntly. "I walked way from her. She's so strong, you know. Had to pry those little fingers off and it broke my heart. Hardest thing I ever did and I knew it was wrong. Decided if we made it back to the island, I wasn't leaving her again. Didn't care if what Vessel said was the right thing to do. I love the guy but he didn't know tits from an asshole some days, especially when Sleep was wringing his neck. You?"
II shakes his head, jabbing at the fire. They both look up at movement from the brush. It's too early for III to be back from watch.
But it's just Big Teeth. As he moves closer to the fire he rises on to hind legs, going blurry in a mess of shadows that seem to absorb even the flickering light of the fire until what's more-or-less Vessel approaches slowly, as if he's trying not to scare them.
He nods, and hunkers down across the fire. He still seems vast in some indefinable way, and the void dark moves away from the center of his chest it fades to his edges. All six eyes blink in alternating. The rest of his face is human enough, jaw, ears, shaggy hair full of whorls. He stares at his hands and the claws retract—sort of. He shakes them, annoyed, but they don't fully disappear.
"You don't have to do that, Boss," Ivy says before II can. "We're ok with it if you feel like staying the other way."
"I can't stay that way fully for long." Vessel says finally, his voice almost normal. "It's easier to be somewhere in between than on either end. I just can't always control which side of center I wind up on."
Ivy nods accepting that with an ease II still finds challenging. He can't stop thinking Big Teeth is something else.
"Hungry?" II offers.
"Nah…I uh…" Vessel says simply. "I ate."
What? II drops his gaze as his stomach squeezes. Is that thing hunting in Vessel's body? Making him eat whatever it catches. He doesn't look to troubled by it.
"Go to bed, Blue." Ivy nudges him, a glance at your bedroll in a suggestion. "I'll clean up. Chat at the Boss here a bit about the plan for tomorrow. Got a lot of bodies to keep track of, and if this shit about the bounty on kids is true, we need to move fast out of TahomaPower territory."
II takes the excuse.
***
In the morning, Vessel's mostly back to normal, except for the eyes. They watch you at the creek bed with the kids, handing out toothbrushes from your never ending stash and squeezing out pea sized drops from one of the tiny tubes of toothpaste. Vessel's stash is finally coming in handy.
"She's kind of neurotic about the teeth thing, eh?" His slow smile unfurls as you model for the little ones.
"Oh you're one to talk," II chides. "You and your Big Fucking Teeth. We're a cavalcade of weird shit. Let her have her thing, mate."
"I am, I'm not…" Vessel lets the protest drift away. He was. A little. "Hey. You and I. We good?"
"Yeah." II says automatically.
When Vessel meets his eyes, he sees the question in it —really?
II takes his hand, lacing their fingers together. "I'm getting used to it, ok?"
"It's me, it's always been me. In me." Vessel frowns. "Just given shape."
"I know, you said that." II says. "Thing is, we've been treating it like some kind of monster, a parasite. And now we know it's you, and that's all well and good intellectually, but…I'm trying, ok?"
Vessel rests his chin on his knees and all six eyes slide shut.
"When did you know?" II asks to distract him.
Six eyes open slowly, fixing on him.
"Spark."
Vessel blinks.
"That you…that she belonged us." II says.
"Always." Vessel answers, a little distantly, dreamily. "Even when I didn't know it yet."
"Very helpful, vess." II snorts, sighing. What did he expect out of their resident dreamer? He should probably consider himself lucky it didn't come out in verse.
Vessel looks wounded for an instant, then he gives a sly grin that reminds II of the old days. "When she came up from your bed and brought me into hers, warm from your hands and with your scent on her skin. I wanted to taste every place you had touched her."
Ok, that's more like it.
And then he goes on, "I thought, this woman is meant for us. Her body moves between us like air, and water and sunlight, her heart a divine element, meant to bind us together. We have been given the ordinance to tend to her. It's our purpose."
"I thought killing offerings was our purpose." II sighs.
"Nothing lasts forever." Vessel smiles as if for once this truth gives him peace. "And you, my lover? When did you know?"
"I don't, Vess." II allows him to see the worry in his heart. "I don't know. I still think maybe it's wrong to have her here. Look at us. Look at this. Is she meant for this? Are we? What the fuck kind of happiness are we supposed to find out of living like this?"
He stares around them, the broken down camp. Saddled horses. Somehow they're going to have to get eight kids across a world deadly and strange to an island where they might find some peace.
"We're back where we started." II mutters, thinking of those early days trudging north. "Nothing changes."
"Ah, but everything has changed." Vessel puts an arm around him, curves long fingers under his chin. "Look at who we are now."
Ivy has swooped into the tooth brushing, doing "inspections" and sending those that pass on to help III. He's grinning. When it's your turn he drags you in, kisses you stupid and pronounces you minty fresh. The kids left standing around all screech in delight when he sets you back on your feet and turns you loose with a rear slap. Then he calls to the two eldest to help him with the horses and shows them how to manage tack and dodge teeth.
You shake your head, grinning as you pack and portion out the supplies into saddle bags and packs so that even if you should have to split up everyone will have enough until you can find each other.
III has more help than he knows what to do with and camp breaks down quickly while he and Sixie do tricks to amuse their little worker bees. You bring the bags to him and he rests a forearm on your head, pretending to lean his weight on you until you tickle his ribs and he howls, squirming away. "Woman!"
"How often has III laughed on the road?" Vessel asks. "Ivy is teaching again. He's very good at it." He leans in, eyes narrowed. "You sang to Spark last night."
II's face heats. When your best friend and lover can fill a stadium with the sound of his voice you'd probably just better stick to banging it out on your kit. But you'd told him you liked his voice and so sometimes, he let you talk him into using it.
"Uncle Vess, Uncle II, clean!!" A small bright-eyed figure drops in front of them. It bares a respectable set of teeth at them, canines sharp as little pointed ears twitch and shake in excitement. "Clean?"
You wander through, catching the small set of shoulders. "Horses or packs, what's your job this morning?"
"Packs!" The kid barks and races away.
You glare down at Vessel and II, hands on hips. "Are you taking the morning off?"
Vessel reaches up one long arm to your waist, dragging you down onto his lap. "I am talking sense into our beloved, Lighthouse. Please explain to him what happiness we might find out here. In this world."
"Together?" You settle against his chest, fingers threading through the long hairs behind his head.
Your opposite fingertips settle on his forehead and he closes his eyes as they pass over each set, opening them again to fix on you. It's a new little game you and Big Teeth have devised. His addition is the kiss to the tips of your fingers when they reach his mouth…and the little play bite that makes you glare at him.
You look very serious, very thoughtful for a moment, grimace a little, then you lean over and kiss II full on the mouth.
"Every fucking happiness there is." You promise, drawing back but cupping his cheeks. "And double on Sundays."
"Hey! I thought Ivy was your boyfriend!" One of the kids demands. "OOOH, she's kissin' Uncle II."
"Is she now?" Ivy laughs. "Good. He looks like he could use it, grumping around all morning."
The kid stares then looks at you, clearly replaying the last 24 hours and seeing you all exchanging affection and touches. "Are they all…your boyfriends?"
"Alas, they are." You sigh extravagantly, levering yourself up off Vessel's lap. "And they're stuck with me."
A half hour later it looks like there was no camp here at all. Helped, no doubt by the little conversation Ivy had with the nearby walking trees whose roots have no begun to erase any final traces of your stay.
It's a long day of walking. The vessels alternate riding point, putting the kids up in pairs on the remaining nightmares or occasionally their shoulders. There's squabbling and crying and an accident or two. You and III have the most patience with the little ones. Ivy is good at keeping the older ones who are restless busy, and they seem to like being treated like his assistants. Big Teeth spends the day patrolling and scouting around the edges of the group.
The littlest one starts puking the following morning and has a fever by sunset. Just a little bug, you assure an anxious Ivy. Big Teeth nests and purrs around you both all night. The fever breaks in the morning.
Still, you spend the day after riding with the still recovering child. II stays close to Hecate, rifle at ready. He looks up at the sound of your voice. Your spine sways easily with the horse's motion in that way that usually gets him going. But the kid is passed out, mouth open, seven little fingers tangled in the braid of your hair. You're humming, a bit drowsy from being up most of the night, and it takes him a moment to recognize the song. Telomeres. The spike of want settles into something softer, broader.
You catch II watching and smile sleepily, reaching out. He laces your fingers lace together and brings your knuckles to his lips.
"I love you." You whisper so as not to wake the little one.
He wonders briefly what it would be like if the little one on your chest was theirs. Not on the road, not like this.
Nah.
But once the offerings are returned to sleep and VIC burned to the ground, they could all spread out in a big white farmhouse on a hill over looking the sea, the lights of St. Bernadine flickering on in the distance as the sun goes down. Vessel inside at the piano. Ivy and III in the kitchen making a mess out of dinner because II won't be bothered to leave the porch swing beside you when you're singing lullabies to the small body who insists its too early bedtime. However many-eyed and -limbed would be just fine. He only wants them healthy, and knowing they are loved.
This, II thinks. This is the moment.
He's keeping you. Forever.
A/N: II is my hopeless romantic. Of course he's dreaming of happily ever after first.
Sleep Token (Band) x Annihilation (2018 Garland)
Relationships: Polyvessels | Polyamorous II/III/IV/Vessel (Sleep Token)/OFC, BAMF III/Ivy
Tags:
18+ (MDNI - FTLOG) Violence and gore, messy post-apocalypse found family, gruesome death by cannibals mentioned, gallows humor, loads of angst and eventual smut, unhealthy apocalypse coping mechanisms, Brown Girl Coded OFC, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, no AI we write like the horny messy humans we are
Full tag list on AO3
Summary: After losing everyone she’s cared about in a world she no longer recognizes, the strangest and most dangerous people this survivor encounters may be the four masked men hunting their ghosts in the name of a deity called Sleep. They are monster killers following a broken prophet through a nightmare, searching for a dream they once shared. With their neverending quest threatening to tear them apart, will her presence be the catalyst they need to stitch themselves together before the Shimmer swallows them all whole?
Notes: As I'm seventeen twenty-two chapters and 270k into this beast, now seemed like a good time to reliably cross post it.
Chapter One: Vore (6.8K)
June, 2032
Of all the ways I expected my clock to run down at the end of the world, getting stuck between a cannibal and a monster wasn’t anywhere on the list. Just goes to show that you never see the strangest things coming. Because here I am, throwing all my weight into the door at my back while bracing my feet against the perpendicular wall getting ready to make what might be my last move.
My quads scream with the effort as whatever is on the other side of the door presses back. I’d only caught a glimpse of it, but that was enough to know I definitely don’t want it on this side.
Which is saying a lot, because this side is also the one with the cannibal. That's the greasy, T-shirt-wearing tub of human lard in the gore-stained apron with the scary-looking knife and the stun bar slowly closing the distance.
His whole look should be comical, like a bad cosplay of an old horror movie. But for weeks, I’d watched this man in that apron do unspeakable things to my pod, all while extolling the virtues of a survival ethos. I can assure you there is nothing hilarious about it.
The only reason I'm still alive is because Drax gave up my secret and made me eligible for conversion, rather than a spot on the menu. It meant I got to watch all the friends I'd spent the last two years staying alive with become the personal larder for a group of cannibals. At nearly 6'7", Drax had been a former athlete. They'd saved him for last, attempting to starve and demoralize him, but they underestimated him in the end. When they came to take him, he put up so much of a struggle that Charlie the Cannibal here called for someone to bring me up, to "encourage him" to submit.
I was out of my cage, in the middle of it all, when radios started going off at once. Between the static bursts came the sounds of commotion outside the compound —screams and gunfire—caused by whatever the thing on the other side of the door is, I’m guessing. The remaining cannies started running around in a panic, grabbing guns and shouting about a monster.
I caught Drax’s eye as the human keto fiends on butchering duty gave up trying to 'preserve the quality of the meat' and went at him. Saw him mouth the word. Run. Then he went down in a spray of blood I’ll never unsee.
I ran. I even managed to get hold of a crossbow, which is now shaking in my hands. It’s the only thing holding off Charlie the Cannibal while I try to keep the thing on that side for a few more seconds.
“Come on, little girl. Come home to old Charlie.”
Oh, you thought I made up that bit alliterating Charlie’s name. Just me being clever? Ha. Joke's on you.
“Thanks, but I forgot I have an appointment.” The words escape my gritted teeth. My knees ache, ankles screaming. Just a little longer.
“You don’t want what's on that side, do you, girl?” He shows a set of ragged, gingivitis-ridden teeth. Gross. “No telling what it’ll do to a little thing like ya. Tear you apart. I’ll keep ya safe, protect ya.”
Yeah, thanks, C. I’ll pass. My knees knock against each other.
“Not like you got much choice now, girl.” He snarls. “Put that damned thing down and we'll get that door barred and get you back where you belong.”
The veneer is gone. That didn’t take long. It never does out here. Ari always says, give um thirty seconds and they’ll show you whether they’ll eat you or fuck you to death.
Said.
Ari said.
They finished her three days ago. Tried to make me partake, but I refused. We may have hated each other most days, but we’d kept each other alive for nearly two years. It wasn’t her fault we ended up in this shithole. Welcome to the Shimmer, where nothing goes as planned.
I slip my finger off the stock to the trigger. I can do this. One bolt was all I had time to load before I managed to get the door closed between it and me and Charlie caught up. One bolt, two monsters. One was all I needed. I hope. If not, I hope one of them makes it quick.
“Girl!” Charlie’s bellow almost makes me shoot too soon.
But he takes the step I needed him to, past the point of no return.
I tuck my knees in and drop like a stone, bringing my hands up to shield my head. Good thing, because the door slams into my shoulder and neck hard enough to make me see stars, forcing me into the corner as the monster charges through.
The thing is massive and it makes an awful grinding noise as it slithers through the opening, long insect-like forelimbs working in concert with the tiny legs to propel it forward startlingly fast. It sets eyes on Charlie first.
Before he has time to lift the bolt gun, it’s on him, centipede tail cinching around him as those tiny little legs spear his flesh. As it passes, I watch the two antennas from its waist swivel and snarl needle-like teeth. I didn’t get a good look at the head, but from behind, it’s a spiny mass of chitinous plates with two slender horns.
The head snakes down and Charlie’s screams end in bloody gurgles trailing off to the mashing of wet flesh. Then it slithers down the hallway and disappears inside. I hear screaming and gunfire.
Get it together, Sparky.
My entire pod is dead. My stuff is gone. I have no idea where I am. But Drax wanted me to get out and, goddamnit, I’m going to get out.
If the monster forced its way in through here, it means the outer guard has fallen. I have a shot at freedom.
My body is weak from inactivity and malnutrition and the door to the head didn't help matters. I shove to my feet, leaning into the doorframe. The distant rush of briny air fills my lungs lungs. Goddamn, I’m so fucking close. I stagger through what must have been a packing floor and the associated machinery, tripping over a stack of metal tins and sending them clattering to the floor.
A canning facility. Fitting. I'm halfway through the packing room when the sound I'd hoped to never hear again echoes behind me.
The monster emerges, gore dripping from its mandibles. Its head is disturbingly humanoid, but the sockets where eyes should have been are empty. Not as if it was blinded, but as though there had never been eyes at all. I know what this thing is.
An apex.
Unlike most of the new creatures that appeared after the world shimmered, there is nothing beautiful about these bastards. It looks like something from a child’s nightmare, crudely formed and impractical for anything but inciting terror. It screams, and that sound makes me want to run from freedom, right into the cage I’d left behind and lock the door.
Instead, I think of Drax, Ari, Mutton, SloMo, and the others, and I fucking run. My legs shake and buckle, my heart galloping all out. I fling my body out the dim packing room into what must be a loading bay, the cargo bay doors open to the grey overcast drizzle of a Pacific Northwest June. I don’t stop running, because that thing is tearing through the factory behind me, gaining speed, screeching.
Daylight fills my bleary eyes with tears, the flat grey is still somehow bright, and I stumble over my own feet. When had I last seen daylight? My eyes are used to darkness and camp lanterns. I scan the silent, empty shipping yard strewn with bodies. I head for the gaping maw in the chain link fence where the monster had presumably torn through. The crossbow feels ridiculous. I want a machine gun. But based on the bodies and the amount of spent shells, even the assault rifles the cannies had stockpiled hadn’t done much good.
Ok. New plan. Hiding spot. I’m too exposed.
It skitters through the cargo bay doors, rearing back onto its centipede legs, longer front limbs waving.
Not gonna lie, part of me wants to turn and stop right there. Just surrender. Seven years running. Everyone I know is dead. No one lasts long out here alone. Not anymore.
But running is what I do best, so I keep going—ok, mostly slipping and falling—toward the nearest weapon anyway. I yank the assault rifle from a cannie corpse, shaking loose the remains of a hand still attached to it.
The thing is right behind me. No more running. I roll onto my back, facing the predator, and pull the trigger.
Nothing. Fuck. Jammed.
This shit is why we don’t trust bullets and guns, Spark.
I lift the crossbow and fire. The bolt slices into one of its eyeholes. A perfect shot, except it didn’t seem to faze it in the slightest.
It rears over me, limbs flailing. I close my eyes. But instead of my own screams and the pain of being devoured alive, I hear the solid thunk of metal in flesh.
The monster howls. A meaty, tearing swipe follows another thunk.
I open my eyes to see a scarecrow of a masked figure between me and the apex, swinging a cartoonishly massive war hammer into the monster's ribcage.
It reels backward, screeching and contemplating the giant hole in its chest.
“A little help here.” He grunts in a clipped accent.
I clear the stuck round, plant the stock in my shoulder, and aim. This time, I’m rewarded with a spray of bullets.
“Fucking Christ.” The scarecrow spins away as the bullets spray off the carapace. “Put that fucking thing down, you muppet. Oi, Darling, what the absolute fuck are you waiting for?”
Six crossbow bolts on steroids thunk in the monster's chest, drilling into the holes punched by the sharp end of the hammer. The monster staggers backward, keening.
Another black-clad set of legs strides across my line of sight, one lug-soled boot coming dangerously close to my face. I recoil, bracing for a kick. But it only knocks the rifle out of my hands. A grinning half-skull face careens into my line of vision, unkempt blondish hair sticking out around the edges.
“Can’t have you hitting us by mistake, can we?” He lifts a massive crossbow that makes mine look like a kiddy toy and nocks another set of rounds without a glance. “II, you playing today, or sitting this one out?”
A third, smaller figure leaps onto the monster from behind, twin blades naked and gleaming as he slices the mini antenna heads from the body. When the monster rears back to shake him off, he sinks both blades into slits between plates of insectlike armor. It wails, shaking violently, but he holds on, boots braced against the thing’s spiny back as it bucks and writhes.
I half crawl, mostly drag myself toward the burnt-out shell of a semi truck. Every glance over my shoulder reveals a battle scene as the black-clad, masked figures continue a relentless assault.
And it's working.
The monster is no longer on the attack, legs buckling, swaying, screaming almost pitifully.
War Hammer's long dark green jacket—cape?—flares out behind him as he strikes blow after blow, the chain mail beneath his elongated skull mask swinging. Twin Blades is the smart one in a tactical vest over what looks like a regular old hoodie and a balaclava. I guess it's saying something that Crossbow looks the most out of place in pinstripe pants that elongate his already absurd legs and a mask that looks like a horror movie clown.
Post-apocalyptic goth monster slayers. Perfect.
As Drax says—used to say—the enemy of my enemy might be my friend, or it might be a worse enemy. I’m not going to wait to see how this plays out. I’ve met a lot of freaks since the world shimmered (see also: cannies), and the ones wearing masks are the worst.
I turn back to my escape route, and a fourth masked face appears in my line of sight. This one is entirely alien: a single, bone-colored sheet, marked with a dark green symbol. Twisted, scorched metal that might be flowers or jewels crawls up the cheeks. Multiple slits give it the appearance of having many eyes, but reveal nothing of whatever lies beneath.
He smiles, teeth gleaming against jet black skin. “We who fight monsters.”
I’d scream, but he is already striding past me, a slow, swaggering walk. His hands disappear into his faded green coat, the bone colored, plated pauldron on one shoulder gleaming beneath the tattered black feathers across his back. When they emerge, he’s holding two familiar shapes: grenades.
Grenades.
Oh shit.
“Anytime, Vess.” Two Blades grunts from his place on the monster’s shoulders as he avoids being thrown off or dragged into its maw.
“I’m having fun,” Crossbow shouts, reloading.
War Hammer ducks the swipe of one massive claw and sinks the next blow in its neck, throwing all his weight against it to drag the humanoid upper body down. “Can we get on with it?”
The strange one makes an oddly graceful skipping hop and leaps onto the monster’s chest. He spits something I realize is a grenade pin and shoves his hand into one of the holes Two Blades has drilled into the thing. He pulls the pin on the second and finds another hole. He emerges, bloody hands up like a victorious surgeon. He and Two Blades leap free.
Crossbow gets a running start, diving at War Hammer, who won’t leave off punching holes in the monster. “Get down, you fucking knob.”
My brain started counting the moment I saw that first pin. My body moves a second after. I’m not low enough, not far enough away, and in the final seconds, I hit the ground, grab the nearest cannie body, and roll it on top of me as the countdown finishes in my head.
3…2…1…
The ground shakes. Meat and offal splatter.
I’m lying there, ears rattling, head ringing, covered in some cannie's entrails, when the body is shoved off, leaving me staring up into four masked faces.
I fling myself sideways, but the butt of a War Hammer cuts me off. The other direction—a lug sole boot.
Crossbow leans in, and I can hear his grin and his ragged breath. “Going somewhere, sweetheart?”
++++whatdoesSleepmeanbythis?+++++
“Leave it, Vess.” II wipes the gore off his blades. You muttered something about not wanting trouble and passed out. Vessel's been staring ever since. “She’s a lost cause.”
"Don’t tempt him." Ivy spits and kicks at a patch of bloody gravel with his boot.
When Vessel doesn't move, he stalks away to grab the duffel bags they dropped off at the gates.
“I don’t like this.” II sighs, scanning the yard. His shoulder aches, and his ear is still ringing from the explosive. It puts him in a bad mood. “Too many bodies.”
“More inside?” III holsters his crossbow and retrieves bolts from the steaming pile of exploded monster, inspecting each for damage. When they're all secured, he draws a pistol and glares into the warehouse.
“Probably.” Ivy pauses midway through loading guns and ammo into a duffel bag to watch Vessel.
Vessel is still staring at you. You're still passed out on the pavement.
Ivy sighs. He has a terrible feeling about this.
“Smart to use the body as a shield.” It’s the most lucid thing Vessel's said in days. Ivy and II exchange a hopeful look. Then he has to go back into that strange, lilting speech that Ivy calls 'dreaming gamerboy'. “The world grows dark, survival mode, activated.”
III snorts. “Let’s clear this place and keep moving. I don’t want to be out here if that pack gets wind of all these bodies. We need shelter before dark.”
“She looks like shit.” Ivy strolls over. “Wonder what the fuck they had going on in there.”
“Flesh craves flesh.” Vessel lifts his chin, breathing deep. “It summoned the beast.”
“We’re not taking her,” III mutters to no one in particular. “She’s literally dead weight, then it’ll be another mouth to feed, never mind all the crying and the begging.”
Vessel shuffles sideways but seems unable to take his gaze away from you, like a horse shying from an unknown danger.
“Kindly shut the fuck up,” II snaps. He rests a hand on Vessel’s shoulder, lowers his voice to draw the taller man's focus. “We could use some shit to trade. Let's clear the building, see what we find. If she’s still here when we’re done, we’ll figure something out.”
It doesn’t take them long. There’s a storage room of gear—belongings from those whose stories ended here. The others fill rucksacks with anything valuable while Vessel drifts, touching sentimental items and singing softly under his breath.
Ivy meets II's gaze, concerned.
II gets it: they’re losing Vessel a little more, day by day, moment by moment. The knowledge gnaws at him. Vessel’s gotten them this far, kept them alive, and together. But it’s costing him everything. Seven years, seven monsters. None of them know if they can make it another five, or what will be left of Vessel if they do.
II and III leave Ivy on Vessel detail. They pass through the with the cages and the floors crusted with old blood, searching for survivors, wary of surviving captors. The meat locker is full.
III folds over his knees and retches before slamming the doors shut.
II lingers at the door of the smallest cage. This one holds a cot and a table, a little camp light, and a couple of books. A small pot, a cup, and a spoon. This cage was meant as a prison, not a waiting room for slaughter. He thinks he'd rather die than call this survival.
“Maybe she’ll be gone when we get back.” Shock that you made it out and had enough sense to keep running colors his tone.
“You’re dumber than you look if you believe that.” III kicks a pile of discarded, reeking clothes. He hates everything about this day. This half-assed apocalypse seems to have left only the worst and the most helpless behind. And in between, the four of them on some mission with no purpose and maybe no end. “Let’s go.”
II grabs the journal and leaves the rest.
On the way back to the daylight, III whistles sharply. Ivy emerges, loaded with full duffle bags, Vessel in his shadow. Vessel’s hands are empty except for a small but sturdy-looking pack in some outdoorsy material.
“Maybe she had a heart attack and died.” Ivy says as he hands one off to II and III takes point. “Scared bunny style.”
“You catch the bolt she put in its eye.” II murmurs. “That was a good shot.”
You’re still passed out on the pavement.
“We’re not taking her,” III repeats. Only Ivy notices.
Vessel squats beside you, drags your arms over his shoulder, and heaves you onto his back. He grunts softly with the effort of it, but mostly because it’s awkward. There’s not much left of you. When he rises, he barely feels the added weight, not after what he’s carried all this time.
II’s shoulders drop even as hope flares in his chest. “Not again.”
+++++thesearethedreamsidreaminsleep+++++
In my dream, the drip-drip noise comes from the open vein in Drax’s neck. He’s hanging by his heels above the grate with the others. His lips move. Run.
When I open my eyes, the noise is just water dripping off a broken pipe in a nearby wall. Different warehouse. I’ve spent enough time in them to know the feel, even lived in a few half-decent ones for brief stretches, but they always make me nervous. No matter if they’re empty or piled with boxes of old stuff nobody will ever use now, they have a unique hollowness. Like it’s clear they weren’t built for habitation, and they won’t make themselves more comfortable, no matter how desperate we get to make them home.
At least this one doesn’t stink of despair and terror. Without things like perfume, cologne, and body wash, the world smells differently. Fear is easy to pick up on, but deceit is harder to detect. After all, we fell for the promise of shelter from the pack of dire foxes roaming too close to the coast.
This one just smells regular old mold and rotten things. Damp too. There are holes in the windows lining the upper walls, and the leaky pipe has long since overfilled a bucket underneath to catch the issue.
Drax, Ari, SloMo, Mutton, Pretty Bean. All gone. There is no family anymore for any of us unlucky enough to survive. The best you get is a pod with good rules, people you can trust to have your back, and no violence. There’s enough of that outside, anyway.
My ears tune to other sounds: the too-human baby-like screams of dire foxes not nearly far enough away. Wailing owls call in that way that makes the hair rise on the back of my neck. It’s like a fairytale forest out there at night, all monsters and impossible things.
I’d put my hands to my ears but they won’t move. My whole body hurts and I’m weak as shit, but that’s not why. It appears I’m bound, wrists and ankles. Fuck. When the cacophony dies off outside, the drip-drip resumes accompanied by the occasional scrape of hooves on concrete, and beyond it, the crackle of a distant fire. There’s something thick but ragged between me and the floor, a bundle of cloth under my head. It smells like gasoline and matches. Nice. Hope I didn’t fall in with pyros. Getting lit up can’t be much worse than butchered, but I’m not in the mood to find out. I shift as quietly as I can, trying to work my wrists toward my face. That’s limited by the fact that my wrists are bound to my ankles, so I start trying to wiggle my face down. My tongue is dry, my mouth stuffed full of a cotton rag that doesn’t taste like gasoline.
“Darkness lifts.” A low voice, smooth centered but fuzzy around the edges like an old photograph rises in the dark. I can’t pick out the accent, though I know—
“Ah, fuck. I’d hoped to get some rest first.” This voice sounds immediate. Real. It’s weary and annoyed. And British. “Let the circus begin.”
Boots scrape the ground, and my entire body goes rigid as footsteps close in. Not that it’s going to do me much good. I burnt up everything I had fleeing the cannie compound.
Three lean figures unfurl like shadows, backlit by the dim firelight. My brain is still fuzzy, but that number feels wrong. Where is the other one? The footsteps match up, though.
Six booted feet stop in a semicircle around me. The shortest of the three crouches. The tactical vest and swords are gone, but he's still wearing the balaclava with the white symbol, obscuring his features. Military?
He reaches a hand out slowly, giving me time to register its presence, like I’m a wild animal. His knuckles are scarred, palm opening like a flower to splay blunt fingers. They pause a few inches from my face.
“I’ll take this out, but you gotta keep it down.” He warns. “Foxes are close tonight, and our nightmares are already skittish.”
It sounds like something out of a dream. But the snort and scrape of hoof on concrete resolves in tandem with an animal smell so familiar I should have known it.
I nod. I stopped screaming years ago. Out loud, at least.
He grabs the edge of the cloth with the tips of his middle and index fingers and tugs it out of my mouth.
“Want to sit up?” His hand reappears, this time with its mate. Pale fingers float like phantoms in the darkness.
But I’m already halfway there, grunting and rolling and shoving my way onto my butt. I wobble but none of them try to catch me.
“Have a name?” He says.
“Does it matter?”
One of the other, taller ones, snorts. A laugh? A chain mail drape swings around his face, glittering when light hits it.
The two standing are both well over six feet. They wear bronze half-skull masks with chain mail draping their mouths and chins. I think I see an emblem on their foreheads but can’t make it out in the dim light. They're all armed—handguns and knives in various holsters—but none of the fantastic weapons from earlier. Only the one crouching wears any kind of body armor, and it’s hanging open.
“Fucking hell, boyos." The second tallest one sighs. "We’ve got a live one.”
“You’re not American.” He’s so fucking tall I have to crane my head back just to see his mask, and my neck aches.
His head cocks, bird-like and he leans over me. “What of it?”
“What are you doing here?” I don’t realize that’s hope in my chest until my voice rises. “Are there—“
I let my neck rest from looking up, trying to stave off the choking sensation as hope suffocates in my throat.
The third, the tallest remains silent. But the other two are still talking to me, though, so at least they’re halfway decent, or bothering to pretend to be.
The crouching one shrugs, reaching up impatiently to tap the leg closest to him.
“Ah, mate.” The tall mouthy one grumbles but lowers the canteen.
The crouching one uncaps it. I offer my wrists.
“Not quite yet.” He holds out the canteen.
I contemplate the risk. Why bother to drug me? I’m tied up. But then again, why not? The old world is gone, and its rules don’t apply, if they ever did. He sighs and takes a sip. I watch his throat bob.
Above me, the canteen’s owner scoffs. “Anyone else fancy a nip?”
The third man hasn’t spoken, but I can feel his gaze on me, hostile. He doesn’t want me here. Was it just the three?
“Cut it, Ivy.” The canteen comes my way again. “She’s not a fool.”
“Well, she made it this far, so that’s one in her favor.” The canteen’s owner, Ivy? Like the plant? Scrapes a boot impatiently on the concrete. “Go ahead. It’s even filtered. No PFAs or micro particles, as if it matters. Drink up, dove.”
“Don’t call me that.” I rasp, snatching the canteen.
He holds up his palms, fingerless gloves turning his fingertips into floating phantoms. Something is wrong with his skin. I check the crouching one. It’s the same. The skin is mottled, dark, and blotchy. Are they sick?
“Paint.” The crouching one rubs his thumb over the big joint at the heel of his hand, and bits of it smear and flake off. “Just paint.”
And that’s all the curiosity I have left. Thirst wins. I drink until water runs down my chin. I’ve never been so thirsty in my entire life.
“What do we call you then?” The crouching one takes the empty canteen back and hands it up.
Above him, Ivy swears and mutters about just having filled it.
Maybe it’s foolish, because this isn’t a fairytale, but it still feels like giving him my name is dangerous. But that’s not what he asked for.
“People call me Spark.” Then add. “Never Sparky.”
“No fun at all,” Ivy grumbles.
“You lost friends back there?” The crouching one sounds almost gentle.
“They got eaten,” I correct. “We trusted the wrong people, and they got eaten.”
“How’d you survive?”
That’s complicated. It involves giving them information that might save my life or get me sold to the highest bidder. I purposely misinterpret it.
“Way I always do.” I rub my face with my hands. I’m sure water does nothing to improve my condition, based on the slimy feel of my damp skin. “Ran.”
“Took you a minute though, did it?” Ivy scoffs.
I glare up at him, then close my eyes. “What the fuck does it matter?”
“Need to know what you’d do to survive.”
Ah, so the bargaining begins. I’m too tired for it.
“Just about anything,” I admit. “Except eat my friends, apparently.”
Silence. For a second, I think maybe all of this is a horrible dream and I'll wake up any minute in a cage to the sound of one of my friends dying.
“Enough inquiry.” Strangely enough it's that low familiar voice that convinces me this is real.
The tall men part to clear the path for the fourth member of this masked crew. The crouching one rises, knees popping, and the lineup jogs a memory of them all staring at me on the ground in the yard of the cannie compound. He’s not the tallest, but it’s a near thing. I know this mask. Six-eyed, the dark pattern stark on bone white, sides drenched in twisted metal and old jewels falling over his cheeks.
“The road has been long, night endless, Sleep calls us.” He glides to my level, long, thin legs bending like a stork, or a flamingo and offers a battered tin cup. He’s not wearing a black shirt under that chest harness and faded green coat. His skin is painted from his nose to where his waist disappears into his pants. It’s old, flaking, and mottled in places. The hands around the cup are similarly painted, fingers adorned in battered rings and the remnants of paint.
Sad to say, I’ve seen stranger things than these four.
He sets down the bowl, extends a hand to Ivy. “Knife.”
“Vess.” Ivy hisses. “Really?”
That strange, six-eyed face doesn’t turn from me. His gaze has weight, even if I can’t see his eyes behind the mask. There’s none of the hostility of the silent one, though. If anything, his focus is curious, patient.
“Fucking fine.” Ivy produces a nasty-looking Bowie knife from his thigh and hands it down, hilt first. “Your funeral, mate.”
“My funeral has been as endless as the sea.” Bone Mask muses idly as he brings the knife into my line of sight.
I recoil on instinct. He holds still, but the knife shakes in his hand. What the hell is wrong with this guy?
“Vessel.” His free hand indicates his own chest, then his fingers open to take in the shortest of the four, in the tactical vest. “II.” And the tall silent one. “III.” And finally, the knife’s owner.
“Like the plant.” I cut him off. “I heard.”
“IV.” He says slowly, pronouncing each letter.
“Your names are two, three, and four?” I scoff. “Like the count-off?”
Vessel’s mouth ripples, and his teeth flash.
“Ivy.” The canteen-owning, war hammer wielding, masked psycho insists. “They called me Ivy. None of this 'four' bullshit.”
No idea who this they is.
“And why Vessel?” I say, ignoring what sounds like an old argument. “Shouldn’t you be one, or five?”
Ivy sighs as though he finds me utterly exhausting. III remains ever silent.
“Nourish.” Vessel nudges the bowl forward.
I must look as skeptical as I feel.
“No flesh is held within.”
“We’re vegetarians,” Ivy adds.
I can’t tell if it’s a joke. All four men are lean, not an ounce to spare, but they look tough as the old wire the cannies used to garrote Ari. My throat contracts.
“An offering.” Vessel holds out the knife again. After a moment of consideration, I extend my wrists.
“What do you want with me?” It escapes as I stare at the knife, sawing through tape. When it’s nearly through, I break my wrists apart, ripping off tape and rubbing the raw skin.
“Has this world not taken more than its pound of flesh?” He scoops up the bowl, offers it to me in a cradle of palms, his long fingers extended spider-like from the center.
Fuck. I’m starving, and whatever is in that bowl smells like heaven. I take it, shoveling some kind of stew into my mouth. Beans and roots and some woody, tender thing. I scrape the bowl clean, lick the spoon. I could cry with how good it feels to be full.
“How do you stay vegetarian out here?” I feel drunk on food, tipsy on satisfaction.
Vessel takes the bowl. “We consume what Eden provides.”
There’s something strangely lulling in the cadence of his voice that makes me want to lean in to hear him. But—
What Eden provides. Oh god. He means….
I stagger to my feet, ignoring the way they all reach for a weapon. All except Vessel, who watches me behind that strange, bone colored mask.
I'd forgotten my ankles were still taped and bang my hands and knees hard on cement. Doesn’t matter. I can’t hold it. Not one minute longer. I shove my fingers down my throat. That vile taste alone is enough to start the process.
My stomach heaves, throat clenching. My fingers scrabble through the mess, confirming what I suspected in the soft gills and domed caps.
“Compliments to the chef.” Ivy steps back away from the splatter. He salutes II and stalks back to the fire, shaking his head in disgust.
“Unfucking grateful.” III decides to weigh in finally, leaning over me.
I flinch, ready for the blow, but Vessel lifts his strangely elegant fingers and III halts in his tracks.
He mutters something uncharitable about my intelligence and follows Ivy back to the fire.
Vessel’s head cocks, the mask making him appear both eye-less and all-seeing. I can’t look away from his long fingers. They hold a curious tension, though they’re apparently relaxed.
“You can’t eat those…mushrooms.” It’s the closest that comes to what they are. Some kind of fungi, certainly. Like much of this new world, they look the part of something vaguely familiar, but nothing is what it appears to be here. I try to make eye contact with II. He seems the most rational of the bunch. “It does things to us, changes us. Look at the animals.”
For the first time, it really occurs to me to look at the other animals in the warehouse. And then I almost do scream, skittering backward.
II called them nightmares. It wasn’t hyperbole. They resemble horses; that’s the best I can say. Their ears rise to points that meet over their heads, their foreheads too broad and rippled with protruding dark lumps that might be antler buds, or just bone spurs. Crimson eyes glow sullenly from slit pupils, and a set of savage looking canines no equine should have descend from jaws twice as big as any horse's. They’re black as pitch, but when the light hits them, their coats shine like an oil slick. One paws the concrete restlessly, and I’m pretty sure that's a cloven hoof under all that hair. Saber-toothed demon horses.
The herbivores ate the plants first. Some things seemed relatively harmless, familiar even. But the fungi. They smell delicious, and people say they have that irresistible umami flavor. We ignored the changes at first. Genetic anomalies, mutations. The extra eyes, horns, scales, and feathers or fur. Skin turned transparent, or iridescent, or leathery. Vestigial wings and tails got more attention, but by then, everything was going weird.
In a way, the cannies aren’t wrong. It’s better to eat animals—their bodies absorb whatever alien matter they ingest from the earth and filter it.
I’ve seen humans who surrendered. Sometimes the strangeness is on the inside. That might explain the weird way Vessel talks, but the others still seem so normal. Maybe that’s why they wear masks. A shiver wracks me. What lies underneath?
My mouth tastes foul, and my stomach grumbles resentfully.
“To remain the way that we were is to die,” Vessel says. “Nothing survives without change. We are hale, whole. The sight is in your eyes.”
“I see guys in masks and one who talks like a preacher with a head injury.” I snap. “People…”
“Eat each other?” Vessel offers. “And their enemies and their offspring. Better to consume what Eden provides, so says Sleep.”
“Amen,” Ivy mutters, flopping into a pile of blankets. III beds down beside him, a magazine—penthouse?—in one hand and his other arm around Ivy’s waist.
Eden. Sleep. Is this some kind of weird cult?
“Why did you help me?” I glare between Vessel and II in challenge. Part of me hopes it will be II who answers. He’s the most normal of the bunch, even though I know better than to trust appearances. But he spins on one heel and ambles away, toward the horses or whatever the fuck they are.
That leaves me and Vessel.
“What do you want with me?” I hate the way my voice shakes. I thought I understood this world, as fucked up as it’s become. But this is new—strange—and that means dangerous.
“Flesh craves flesh.” Vessel says, and he’s not talking about cannies. “From conception to the depths of death’s sea.”
He sets the knife on the ground between my feet, palms flat and facing down, long fingers spread. “An offering.”
I snatch the knife and scoot away, sawing at the tape around my ankles.
But instead of approaching, he sets down a fresh canteen and rises, pointing at a bucket just out of the firelight. “When the flesh requires release.”
A piss bucket?
“Am I a prisoner?”
“Freedom is everywhere.” He says. “The hungry bellies of foxes are a form of it to those who can no longer abide.”
The dire foxes call again, and I shiver. One time, I spent the night in the branches of a tree, listening to them try to climb, howling and chittering in that terrifying way. They wandered away before dawn, but those few hours feature prominently in my nightmares.
“Sanctuary.” He raises and lowers his spread palms in a soothing gesture. That slow, gangling stride is absurdly graceful as he disappears into the shadows, away from the fire.
I drag my blankets away from the mess and the monstrous horse things and curl into myself. The knife hilt in my palm bites hard as I clench it. My head aches dully, and my belly rumbles.
I force my eyes open, in case one of them changes their mind. But my body shakes with exhaustion. I’m so startled when II appears that I almost scream for the first time in years. He stays out of reach, tossing a long silver package onto my pallet and setting a canteen down between us.
I lift it and inspect the label. A protein bar from the old world. I recognize the brand. “Thank you.”
II nods, and something about his posture makes me think he wants to say something else. I hold my breath. Will he make it look like an invitation, or something I owe him, and maybe Vessel for not leaving me to whatever came to clean up after the monster, or the cannies?
“We trade watch,” II says. “Only two shifts left. You can—rest.”
I grip the knife and swallow, drawing it up to my chest.
“Suit yourself.” He returns to the nightmares.
The bar tastes like shit, pretty much the same as the old days. I check the expiration. Two years. I’ve had worse. Turns out humans underestimated the longevity of the crap we processed and called food. Seven years after the end, remnants of the old world can still be found and eaten. The water makes my mouth taste less foul.
I mourn the loss of my pack and the toiletries I’d carefully scavenged. I don’t dare put my hands in my mouth again, and there’s no place for washing. The masks won’t touch me, and it seems like some of them wouldn’t even be interested. I recognize the sounds coming from the blankets beside the fire. Vessel and II are nowhere to be found, perhaps preferring a bit more privacy? But when I look up, a scarecrow-thin shape is silhouetted in the moonlight on the catwalk running along the windows. Even without seeing that strange, bone-colored mask, I know it’s Vessel. No sign of II, but he moves so quietly no doubt he'd be too close before I even knew he was there.
There’s nothing I can do to escape the feeling of eyes on me, so I stare back, knife in my fist, and pray dawn arrives before they decide what to do with me.
I'll try to remember to cross post here, but honestly, the rest is up at AO3 mostly weekly until it's done!
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