SANCTIFIED.ᐟ ⎯ LOTTIE MATTHEWS
✧ summary — lottie finds it hard to keep you all to herself when you obliviously flaunt yourself around the others.ᐟ 📻
tw — (mdni) implied sex, bat shit crazy lottie (my pookie), fluff, van being an absolute menace.
author’s note — (credits to @hyuneskkami for the dividers!!) bruh i shivered writing this—first lottie post!! she is my wilderness bat shit crazy wife. if y’all see a brown eyed doe manipulating the shit out of me—LEAVE ME BE. 🙂↔️
The cabin had been gone for weeks now—reduced to blackened timber, its charred bones buried beneath the weight of snowmelt and silence. The sky stretched wide and colorless above what remained of them, and though the worst of winter had passed, spring came in with a kind of stubborn quiet—muddy paths, leafless trees, soft wind that stirred through the newly built huts.
It was strange how quickly the others had adapted. Or maybe they hadn’t. Maybe they were just pretending, same as always. You didn’t talk much about the fire, or about Ben—how he walked into the woods one day and never came back. Most of the girls figured he’d died, or turned into something else, or maybe nothing at all. You never really shared your thoughts on it. People stopped asking.
But you helped build the huts. All of them, one by one. With the axe you’d sharpened by hand, your shoulders straining under the sun, arms slick with sweat and sawdust. You didn’t mind the work—it gave your hands something to do, gave your mind something to fixate on besides hunger and blood and the unbearable quiet.
Now that the cold had ebbed into something gentler, you stopped wearing the layers you’d needed to survive the frost. Your thick coat, gone. Your flannel, tied at the waist. You spent most days in a cut-off tank, skin finally allowed to breathe again, hair tied back out of your face. It wasn’t a performance. You weren’t trying to be seen. But you were.
Especially by them.
The JV girls had a way of lingering lately. Always in pairs, or pretending to be busy near wherever you happened to be. Robin once claimed she lost something near the wood pile you were chopping at. Britt asked for help carrying water when she was more than capable of lifting it herself. Mari—the boldest—hovered near while you sharpened your knife, complimenting your posture like it was something people complimented.
You didn’t think much of it. Never did. You weren’t blind, but you weren’t wired to assume people were interested either. You’d always been a little slow on that front. You figured they were just being kind. Bored, maybe. People got weird when survival became routine.
But Lottie noticed. Of course she did.
She noticed how Gen’s eyes trailed too long over your back when you bent to adjust a trap line. How Mari’s voice softened when she said your name. How the air shifted—just barely—whenever one of them found an excuse to laugh at something you said. She watched it happen over and over. And each time, it hit her somewhere deep. Not with anger, not with pettiness—but with this sharp, sour twist of possessiveness she wasn’t proud of.
You were hers. Or—no. Not hers. Not in the way things used to mean ownership. But yours was the name she said when she couldn’t sleep. Yours was the face she saw in dreams—once, so vividly, she’d woken in a cold sweat, hands trembling, lips parted like she’d spoken it out loud.
She took it as a sign.
You hadn’t believed in signs. Not the way she did. Not since the plane went down.
But she told you about the dream anyway. How you stood in the clearing. How you smiled at her and didn’t speak, but she heard you all the same. How the wind pushed your hair back from your face and the trees bowed like they knew you. Like they were waiting.
She told you it wanted her to be near you. That you were the answer it gave.
You didn’t mock her for it. You never would. But you didn’t believe in it either. You didn’t believe there was something lurking in the woods, pulling strings. You believed in coincidence. In suffering. In choice. And maybe, maybe—something larger, something divine—but not something cruel. Not something hungry.
You weren’t like Laura Lee. You didn’t pray aloud. You didn’t say grace. But in the quiet moments—when your fingers dug into the earth, when the sky turned blood-orange at dusk—you whispered your thanks to whatever was listening. Not one god. Maybe not even gods. But something. Something high. Something more.
You never said it out loud. No one really asked. And even if they had, it’s not like they cared.
But Lottie cared. She noticed the way you looked up when it rained, like the drops meant something. The way you touched the trees like you were listening to them. The way your voice changed when you said her name.
She noticed, too, how you never looked at anyone else the way you looked at her.
Still, it didn’t stop the heat from curling in her chest when she caught Mari trying to sit closer to you at the fire one night. Or when Gen offered to wash your shirt in the creek. Or when Britt asked to braid your hair “just to keep it off your neck.”
The knife in your hand moved in practiced, careful strokes—slow and deliberate, like you had nowhere else to be. You sat cross-legged at the entrance of the hut you and Lottie had built together, the worn piece of wood braced against your thigh as you shaved off its rough edges. You weren’t carving anything special—just something to do with your hands while the rest of camp quieted.
The fire had burned low outside. The woods buzzed with frogsong and distant creaks from the shifting trees. The night was warmer than most. Still cool enough to keep a long breath visible, but soft in a way you didn’t take for granted anymore.
Inside, Lottie had already settled onto the bedroll, half-curled against the wall, wrapped in the thinner hide you always gave up for her comfort.
You weren’t tired yet. You rarely ever were. The sun might set, but your mind didn’t. This—shaving bark, shaping edges, smoothing grooves with your thumb—this helped. It let you relax without needing to explain yourself.
She’d been quiet for a while, only the soft shuffle of her movements echoing in the small hut. Then, after a pause that hummed longer than most silences:
“Hey,” she said, soft. “Come here.”
You looked up from the wood in your hands, surprised at the quiet edge in her voice. Not strained. Not sad. Just… reaching.
You dusted your fingers off on your pants and turned toward her, but didn’t move just yet. “I’m almost done,” you said, gently.
Lottie pushed herself up so she was sitting upright, blanket slipping down her shoulders. Her hair was half-braided, loose at the ends. Her eyes shimmered in the dark.
“It can wait,” she said. “Just… come here.”
Something in the way she said it made you put the knife down. You stood slowly and crossed the few feet between you, kneeling beside her. She reached for your hand without asking, fingers brushing over your knuckles, your palm. You let her guide you to sit beside her, legs stretched out, backs brushing the woven wall.
She didn’t speak at first. Just looked down at your joined hands. She turned your wrist over, traced the faint burn scar there from last winter—when you’d grabbed the wrong end of a heated pot to stop it from tipping. You hadn’t even flinched.
You didn’t ask what was wrong. You didn’t have to.
Lottie exhaled slowly, then looked at you—not searching for something, not seeking comfort—but like she had something she needed to say.
“You know,” she started, voice low, “before I ever said anything to you… before you even knew what I really believed… I had a dream.”
You didn’t move. Just kept listening.
“It was after the first time I heard the forest go quiet. After Jackie.” She paused. “I hadn’t been sleeping well. But that night, it was different. I woke up in the middle of it, and I could feel something. Like the whole air changed. I don’t know how else to explain it, but it felt like the trees were listening.”
You nodded slightly, not interrupting.
“And in the dream,” she said, more slowly now, “you were there. Standing just at the edge of the clearing. I couldn’t see your face exactly, not at first. Just your shape. Your posture. You looked like you belonged there. Like the woods had grown around you instead of the other way around.”
Your breath caught faintly in your throat. Not fear. Not confusion. Just… something old stirring.
“I walked toward you,” she continued, “and you didn’t speak. But I heard you anyway. You said my name like you’d been saying it your whole life.”
She turned to look at you again, like she wanted to be sure you were still with her. You were. Entirely.
“And when I woke up,” she said, “I knew it was a sign.” Her voice softened. “Back then, it was still so clear. What the wilderness wanted. What it wanted.”
You shifted, your hand still tangled in hers. “You think… it wanted us together?”
Lottie nodded. “It wasn’t just some feeling. It was sure. Like you’d always been meant to be mine. Like the bond between us was something it recognized. Something it approved of.”
You didn’t believe in it the way she did. You never had. But you believed her. Believed in the way she looked at you like you were sacred.
“I was already in love with you,” she said, voice hushed now. “Long before the dream. Probably before the crash, if I’m honest with myself.”
You felt your chest pull tight, the way it always did when she said things like that.
“So when I had that dream,” she continued, “it didn’t feel like something new. It felt like permission.” She leaned her head slightly against your shoulder. “Like it was telling me to act on what was already mine.”
You swallowed, slowly.
“Not because I needed some blessing,” she whispered. “But because I needed to believe that even here… something understood what this was.”
You let the silence stretch between you, both of you wrapped in it like a second kind of warmth. Outside, the wind moved through the trees, and somewhere in the distance a branch cracked, a soft rustle in the underbrush.
“I don’t know if I believe in signs,” you said finally. “But I believe in you.”
Lottie let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding, and you tilted your head just enough for your temple to rest against hers.
The wooden carving lay forgotten by the door. You’d pick it back up in the morning. For now, you stayed like that—shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand, breathing in sync with something ancient and quiet, and, for the moment, entirely yours.
The silence between you was the kind that pressed in—not heavy, not uncomfortable, but close. The kind of quiet you only got with someone who already knew the rhythm of your breath, the shape of your thoughts before they formed.
You could still feel Lottie’s voice against your chest, the echo of her confession humming beneath your skin. About the dream. About the sign. About how she’d already been in love with you long before the wilderness gave her something to name it with.
You weren’t sure what to say. Not because you didn’t feel the same—you did, you always had—but because everything with her had always felt a little sacred. Like even your silence had to mean something.
But Lottie shifted. Her fingers untangled from yours. She reached for your hand again—not to hold it, not this time. She brought it to her lips instead.
You blinked, but didn’t pull away.
Her mouth pressed to your knuckles, gentle at first. A warm graze, a slow kiss to the scar just under your thumb. Then the next, and the next. A trail of them, like she was memorizing the shape of you. Her lips soft but certain, traveling over the ridge of your hand, the inside of your wrist. You watched her, heart drumming low and steady in your ears.
When she looked up at you, her mouth still barely grazing your skin, her eyes were molten.
“They act like they know you,” she murmured. Her voice was quiet. Raw. “Like you’re up for grabs. Like you owe them something.”
You didn’t speak. You didn’t need to.
“But you don’t,” she continued, kissing the inside of your forearm. “You never did.”
You swallowed, the warmth creeping slowly from your stomach outward.
“I don’t doubt you,” she added. “I don’t think you’d fall for them.”
Her lips met your shoulder, just where your collarbone began, and lingered.
“I know where you stand with me.”
And still—there was that fire behind her words. Not fear. Not desperation. But something closer to claiming. Like she wanted to etch herself into the parts of you no one else ever saw.
Her hands came to your thighs as she moved to straddle your lap—slowly, unhurried. Like it had always meant to be this way. Her knees braced on either side of you, the hide blanket pooling around her hips. Her fingers slid along your shoulders, over the ridges of your muscle, settling behind your neck.
Your breath stuttered.
Lottie leaned in again—no longer featherlight—her lips brushing over the side of your throat, then lower, down the sloped curve of your collarbone.
She kissed you there. And again. A third time, firmer than the last.
Then she bit.
Not hard. Not painful. But enough for your jaw to tense, your hands to catch at her hips instinctively. Enough to feel it.
She sucked gently, then pulled back, her lips leaving a mark that burned into your skin with a quiet, smoldering pride.
Your eyes opened slowly, your pulse picking up.
Another kiss, this time to your other shoulder. Another lovebite. And then another. Her mouth moved over your chest like she was writing scripture into your skin with her teeth. Each mark deliberate. Each one placed where only she could put them.
Her hands never stopped moving. They cupped your jaw, slid into your hair, cradled your face like you were breakable. She pulled back just enough to look at you—really look.
“Mine,” she whispered, a possessive murmur wrapped in something too tender to be cruel. “You hear me?”
You couldn’t speak. Not yet.
Her thumbs pressed gently beneath your jaw as she tilted your face up to meet her eyes. Her hair had come loose from its braid, tumbling forward, soft curls brushing your cheeks and casting shadows across her cheekbones.
With the firelight flickering behind her, Lottie didn’t look of this world. She looked like something born of the wilderness itself—ethereal, wild, chosen.
You couldn’t look away.
She studied your face, lips parted like she was searching for something unspoken—confirmation, surrender, devotion, maybe all of it at once.
And when you didn’t move, when your hands trembled slightly at her hips like you couldn’t decide whether to hold her still or pull her closer—she decided for you.
Lottie leaned in, pressing her lips just beneath your ear this time, letting her breath drag slow across your skin as she whispered, “Say it.”
Your fingers slid under the edge of her shirt, finally daring to trace the curve of her spine. Her skin was warm beneath your calloused palms—too soft, too real, too hers. You weren’t sure how long you’d been touching her like this in your daydreams. But it didn’t compare to this.
You could barely breathe as your voice came low, rough. “I’m yours.”
Lottie’s breath caught.
You felt her smile against your neck.
Then she kissed you again, deeper now. Not frantic—never frantic—but intentional. Like she had all the time in the world to undo you.
The morning air was thick with dew and quiet. A soft, blue-gray hush had settled over the camp, still caught in that half-light between dawn and sunup. Most of the others were still asleep. The fire at the center of camp had burned low during the night, leaving only a few orange embers, and the forest beyond it stirred gently—branches creaking, birds starting to call.
You’d woken up warm.
Lottie was still curled in the furs behind you, her bare shoulder peeking out beneath the hide blanket, tangled curls falling into her face. She looked impossibly peaceful, her breath soft against the side of your neck. And for a moment, you just stayed there, feeling her chest rise and fall in time with your own.
The night before came rushing back like heat under your skin.
The kisses.
The way she had whispered into your throat.
The feeling of her hands dragging down your back, her body moving with yours like it had always known how.
But the morning was here now, and there were things to do. You weren’t exactly trying to sneak away, but you were careful as you slipped out from under her arm and pulled on your pants, your boots, the soft, worn tank you’d kept folded near the foot of the bedroll.
You didn’t catch the bruising. Not yet. You didn’t look in the small shard of mirror kept propped near the wall. You didn’t need to.
But the world didn’t stop for that kind of intimacy, not out here. The camp would be waking soon. Work needed doing.
The air outside the hut was still cool, dew clinging to the tips of the grass. The fire pit at the center of camp had burned low, but there were embers still glowing, a dull red pulse beneath blackened ash. Smoke rose in thin ribbons.
You started in on your usual—gathering wood, checking the traps off the north path, returning to camp with your arms full just as the rest of them began to stir. Shauna was already up, crouched by her shelter, steady hands dragging her knife along a whetstone. She didn’t look up as you passed, but you felt the flick of her gaze all the same. Measured. Neutral.
Gen was already near the fire, arms crossed, pacing in small, impatient circles.
“Where the hell is he,” she muttered to herself, scowling as she looked into the trees for Travis.
You nodded at her in passing, dropped the firewood in the pit’s ring, crouched down to begin rebuilding it.
It wasn’t until the third or fourth piece that you caught her staring.
Not in the casual, distracted way people looked at each other out here, but staring. Focused. Mouth tight. Cheeks slowly turning red.
“What?” you asked.
She blinked, hesitated. “Nothing,” she said quickly. “Just—you, uh—burn your shoulders or something?”
You frowned. “Excuse me?”
She nodded toward your arm. You turned your head—just slightly—and that’s when you saw it. The edge of the bruise just beneath your collarbone. You reached up, fingers grazing the other side of your neck. Another one. And there, near your shoulder—definitely another.
You hadn’t noticed them earlier, too used to the roughness of the woods to think about what lasted.
But Lottie had noticed. She’d meant for you to see them. For the others to. She’d left them where she knew they’d show. Where they couldn’t be mistaken for anything else.
You straightened up slowly, adjusting your shirt, not to hide them but just to acknowledge it, to feel the sting beneath your fingers. Your skin was warm. Your chest, warmer.
You winced. “…Didn’t notice.”
Gen snorted, awkward and flushed. “Yeah, no kidding.”
Then came Van.
She emerged from the edge of the trees with a smirk that was already too sharp, too knowing. Her shirt clung to her from the morning run, her sleeves rolled, her whole demeanor brimming with the kind of mischief you’d come to recognize as trouble.
She slowed as she reached you, took one long look at the marks trailing your throat and collar. She didn’t even try to hide her grin.
“Well damn,” she grinned, clapping you on the shoulder hard enough to make you wince. “Looks like the priestess got hungry last night.”
“Van—” you warned.
“She leave a whole damn map of her affection on you,” she teased, circling you once like she was inspecting your shirt for evidence. “What’d you do to deserve that kind of service, huh?”
“Van,” Taissa called flatly from a few feet behind her, already rolling her eyes.
But Van didn’t stop. She dropped her voice and leaned close to your ear, theatrical. “Wasn’t just the marks we heard, either. I mean—those sounds?” She let out a dramatic moan, sharp and loud—“Oh, Lottie,” she mimicked, too convincingly—“right there, please—”
You covered your face with one hand, heat rising in your cheeks fast.
“Van, shut up,” Taissa hissed, grabbing her by the wrist.
“Lottie, Lottie, bless me with your—”
“Van!” Taissa yanked her back with a grunt, dragging her down the path by the elbow.
“I’m just saying,” Van called over her shoulder. “If the woods weren’t already haunted, you two gave the trees something to talk about.”
You looked back toward Gen—only to find that she was gone. The girl had fled mid-tease, cheeks fully flushed, muttering something under her breath as she all but ran after Travis.
You stood still for a moment, letting the camp settle again. The low crackle of the fire. The wind moving through the trees. The hum of birdsong just beyond the perimeter.
You sighed, planting your hands on your knees, exhaling slow.
Flushed, maybe. A little embarrassed. But beneath that, under the teasing and the heat in your ears—there was something quieter. Something steadier. You felt marked not just by touch, but by choice.
You glanced once toward the path leading back to your hut.
She was probably waking by now.
And somehow, despite everything, you found yourself smiling.
