I just read your bio and had no idea you were Cree! There are not many native writers so finding out you are is amazing. Do you live on a reservation? Do you speak Cree? I am very interested in Native American cultures so I would love to hear more about it. Love your work too btw! :)
ahhh, thanks!! my mum is Cree (as is everyone on her side of the fam w some Slavey and Ojibwe), but my dad is Welsh. i don't speak a lot of Cree, though. i know some words and phrases, like enough to get by but def not fluent. i'm a member of Swampy Cree First Nation, and moved back fairly recently to live with my grandma (kohkom).
i don't know too much about the culture, unfortunately. me and my mum moved away when i was about 8ish and lived mostly in cities (off Cree Ntn). so outside of knowing what we are, i didn't have much exposure to it, bar some holidays/family get-togethers when we'd go back to visit. i probs know more about Six Nations/Oneida from my step-dad than i do Cree, tragically!
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Outlaw!Price, the enigmatic leader of the notorious and deadly 141 gang, who stumbles upon you one evening near the stables (attempting to steal the mare he had his eyes on, no less) as you try to sneak out of the city (and away from the awful, awful man you're supposed to be married to in the morning), and decides to help you get away.
But if you think it's altruism that's making him lend a helping hand to a stranger, you're wrong. In this life, he knows it's kill or be killed.
And most importantly:
finders keepers.
“How's this,” he begins, and everything inside of you screams to run. “I'll accompany you across the desert. Get you somewhere safe.”
“Out of the goodness of your heart, I'm sure,” you sneer, edging backwards. “As if I'm dumb enough to believe that.”
“Can't leave a maiden—” your scathing hiss makes his lips twitch beneath the thick moustache; “—all on her own like that. I know these parts like the back of my hand. No harm will come to you. That, you have my word for.”
“And what's that worth?”
He dips his chin. “Far more than you could imagine, love.”
You swallow. “I don't know. I don't trust you—”
“Smart,” he nods, drops the cigar on the ground before snuffing the end out with the heel of his boot. “But I ain't very patient. Better make up your mind quickly.”
“Well, in that case—”
“But," he cuts your scoff off with a low hum. "I'll put it this way for you: do you want me to be the one to accompany you across the desert or the one they'll pay, handsomely, tomorrow morning to drag you back home, mm?”
“You scoundrel—! You dirty, rotten—”
“It's business, love.”
“I don't have any money to even pay you to—”
His eyes are searing when they catch on the threads of your lace collar, razing over exposed skin like he's owed the privilege. You've never seen such hunger on a man's face before.
Your skin prickles. Heart sinking low with each rasping sweep of his eyes across your body. It's as if you're meat. Something to be bartered with. Bargained.
The rasp in his voice makes you shiver. “You're a smart girl. I'm sure you can figure something out.”
“I—”
“I'll leave it to you, then, mm?” He starts forward, then, chin ducking low into his collar to stare down at you through the wide brim of his hat. Each thud of his boots echo against the floor in haunting harmony with the metal clink of his spurs.
More of his bulk is revealed as he steps out from the shadows and into the pale moonlight, and somewhere in your chest, the air becomes trapped.
He's huge. Bigger, now, where most of him blended in, almost seamlessly, into the shadows. A massive mountain of a man.
His shoulders seem to stretch the fabric of his vest and waistcoat taut, pulling sharply on the straining threads. The heavy brown of his jacket sweeps down to midthigh, the seam tucked behind the leather holster of his gun tied tight at his waist. The brass buttons of his dress shirt crease against the pull of his broad chest and barrelled stomach. The softness around his midsection speaks almost highly of a luxurious lifestyle—pure hedonism. The sort ladies back home whisper about. Violence, women, and booze—ruffians, the lot of them! But it seems to belie the power in his gait. In the flex of his thick, corded thighs bunching in the tightness of his denim trousers and the leather caps covering them.
He has the walk of a bear. Lumbering, sloven. A touch clumsy.
And yet—
The softness about him hides the raw strength under the thick pelt. Deadly. The slow, meandering trawl of a man who knows, unequivocally, that he needn’t run or rush anywhere.
It lodges somewhere inside of you. This knowledge, this fact. He'll outpace you in spades. Catch up no matter where you flee to.
Your stomach folds, looping over itself. It's nausea, maybe. And something else—
He's so big. Burly. Thickened like the strong trucks of ponderosa pine. A man cut from the wilderness; made in the likeness of the savagery of the wild. The brutality of the desert, of mother nature herself. Kin to the affinity this land seems to have in taking every ounce of a man and leaving him bereft in the face of the looming unknowns in the vast desert.
None of the men you've ever met before look like him. Grizzled. Hardened.
His scarred, tanned skin speaks of a life living outdoors. On a horse, on the run—hard work made with his bare hands. You think the softness, the callous-free palm that gripped your fingers tight in a vice, and can't help but to lean, just a little, into him. Drawn there, like a moth to a flame.
There's something about this man that makes you tremble. Something that curls inside of your guts. Something deeper, darker than fear. Primal. Animalistic. There must be something wrong with you, then. Most know to run from the predators—not move closer.
He comes to a halt less than an arm's length away from you, close enough that you can scent the heavy musk of him so thickly in your nose. Something purely masculine—loam, humus—and yet unfathomably different from the men you've known your whole life. Horse, and sweat. Sun. The headiness of riding nonstop through the sprawling deserts of New Mexico. Leather, and gunpowder.
The novelty of it all is enough to make you dizzy. And, as if to reinforce it, he leans down, the brim of his hat narrowly missing your forehead, and he rasps, guttural and dark,
“and I do expect to be paid back in full, love,” his voice is felled timber. Low, and firm. “Or you'll find you don't like the consequences very much. Am I clear?”
The unmistakable iron in it snags on the tendrils of your resolve, pulling messily at the threads. No escape. It winds tighter, tighter—
Still.
Your only other option is to stay here, and in the morning, marry a man who made it abundantly clear that the sole use he has for you is to rebrand a dwindling legacy (women ought to be seen, not heard, darlin’, and I think it's high time someone teach you that); or—
Make off on your own. Through the unmapped, untamed wilderness of New Mexico with nothing for protection except whatever you could reasonably steal away with uninterrupted, which. Isn't much. Not only that—this man, this outlaw, had made it abundantly clear that there would be a bounty on you come sunrise. One he'd be most eager to fulfil.
Rock, hard place. No escape.
You steel yourself, grappling with trembling fingers against the dwindling options in front of you, and offer a slow, jerking nod.
He heaves a breath in response. “Good choice, love.”
It doesn't feel very much like one. It doesn't feel very good at all, even.
In this little stable just outside of town, you sell your soul to the devil in New Mexico while the cicadas in the background scream through the ink black night. The sounds they make seem to ask,
what have you done?
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The baby trapping fics have changed my brain chemisty, they were so good 💜😭 I'd love to know if you had any headcannons for Gaz and how he'd compare to the other 3 🙏
thank you!!!! 😭
i'm working on the outline for his in between finishing up Soap's, so i def have a few! i really adore the idea of Gaz plotting something like this out from beginning to end. very methodical in his execution. cutting no corners, no stone unturned kinda thing. Price planned to an extent, but it was largely just vibes. Ghost had no plan to speak of. Soap grabs without thinking. but Gaz has everything mapped out to the finer details.
he's probably the one who has the biggest moral compass compared to the rest, but is also willing to purposefully hold up magnets to make it spin in the direction he wants. it's not necessarily nefarious. i think he just has a penchant to bend things. to test their limits. find their stress points. and this is that, but also, incredibly self indulgent. and he's aware of that. he knows what this is, and why he wants it/does it, but still goes for it.
he's craftier about it compared to the others, too. like, if the rest are just dogs, then he's definitely more of a wolf. probs not nearly as bad as Soap, but he's definitely a strong contender for second place in terms of dubious morality.
but i also think he's not as grizzled/damaged as the others, namely Price and Ghost, and so he's more willing to sit back and let things unfold when need be. pulling back to let things settle, breathe. granted, they're absolutely unfolding the way he wants them too, but if he feels a tug on the leash, he'll give you some slack. just enough, of course, to make you think you've gotten away. have space, distance, freedom. but whenever he wants, he can just pull you back to him. you'll never truly be free, but honestly—Gaz has a way of making you think everything is your choice, anyway.
and alsoooooo. i really want to explore his temperament a bit. he seems so level headed, and mature for his age, but at the same time, so quick to anger. like it's always just kinda there under the surface. a low grade fever, in a way. and i love unraveling characters who are like that. finding their boiling point.
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