Stuck in a Seedy Situation
Summary: After recently transferring to Hope County, Deputy (Name) Rook is dragged by the Sheriff and a US Marshal to take a seedy cult leader into custody.Something begins to act up as their multiple soulmate marks begin to burn themselves into place and cement bonds that Rook believes should have never existed in the first place.
Content warning:Cannon-typical violence, Soulmate au, Religious imagery & symbolism, Cults, Angst, Slow-burn, Eventual smut, Everything that is Far Cry 5, which is honestly a warning in itself. The author is sleep deprived.
Additional warnings: NA
Masterlist
notes:Chapter has not been reviewed or edited. While in my best efforts to keep Reader/ deputy as ambiguous as possible, Reader does have hair. Length and colour are not specified. Skin or eye colour is not specified. gender ambiguity may be subject to change from audience perspective, as i was originally intending to write for a female audience. I tried to change all that was written, but some may have slipped through. A poll for Faith is provided below, at the end of the chapter
Prologue: The Beginniging of the End
You watched as the video cut out, a signal error message displayed over the static of the tablet. The sheriff tapped your knee as he spoke to you.
“..Ookie, Rookie. You're wasting your time; there is no signal up here.” You sucked on your lip and sighed as you looked to Marshal Burke, and he spoke about the area the helicopter had been crossing over while he read the map with the debrief. Everyone's head raised as you all looked to your left, staring at the massive statue- a monument of the Father. You'd seen him in your own debrief.
“Oh fuck, there he is-” Hudson said as she watched the statue fly by.
“Crazy motherfucker,” Burke agreed. Whitehorse followed-
“Jesus.”
“Are we officially in Peggy country, then?” you muttered, hardly heard over the sound of the rushing wind. You were quiet.
“That's right,” Hudson said. “We’re here.” It was obvious that Marshal was growing impatient as he asked Whitehorse about how much longer we had left in the godforsaken flying machine.
“Long enough for you to change your mind, so we can turn this bird around. You know?”
“He can't ignore a federal warrant, Sheriff,” you said, putting your hand on the papers that Burke was raising, trying to show him the warrant at the top of the stack. Burke pulled his hand away and returned the papers to his lap, shooting you a glare. Whitehorse cut in,
“I just want you to understand the reality of this situation, Marshal. The Father- Joseph Seed, he's not a man to be fucked with. We’ve had run-ins before, and they've not always gone our way- before Rook came up here.”
“Yeah, well, we have laws for a reason, Sheriff.” Burke motioned to the papers again. “Joseph Seed has to learn that.” He leaned forward and tucked the papers under his thigh so they wouldn't fly.
“You'll be fine,” Hudson nodded to you as she turned her back at the doors that Whitehorse was opening. The choir got louder, and the Marshal and Sheriff were already walking forward, leaving you to catch up in the centre of them.
“Something is coming, you can feel it, can't you?” The father began speaking- and you stared at the glowing, warped cross above him. “That we are creeping towards the edge… And there will be a reckoning.” You felt the air in your chest grow heavy, and your throat ran dry. Your arms- the tattoos scrawled across your arms and hips began to itch. You pulled the sleeve of your uniform down further. “That is why we started the project. Because we know what happens next.” His head shifted with his gaze as he looked at all the people in the pews, momentarily ignoring the presence of you and your companions.
“They will come. They will try to take from us, take our guns… Take our freedom, take our faith. We will not let them.” He raised his head a little higher as he stared at you and the two men at your sides.
“Sheriff, c’mon-” Burke began, but Whitehorse cut him off.
“Just hold on, Marshal.”
“We will not let their greed, or their immorality, or their depravity hurt us anymore.” You were steps away from the father, and your eyes travelled to the three ‘siblings’ behind him. Faces you also recognised from your reading. Your tattoos, the ones there from birth, began to burn, and felt like fire clawing its way up your limbs and torso, clawing at your throat. You knew where this was going, and silently prayed you were wrong- that your body, your soul, was confused.
“There will be no more suffering,” he shouted over the two men at your side as they tried to speak.
“Joseph Seed,” Bruke shouted as he raised the warrant. “I have a warrant issued for your arrest, On the suspicion of kidnapping with the intent to harm!” Joseph only stared, as if he was gawking that someone had dared raise their voice to him. “Now, I want you to step forward and keep your hands where I can see ‘em” The father raised his hands, and his rosary flashed in the light, peggies from the pews muttering and voicing their discontent.
“Here they are. Locusts in our garden… You see, they've come for me?” He stared at you as his hands fell, and multiple people, patrons of the cult, stepped in front of him, shielding him. “They’ve come to take me away from you; they've come to destroy all that we've built!” The peggies from the pews hollered, and some raised their guns. A commotion began to stir, and now people were yelling as your ears rang. You stared at the Father, directly in the middle across from you, as the sheriff tried to diffuse the situation. You couldn't look away. You didn't even notice the seeds behind him staring, either.
“Everyone, calm down,” Whitehorse said as people watched Joseph step down. The cult began to quiet near instantly.
“We knew this moment would come. We've prepared for it,” he said, looking to the two followers he stepped between. “Go, go.” He ushered them away. “God will not let them take me.” You watched as the following began to expel from the church, all of them shuffling out past you, glaring. When you looked back at Joseph, his hands were raised in the air.
“I saw when the lamb opened the first seal, and I heard, as it were, the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts say, ‘Come and see’.”
“Step forward,” Burke bristled, and Joseph dropped his hands, stepping forward and looking directly at the marshal.
“And I saw, and behold,” He pointed a finger at Burke before directing it to the sheriff. “It was a white horse,” he put his hand down, and his gaze shifted to your own. “And hell followed with him.” There wasn't even a breath of pause before the marshal spoke. Already turned to you.
“Rookie, cuff this son of a bitch, You looked at him- the fire in your left arm nearly debilitating as you grabbed the cuffs on your waist.
“God will not let you take me.” The mark, the first words directed at you from your soulmate- the very ones that branded black into your skin began to gleam, shining through your shirt as the heat began to burn at the shirt above it. Cinders ashed away the portion of the sleeve that covered the declaration, and faded as soon as your skin could breathe. The cuffs clattered to the ground, and the six other people in the church simply stared at them.
Stared as you bent over and vomited on the floors of the church. Shaking as you grabbed the thankfully clean cuffs from next to your boots, you rose back up and wiped whatever was around your mouth with your intact sleeve, then looked up at the man before you.
“Guess there is no hiding that one, huh?” You said as you cuffed the pastor, who, just as the others, was still in awe at the now white tattoo on your arm, wincing at the words, which were now shining on his back, cemented themselves in the white colour. You ignored it and the gaping looks of his siblings behind him. Your others still itched and burned, but you ignored the sensation as you grabbed the centre of the chain linking the cuffs together and yanked Joseph forward with them.
“Rook- wait. Rookie,” Whitehorse frantically followed you as you began to march, laughing the silent cult leader behind you. “Deputy Rook.”
“What?” you snapped as you stopped on your heel, half turning to stare at your superior, all while Joseph bumped into your back. You swore he whispered to you and felt his breath on your neck, but you didnt hear him. Your mind was still buzzing, and your ears were still ringing, your stomach was still churning with he images of your now confirmed soulmate (or at least one of them, you thought. You were sure the others wouldn't turn out the same way Joseph had.), gouging out a civilian's eyes, and you were huffing, nearly shaking. Was it anger? Or perhaps some deeper, more grotesque emotion you couldn't identify. You didnt know. Your head jerked as you spoke up again. “What could it possibly be, Sheriff?” You swallowed and shoved the Pastor back by his cuffs, giving your burning body space.
“Rook, I can take him if you want to go on ahead and sort yourself. This looks like a difficult situation for you to handle immediately for yourself.”
The surrounding peggies began to shift. They were already agitated, but they didnt understand what was happening before them. You straightened your posture and released a heavy breath before you looked around.
“Let's just go,” You said as you pushed Joseph in front of you. Slowly, Joseph looked over his shoulder, his eyes fairly unreadable, before he looked forward and slowly walked forward. He raised his head higher and began to preach to the peggies he passed.
“My brothers and sisters,” he shouted as the crowds went silent, even the rabidly barking dogs seemed to quiet. You pushed him by his shoulder, trying to speed up his pace to go around the building. His pace didnt change, but his voice grew louder to reach his people. “God had bestowed my soulmate, my destined devotee.”
“Shut up,” You hissed.
“This Deputy, they have not found the way. They may be fearful.”
“Shut up, Seed.” You enunciated as you moved your hand to the centre of his back, trying to usher him before he spilt too much.
“You cannot harm this deputy, as it is God's plan for them to live in Eden with us, and they are lost.”
“Get into the fucking helicopter,” You said, giving him a final shove, forcing him to nearly trip in the dirt and mud.
The helicopter was filled with noise, the sound of gunfire and screams had been roaring as Hudson attempted takeoff. Peggies were crawling up the ascending aircraft like cockroaches, and Burke used his service weapon to shoot one’s brains out. Everyone was shouting, and they were still latched onto the landing skids. You hadn't even noticed the father humming, his head laid back as he stared at you below his glasses. Your eyes were instead on the glass of the cockpit as one peggie stood on the nose and threw himself into the blades.
The helicopter was spinning, and you felt bile rise in your throat, seeing everyone brace themselves. You felt dizzy at the twirling trees and the sheer force of the rotation. Someone, you don't know who, shouted “Brace for impact,” but you hardly heard it before everything went black.
Your head was pounding as you craned your neck upwards, and you opened your eyes to still spotty vision. You weren't sure where you were at the moment, but the muffled voices of the person holding you in their arms with a rising set of flames behind you was enough to push enough adrenaline through your system to kick your instincts into gear. You thrashed, only to have Joseph, the one holding you, try to grip you to his chest harder and shush you. It only earned him an elbow to his cheek, then your knee to the opposite side of his jaw. In the bustle, you had managed to squirm free and dropped to the ground on your back below him. He was gripping his jaw as one of his pests leaned down to reach for you, but your foot flew up, and you knocked his jaw upwards, your boot landing with a sickening thud. You rolled and shifted, getting to your knees within a breath and turned to look at Joseph over your shoulder before jolting to the burning helicopter. You saw nobody left in it, and felt stones settle in your stomach.
Assumably, they'd escaped, but based on how long you'd seemed to have been knocked out post-crash, they may have been taken just as Joseph had tried to take you.
“Deputy, you can't run. You lost your chance to walk away.” Joseph was already walking slowly behind you. He outreached his hands; his head tilted and you watched as his glasses slipped down his nose. “Come to me, and we can save you.”
“Fuck you and your piss-coloured glasses.” You turned and jumped through the fire, across the cabin of the helicopter and out the other side, and followed the trail into the woods.
Taglist: @the-silver-chronicles
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